Stuart Bogie: What's New

Sahr Ngaujah, of the Fela! musical has collaborated with Superhuman Happiness to create a new sound - soon to be available on Electric Cowbell/LMNOP records. Don't sleep!

I just had the pleasure of listening to, then sitting in with the great band Elysian Fields. Led by Jennifer Charles and Oren Blowdowe, this group makes music on another level.

Chicago was beautiful and it is always nice to my family. I don't know where i would be without them. I had the extreme pleasure of recording for Iron and Wine while there. I wish i could describe the music they are making over there but I won't even try. Suffice to say, i couldn't hear enough of it - clung to every phrase/traced every melodic line and interlocking rhythm. I wanted to stay all night. For the best, i did end up leaving the studio and went straight to Rodan where I sat in with Jeff Parker, Josh Abrhams and John Herndon. I have never been in such company playing such intricate improvisations. I got vertigo up there! Those men listen and anticipate and carry each idea. If you are ever in Chicago on a Tuesday night GO and hear these brilliant minds sing.

Oh yeah February already! Just returned from a mind bending adventure in Mali, playing in Timbuktu and recording at Bogolan studio in Bamako with the Sway Machinery. We worked with the powerful artistry of Khaira Arby as well as Super 11 and ejoyed our time there very much. It was nice to return to the Fela! show - still filling houses and bathing in afrobeat. Superhuman Happiness is back in business for the year with a limited edition 7" called GMYL/Hounds and featuring the vocals of Jared Samuel and myself. In our recorded future is a collaboration with Sahr Ngaujah, lead from the Fela! musical. Also a collection of covers for night time relaxing, and of course our full length album, produced by Luke O'malley. Antibalas will be Australia and New Zeland in just a few weeks and it'll be fun to be there, all i hear is great things. Shoot me an email and say hello! - Stuart

Who could resist a little Ace Frehley? His words rang true for me this week as i returned from all my excusions outta New York. For 09 im staying right here and getting down to business with Superhuman Happiness: 5 fridays in october at midnight, over at Zebulon - home to us and many wonderful artists. The summer was enjoyed amongst new and old friends, playing music accross europe and wrapping up the last TV on the Radio shows for a while. Their crew are an amazing bunch of individuals who i enjoyed seeing everyday and shared many fun times with. When i think about the people im surrounded by i feel lucky. really really lucky. the album is slowly coming together for superhuman happiness and we have completed mixes for an upcoming 7" that will point to a new direction for us. keep in touch, friends! - bogie

I am currently in Europe enjoying the company of friends TV on the Radio, who are touring their record Dear Science and appearing at festivals across Europe. We have performed once so far, in Lisbon, and had a great time. The most dangerous aspects of these festivals is the sausages. They have delicious hot dogs every where and, being from Chicago, i find myself weak willed in front of encased meats.

Other than food lust I am having a lovely time with an amazing group of artists in a beautiful place. I haven't played with them in a month or so and gotta get my chops back to play nice and loud again.

all the best,
Bogie

Thanks to my friend Joe McGinty, I'm playing some saucey tenor sax in the new Dustin Hoffman movie. You can hear it here: http://joemcginty.typepad.com/rastro3/2009/01/baby-im-yourslast-chance-harvey.html

Superhuman Happiness just finished a week in the legendary Stay Gold studios, where Dave Sitek produced breadth and depth in music (TVOTR Cookie Mountain and Dear Science, Celebration's The Modern Tribe, Foals' Antidotes and many more). Through his generosity we were able to afford time there and what a time we had! With up to 12 folks in the live room conjuring joy and excitement we laid down guitars, choirs, bells and percussion ensembles, pianos, drums, horns, and of course slide whisles and to guitars. Dan Huron engineered and we were in good hands the whole journey. I am beside myself with joy when i think about how much fun it was to work with so many people i love and admire. I thank my lucky stars! So stay tuned cause this will be our best work to date.

In other news, I had a lovely time recording a soundtrack under the direction of composer/producer Jeremiah Lockwood. The music called for classical clarinet and we got to play with real live string players! Yea! We are heading out on a short tour this week with Sway Machinery, maybe we'll see you in your hometown?

