Press
PRESS QUOTES
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Interview in Sound Collector 8
“Conversation between Michael Evans and Chris Corsano”, Fever Pitch #9, 2004-2005
“A Few Moments with Michael Evans by Gino Robair”, Fever Pitch # 9, 2004-2005
“Der Traumrepublikaner’, Robert Wyatt, ZeitLiterature Und Musik, Munich, Germany, October 2003
“The Art of Skin Bashing: Conversations with Drummers Dan Brown and Michael Evans”, Sound Collector #8, August 2003
Karen Mantler, Time Out, NYC, April 1997
Karen Mantler, Option, May-June 1997
“Queens Reich”, God Is My Co-Pilot, Rolling Stone, May 1995
“Tuxedo Junction”, Combustible Edison, Details, NYC, February 1995
“What Cocktail Nation?”, Combustible Edison, Option, November-December 1994
“In God We Trust”, God Is My Co-Pilot, Spin, 1993
“Masters Of The Free Universe”, Modern Drummer, 1992
“Michael Evans is an amazing player of clattering junk percussion, drum kit, and his own special brand of electronics. Evans recalls the young Peter Sellers if he were attempting to make terrible fun of Spike jones and a cab driver and a giant cockroach all at once. He’s famous; he was in God Is My Co Pilot and is deeply connected with the WFMU vibe. He is also capable of otherworldly… restraint.”
-John Berndt (Baltimore improvising musician and director of Baltimore’s yearly High Zero Festival)
“Michael Evans is a musician. Although his main instrument belongs to the percussion family, Evans is one of those rare instrumentalists who think musically–all the time.
Whether you are discussing the use of rudiments in free improvisation or the deeper levels of multi-limb independence, it’s always within the context of music, not just technique for technique’s sake. As a multi-instrumentalist, he’s just as at home with the theremin and live electronics as he is with found objects and homemade instruments. During his November tour of Califonia, Evans’ suitacases were filled with the usual and the unusual. Including mechanical and motorized implements: a frightening amount of stuff! Remarkably, during his solo and ensemble improvisations, he only used what was necessary for the moment. Like any master performer. he kept his audience wanting more.”
- Gino Robair (percussionist) - Fever Pitch Magazine 2005
“Michael Evans is a very funny mixture of serious percussionist and childlike explorer.”
-Karen Mantler (composer/musician)
“Michael Evans is a very talented musician.”
-Carla Bley (jazz composer)
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REVIEWS:
MEJA : MICHAEL EVANS & JEFF ARNAL (C3R 008)
From Signal To Noise (December 2006)
Eschewing bombast and grandstanding, percussionists Michael Evans and Jeff Arnal are sympathetically matched in their sensiblities, creating settings that are not lacking for traditional melodics and harmonics because they fully understand the musical reach of their drums. Born of improvisation sessions, the diversity on these fourteen pieces is striking. A full album experience has been created by smartly sequencing the pieces to create a dramatic arc that celebrates warmth, surprise and adventure. They jump into skittering density, as on the busy precision of “Fear Active” and the elliptical “Opening.”
They lock horns on hi-hats (the cheekily titled “Two Hats Are Better Than One”) and wood blocks (”Drifting W-Peer”). There are also moments of open-ended expansiveness (With a Hint Of…”) and even lightly comedic portraiture (Labrador Labyrinth”). Two drummers create one full and balanced meal.
-David Greenberger
From the online issue of Touching Extremes (April 2007):
MEJA [MICHAEL EVANS/JEFF ARNAL] - MEJA (C3R 08; USA)
Childhood secrets time. As a tiny toddler I was MAD for drums, to the point of convincing my parents to buy me a miniature set which I banged with nice attitude; they even used to carry Massimo and his drums around various Roman parks in order for me to make all the noise I wanted without breaking the condominium’s peace (well, in the early seventies there WAS some peace in condominiums every once in a while). I still can behave myself well enough with odd meters (sigh). With all the due respect, the great drumming that’s presented by Evans and Arnal in MEJA reminded me a lot of those happy times, such are the fantasy, the brisk joyfulness, the incredible variety of techniques and sources that these men apply in their music, in almost a full hour of genreless percussive delight. No wonder that these players have been active on many fronts of the improvisation warfare, including working with dancers and actors, as this music is an experience of gestural freedom that we can elaborate over or simply enjoy as it is, conscious of the fact that we’re in front of serious artistic value from every point of view. Structures and functions subside to unpredictable sketches, colours and timbral weights, the whole continuously shifting in total absence of complications - even if this is far from being an easy listen. Everything that Evans and Arnal play seems to be in logical correlation, whatever the form. Very, very nice.
