The Manufacturing of Humidifiers meets Spirit Park (with Matthew Sperry) - May 13th, 10:30pm-11:30pm

Our music has a bit of native intelligence, about on the level of a truffle-hunting pig.
                           --- Manufacturing of Humidifiers

The Manufacturing of Humidifiers has been enlightening the bay area improv scene for many a year:

: Dan Plonsey (reeds and things); Randy Porter (reeds and stuff); Ward Spengler (drums) [Though unfortunately Ward won't be present.]

And separately the members of ManOfHum have done much for the scene on their own. For example, Dan Plonsey has been one of the guiding lights behind the excellent Beanbenders series, and has released a number of truly unique solo recordings (ranging from the brillaint and ridiculous Ivory Bill to the ridiculous and brillaint Understanding Human Behavio).

And Randy Porter has been peforming some great work in music education, whose most notable result is perhaps the popular CD of music of young muscians Big Music, Little Muscians. This is truly a man with an amazing rapport with third graders (which may explain why he gets along so well with Dan Plonsey).

The exact composition of Spirit Park as a group is somewhat flexible. It was founded by Ron Thompson (and focuses on compositions created using a graphical language system developed by him) and usually involves

The duo:: Ron Thompson (guitar, typically 7 or 8 stringed); Karen Stackpole (exotic percussion)

A number of their recordings have been released on the Spirit Park Records label.

Karen Stackpole's percussion is truly stiking, memorable to anyone who has seen her perform: she uses very few of the elements of the traditional drumkit, instead relying heavily on a variety of "ethnic" instruments such as gongs, tibetan prayer bowels, and vietnamese wooden instruments.

Matthew Sperry was better known on the Seattle scene, until the mid-90s when his contrabass started to be heard more in the Bay Area. A personal favorite: The Smoking Balance release (a quartet with Philip Gelb, Carla Kihlstedt, and John Shiurba) on the Limited Sedition label

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