The Broadcast

The realization of a few long-term ideas, The Broadcast is a 3-hour album centered around the play-by-play description of a single baseball game (Mets vs Marlins, 5/31/2015). The play-by-play was done live during the game as a real sportscaster would do, the main difference being that I was watching the game on television with the sound muted and therefore my version doesn’t have any sounds of the crowd or cracks of the bat or peanut vendors or anything. Instead, each half inning of the game is set to its own instrumental music: some of it composed, some improvised, some just me, some with a full band. The result is a very unique spoken-word record resembling a radio drama. It is available in download format only: special for this release, a set of 20 baseball cards was produced, each card containing a download code corresponding to one of the songs. The cards are sold in wax packs, each containing 7 cards (and some containing rarities like error cards and autographs!). Packs are available here at the store and at concerts. Click over to samkulik.com/baseball to learn more and to start downloading once you have cards! This project is more or less the biggest, craziest thing I’ve produced and I’m very proud to share it with all of you.

Escape From Society

This band is inspired by the song-poem phenomenon of the ’70s and ’80s, in which everyday people would respond to magazine ads seeking lyricists. Random songwriters would then write and record songs with the received lyrics, and the demo-quality recordings that resulted are fascinating. For this band, I advertised on craigslist and wrote songs for the lyrics that were sent to me. “Escape From Society” is a title borrowed from a classic song-poem sung by Ron Davis, chosen because of the general vibe in a lot of the lyrics I got about wanting things to be different, or wanting to get out of a situation that isn’t going right. Music, as I see it, is also an escape from society for a lot of people because of the subjective, personal experience of listening. The same is true for me as a player and performer as the normal parts of my brain sort of shut off as I get deeper into the music.

The Wild Goats (website)

The Goats evolved from a previous band, Dubl Handi, when I came on board with the tuba. The tuba and banjo compliment each other tremendously and we have augmented a repertoire of traditional banjo and Americana classics with original tunes and adaptations of non-American folk music.

The Western Enisphere

A septet of bass trombone, bass clarinet, double bass, viola, two guitars, bongos, and laptop, the Western Enisphere performs long-form explorations of sonic phenomena at the behest of composer/performer David First. The slow moving drone-based music focused on microtonal intonations and polyrhythmic pulses. The experience is very overwhelming in a pleasant way as we really dive in to the physics of the sound being created, seeking to push and pull it around with subtle adjustments of volume, pitch, and tone.

The Band Books (website)

Certain writing is sometimes praised as “lyrical,” but as readers we are often not conciously attuned to the rhythm of our books; the way words, sentences, paragraphs, and pages convey a rhythmic structure as essential to the writing as the meaning of the words themselves. The Band Books seeks to foreground these “rhythms behind the words” by accompanying children’s books (some classics, some new) with a rollicking musical soundtrack. Our first album features 8 such books and we often perform in NYC at schools and family events.

Carate Urio Orchestra (website)

Founded by Joachim Badenhorst as a way to collate some of the players he was working with in different settings, CUO is a supergroup of creative improviser/composers with three phenomenal albums on the Klein label. Natives of Belgium, France, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Iceland, and the US, the bandmembers sing in their native tongues, creating a unique sung landscape to compliment the group’s signature instrumental sound.

Talibam! and Sam Kulik

I met Matt Mottel at a burrito bar in Ohio in 2004. He had already started Talibam! with Kevin Shea, and they are an amazing pair to watch and work with. We toured together a little bit in 2008 and decided to make a record together. In my mind it was going to be like one of those classic jazz records where two bands are brought together: “Ellington and Coltrane,” that kind of thing. But the ideas kept escalating and we wound up with “Talibam! and Sam Kulik Discover AtlantASS,” an 80-minute disco free jazz epic story party concept record that took us 2 years to make. We put it out on Belly Kids, who made an awesome 30-page comic book to go along with the story. It also became a theater piece which toured and had a 2-week run at the legendary Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York City.

The Talking Band (website)

The Talking Band is a theater company formed by three former members of the Open Theater: Ellen Maddow, Tina Shepherd, and Paul Zimet. Their theater almost always involves live music, usually presented on stage among the actors. I did a show with them in 2005 called “Delicious Rivers,” and another in 2012 called “The Peripherals.” In the show the seven members of the cast play a band called The Peripherals who all seem to think that what they are doing is kind of accessible and normal and mainstream. But their songs are about subjects like losing your keys or finding a $10 bill in your dog’s shit. They’re all total weirdos and it’s hilarious. Ellen Maddow wrote it and there is a cast album!

Nervous Cabaret (website)

Ecstatic Music for Savage Souls. I missed out on the early years of Nervous Cabaret when they were playing 150+ shows in New York annually but got involved with the band for the album “Drop Drop,” which is one of the best records I’ve ever played on. Nervous is basically a primal horns and drums rock band with an incredible singer and guitarist wailing over top of the rest of us, Elyas Khan. Go check out “Sleepwalkers” on my listening page and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Bash The Trash (website)

I am thrilled to be a member of Bash The Trash, an environmental arts organization and also a band, that has existed since the early 1990s. The instruments we play are made from found objects (read: TRASH), and many of our performances are in front of school groups where we can discuss sustainability, the science of sound, and how to reexamine one’s relationship to her surroundings. Since I have joined the group we have made a studio album you can check out, along with copious documentation of our instruments; how they’re built and played.