New Online Music Calendar Launched - Trummerflora.com

SAN DIEGO, CA - January 25, 2000 - Accretions and Zu Casa Laboratories have created a new online resource for Southern Californians interested in the experimental and improvised music scene: http://www.trummerflora.com

Trummerflora.com includes a calendar with new music concert listings for San Diego county venues such as Spruce Street Forum, Sonic Arts Gallery, Sushi Gallery, UCSD, The Athenaeum, The Casbah. "A comprehensive website for improvised and new music is sorely needed," explains Bonnie Wright, Director/Spruce Street Forum. "Many San Diegans are aching to find good music and Trummerflora.com will certainly help."

The site also features articles and links related to the local scene. Community members are invited to submit announcements, event listings, articles, and links in order to grow this new resource for San Diego artists and concert-goers.

Trummerflora.com is a free service. No fees or donations will be solicited.

Trummerflora, or rubble plants and trees, are a special phenomenon unique to heavily bombed urban areas. The bomb acts as a plow, mixing rubble fragments with the earth which often contain seeds dormant for a century or more. These seeds come to light and those that can live in this new and special earth grow and flourish.

With a website, concert series, and recordings, Accretions and Zu Casa are using the energy of Trummerflora to create a fertile, varied, self-sustaining environment for the San Diego experimental and improvised music scene. The collaboration of local artists, fans and venues will grow a community that can emerge from the rubble. Contact or or call (619) 299-5371 for more information.

Accretions, established in1985 and headed by local musicians Marcos Fernandes and Marcelo Radulovich, is an artist-based independent record label with an ear towards experimental, improvisational and global sounds.

Launched in 1997, Zu Casa is a laboratory for online exhibition and performance of improvised and experimental music, artist film and video, and netart; curated by musician/video artist, Hans Fjellestad, and musician/web designer, Damon Holzborn: http://www.zucasa.com

On the launch of trummerflora.com

by Marcos Fernandes

"There's an audience, it's the mechanism that's screwed up."
- Tim Berne, Signal To Noise #9 (Jan/Feb. 99)

Around 1994, after a decade-long exploration of the rich variety of world music and the cultures which created and sustain them, I landed back where I started: in what we used to call 'alternative' music which encompassed everything from experimental to new music to jazz to good old 70's prog rock.

San Diego was riding a tidal wave of media hype claiming it the 'next Seattle' - that city having spawned a handful of commercially successful rock bands the industry categorized as 'alternative,' thereby rendering the term utterly useless. Bands were getting signed to the majors (not unlike the early '80s heyday of SD punk/new wave), and local independent labels including my own Accretions tried to take full advantage of all this national media attention while it lasted.

I was then involved with the Wikiup Cafe/Intersection Gallery, a visual and performing arts space and cultural crossroads for area artists during its existence from February 1993 to May 1996. By 1995, the feeding frenzy was over and what was left of the scene seemed to be either regrouping or relocating. But I had come into contact with a whole sub-strata of experimental artists performing and creating here in San Diego. The Wikiup provided a venue for these artists, some of whom were featured on the first Trummerflora CD compilation. (I had also run into the term 'trummerflora' at an installation by local environmental artists, the Harrisons, at the Intersection Gallery.)

Since then, the 'experimental' scene had been gaining momentum and I found it time again to start a performance series. It took a year or two before a community developed that could support Trummerflora. Now with this site we reach out to attempt to expand the community and give it more depth and dimension.

When one lives in a teen-dominated market one feels the lack of an educated audience. After all, we live in a one-paper town with one alternative weekly and for all practical purposes, one college radio station. If the mechanism were in place, the local music scene would be much healthier. It would attract fresh blood, encourage new ideas and prevent the anemic exodus of experienced artists who can provide leadership and guidance. If the press were to turn its critical ears towards nurturing the scene and if like any other large community, San Diego had more college radio stations broadcasting on the air, they would give the commercial stations a run for their money.