Sending you wishes for Peace and Love,

Stuart

For the last few weeks I have been traveling the country with TV on the Radio playing horns and having a great time. It is a great rush of feeling to perform these beautiful songs and I have wanted to perform with them for years. I finish my tour with them in November, with plans to return to Brooklyn and continue working on the next Superhuman Happiness record.

So the Fela! musical, directed by Bill T Jones is coming to a close (for now, just for now) in a couple weeks. It has been a blast to get to solo til im blue in the face night after night while more than a dozen of the best dancers in the city put sound into motion. Questlove form the Roots has been there like 4 times and wrote this http://blogs.okayplayer.com/questlove/ . I am touched to have the pleasure to perform for artists whose work i have enjoyed myself.

Looking ahead the future is rich! The Sway Machinery has an EP coming out to coincide with are 3 event Roshashanna concerts next week. Jeremiah has written a score of new compositions that will spark light in you heart and set fire to your fears. The next concert will have two, count em TWO animated film segments.

Also on the horizon will be some touring with one of my favorite groups of the 21st century TV on the Radio. I am researching electronic augmentations to my saxophone, as well as new organic beauty and aroma solutions for life on the bus.

love,
stuart

The last few months I have been busy recording with some of my favorite artists out there.

TV on the Radio is set to release their new record this September, and will feature myself on saxes as well as some arranging. It was very exciting to work on this record and i think it is one of the hotest things ive ever had the pleasure to work on.

I was in the studio a couple times last month with Yeah yeah yeahs, who are creating some infectiously melodic/rhythmic constructions that should be out sometime next year. damn that was!

Antibalas just returned from a week in France which included 5 shows in public gardens accross Paris. The shows were free and the audience was made up of all ages - which is always inspiring to me. At every show kids jumped on stage and even played and danced with us. Music needs to be evacuated from the night club once in a while! We got to bring it to the people. We wrapped up the week with a festival in St Nazaire and a concert beside a 16th century monastary in the south of France. Talk about lucky!
To top it off the audiences were full of joy and celebration. Love, love, love.

Superhuman Happiness had our first show last month at Empire State Park by the Brooklyn Bridge. It was everything I could have imagined, with Sharon Van Etten, Colin Stetson, and Charles Gayle. The folks at Zebulon curated the night and my loving parents drove up from chicago to hear the music. We performed music from our new EP, Fall Down Seven Times Stand UP Eight, which is a collection of tunes i wrote for each member of the Bogie family. Love abounds.

Last June The Sway Machinery went up to Quebec to record our new album in the Arcade Fire's amazing studio in the countryside. It is built inside an old Masonic Hall where we lived, cooked, and recorded for a week. We are finishing it up this week and I am confident it will be something to rattle your bones!

Lastly i have taken up a lot of arranging work - writing string arrangements for an artist out west named Spencer Day, horns for Jack Dolgen (Sam Champion), and our dear friends Gomez.

Hope you are well in life! Please drop me a line and say hello!

Stuart

Its getting moving this month!
We have 2 Superhuman Happiness shows: this Tuesday at Zebulon then the following Tuesday at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. Wooo Hooo! I am very fortunate to play with the folks in the two groups and plan on having a big bite of fun. I am currently working with the gifted Hernan Santiago on the mix of my upcoming LP. I'm meeting with Dan Huron, next years engineering superhero, to do some editing on it first. I don't have a title yet and i sure could use some suggestions.

This last week i traveled to Colorado to perform with the "Easy Star All-Stars." It was nice out there and i did get to see many stars, probably not all of them, but more than in New York. I played beside Buford O'Sullivan, one of my favorite Trombone players. What a sound! We played originals by the group, as well as songs from their records of Pink Floyd and Radiohead tunes. It felt good to climb inside the music of those great bands on top the ladder of reggae.

Then I flew to New Mexico to record with friend Bright Black Morning Light. It is their second record on the Matador Label and it promises to be a beautiful one worthy of you ears. Nabob and Rabob showed us around the mountains some and we recorded with gazing at hundreds of miles of mountain ranges. I gotta get back there!

