Nick Didkovsky | |
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![]() Nick Didkovsky at The Stone | |
Background information | |
Born | 22 November 1958 |
Genres | Progressive rock |
Years active | 1984–present |
Associated acts | Doctor Nerve, Vomit Fist, Alice Cooper |
Website | www |
Nick Didkovsky (born 22 November 1958) is a composer, guitarist, computer music programmer, and leader of the band Doctor Nerve. [1] He is a former student of Christian Wolff, Pauline Oliveros and Gerald Shapiro. [1]
Didkovsky formed Doctor Nerve in 1984. [2] He received a Masters in Computer Music from New York University in 1987 and went on to develop a Java music API called JMSL (Java Music Specification Language). [3] JMSL is a toolbox for algorithmic composition and performance. JMSL includes JScore, an extensible staff notation editor. JMSL can output music using either JavaSound or JSyn. [4] He has presented papers on his work at several conferences. [1]
Ensemble activities include founding the blackened grindcore band Vomit Fist in 2013. [5] He was a composing member of the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet for the ten years of the band's tenure, and has also played in John Zorn's band. [1] His Punos Music [6] record label is a harbor for his more extreme musical projects such as "split", [7] a guitar collaboration with Dylan DiLella of the technical death metal band Pyrrhon [8] [ circular reference ].
His debut solo album was released in 1997 and featured contributions from Frith. [9] His second album, Body Parts, came out of a collaboration with Guigou Chenevier. [10]
Didkovsky has composed for or performed on a number of CDs including:
Didkovsky's music has also been arranged by the experimental music group Electric Kompany. He is a co-owner of the "$100 Guitar", a guitar which was circulated amongst many musicians (including Alex Skolnick, Fred Frith, and Nels Cline) for the recording of a concept album about the guitar. [12]
Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improvisor.
Amy Denio is a Seattle-based multi-instrumental composer of soundtracks for modern dance, film and theater, as well as a songwriter and music improviser. Her inspirations include world music, and is mainly known as a vocalist, accordionist and saxophone-player. Among her current musical involvements are The Tiptons Sax Quartet and Die Resonanz Stanonczi, a radical folk group based in Salzburg, Austria. She has also collaborated repeatedly with the Pat Graney Dance Company, David Dorfman Dance Company, Victoria Marks, and with many other choreographers.
Timothy "Tim" George Hodgkinson is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds, lap steel guitar, and keyboards. He first became known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group Henry Cow, which he formed with Fred Frith in 1968. After the demise of Henry Cow, he participated in numerous bands and projects, eventually concentrating on composing contemporary music and performing as an improviser.
René Lussier is a jazz guitarist based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is a composer, guitarist, bass guitarist, percussionist, bass clarinetist, and singer. Lussier has collaborated with Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, Jean Derome, and Robert M. Lepage. He combines elements from several genres and is often referred to within the discourse of contemporary classical music or Musiques Actuelles in French.
Cheap at Half the Price is a 1983 solo album by English guitarist, composer and improviser Fred Frith. It was Frith's fifth solo album, and was originally released in the United States on LP record on the Residents' Ralph record label. It was the third of three solo albums Frith made for the label.
The Fred Frith Guitar Quartet was an American-based contemporary classical and experimental music guitar quartet comprising Fred Frith, René Lussier, Nick Didkovsky and Mark Stewart. The group was formed in 1989 by Frith and they performed extensively across North America and Europe for the next ten years, including at the 14th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada in May 1997. They recorded their first album, Ayaya Moses in 1996, and released a live album, Upbeat in 1999.
Quartets is a 1994 studio album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith. It consists of two compositions by Frith, "Lelekovice, String Quartet #1", performed by the Violet Wires String Quartet, and "The As Usual Dance Towards the Other Flight to What is Not", performed by an electric guitar quartet. Frith performs with the guitar quartet, but not with the string quartet.
Mark Stewart is a New York City-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer and instrument designer.
Naked City Live is a live album recorded by Naked City in 1989 and released on John Zorn's Tzadik label in 2002. All of the songs, with the exception of "Erotico", "The Way I Feel" and "Skate Key", were later recorded in the studio for the band's debut album. To date it is the only official live release by the band.
Nous Autres is a live album by Fred Frith and René Lussier recorded in October 1986 at the 4th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada. The live mixes were later enhanced with additional material recorded by Frith and Lussier in December 1986 at a studio in Montreal, Quebec, and the resulting album was released on LP in 1987. The album was released on CD in 1992 with four additional studio tracks recorded by Frith and Lussier in January 1992 in New York City.
Mark Howell is an American musician, composer, ethnomusicologist, and music archaeologist.
The Muffins were an American Maryland-based progressive rock/avant-jazz group. They were formed in Washington, DC in the early 1970s and recorded four albums before disbanding in 1981. In 1998 the group reformed and recorded a further five albums and a DVD. The Muffins played at Symphony Space on Broadway in NYC with Marion Brown in 1979, and also performed at a number of festivals, starting with the ZU Manifestival in New York City in 1978, The Villa Celimontana festival in Rome, Italy in 2000, two appearances at Progday in 2001 and 2002, NEARfest in 2005, and the "Rock in Opposition" festival in France in 2009. In 2010, The Muffins headlined at Progday, making a third appearance at this long running festival.
Charles O'Meara better known as C. W. Vrtacek, was an American multi-instrumentalist and composer. He was a founding member of Forever Einstein and group member with Biota.
Forever Einstein is an avant-garde band formed in 1989, and described as a, "very smart trio," The band consists of original members John Roulat and Charles O'Meara, aka C.W. Vrtacek. The band features bassist Kevin Gerety on acoustic and electric fretless basses and Warr Guitar. Past members include original bassist Marc Sichel and Jack Vees. The band was a featured act at the annual MIMI festival of progressive music in France (1991) and Prog Day in North Carolina (2003). They are known for tightly weaving a variety of styles such as folk, surf-rock, jazz, metal, country and more into concise, highly arranged pieces with long, often ridiculous titles. They sounded like a mixture of King Crimson, Frank Zappa, and Gong.
Les 4 Guitaristes de l'Apocalypso-Bar, also known as Les Quatre Guitaristes de l'Apocalypso-Bar was an electric guitar quartet founded by André Duchesne in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1986. It was one of the first electric guitar quartets and was billed as a band from post-apocalypse Canada "inspired by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix".
The ARTE Quartett was founded in 1995 by the saxophonists Beat Hofstetter, Sascha Armbruster, Andrea Formenti and Beat Kappeler.
Upbeat may refer to:
A discography of releases by Cuneiform Records.
Ayaya Moses is a 1997 studio album by the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, an American-based contemporary classical and experimental music guitar quartet comprising Fred Frith, René Lussier, Nick Didkovsky and Mark Stewart. It is their debut album and was recorded in Radio-Canada's Studio 12 at Maison Radio-Canada in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, seven years after the ensemble was formed in 1989. It was released by Canadian record label, Ambiances Magnétiques.
Upbeat is a 1999 live and studio album by the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, an American-based contemporary classical and experimental music guitar quartet comprising Fred Frith, René Lussier, Nick Didkovsky and Mark Stewart. It is their second album, after Ayaya Moses (1997), and was released by Canadian record label, Ambiances Magnétiques. The live material was drawn from concerts the quartet had performed in Germany, Switzerland, France and Spain in November 1997. The studio tracks were recorded at Tonstudio Amann in Vienna, Austria, also in November 1997.