"A MESS OF THINGS" BRINGS UNIQUE FUSION OF RADIO DOCUMENTARY WITH LIVE MUSIC TO HOLLYWOOD'S FRINGE CENTRAL

A Mess of Things: A New Documentary Musicplay

Press Contact:
Adam Tinkle, 207-653-7827, [email protected]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ALERT FOR THEATRE EDITORS, REVIEWERS, AND CALENDAR LISTINGS June 1, 2011

Composer and interdisciplinary artist Adam Tinkle will perform his new documentary music-play “A Mess of Things” four times this month at the Hollywood’s Artworks Theater as part of the Los Angeles Fringe Theater Festival. “A Mess of Things” is a bold, philosophical, funny, and ultimately tragic portrait of an eccentric inventor who keeps the remnants of his entire life’s work in storage units, and will challenge the way you think about the objects that fill our lives.

A fusion of radio documentary and experimental music theater, “A Mess of Things” blends audio interviews together with text, songs, videos and live music into a dense exploration of memory, hoarding and the difficulties of divesting. Rich with sonic detail, “A Mess of Things” layers voices and images, and moves fluidly between intimate storytelling (think This American Life) and chaotic sonic texture (think Negativland).  A must-see for fans of the Books, Laurie Anderson and Robert Ashley.

The work was originally debuted at the Experimental Theater in the Conrad Prebys Music Center, UCSD, La Jolla, CA on April 1, 2011. All audio, video, text, performance and direction is by Adam Tinkle.

Tickets are $10, or pay-what-you-want: http://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/401

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=102071266553900

Shows are:
June 9 11:30 PM
June 18 11 PM
June 22 3:30PM
June 23 5PM

Adam Tinkle is an artist, educator and scholar active in music, sound, interdisciplinary performance and media arts. At Wesleyan University (CT), where he studied intellectual history, ethnomusicology and experimental composition, his main teachers were Alvin Lucier, Ron Kuivila and Anthony Braxton—- improvising, performing and recording extensively with the latter. He performs on reeds, electronics, voice, fretted strings and steel guitars, and his work is heard in contexts ranging from rock and avant-classical to free improvised and electro-acoustic music, as well as in theater, dance and film. Now based outside San Diego, he studies improvisation and composition with Anthony Davis, Mark Dresser and others, working towards a PhD in Integrative Studies. He leads and composes for the experimental smooth jazz/minimalist improv septet Pacifighost, improvises with electroacoustic noise trio New Brutalists, and is the singer/guitarist/lyricist/composer for The Shade, a rock quintet that has toured both the east and west coasts and released two EPs in the last year (theshade.info). Adam is an alum of several New York City bands, including Sewing Machines (pedal steel/lead guitar, 2 US tours) and Tall Tales (now Headless Horsemen).  His scholarly work has focused on the ideological content of midcentury US American popular music and youth culture, especially regarding environmentalism and nature, and excerpts from his thesis “Back to the Garden: Pastoralism, Whiteness, Country Rock and Authenticity in the U.S. Counterculture, 1968-1970” have been presented at conferences in ecocriticism, science studies and pop music studies.
The Universal Language Orchestra, which Adam co-directs, teaches 8-12 year old musicians in Spring Valley, CA alternative approaches to music such as free improvisation, group composition, instrument building and graphic notation, and recently won a major grant from the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts. Adam is working to build a sustainable (:-/ there’s that word again) homestead in Descanso, CA, at the edge of the Cleveland National Forest. Adam farms and posts pictures of his baby goats at tanglezone.blogspot.com. His works in progress include a full-length musical about idealistic young farmers besieged by self-doubt and litigious agribusiness and a solo work for drumkit and televisions commissioned by percussionist Steve Solook of Red Fish Blue Fish.