We’re excited to announce that Uh Huh is an Official Selection for another film festival, the Los Angeles Rocks Film Festival. They will be including our music video in their sister festival, LONDON ROCKS, which will take place 24-31 October 2020, with online events and a physical screening.
You can watch the video below, as well as the trailer for it!
JOY ON FIRE // UH HUH // OFFICIAL TRAILER // 2020 from Gabriela Bulisova & Mark Isaac on Vimeo.
Joy on Fire’s music video, “Uh Huh,” created by Fulbright Fellows Gabriela Bulisova and Mark Isaac, will be a part of ArtHustle’s Thoughts & Prayers, Another Round of Vacant Stares exhibition, curated by Christy O’Connor, opening this Thursday, August 13th.
Thoughts & Prayers, Another Round of Vacant Stares is an analysis of the American gun culture. This exhibition highlights artwork that examines the impact guns have within our nation, as a symbol of power and freedom, or as an instrument to incite fear and cause harm. Firearms affect all American populations and demographics. The artwork featured in this exhibition is meant to facilitate a dialog on the divisive iconology of guns and the power or fear they represent, as they allow some to become empowered, while suppressing others.
ArtHustle
Thoughts & Prayers, Another Round of Vacant Stares will be on view August 13th – September 19th 2020, by appointment only, at Chashama Matawan, 60 Main Street, Matawan, NJ 07747. It will also be available online through their Virtual Gallery, you can find more information here. There will be a virtual opening reception on Zoom, August 13th at 7pm EST.
We are also proud to announce that the video was an Official Selection at the PRISMA Rome Independent Film Awards, an IMDb qualifying award. Gabriela and Mark are currently at work on another music video, for “Selfies,” a song from the same upcoming album, States of America.
In a summer filled with cancelled shows, it’s strange to realize that Joy on Fire’s debut gig was 11 years ago, at the Hexagon in Baltimore. First and foremost, thanks to Carlos Guillen, of The Expanding Man and The Expanding Band, for booking that show and doing sound. Carlos has been a friend for a long time, and we did a gig together recently at The Lou Costello Room, also in Baltimore, and we look forward to gigging with Carlos in the future…if and when gigs start happening again!
The band that night 11 years ago was Cory Tallarico on drums, Erich von Marko on guitar, keys, and vocals, Anna on saxes, and myself on bass. Two of the songs we played that night—“Double Dub” and “Red Wave”—are songs that the current version of Joy on Fire still plays. Though the version of “Double Dub” on 2018’s Fire with Fire—with effects added by Mat of Mobtown Studios and the addition of bari sax during the coda and a strong live performance all around—is now the ideal, I have fond memories of the version we played that night at the Hexagon. Cory and I had been working on the tune since before Anna and Erich joined the group, and had the rhythm section tight and dynamic, bouncing with the pulse created by the delay on my bass. Erich played a Fender Jaguar, or maybe it was a Jazzmaster, with a tremolo bar, and the echoed out wigglies he created were perfect for the vibe of the tune. Anna recreated the middle section of the song, and continues to recreate it today, soloing with no accompaniment until the band blasted back in underneath her. In our current version, Chris adds percussion during Anna’s break—even better!
“Red Wave” is the first tune Anna and I ever played together, in the basement practice room of Cory’s Pigtown rowhouse, near the harbor in Baltimore. Various recorded versions of this song had been floating around, unfinished. When the first version of the group split into two groups, with Cory and Erich forming Track & Stream, Carlos stepped in and sequenced some beats for the tune, which we worked on at Mobtown Studios, but this version of the track remains, for the moment, unfinished. Until recently, a version of the song engineered by Anna at Princeton Studios also remained incomplete. But thanks to Brian Erickson and his Demos for a Difference project (with all proceeds going to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, buy it here!), and to Chris for suggesting the song, a version of the tune, which will eventually be the title track of the Red Wave album, is out in the world. Check it out!