- Massimo Ricci “The Purple Prose Peddler”
Linking www.touchingextremes.org is appreciated.
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August, 2006
From the Downtown Music Gallery’s online, email review list:
MEJA [MICHAEL EVANS/JEFF ARNAL] - MEJA (C3R 08; USA) Featuring Michael
Evans and Jeff Arnal on drums & percussion. You might know Michael Evans
from his work with EasSidePercussion (CD on Avant) or from his
collaborations with Karen Mantler. He also leads a band that is a tribute to
South African legends The Blue Notes (Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi
Feza, etc.) called the Swirling Lotus Blossom Bandits. Jeff Arnal runs the
‘Improvised & Otherwise’ Fest in Brooklyn and has a half dozens discs with
different duos (Dan DeChellis & Dietrich Eichmann), a trio (Rara Avis) and a
fine quartet called Transit on Clean Feed.
Drum duo discs are not as much of a rarity as they once were:
Milford Graves & Sonny Morgan (from the sixties), Billy Martin & Bob Moses
or Calvin Weston (more recently). On each piece, both drummers well work
together, blending their percussive wares into a seamless sound. They are
often quite subtle, using brushes and playing hand drums with restraint.
Each piece builds and becomes more intense as the tempo increases and the
communion becomes more-clear. I like when they work with drones and hums,
rubbing drums and scraping hand-percussion ever so quietly and filled with
suspense. They often deal with colors and shapes rather than providing a
series of rhythm grooves. Cleanly recorded and balanced just right. Two fine
drummers with a thoughtfully displayed blend of sounds and nothing to prove
other than some fine music. - Bruce Lee Gallanter
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August 2006
In an email from Carl Sawyer to M.E.
MEJA [MICHAEL EVANS/JEFF ARNAL] - MEJA (C3R 08; USA)
Hello Mr. Evans,
A few days ago I check my mail and I find a CD mailer with a copy of the
CD named MEJA. It’s all percussion by two guys from Brooklyn. I have a
drummer son in Brooklyn so I send him a text message, “Why did Jeff Arnal
send me a CD?” and he replies “Cuz I asked him to” and I tell him “It
sounds like lullabies.” Later we talk and I find out that he went to a
show where these disks are being given away at the door but they run out
so they ask attendees to give their name and address; he gives ‘em my
address. He tells me that he bought a copy for himself but when I ask him
what he thinks of it he confesses that he has not listened to it yet. I
mention the lullabies and he says he though I was joking.
I wasn’t. MEJA is a lovely, soothing, almost pastoral piece of music.
I’ve listened to it two or three times while I’m working and it just kind
of hangs there behind what I’m thinking until I realize I’m not working,
I’m listening to it again. I’m not a drummer, nor am I much of a musician
any more but I recognize technique when I hear it and I know enough to
realize how hard it is to make it sound easy, how difficult it is to make
it sound simple. It’s easy to get all distracted by what you think and
what you know and sometimes it’s fun but it seems to me that this kind of
stuff happens instead of just listening, so I’ve tried to just let it
play. It rolls and it flows and it doesn’t demand my attention, it just
pulls gently and draws me away. It’s REALLY lovely. I listened to it a
couple of times the day I got it and that night I put it on when I went to
bed. I was asleep before it finished. Lullabies.
Anyway, thanks for the CD. I’m writing to you, Michael, because Ryan said
that you and he are friends but I’m going to cc this to Jeff because I
want to thank him, too, for making good music. I don’t have any idea what
you guys had in mind when you made it but I know what it means to me.
Good music, just for me. Well done.
Thanks,
Carl Sawyer(father of creative-NYC-improviser percussionist, Ryan Sawyer: and member of the Tall Firs, Stars Like Fleas, etc.)
