A Collaborative Journey of Poetry & Music?
ROCKPILE is a collaboration between David Meltzer ? poet, musician, essayist, and more ? and Michael Rothenberg of Big Bridge Press. David and Michael will journey through eight cities in the U.S. to perform poetry and prose, composed while on the road, with local musicians and artists in each city. ROCKPILE will serve to educate and preserve as well as to create a history of collaboration. It will help to reinforce the tradition of the troubadour of all generations, central to the cultural upheaval and identity politics that reawakened poets, artists, musicians, and songwriters in the mid-1960s through the 1970s. The project will end with a final multimedia performance in San Francisco.
David Meltzer was raised in Brooklyn during the war years. He performed on radio and early TV on the Horn & Hardart Children?s Hour. He was exiled to L.A. at 16, and at 17 enrolled in an ongoing academy with artists Wallace Berman, George Herms, Robert Alexander, and Cameron. David migrated to San Francisco in 1957 for higher education with peers & maestros like Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Joanne Kyger, Diane DiPrima, Michael McClure, Lew Welch, Philip Whalen, Jack Hirschman, and a cast of thousands all living extraordinary ordinary lives. His Beat Thing, La Alameda Press, 2004, won the Josephine Miles PEN Award, 2005. He was editor and interviewer for San Francisco Beat: Talking With The Poets, City Lights, 2001. With Steve Dickison, David co-edits Shuffle Boil, a magazine devoted to music in all its appearances & disappearances. 2005 saw the publication of David?s Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer by Viking/Penguin, a collection spanning over forty years of work. It paints a vivid portrait of Meltzer?s life as a poet, through poems taken from thirty of his previous books of poetry. With a versatile style and playful tone, Meltzer offers his unique vision of civilization with a range of juxtapositions from Jewish mysticism and everyday life to jazz and pop culture. His website is at Meltzerville.com.
Michael Rothenberg is a poet, songwriter, and editor of Big Bridge magazine. His poetry books include Man/Woman, a collaboration with Joanne Kyger, The Paris Journals (Fish Drum Press), Monk Daddy (Blue Press), and Unhurried Vision (La Alameda/University of New Mexico Press). His poems have been published widely in small press publications including, 88: A Journal of Contemporary American Poetry, Berkeley Poetry Review, Exquisite Corpse, First Intensity, Fish Drum, Fulcrum, Golden Handcuffs Review, House Organ, Prague Literary Review, Tricycle, Vanitas, Zyzzyva, JACK, Jacket, and others. He is also author of the novel Punk Rockwell. Rothenberg?s 2005 CD collaboration with singer Elya Finn was praised by poet David Meltzer as ?fabulous-all [the] songs sound like Weimar Lenya & postwar Nico, lushly affirmative at the same time being edged w/ cosmic weltschmertz. An immensely tasty production.? He is also editor for the Penguin Poet series, which includes selected works of Philip Whalen, Joanne Kyger, David Meltzer, and Ed Dorn. He has recently completed the Collected Poems of Philip Whalen for Wesleyan University Press.
Terri Carri?n was conceived in Venezuela and born in New York to a Galician mother and Cuban father. She grew up in Los Angeles where she spent her youth skateboarding and slam-dancing. Terri Carri?n earned her MFA at Florida International University in Miami, where she taught Freshman English and Creative Writing, edited and designed the graduate literary magazine Gulfstream, taught poetry to High School docents at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami and started a reading series at the local Luna Star Caf?. In her final semester at FIU, she was Program Director for the Study Abroad Program, Creative Writing in Dublin, Ireland.
Her poetry, fiction, non-fiction and photography has been published in many print magazines as well as online, including The Cream City Review, Hanging Loose, Pearl, Penumbra, Exquisite Corpse, Mangrove, Kick Ass Review, Exquisite Corpse, Jack, Mipoesia, Dead Drunk Dublin, and Physik Garden among others. Her collaborative poem with Michael Rothenberg, ?Cartographic Anomaly? was published in the anthology, Saints of Hysteria, A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry and her chapbook ?Lazy Tongue? was published by D Press in the summer of 2007. Her most recent projects includes collaborating on a trilingual Galician Anthology, (from Galician to Spanish to English) and co-editing an online selection of the bi-lingual anthology of Venezuelan women writers, Profiles of Night, both to appear in late August, on BigBridge.org., for which she is assistant editor and art designer. Currently, she is learning how to play the accordion.
