On March 25, 2012, Friends and colleagues of Jonathan "JP" Nocera will gather at Cameo Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn from 7PM to Midnight to celebrate his life and legacy. Featured performers include The London Souls, Erica Lindsay, Sticklips, Captain for Dark Mornings, and Squiggle, with artwork by Charles Sainty.
Jonathan Nocera (March 25, 1985- July 3, 2011) spent his life in New York creating and supporting experimental music. He died at the age of 26 after a courageous battle with brain cancer. During his life, Jonathan was a visionary artist-- he was sought after by a wide range of musicians for his personal sound as a guitarist and composer. His collaborations include experimental folk group Sticklips, avant jazz project Scrap Relation, reggae band Konga I, and electronic noise project Squiggle. ...
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On March 25, 2012, Friends and colleagues of Jonathan "JP" Nocera will gather at Cameo Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn from 7PM to Midnight to celebrate his life and legacy. Featured performers include The London Souls, Erica Lindsay, Sticklips, Captain for Dark Mornings, and Squiggle, with artwork by Charles Sainty.
Jonathan Nocera (March 25, 1985- July 3, 2011) spent his life in New York creating and supporting experimental music. He died at the age of 26 after a courageous battle with brain cancer. During his life, Jonathan was a visionary artist-- he was sought after by a wide range of musicians for his personal sound as a guitarist and composer. His collaborations include experimental folk group Sticklips, avant jazz project Scrap Relation, reggae band Konga I, and electronic noise project Squiggle.
Jonathan was not only a fierce musician but a deep thinker whose drive and intellect put him in a unique position to lay the ground for the kind of music industry he believed in. In 2008, JP created Proliferate Music, a record label espousing "independent music for the fringe." In the label's mission, he wrote, "It is our belief that the so-called 'mainstream' has finally gotten sick of the assembly line formula championed by majors for so long, and that given this climate, the so-called 'avant-garde' might be more accessible than once imagined."
A native New Yorker and a graduate of Bard College, Jonathan Nocera leaves behind a living, breathing legacy of young musicians who have deep, continued gratitude for their collaborations and conversations with Jonathan. His parting words to many friends was to "keep it weird." On March 25th, a group of Jonathan's near-and-dear musical co-conspirators will do just that! This is an opportunity for those who knew JP to celebrate him, and for those who did not to get to know an incredible spirit.
As per Jonathan's family's request, all ticket sales benefit NYU Langone Medical Center Cancer Research. Admission is $10-20 sliding scale.
Featured Performers:
The London Souls are rock’n'roll, straight up with the slightest twist of soul and a little dash of the blues. They play loud, they play raucous and they play with every bit of their bodies, as any good rock musician should; but perhaps the even better news is that unlike a lot of what passes for rock these days, they haven’t lost sight of what good music sounds like, no matter how loud it is. (Derek Evers, thetripwire.com) Their debut full-length record was recorded with producer Ethan Johns at London’s Abbey Road Studios, and was released in 2011. Their song She's So Mad has received airplay on FOX TV's show Fearless Music. Also, their song I Think I Like It was used in a commercial advertising NBA star Derrick Rose's line of shoes by adidas. http://thelondonsouls.com/
Erica Lindsay is a tenor saxophonist and composer. She currently leads her own quartet featuring Francesca Tanksley on piano, and co-leads a quartet with pianist Sumi Tonooka that features Bob Braye and Rufus Reid. She also currently performs with the Oliver Lake Big Band, the Baikida Carroll Quintet, the Howard Johnson Hojo5 Quintet, the Jeff Seigel Quartet and the San Francisco-based group, Trace Elements. Nat Hentoff states, "Erica Lindsay plays with such emotional spontaneity that she is very much in the tradition of those jazz makers who were so evidently taking joy in surprising themselves each night, each song, each bar. She has a distinctive clarity and fullness of sound as well as an acute sense of dynamics. Her compositions are also characterized by an invigorating clarity of form and direction." Erica has worked with Frank Zappa, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Melba Liston, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Williams, Mary Lou Williams, McCoy Tyner, Clifford Jordan, Reggie Workman, Amiri Baraka, and Carl Hancock-Rux. She currently resides in Woodstock and is on the music faculty at Bard College. http://ericalindsay.com/
Sticklips is an experimental folk project co-founded by Jonathan Nocera and songwriter Johanna Warren, whose haunting melodies and exquisite finger-picking are shrouded in a forest of eclectic sounds by Jim Bertini (drums), Chris St. Hillaire (electric guitar) and Eli Walker (bass). Sticklips cultivates a diverse garden of musical influences, from indie rock to acid pop to Nigerian High Life, resulting in a listening experience that is "at once ear-bendingly strange and singably familiar" (Akie Bermiss, The Busy Signal).
http://sticklips.bandcamp.com/
Captain for Dark Mornings is a fresh and unconventional trio led by upright bassist/ vocalist, Emma Alabaster. A Brooklyn native, Alabaster tells stories of home through a surprising communing of cacophonous and catchy sounds. The result is a bluesy, chaotic protest cabaret delivered with Betty Carter-esque phrasing. This avant-jazz songstress has assembled a killer band of big-eared baby-tamers; with Charlie Rauh on guitar and Zach Dunham on drums. Chronogram Magazine's Sharon Nichols writes of Alabaster's debut album, "This musical memory collage is for the fearless poet, the judicious savant, or, simply, the inquisitive listener who is ready for the next unorthodox musical journey." http://emmaalabaster.com/
Squiggle is left field electronics and digital experimentation. Menacing and childlike bliss noise. http://www.myspace.com/squigglesound
Charles Sainty will have photographic works displayed as well. Charles explains: "In my work, I emphasize the things that photographers usually work to conceal (improper exposures, inkjet errors, pixelation, dust, etc) so that the subjects are partially destroyed as they are put through the process of being created. I want to draw a parallel between the fundamental, physical forces responsible for the creation and destruction of the photographs and those responsible for the life and death of its subjects. In that sense, I use distortion in photography to address this shared vulnerability, to account for those aspects of life beyond our knowledge and control."http://charlessainty.com/
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