Month: October 2015

Inorganisms workshop wrap up

First of all, thanks to everyone who’s come out to workshops this week. It’s been tons of fun, and we’ve made some excellent Inorganisms. The workshop week started off relatively quietly with Taylor and I working at his studio on Monday evening (thanks again Taylor for having me over there!), but picked up through the week with a couple of people dropping by the Logan Square table (thanks Comfort Station) and a full compliment of workshoppers at the library (thanks Harold Washington Maker Lab).

I’m spending the morning today back at the Harold Washington Maker Lab, just finishing off some of the work we’ve done over the week. And then my residency comes to a close. I’ll post a final wrap up post with pictures and links to code, but I wanted to say now, it’s been great and I can’t wait to come back to Chicago!

Pig Pen Theatre Co. at the Old Town School of Folk Music

I had the absolute privilege last night of seeing the PigPen Theatre Co. play at the Old Town School of Folk Music last night with Brian and Carla. They and their opening act,  the Morningsiders were fantastic.

First, the venue. The Old Town School of Folk Music seems like an incredible institution. In its 50-plus years it has served as a teaching, collaboration, and concert venue to musicians of all skill levels and folk-related interests. The actual theatre was a lovely space to take in the show.

The Morningsiders kicked off an excellent show with an upbeat folk set interspersed with interesting factoids (for example, apparently unless they tell people how to spell their name, there are 64 possible permutations of reasonably valid spellings). I thoroughly enjoyed these guys and I’ll definitely be listening to them for some time to come!

Then there was the main act. PigPen is an interesting musical entity. They are primarily a theatre troupe (I can’t wait to see one of their stage shows), but they have also released two albums and are fantastic as a live band. Their songs tend to build from a single voice to a raucous crescendo and their stage presence and comedic timing – I’m sure the performance training helps here – are some of the best I’ve ever seen. If you get the chance, go see these guys in concert!

Check out below for a sample of their music!