Stick Figures

Stick Figures

ASIN: B000056O5G

Track Listings

1. Morning Song

2. Charmed Life

3. Adrift

4. Ojos Verdes

5. Big Meadows

6. Sarah

7. Pentastick

8. Sunday

9. Dedication

10. Astro Meets Daisy

11. Softly She Walks

Editorial Reviews
John D'earth
"Greg Howard's CD Stick Figures is deeply lyrical, meticulously executed, and it swings."

Product Description
12 solo pieces for Chapman Stick. From energetic jams a la Michael Hedges to jazz waltzes and ballads, these tracks explore the natural sound of The Stick as if it were a solo piano concert. This version is fully remixed and remastered from the original 1992 recordings.

Stick Figures

Tracks:

Morning Song
Charmed Life
Adrift
Ojos Verdes
Big Meadows
Sarah
Pentastick
Sunday
Dedication
Astro Meets Daisy
Softly She Walks

Album Description

12 solo pieces for Chapman Stick. From energetic jams a la Michael Hedges to jazz waltzes and ballads, these tracks explore the natural sound of The Stick as if it were a solo piano concert. This version is fully remixed and remastered from the original 1992 recordings.

Customer Reviews:

Stick voodoo magic.......2003-05-01

I first heard Greg Howard this past summer at a Dave Matthews Concert in Noblesville, Indiana. Greg played the second stage just after the gates opened. As we made our way to our seats we passed the stage and I was magnetically drawn toward the music. I heard what sounded like guitar and bass, but only saw one performer. My jaw dropped as I realized what Mr. Howard was doing. There were no overdubs he was playing it all himself. I knew then I had to hear more of his music. While stick figures doesn't live up to the power of Greg's live performance it is still a great album to relax with. He conjures up images of the late great Michael Hedges. While not as intense as Hedges often was the melodies are often just as good. While I haven't heard any of his other material I wouldn't hesitate to say that this is a good introduction into what he has to offer, and is probably more accessible than his more experimental works such as Sticks and Stones.

Greg Howard is a Chapman Stick Wizard!!.......2002-02-12

I first heard Greg Howard on some Dave Matthews Band live recordings. Pretty neat stuff, but I wasn't so impressed as to do much more checking than just find out what a Chapman Stick was.

Last year (2001), Greg Howard and Tim Reynolds did a tour together. I went to the shows in both Houston and Dallas with the desire to see Tim, as I've been a HUGE fan for quite a while now. Greg Howard was on the ticket, so I figured I'd finally get to see a Chapman Stick master in action. The Dallas show was first, and from his first song to the last, I was totally floored by Greg Howard. Better than I'd ever expected. When I went to see the two in Houston, I got more of the same incredible stick playing that I will never forget. While at that concert, I bought Stick Figures because it had a nice cover design. I wanted to take some Greg Howard home with me, so why not take the one with the neat picture on the cover? What the heck did I know the difference?

This CD is more than just a nice cover though. It's 11 tracks of smooth, articulate music that I have become addicted to. Really, the best of the Greg Howard CDs I own. Charmed Life is truly an incredible song, and the centerpiece of this wonderful CD. But every track, from 1 to 11 is solid, excellent music. I'd really suggest picking it up and giving it a try, no matter what kind of music you like. Listen to it 3 or 4 times before making a judgement. By then, you'll be hooked. You won't be able to get it out of your head, and you'll be listening to it all the time. GREAT study music, or great for grading papers. Unobtrusive, yet pleasant.

It's among the most obscure, yet most kick-ass instruments in existence. The Chapman Stick owns. Greg Howard is its master.

Charmed Life @ Big Meadows.......2001-02-11

Charmed Life is the 1st selection I heard on the Stick® compilation "Tappistry Volume One" (www.stick.com), showcasing Greg's listener friendly sense of melody and feeling about good fortune. Big Meadows was the next cut that blew me away, demonstrating Greg's abundant technical prowess while paying homage to one of the prettiest romps along the Skyline Drive atop the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia. An early release from this man on the move, I want Greg's whole catalog in my collection.