Musicians Bios:
Theo Saunders, a native of the island of Manhattan, has lived in Southern California since 1985 but his musical career has remained international in scope, having performed on four continents and more than twenty countries. He has performed and recorded with a number of musicians from the pantheon of jazz, including Freddie Hubbard, Carla Bley, Charles Lloyd, Bob Brookmeyer, and Bobby Hutcherson. He has recorded five jazz albums as a leader and over fifty as a sideman and some of his two hundred compositions are now currently featured on the records of Bassist Henry Franklin and percussionist Bobby Matos. In the Latin Music world, Theo has also performed and recorded with the likes of Willie Bobo, Ray Armando, Claudio Roditi, Azuquita, Rudolfo Pacheco, and many others. In addition, he has served as the musical director for the contemporary operas of composer Noa Ain ( Trio, The Outcast, Verse of Fortune ), the international organization Peace Child, and for singer/actress Lanie Kazan. His biographical sketch appears in the volume ?People in Jazz-Jazz keyboard improvisors of the 19th and 20th centuries? by William Lee.
Joe Sublett (saxophone)? Saxophonist Joe Sublett started his professional career as a part of the Austin blues scene playing with the legendary R&B band, Paul Ray and the Cobras, a band that featured a twenty one year old Stevie Ray Vaughan. Joe, as part of the Antone?s house band backed up many blues greats including Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Hank Ballard, John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, Memphis Slim, David ?Fathead? Newman and many more. After touring the U.S. with The Cobras and Delbert McClinton for several years, Sublett ended up in Los Angeles where he has remained an in-demand studio and touring musician. Joe has recorded and performed with The Rolling Stones, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, B.B.King, Joe Cocker, Macy Gray, The Band, The Black Crowes, Little Feat, Bono, Eric Clapton, Delaney Bramlett, John Mayall, Buddy Guy, Keb Mo, Dr. John, Otis Rush, Los Lonely Boys, Bette Midler, Mavis Staples, Etta James, Jimmy Buffett, Soloman Burke, Jimmy Smith, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Memphis Slim, Chris Cornell, Jack Johnson and Richard Thompson to name a few. In 2000, Joe won a Grammy and a W.C Handy Award for his work with Taj Mahal and The Phantom Blues Band. Joe continues to record and tour with The Phantom Blues Band who have released two CDs on Delta Groove Records. Joe is also co-leader of The Texacali Horns with Darrell Leonard. They released their debut self titled CD on New Light Entertainment (Universal) in 2006. On October 7th, 2008, Joe released his new solo CD, ?Subtones? which is available on Amazon.com and for download internationally on I-TUNES, Rhapsody, Napster, Amazon and Shockhound.
John B. Williams career spans over 40 years as a bassist/composer, and actor. He has played and recorded for some the world?s most respected jazz artists including: Nancy Wilson, Hugh Masakela, Horace Silver, Count Basie, Billy Cobham, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, and the Manhattan Transfer. Williams? television credits include a post in the house band of ?The Tonight Show? starring Johnny Carson and ?The Arsenio Hall Show.? He was featured in a recurring role on the critically acclaimed ?The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.? He acted in and performed on the soundtrack of Polly Draper?s award-winning jazz film, ?The Tic Code? starring Gregory Hines. He can be seen acting in the upcoming feature film by Polly Draper, ?The Naked Brothers.? John B. is currently dividing his time between working with Michael Wolff?s ?Impure Thoughts? band and Bobby Mato?s Afro-Latin group, while also co-leading a band with long-time friend, Bennie Maupin in the ?Maupin/Williams Project.?
Johnny Lee Schell is an internationally acclaimed guitarist and songwriter. After working with Buddy Holly producer Norman Petty in nearby Clovis New Mexico, Johnny left his home in Farwell, Texas and headed out on the road with his band, Baby. He arrived in Los Angeles in the late seventies, and soon began touring with Bonnie Raitt and The Bump Band. He continued to work on many albums with Bonnie Raitt, including the Grammy award winning album, Nick of Time in 1989. Johnny has also toured with Taj Mahal, Ron Wood, and John Fogerty and has played with dozens of artists including Lucinda Williams, Lyle Lovett and BB King. Johnny currently spends his time running Ultra Tone Studios where he has scored several films and recorded the score for the ABC sitcom According To Jim. He is presently touring with The Phantom Blues Band, http://www.phantombluesband.com.
Percussionist Debra Dobkin is a native Chicagoan who has been heard banging on things behind Bonnie Raitt, Richard Thompson, Was (not Was), Perla Batalla, Jackson Browne, Shawn Colvin, Jennifer Warnes, Orchestra SuperString and many others as well as on a wide array of recordings and soundtracks. She currently resides in the greenish pastures of the San Fernando Valley and paints in her spare time.
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