I rushed back home to jam with my friends Sunny Oaks, who play some deep roots rock. I also got a bari this week thanks to some brotherly love. So i guess its time to get honking.

i hope you are well and thinking freely.

love,
stuart

Its been a fun filled couple weeks!
I finished tracking the record i've been working on for the past couple months. Right near the end i started piling up clarinet and bass clarinet tracks, getting more chamber music style with it. I've made little interludes to off set the "bang bang" of the songs. I can't wait to mix it! I'll be wokring with Hernon Santiago, whose worked for tons of fortunate artists - most recently spank rock among others. If you've heard the spank rock record you know - serious thump!

I've also had the pleasure of recording some basic tracks with the yeah yeah yeahs, through producer Dave Sitek (whom i owe a solid half of my most fun recording experiences to!). The music was exciting to work on and we did a whole dog pile of cha-cha saxes over a tough drum pattern. Too much fun! How many saxes til your off your axis? 9? 10? just say when...

So tomorrow our new experiment in sound and emotion "Superhuman Happiness" will be pursuing just that as we embark at around 9pm. I am playing with some amazing musicians: Luke O'Malley, Ryan Sawyer, Ryan Ferreira, Eric Biondo, Aaron Johnson, Oren Bloedow, and Torbbit Swartz. I wish i could spell names, but their powerful music blinds me from the sequential knowledge nesasari 2 noh howe to spel!

Not to mention, Zebulon is a wonderful place to experience music and food and drink.

Have a good week!

bogie

Well its been a busy couple of weeks here at the office! I played with Celebration at the Bowery Ballroom and this group just gets stronger and stronger. They have the most beautiful original sound. Their music doesn't sound like any "attempt" but like a very personal and natural language. Go see this band!!!

...played a fun show with State Radio (also with Biondo and AJ from antibalas) and what a time! These guys are real cool and everything went off without a hitch. fun songs and nice and loud! here's to the pros! It sure was strange playing for a couple thousand screaming teenagers. Did i scream that much when i was a kid running around a beastie boys concert?

This week the Sway Machinery performed a set at Joe's Pub and it felt wonderful. So many friends came out and shared the powerful experience of this music with us. We also released the Sway Machinery live DVD that Tatiana McCabe so gorgeously put together. Thanks, Tatiana!

The next night I had the frist performance of my own new group. I am creating a group to reflect all the different situations i've been in over the years. Combining the sounds of antibalas, transmission, and groups i've backed up like TV on the Radio, Celebration, El Michels Affair - i want to lead a group into new frontiers of expression. Our first concert was pretty hot, with "Thunderdome" being the highlight. I am experimenting with different titles and chants and audience participation. The repertoire is being mixed currently and i should have our first recordings out soon. I have recorded all the music in our basement space on my Tascam 388 1/4" 8 track. If anyone has heard the El Michels Affair record called Sounding out the City they know this machine's potential. On the record i have guests from Antibalas, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs drummer Brian Chase, Oren Blowedow, Ryan sawyer, and many more. All with the production help of Caural, my old friend and collaborator. So stay tuned for that.

Lastly it looks like the Angelique Kidjo record called Djin Djin has been nominated for Grammy! Yea! I played a few notes on this record with my boys from antibalas so therefore: I TOO AM UP FOR A GRAMMY. I have prepared my acceptance speech. juuuust kiding. It was a lot of fun recording with Tony Visconti, though! And you should hear my father trying to pronounce "Djin Djin" on my voice mail. I love you dad! I love you mom! (i guess i AM giving an acceptance speech).

lastly - i have been playing the music of Paul McCartney this week with the Kustard Kings at the Loser's Lounge at Joe's Pub (thats a lot of names, right?). We do 5 shows in 3 nights playing all post Beatles Paul stuff. Holy crap its fun! The musicians are top notch and know how to have fun, and there is a cast of over 30 singers that each do a song. Man, this McCartney guy can write! Someone should give him a Grrammy.

