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2001-04-20 -
Hi, my name is Micah Holmquist and I don't know why I am doing this I just came across diaryland while doing a search for "peter brotzmann" on google. (More on why I was doing that search in just a bit.) I had long thought about doing a web log but never really got started but I guess that has changed if you are reading this right now. (From here on out in this entry, all places are in Michigan unless otherwise stated.) I'm 24 years old and a journalist living in Chicago, Illinois. Some of the web sites that I write for with some regularity are allaboutjazz.com, Bad Subjects, jazzreview.com, jazzweekly.com, One Final Note, and Wiretap. I also have a personal web site that includes a lot -but not all- of the stuff that I have written. It hasn't been updated in a while for various reasons. I was born in Ludington which is right on Lake Michigan. I spent a little over the first 7 years of my life in Scottville which is just a few miles from Ludington. Scottville is best known for being to the Scottville Clown Band. When I was 7 my mom and I -I'm an only child- moved to Hastings -a town roughly 30 miles south of Grand Rapids- because my father -who I like to call the Big Gahuda or just Big G- had been transferred for his job. Big G had already been living in Hastings for a little bit. Once in Hastings, I repeated first grade because I hadn't learned to read to a satisfactory level the year before. Interestingly enough, in Hastings, I not only leaned out to read but also began to really love reading. Before the start of third grade, my mom and I moved to Cadillac where, once again, my father had already been living for a little while because of a job. In 1998, my family got a wonderful little dog named Lucky who had provided all three of us with constant and uncountable joy. I stayed in Cadillac through high school before leaving in 1996 to attend the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Maybe it was my fault and maybe it was just bad luck but, on the whole, I never really liked UM. There were lots of good times but also lots of bad times. I did, however, meet some great people and realize that I wanted to be a journalist while attending UM so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. I moved to Chicago this past January because I needed a change and to get some more experience in journalism which I am doing both through freelance work and at a publication called the Chicago Reporter. The city is really impressive and, whenever my thoughts drift to this fact, I am amazed and impressed. Perhaps in the future I will write more about me and provide more background on the past but for now suffice to say that, amongst other things, I like music, comic books and outsider art, publications and this strange thing we call the Internet, bagels, pears and apricots, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches sans the jelly, macaroni and cheese, Zingerman's, fine beverages of many kind but especially ginger ales, The Big Man who has consistently made me laugh even when I didn't want to live, Homer, Chief and his son Ralph, and monkeys and mugwumps. Now, as to why I was searching for "peter brotzmann". Well last night I attended the first night of the "Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music" at a punk slash avant jazz club on the west side of Chicago called -in a real shocker- the Empty Bottle. The final performance of the night was Fred Anderson plus the Die Like a Dog Trio of Peter Brotzmann, Hamid Drake, and William Parker. They put on a fiercely enjoyable set that wowed the crowd. Anyway that is how I got to searching for "peter brotzmann." Even more impressive than that performance was a brief set by Hans Koch, Joost Buis, and Wilbert de Joode. This trio attacked the music with plenty of dissonance while not becoming a blowout. It is shame that their performance lasted less than thirty minutes. I will write more about this festival as a whole and post the link in a future entry. Hopefully somebody is reading this. Don't hesitate to write me.
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