Average customer rating:

Stick Figures
Terry Bowness
Manufacturer: Aardvark Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

Jazz Fusion | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00009R5T4
Release Date: 2003-05-01

Tracks:

Might As Well
Mother And Child
Falling Freely
Cranberry Sauce
Dark Matter
Tabula Rasa
Asteroids
Sweet Pea
Across the Universe

Album Description

Austin, Texas-based jazz pianist and composer Terry Bowness follows his critically acclaimed 1999 self-titled debut with eight original compositions and an arrangement of Lennon/McCartney's "Across the Universe". Terry is joined by locally and nationally known artists, including Mitch Watkins, Roscoe Beck, David Grissom, Brannen Temple and others.

Average customer rating:

an uneven set of Frith compositions (mainly) for string quartet

Eleventh Hour

Manufacturer: Winter & Winter
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0006M4TWM
Release Date: 2005-04-12

Tracks:

I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.

Tracks:

I.
II.
III.
I.
I.

Album Description

Fred Firth is driven by a powerful creative energy, a desire to experiment, and a never-ending interest in life and all of its facets. He is one of the most prominent rock musicians to explore the possibilities of free improvisation and new classical forms, playing on albums by the Residents, Brian Eno, Amy Denio and Rene Lussier, to name but a few.

Customer Reviews:

an uneven set of Frith compositions (mainly) for string quartet.......2005-07-09

ELEVENTH HOUR is a very stylish package from the German Winter & Winter label, with cover art by Ursula Eichinger and eight more of her paintings in the booklet, all the same design but in different colors. Unfortunately, the music inside is of mixed quality. There are five pieces in all. Two of them are quite good ("Tense Serenity" and "Allegory"), one is good ("Lelekovice"), and two are not good ("Fell" and "Stick Figures"). Amazingly, the main musicians are the Arditti Quartet, you can't get any better than that!, but this is not among the best music they have ever performed.

Fred Frith, originally of Yorkshire, who began a long multifarious musical career with the British progressive rock group Henry the Cow in the late 1960s, has lately turned toward contemporary classical. Now a professor of composition at Mills College in the Bay Area, he spent the '80s in NYC's "downtown" scene with John Zorn and others, and the '90s in Germany where he connected with the W&W label, the AQ, composer Heiner Goebbels, and others.

The first piece "Lelekovice" (1990), in nine short movements, was written to accompany a dance. It's quite lively, in an Eastern European folk music mode -- Bartok of course springs to mind, though there is nothing in it nearly as thorny as his most complex quartets. "Tense Serenity" (1997), in five movements, is for string trio and trombone -- Uwe Dierksen plays trombone, and Graeme Jennings of Arditti sits out. The central movement features AMM/Keith Rowe-style radio fragments of songs and speakers, as well as what sounds like a flute, apparently produced by the strings. "Allegory" (2001), in three movements, is for string quartet and electric guitar. Frith's guitar is very subtly employed, and for much of the piece he is either silent or nearly so. Fair warning for those looking for flashy guitar pyrotechnics! These two pieces show what Frith can do, and though neither reveals a strong voice or unique style, they are fine examples of the European postserialist sonic landscape.

The two pieces that fill the rest of the second disc I consider outright failures. "Stick Figures" (1990) is for "6 guitars and 2 players," but all I can hear is two guitars -- one scrapes on the strings in what might be a simplistic parody of the experimental explorations of Hans Reichel, AMM's Keith Rowe and Frith, while another guitar regularly chimes a loud chord that sounds like a fragment of a Morricone soundtrack to a Sergio Leone western. "Fell" (2001), for string quartet and electric guitar, is also very simplistic, a descending series of chords for the strings, with periodic anguished squawks from the guitar. It seems to symbolize a soul's fall into Hell, or any number of more concrete and specific cases of flesh-and-blood humans falling into pain, death and despair.

ELEVENTH HOUR could have been a solid 4-star disc if "Allegory" had been included with "Lelekovice" and "Tense Serenity" on one disc, which would only be slightly over 70' long. I am certainly glad that Frith perseveres in creating adventurous music that is difficult to categorize, but I wonder if there might not be too much concept and too little music in more than just this one Frith project.

