Welcome to MonkeyTown

Modal Kombat + 350 Duo + Pico Fermi

Saturday, July 18
Admission: Free, $10 minimum
Showtime: 10:30pm
reservations are recommended

Modal Kombat curates a hattrick of innovative new music featuring their revolutionary hybrid concert/public guitar-controlled video game battle. (Think guitar hero with real guitars). Bookending this show will feature acts from classical guitarists Three Fifty Duo and electro-pop artist Paul Feder aka Darth Feder aka Pico Fermi.

Modal Kombat
Modal Kombat is a hybrid concert/public video game competition in which real guitars control characters in popular video games. Referred to by Dominic Frasca as "a couple of trolls", guitarists David Hindman and Evan Drummond have developed technology that allows REAL guitars to control the characters in console video games. Modal Kombat lies at the intersection between music and digital media that results in the defining of a new genre of audio-visual performance: the public guitar-controlled video game battle.

The latest lineup includes PONG, MarioKart, Tetris, and of course, Mortal Kombat. Audiences from Paris to NYC to LA have come to expect a show filled with cartoon road rage, guitar tremolos, fatalities, red shells, ridiculousness and rasgeados... all in a musical style which has too often been described as alcohol-infused minimalism.

www.myspace.modalkombat.com
www.modalkombat.com

Three-Fifty Duo

Deemed "bad to the bone" by The New Haven Independent, Yale School of Music grads Brett Parnell and Geremy Schulick are a classical guitar duo with a rock edge.

Upon meeting they discovered a shared passion for Bach, and it seemed natural to form a duo, initially following their muse along the classical genre track. But neither was ready to abandon their rock upbringing which they so embraced. Believing that classical music and rock/pop music can be similar at their core, the duo combines the driving rhythms characteristic of rock music with the intricate textures of classical guitar. This evolution is most clearly apparent in their own compositions, such as Schulick's vigorous "Victory Drill," and is also evident in their fervent approach to more classical repertoire, such as their arrangements of keyboard works by J.S. Bach and Domenico Scarlatti. Since its inception Threefifty Duo has become recognized for charged performances and eclectic programming, continually expanding the classical guitar's audience and repertoire.

Both members live in New York City and have performed at a variety of venues across the country including The 92nd Street Y, The New York Guitar Festival, Southpaw, “Guitar Under the Stars” at The Connecticut Guitar Society, Pianos, The NY Classical Guitar Society, Genghis Cohen, The Monkey, The University of Colorado at Boulder, Zebulon, William Paterson University, California State University at Long Beach, Bennington College, and a Yale tribute concert for their mentor, Benjamin Verdery. This December Threefifty Duo set off for Bosnia and Herzegovina where they played a nationally televised concert organized by The America-Bosnia Cultural Foundation in Sarajevo’s celebrated Dom Armije, with a member of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina in attendance.

The duo is currently at work on their second studio album, entitled “Circles,” due out in the summer of 2009. The album, featuring all original compositions, was recorded at DV8 Studios in The Monkey compound and is being produced by Dominic Frasca.

http://www.threefiftyduo.com/

Pico Fermi

Pico Fermi is an NYC-based live electronic music project that includes founding member Paul Feder as well as guest artists and performers. Pico Fermi has performed live electro/pop/ambient music at gallery openings, fashion shows, yoga classes, and bar/lounges in the city.