Header photos by Tali Mindek, July 26, 2009.
Out now on Procrastination Records! Available on our Bandcamp, as well as Spotify, Apple Music and more, links here.
The songs on Hymn were written at a strange time in the band’s history. Anna and I were living in North Carolina, as Anna was attending UNCG as a music composition major, and this is when Chris, who lived and still lives in Fort Lee, NJ, joined the band. The basic method of the band’s functioning during this time was to meet in the middle, in Baltimore (where the band was originally formed with a different lineup), for rehearsals, many of our gigs, and recording.
Hymn, like Fire with Fire, Joy on Fire’s first release on Procrastination Records, was recorded at Mobtown Studios by Mat Leffler-Schulman, and mastered by Bill Hafener at Silo Recordings in Shirley, NY. A single from the record was released earlier this year by Procrastination, and it features the opening title track from the album, which was debuted by Bob Boilen on NPR’s All Songs Considered in 2019, as well as “Punk Jazz,” a video for which was produced by Cody Nenninger at Momentum Productions.
Though these songs certainly have a place in our hearts, the heart of the album, to my thoughts, is in the more epic material between these two tunes. The second track, “Hymn part 2,” features Pascal Le Boeuf on piano, and was written collaboratively by Anna, Chris, and myself at a rehearsal probably at Baltimore’s Fifth Dimension artist collective. The third track, “Rhopareptilia,” also features piano, but this time performed by Rachel Aubuchon, recorded by Anna in NC. Anna wrote “Rhopareptilia,” and originally performed it at UNCG with herself on baritone sax, Xin Gao on alto sax, and Rachel on piano. By the time this track was being produced as a Joy on Fire song, Anna and I had moved to New Jersey, with Anna attending Princeton, and the baritone sax part had been changed to cello, played on the record by Domenica Romagni. I also arranged a drum and bass part, no more than two-minute’s worth, that enters and exits the nine-minute epic three times—the third, along with the swelling reverberation produced by Anna via pitch shifting and time stretching sax trills, gives the peak of the composition the feeling of hard earned triumph and spectacular loss.
“The Complete Book of Bonsai part 2” (part 1 is on our self-titled debut album, rereleased by Procrastination in 2018) I wrote in the first house Anna and I lived at in NC, a large rented shack with a huge dirt back yard. (We had a party back there once where Domenica serenaded a one-winged seagull with bird sounds on her cello, and Anna playfully chased Bill the Seagull around the yard on her bicycle, but this is a story for another time.) This house was good to us, as it was literally dirt cheap and we both got a lot of writing done there. Though the fourth section of “Bonsai 2” was written collaboratively at Mobtown, I wrote the first three sections at our rehearsal room at 1029 on what’s now called South Josephine Boyd Street. The house has since been torn down and is currently a used car lot.
Joy on Fire would like to thank those involved with Hymn not mentioned above, including: saxophonist Zach Herchen who, along with Anna, did additional engineering for the record at Princeton Studio B; NC drummer Mike Carney, who rehearsed and performed early versions of several of the songs on Hymn; composer Ruby Fulton for her kindness at the Fifth Dimension; Joe Martin of 3rd Grade Friends simply for being the man; Paul Joyce of F for shredding all these years; eloquent guitarist Mike Quoma of Dog Adrift and the Mooselab Space in Dumbo; Ted Zook of the always enlightening and surprising Fanoplane; Dan Gutstein, JoF’s newest member, on the pen & mic; Gareth Thompson of All About Jazz for his inspiring words; and especially Tommy Hambleton of Penny Pistelero and Procrastination Records—and who is featured on lapsteel guitar on our upcoming EP Another Adventure in Red.
“Uh Huh” is a protest song, during a protest year, during a baffling era.