There are solutions. We can emerge from the rubble and create a fertile, varied, self-sustaining environment. We are the community. I am but an individual. Thanks for listening. And now in the words of local artist Peter Z.O. Voider, "it's time to put our noises to the grindstone."

Press Release: June 27, 2000

New Weekly Concert Series from The Trummerflora Collective

SAN DIEGO, CA - June 27, 2000 - http://www.trummerflora.com/ -
Trummerflora is pleased to announce a new weekly concert series beginning Monday, July 3: Trummerflora Mondays at Galoka. The series will focus on adventurous music that is mostly uncategorizable but sometimes referred to as free jazz, noise art, free mprovisation, creative music, or experimental. The first night will feature Borborygmus, the Trummerflora house band, exploring the territory between open form improvisation and avant-funk. Other shows in July will feature the aggressive electroacoustic music of Donkey and The jellestad/Hubbard/Lechusza Trio, the percussion/woodwinds ensemble Maroja, bass-clarinettist Anthony Burr, the sound explorations of Whisper Chipper and multi-instrumentalist Marcelo Radulovich. Please visit http://www.trummerflora.com/ for details and to confirm all dates.

Galoka is an organic Indian food restaurant located in Birdrock, just South of La Jolla.
5662 La Jolla Blvd.
(858) 551-8610
http://www.galoka.com/
Admission is free, donations are appreciated.

About the Collective:

Established in 1999 by a diverse group of active San Diego composers, performers, and improvisers, Trummerflora is a musicians collective dedicated to the performance, distribution, and promotion of experimental and improvisational musics. Trummerflora, or rubble plants and trees, are a special phenomenon unique to heavily bombed urban areas. The bomb acts as a plow, mixing rubble fragments with the earth, which often contain seeds dormant for a century or more. These seeds come to light and those that can live in this new and special earth grow and flourish. The Trummerflora Collective is using the energy of this concept to create a fertile, varied, self-sustaining environment for the San Diego creative music scene.

Founding Members:

Marcos Fernandes (percussionist, improviser, producer)
Hans Fjellestad (pianist/keyboardist, improviser, composer, video artist)
Damon Holzborn (guitarist, improviser, composer, web designer)
Robert Montoya (percussionist, improviser, sound artist)
Marcelo Radulovich (multi-instrumentalist, improviser, composer, sound artist, graphic designer)
Jason Robinson (saxophonist/flutist/clarinettist, improviser, composer)

In affiliation with:

http://www.accretions.com/
http://www.zucasa.com/

Contact: rubble@trummerflora.com http://www.trummerflora.com/

Trummerflorazine #1 Fall 2000

So you want to start a new music series?
by Marcos Fernandes

A group of Accretions artists had been thinking about starting a live experimental music series and soon joined forces with others looking to do the same thing. First, we needed to find a sympathetic venue. After a year of courtship (phone calls, faxes,emails and hanging out) we were rewarded with a monthly Trummerflora show at the Casbah. We were given six months to prove ourselves. Next, we needed to reach the right audience. It's easier said than done. So we put our noises to the grindstone and kicked off the series in July of '99 . We had some good nights and some bad nights, and the first six months culminated in a special event celebrating the release of our Christmas album ",,,and the reindeer you rode in on...", Santa suit and all. The Xperimental Xmas show was reviewed by the Union Tribune and in the beginning of the new year we launched trummerflora.com, a San Diego new music site with a calendar of events and resources. People outside San Diego took notice and we decided to form the Trummerflora Collective. More people took notice and as we contemplated the significance of the first year of our concert series, we were offered a weekly spot at Galoka. A weekly series had been our initial intent and so we took the plunge. That brings us to the present. With a monthly show at the Casbah and a weekly series at Galoka we are now better equipped to invite more artists and develop a network of improvisers and experimentalists across the nation and beyond. we raise our glasses to all our supporters, the performers and venues who have helped us. Cheers! See you at Trummerflora.