I know from interviews that Fred Frith shares my worldview (more or less), but I still have to guess at what the title means -- it seems clear to me that humans on Earth are in "the Eleventh Hour" in that we face an environmental crisis, and we may well still destroy ourselves if we don't develop more advanced and cooperative social institutions. (See my OVERSHOOT AND COLLAPSE? list.) In the meantime, I'm glad that Frith and I have both entered the world of contemporary classical music.

Average customer rating:

Bukkitta
Stick Figures
Manufacturer: Harvest Media Group
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Rock | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000DZ3HC
Release Date: 2003-09-30

Average customer rating:

Good Stuff From Robust And Prolyphic {3.5 Stars}
Sick album - Robust and Prolific

Stick Figures
Stick Figures
Manufacturer: Galapagos4
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Rap & Hip-Hop | Styles | Music

Pop Rap | Rap & Hip-Hop | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000BGQUUC
Release Date: 2005-09-27

Tracks:

The Circle
Headtrip
King Of The Mountain
Breakdown
Skin And Bones
Two Deep
Dust Til Dawn
I Can Tell
Whats Left
2nd Hand Love
Smoke Signals
Cowboys And Indians
The Line Down

Product Description

In a world overwhelmed with Las Vegas-like neon and more glitter than gold, the Stick Figures hardly find it surprising that a lot of the underground's recent existing music is flashy and overbearing, just for the sake of being flashy and overbearing. Artists are trying to do too much, and failing miserably. One whack at the roots equals a thousand at the branches. Stick Figures represent the underdog in all of us. A worthy voice for the voiceless, fed up thinkers, a breath of freshness through the smoke and mirrors of mediocrity. Prolyphic, who was introduced to the world via production and guest vocals on Robusts internationally acclaimed debut Potholes In Our Molecules (Galapagos4 2004) as well as his own solo An Alarm Clock Set For 9:01 (Duck Soup 2004) is sure to be announced to the forefront of underground lyricists world wide. Coupled with seasoned lyricist and pillar of unbridled honesty, Robust, the Sticks form our fiery "F that!!!" to the conformed, stale mold which threatens to destroy our culture and soul. Stick Figures, as characters in an artwork, are a joke amongst artists. Its childs play; anyone could draw a seemingly simple circle for a head, and five rudimentary lines for the body. But it goes much, much deeper than that. The stick figure represents the complexities of life in a simple way, so that everyone can understand (i.e.: hieroglyphics, cave drawings). BREAKING IT DOWN, not cluttering it up. Lacking only the flashiness that is used to impress the viewer, but distracts them from the real story being told, Robust and Prolyphic profess that a snake rattles from the back but strikes from the front. Robust and Prolyphic teamed up as Stick Figures to bring back the age old unappreciated art of keeping it raw, simple and to the point... so they made a simple, raw HIP-HOP album that went straight to the point. Going to the bare bone of it all, the roots, with no make up or fancy dress cover ups, and giving it out raw to the people and what you have when its all said is done is a stick figure. No smoke and mirrors. To combat a world overcompensating for psychological short comings, Stick Figures emerge simply as those two skinny mother fuckers with big heads and deservedly so, as all shall soon see.

Customer Reviews:

Good Stuff From Robust And Prolyphic {3.5 Stars}.......2006-06-23

Stick Figure emcees Robust and Prolyphic utilize a style that is similar to rappers of the early nineties. The production is minimal with its sparse drum loops and horn breaks. If there's a flaw on this album it's the fact that some of the production can drag on and makes some of the songs a chore to listen to. Lyrically, Stick Figures bounce from topic to topic. Every now and then they tend to go off on a tangent, but those kinds of mishaps are kept to a minimum. Though the production doesn't shift gears that often, there are still enough standouts on this album to make owning it a good idea.

Sick album - Robust and Prolific.......2005-10-09

They dont have too much info on this album so I thought I would help some people out with a review. The group consists of Robust and Prolific, 2 underground rappers. You may have heard Robust on Sage Francis Still sick urine trouble, the shortneck girraff track near the end of the CD and he was also on Qwel - If it aint been in a pawnshop, tracks Art of War and $19.99 A.D. the best 2 tracks on the CD. Prolific is on Robusts album Potholes in our Molecules, a pretty good album in itself. Anyway the beats on this are nice they sound like circa 1993-1995 style and both emcees are nasty. I highly reccomend this CD if your a fan of indy hip hop.

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