The lead instrumentation—John Paul Carillo’s bass and guitar; Chris Olsen’s drums and percussion—alternates between harrowing restraint and thumping outcry. Anna Meadors plays the song’s dirge on her alto saxophone; the song, then, absorbs the universal lamentations of people who’ve been deprived of other people. When all four of us participate at once, including the howling vocals, there is a variety of madness that we could call liberation, or honesty. Listeners will be rewarded again and again by the virtuosity of the musicians. The outro, in particular, estimates the emotional quandary of marching forward, despite a societal environment that cannot remediate its own destructiveness.
“Uh Huh” refers to brothers in the universal sense: close and distant family, comrades, colleagues. We are protesting an inexcusable societal blight like gun crimes, on the one hand, but many protests can be echo-located in “Uh Huh.” (What’s your protest?) In the lyrics, a gun is pointed at an unarmed person. This fundamental inequality can transfer from one situation to another. You’re powerless at a crucial moment, you fear for your life, you lack a basic resource. You struggle to envision a future, uh huh.
The artists who created the video—Gabriela Bulisova and Mark Isaac—have stamped their narrative on the song. By turns eerie, disturbing, and deeply righteous, the video commences with the thermal imagery of headless bodies trudging toward a blank destination, at an orderly pace, their backs to the viewer. Without being told, we know that many of them are doomed. There is a gun-scope encircling a partial portrait, and an incongruous flag unfurling, and a litter of human shapes strewn upon a stained ecosystem that’s struggling, itself, to persevere.
“De voi depinde,” said the poet Paul Celan: “It’s up to you.” What he meant was: the individual really matters. By design, the band does not appear. Our faces don’t outweigh the importance of the protest. What will our brothers be singing? What will our, what will our brothers be singing? If we deaden ourselves to loss, we’ll never challenge the status quo.
Play this song loud. Expect punk-jazz. Topple the establishment.
***
A punk-jazz trio with roots in Baltimore and North Carolina, Joy on Fire has produced cutting-edge instrumental music for more than ten years. Recently, the group has added vocals as part of a limited-edition 180 gram EP, Thunderdome (2020), that features two singles and three remixes The album is available for sale via the Joy on Fire website.
Video by Gabriela Bulisova and Mark Isaac (2020).
Gabriela Bulisova and Mark Isaac are artists and multimedia storytellers who collaborate on intimate projects designed to bridge the gap between fine art and documentary practices. Their work includes still photography, video, writing and music focused on environmental crises, mass incarceration, diversity, memory, and borderlands. Their commitment to these issues is fed by a passion to engender meaningful changes in policy. Among their many projects are videos, portraits and album covers created for several bands and musicians. Their work has received numerous awards and has been exhibited and published in the United States and around the world. For more information, please visit bulisova-isaac.com.
Percussionist, composer, and filmmaker Evan Chapman recently released Caustics, an album of solo drum set and electronics works, including “Bird Fish,” a piece by our saxophonist Anna Meadors. The album includes pieces by composers Ted Babcock, Ian Chang, Robert Honstein, Molly Joyce, Alexis C. Lamb, Alicia Walter and Evan Chapman himself.
Anna developed her piece in the studio, finding the sound world of the piece by putting a low pass filter on some recorded saxophone ideas, which gave the saxophone an underwater texture. After recording several short phrases, she was able to play along with the ideas on the studio’s drum set, just to get some basic parts. After getting the structure of the electronics done, she scored the piece out, and sent the materials to Evan.
Evan recorded the album at his Four/Ten Media studio space in Philadelphia, PA, and premiered the pieces at So Percussion‘s Brooklyn Bound series in November 2018, on a night that featured Evan, Jason Treuting’s Go Placidly With Haste, and the trio version of Joy on Fire. The album was released online on April 10, 2020 and is available for purchase on Bandcamp (link below) as well as for streaming on Spotify and Apple Music. The album is dynamic, and the composers, a combination of percussionists and non-percussionists, approached their pieces in widely different and thoughtful ways. Evan’s playing is always fantastic, and the album—which made Wilco’s Spring 2020 Recommended Listening list—expands the vision of what a solo drum set record means.
