Hammer, Anvil & Stirrup

Final update: December, 11, 1997

Hammer, Anvil & Stirrup was a weekly radio program produced by Clay Glad which covered a wide variety of creative music with a special focus on improvisation. It aired in the San Francisco Bay Area on 90.1 FM, KZSU every Thursday evening from 6pm-9pm.

My extended hiatus has become permanent and I've returned to New York. Thanks to everyone who listened and provided feedback.

Please check KZSU's current schedule. If you're outside the station's broadcast range you can listen via Internet broadcast.

I've removed old playlists from this page but am leaving up some material that may be interesting to former listeners. This includes information on new music venues, radio stations which support adventurous music, a few record labels that do the same and generally lose a great deal of money in the process, a selected group of musicians, and miscellany.

• WNUR's People of Jazz Index
  
• Peter Stubley's European Free Improvisation Homepage is a goldmine of information on such artists

Anthony Braxton and the Tri-Centric Foundation
There are two pages devoted to Bay Area clarinetist/composer Beth Custer. This one, and the one maintained by Ponk
Avant-garde rock ensemble Doctor Nerve, led by Nick Didkovsky
New York tenor saxophonist and composer Ellery Eskelin
Multi-instrumentalist/composer Zusaan Kali Fasteau has a page maintained by KZSU's own DJ Cat
Malcolm Humes' unofficial Fred Frith page
Bay Area Shakuhachi improvisor Phil Gelb
Bay Area pianist Vijay Iyer
The Senators page of information on soprano saxophist Steve Lacy
New York guitarist Gary Lucas
Bay Area saxophonist Dan Plonsey of The Manufacturing of Humidifiers, Dreamland, etc.
Undoubtedly the strangest improv duo ever to come out of Chattanooga: The Shaking Ray Levis
Bay Area guitarist John Shiurba of Eskimo, Ebola Soup, etc.
The highly entertaining home page of Bay Area composer Carl Stone
Musician, astrophysicist, and glamour-girl Dr. Fiorella Terenzi
Unofficial John Zorn page

This is but a subset of the exhaustive page of links to record labels maintained by A Rancid Amoeba.

These links are to pages maintained by the labels. The quality and usefulness of the pages vary widely. Those pages that I've found particularly helpful or interesting are in boldface. This is not a comment on the quality of the music on these labels. You'll also find some excellent information on labels specializing in European free improvisation on Peter Stubley's page. If you're looking for information about recordings on FMP, Incus, Scatter, and so on, Peter's page is where to start.

Other KZSU DJs
KZSU's renowned guide to college and community radio stations in the Bay Area and elsewhere

What follows is a list of links to radio stations which support to at least some extent the kind of music that was featured on Hammer, Anvil & Stirrup. (boldface = netcast available)

KALX, Berkeley, California

KCIA, Valencia, California

KCMU, Seattle, Washington
   Outer Limits, hosted by James Wood
   Jazz Theatre, with Eric Boyer

KFJC, Los Altos Hills, California

KPFA, Berkeley, California, especially
   Ears Wide Open, hosted by Carl Stone and
   the Free Form Music Mix with Mike Burma

KTRU, Houston, Texas
   Jazz Show

KUCI, Irvine, California (netcast "coming soon")
   Philharmonic Infierno, hosted by Dan Young

KUSF, San Francisco, California

KUSP, Santa Cruz, California, primarily for
   Out Front, Out Back, hosted by Larry Blood

WFMU, East Orange, New Jersey
   Unpopular Music, with Kenny G

WHPK, Chicago, Illinois

WKCR, New York, New York

WNUR, Evanston, Illinois
   Jazz Show

WORT, Madison, Wisconsin
   RTQE, with Greg Taylor

WRCT, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

WREK, Atlanta, Georgia

The concert calendar for creative music in the Bay Area that I started has been graciously taken over by Craig Matsumoto.

Beanbender's is the premier venue for improvised and other adventurous music in the Bay Area. They hold concerts on Sunday evenings in the Berkeley Store Gallery Annex, in downtown Berkeley. The web site contains schedules and much more.
Radio Valencia is a wonderful little cafe in the Mission district of San Francisco. They have an excellent, long-running series of jazz and improvised music on Saturday nights.
Yoshi's generally gets the big-name jazz bookings. It's where you must go to see Anthony Braxton or Cecil Taylor when they come to town, whether or not you want sushi, whether or not you want to hear the casual fan at the next table talking over the music.

Elsewhere

Amsterdam: The Bimhuis: The Platonic form of music venues. Now if they'd only netcast concerts.
Amsterdam: The IJsbreker: Another wonderful Amsterdam venue, where 20th Century chamber music is the focus.
New York: The Kitchen: Venerable home to the avant-garde in music, dance, performance, film, and more.
New York: The Knitting Factory ... if you've read this far there's nothing I need to tell you about this place.
New York: Roulette: It drives me crazy that even the most knowledgeable outside music fans will see anything at the Knitting Factory while visiting New York yet remain completely unaware of Roulette, a stone's throw away. The programs here are not nearly as frequent but are of uniformly high quality. In other words, no week-long runs for Juliana Hatfield. Best of all, they netcast concerts

Concert Calendars

Aside from Craig's Bay Area concert calendar, I know of the following:

Chicago
Seth Tisue's Chicago Now
New York
Art Attack's Jazz NYC
Philadelphia
The Monday Night Performance series
Philadelphia and Baltimore
Toshi Makihara's New Music Philadelphia/Baltimore

The newsletter of Asian Improv aRts
Cadence magazine
The Theremin home page
Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening page
European Jazz Network
Japanese Free Improvisors
Jazzfacts, from the Netherlands and partly in Dutch.
The excellent Accordion Music Appreciation Page
Classical, Jazz, and avant-garde accordion links
An essay on Ernie Bushmiller and Nancy
Film Forum (New York)
Film Critic J. Hoberman's Top Ten Lists, 1977-1996
Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley)
Orangutan Foundation International
Jean-Luc Godard

R.I.P. Klee, 1990-1997