Did you know antibalas was up for a "Jammy"? ha ha! and back stage at the "Jammys" Biondo wedged himself into a cubby hole in the hall and while Phil Lesh and Less Claypole wandered by he yelled "I got a cranny, LOOK! I got a cranny."

til next time!

bogie

Well, i'm back in New York working here there and everywherewith a bunch of different artists. Antibalas just tracked and ep of 4 exciting new songs, the sway machinery is puting together their album - now with Brian chase on drums, and the FunkeyMonkeys have been performing every sunday at the Daryll Roth theater in Union Square. I am chiping away at a "Stuart Bogie" record with the help of my friend Zak Mastoon, AKA Caural. The music is more dense and straight mathrobeat than anything i've done before. I'm revisting some older ideas and fleshing them out in a new way. It should be out by Christmas, I hope!!

Antibalas has been working hard all month rehearsing and now touring all over the US, then on to Europe and Canada in May and June. I am 2 years older than the last time i went out on a big tour like this - driving in big vans across the country, hitting all the little spots. This time i have laptop, though, and lots of comics. It is a different feeling, traveling like this for music. NIght after night, there's highs and lows. But with 3 months ahead, i should wait to reflect more on this.

The music we're doing is different than before. We're playing with some new ideas and appoaches - maybe its less of a party and more of a complete concert experience. The music is more dramatic. The group is playing more together than ever. I feels pretty good. But sometimes, it seems like the audience are drunk, and hungry for raw excitement. So whatayado? I say we need to do what our hearts tell us, make music that bears truth to each other - otherwise we're just going through the motions.

well, i gotta go warm up. we're in Burlington tonight.

thanks.

Well, after about 4 years of waiting and slowly but steadily working away: I am now holding a mass produced Volney Litmus CD in my hand. It features the talents of many many folks you've heard before. The album features a brass band that bookends and augments a series of pop and rock songs recorded in an old fashioned style by Gabe Roth. There are 7 different singers and the music ranges from sloppy country ballads to blown out symphonic horn epics. We are starting to plan "For Fortuitous Tuesdays in February" at Williamsburg's Zebulon, one of the best music spots in the world! Stay tuned...

This week I also had the honor of performing with my brothers in antibalas at a benefit for UBUNTU, an organization that funds education, AIDS awareness and medical relief in Sub-Saharan Africa. These fine people have dedicated their lives to help this most afflicted and neglected region of the world and it was a pleasure to perform for them.

ON the horizon: still working away at the next Jeremiah Lockwood album and the Beyondo EP. Two very different sides of musical expression - both of them potent and essential.

and if you haven't heard: antibalas has a new album due out in march on the ANTI- label. love that name! the record is called "security" and has antibalas swimming into new textural and compositional territory. with this record i feel we are truly extending the afrobeat form and singing from our own stylistic stance. i can't wait for you to hear it!

here's to love in your heart,
stuart bogie

I just finished four days with the amazing Celebration playing in Philidelphia, Hackensack, and 2 nights at Irving Plaza in nyc. Each night grew stronger and my heart soars with elation when I play music with them. If you haven't seen Celebration, you must!

Hope you are safe and well,
Stuart Bogie

I just finished a week of concerts with Celebration and TV on the Radio. I had the pleasure of playing wih each band 2 times and seeing some amazing shows! Music hung close to my heart all week and there is no better way for me to eperience the present.

Next week im off to San Francisco to join up with Gomez for an iTunes recording and a show at the Warfield. I can't wait to see some old friends and walk up and down the hills. Then im going to come back and VOTE.

all the best,
bogie

Hey out there. Things are starting to cook in Brooklyn. Gearing up for 5 months of recording and producing. The V Ron records recording studio has just become a more robust environment to put emotion to tape. We have Gabe Roth to thank for that - thanks Gabe! So with the release of Volney Litmus' first album we will begin working on the next along with Jeremiah Lockwood's second solo record, a Sway Machinery EP, the Original Ultra Violets (with Caural) and many other projects.

I have to finish all of this before March - the anticipated release date for antibalas' new record! I guess i have to wait to discuss the details cause there will be a press release. Not that any significant number of people are reading this but whatever - thank goodness we are getting the record out! I has been over a year since we made it and i can't wait! Next year we plan to travel all over the globe so I'll be coming to a theatre near you.

This week is particularly exciting - i get to play with my friend TV on the Radio and Celebration! Their musics are some of my favorite around and I can't wait to make sounds with them.

Hope you are doing well,
Stuart