Below is the official press release for Thunderdome. If you’d like to purchase a copy, please contact the band directly at booking@joyonfire.com ($20 + $3 shipping in the US, or available at shows for $20).
Joy on Fire Press Release
Winter 2020
Thunderdome Extended Single
Limited-edition 12” 180 gram vinyl, play at 45 RPM (digital download included)
Joy on Fire is proud to release Thunderdome Extended Single, a two-song introduction to the group’s new sound, which blends its trademark punk-jazz instrumentals with vocals throughout, a first in the band’s history. An eight-song LP, States of America, is currently being mixed for prospective release later this year.
The danceable “Thunderdome” identifies the phenomenon of dejected people “revolving like minutes in a display case” considered alongside the “anger and decency” of political outrage. Funky and energetic, the song closes after a rollicking sax solo with the ultimate question: “What’s love?”
The A Side concludes by reviling the deadliness of gun violence in the metallic, soaring “Uh Huh,” wherein “Earth is / The gun raised at the unarmed,” yet Earth is not just the incipient moment in a confrontation but a constellation of actions and consequences: “What will our brothers be singing / When we return their bodies to the Earth?”
Three remixes of “Thunderdome” on the B Side offer listeners reconceived horns, distortion, guitars, and beats. These mixes are radical reconstructions that create the music anew.
By enmeshing threads of influence that range from the eclectic rock of King Crimson and The Talking Heads to the spirituality of John and Alice Coltrane, from the clipped postmodernism of European poet Paul Celan to the basslines of Sleaford Mods, Morphine, and Joy Division, Joy on Fire continues to produce pioneering music that swings hard and thumps breath into the bodies of listeners.
Joy on Fire is John Paul Carillo (bass guitar, electric guitar, lead composer), Anna Meadors (alto and baritone saxophones, vocals), Chris Olsen (drums, percussion), and Dan Gutstein (lyrics, vocals).
We are headed south this weekend for 2 shows in new spots for us — many thanks to our friend Joe Martin of 3rd Grade Friends and the Minus Drag for putting these together! On Friday, 10/18, we’ll be at Suzy’s House of Gifts in Richmond, VA, and Saturday, 10/19, at Crayola House in Harrisonburg, VA. Details below!
10/18 – Black Plastic, Joy on Fire, The Minus Drag, and Minimum Balance at Suzy’s House of Gifts in Richmond, VA — Show starts at 8:00. $5 donation for the touring bands strongly suggested! Message a band for the address
10/19 – BoscoMujo, Joy on Fire, the Minus Drag at Crayola House, Harrisonburg, VA
Then, later this month, on October 26th, we’ll be back in Baltimore playing at the Metro Gallery with Onespot, Bombenkinder and Defenders!
10/26 – Onespot, Bombenkinder, Joy On Fire, Defenders at Metro Gallery 10/26, Baltimore MD
We had a blast last weekend playing at the Brighton Bar, Unruly Sounds and Function; many thanks to Elbaum Tanner Rocknroll Scene, Mika Godbole, and Gene Ward for inviting us to play, and to the people who came to listen! The header photo was taken by RJ Carroll, and you can check out more from that night here. Emory Hensley took photos at Unruly Sounds (below), you can check out more here. And check out Dan Gutstein’s post about Alan Merrill, and his iconic hit “I Love Rock and Roll,” here!
Hey y’all! Hope you all had a wonderful summer, and are enjoying the early fall days!
We are back at it with 3 shows this weekend, Friday, October 4th at the Brighton Bar in Long Beach, NJ, and then 2 performances on Saturday, October 5th. We are honored to be the opening band for Mika Godbole’s amazing festival in Princeton, NJ, Unruly Sounds, getting it started at noon! Then we are playing in Baltimore, MD, returning to Function Coworking Community in Hamilton for the opening art show of Jordan Tierney, at 8pm.
See you there!
(Header photo by Brian Jenkins Photography / Poster photo by Jaime Parker)