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October 2006 : In an email from Todd Capp (NYC creative-jazz/improvising drummer) to M.E.
MEJA [MICHAEL EVANS/JEFF ARNAL] - MEJA (C3R 08; USA)
Michael,
Sorry for taking so long to thank you for the wonderful CD. Heard it 3 times already, and it remains one of my favorites. Beautiful, beautiful. Who needs horns when you already have two full orchestras? Really, sometimes I think other instruments are just superfluous, and listening to MEJA is definitely one of those times. Love the way you and Jeff play together; once in a while I can guess “who’s” playing “what,” but mostly it all sounds like one big octopercussionist.
- Todd Capp
REVIEWS : EASSIDE PERCUSSION (ESP)
ESP - EasSide Percussion (Avant Recordings 073)
From Modern Drummer, April 1999: 3 & 1/2 stars
Christine Bard, Michael Evans and James Pugliese comprise the modern percussion ensemble Easside Percussion, and ESP gets very experimental with the timbre, textures, and sounds one can make with a percussive tool. ESP contains a plethora of sounds you would not expect nor believe could be derived from percussion, but with some minimal electronic sound manipulation from their toys, the ensemble sets a new direction for the percussive voice and composition. -Ted Bonar
From the Downtown Music Gallery, June 1999
ESP - EasSide Percussion (Avant Recordings 073)
Superb modern percussion trio, featuring Jim Pugliese, Christine Bard and Michael Evans. Utilizing dozens of odd percussive instruments, household objects, acoustic & electric and even a theremin!
From dense landscapes like Xenakis, to funk and rock. - Bruce Lee Gallanter
From www.chthonioni.net:
their Music correspondent wrote:
ESP - EasSide Percussion (Avant Recordings 073)
Q: What do I think about Easside Percussion by EasSide Percussion? I don’t think you are going to like this…
A: Track two, 1,000 voices should have been left off this album. It’s marginally better than the rest and frankly, only draws attention to their simplistic banality. Track three, Green Valleys is beyond belief. It sounds like a daschund being gently castrated with some nice rusty pliers. Cure isn’t that bad. Ha Ha. Got you. It’s just a tiny bit worse than say, the sound of the stuff that the BBC Radiophonic workshop recorded.
Track five, Freak Funk sounds like a late 80’s mobile phone ring right through to its (bleated) finish. Oh my god, I’ve clearly missed the whole point of this album - until you listen to track seven, Pear, you’ve no idea that the sound of the sort of thing you’d play to a blind man to make them appreciate the lot of a deaf and blind man is what EasSide Percussion was trying to create all along. Track ten, Fresh Tears is so, so. So, so, so fucking awful, that is.
In fact, I’m scared Easside Percussion will reproduce and foist a new generation of crud on us.
If you still like this crap, go buy it on Amazon or something.
His choice 3 hated records are:
Scar Tissue: TMOTD
Gloria Gaynor: Best of Gloria Gaynor
Ray Anthony and his Orchestra: Dream
The most recent albums he pissed all over:
EasSide Percussion: EaSide Percussion
Depeche Mode: Leave in Silence
Lone Catalysts: Hip Hop
PRESS QUOTES:
From the Thuringer Volkszeitung, Schmalkaden, Germany April, 1998
“Absolutely amazing and sheerly borderless in its highly imaginative rendition was the music of the trio with Christine Bard, James Pugliese and Michael Evans. Pure rhythm, dreamlike feeling and precision to its perfection are only vague description for the phenomenon EasSide Percussion.”
From the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, April 1998
“EasSide Percussion” from NYC are the incantation of perfect drum art. Jim Pugliese, Christine Bard and Michael Evans have played with Marc Ribot, John Cage and Phillip Glass. Now they enthused the large crowd at the “Turm” jazzclub. With the help of electronics they performed a well-balanced mix of free jazz, ambient music and classic rock-n-roll. The mixture of acoustic tunes and wide screen sounds made the evening a very exceptional concert event.
From the Village Voice, 1995
“Interestingly, I had heard James Pugliese the previous night at Roulette.
Pugliese played hot drum duos and trios with Christine Bard and Michael Evans, each banging rhythms off the other with split second coordination.” -Kyle Gann
