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EXCLUSIVE: 2015 MATA Festival Interview Spotlight - Adam de la Cour on 'Corporate Talent Factors Next Top Idol!', Bearthoven, One Percenters and Squib-box

Founded by Philip Glass, Lisa Bielawa and Eleonor Sandresky in 1996, the MATA Young Composers Now! Festival strives to present emerging compositional talent sourced from across the globe. The 2015 edition at The Kitchen continues in that very tradition, featuring quite the varied array of exemplary young voices. So, with a nod to the spirit of MATA, itself, Classicalite has chosen three composers to speak with about that career-defining opportunity: a MATA commission. Our second entry comes care of U.K. composer Adam de la Cour, whose MATA-commissioned piece Corporate Talent Factors Next Top Idol! will premiere tonight as part of the "Bearthoven Buckshot" program performed by, well, Bearthoven.Our second composer extraordinaire is the UK's Adam de la Cour, whose MATA commissioned piece Corporate Talent Factors Next Top Idol! will premiere tonight as part of the "Bearthoven Buckshot" program performed by Bearthoven. Cour's bio reads "active as a vocalist, electric guitarist and clown" but his satire littered style of writing is really what's at the heart of his genius. A well rounded artist indeed, Cour has put in time with Michael Finnissy as well, learning the ways of the ways of the comic book artist. Below, we gain insight on how Cour's talents intertwine with the harsh realities of 2015's economic landscape.
By Maria Jean Sullivan

  • Stayin' Alive: Swingers Marty and Elayne Roberts Celebrate 34 Years at The Dresden [VIDEO]

    No trip to eastside Los Angeles is complete without supping among the friendly, Continental-meets-Mandarin confines of The Dresden. And no visit to that Los Feliz institution there on N. Vermont Ave. can ever be fully appreciated without then stepping one room over to catch the truly dynamic duo of Marty and Elayne Roberts. As of April 1, this all-purpose husband and wife band has been swinging five nights a week for 34 gloriously camp years--long before Jon Favoreau put them in Swingers, proper. (And eons, respectively, before the hipsters damn near destroyed the neigborhood.)
    By Logan K. Young

  • EXCLUSIVE: Loren Mazzacane Connors on Tinnitus Music Series, Miles Davis' "He Loved Him Madly," Wife Suzanne Langille and Analog vs. Digital

    The one, true guitar hero, Loren Connors is nothing if not prolific: 50-plus records as far flung as Drag City to Ecstatic Peace/Father Yod to Table of the Elements, as well as countless more via his own imprints (Daggett, St. Joan, Black Label, etc.) under at least as many aliases (Loren MazzaCane Connors, Loren Mattei, Guitar Roberts, ad inf.). Despite being diagnosed with Parkinson's in the early 1990s, live and in-person, Connors continues pretty much unabated (cf. with Keiji Haino at the Whitney, with Tim Hecker at the Wick, that sold-out show at ISSUE Project with girl-in-a-band du jour Kim Gordon). Faster than Derek Bailey, more powerful than Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca combined, able to leapfrog over Ry Cooder with a single, boundless bar of blues, his 65-year-old l'éminence grise answered some of Classicalite's none too pressing queries via e-mail.
    By Maria Jean Sullivan
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