About a week ago I got a Myspace message from local guitarist extraordinaire Lyle Brewer to fill in for a cancellation at Toad here in Cambridge. I had a sore throat and was pretty sure I couldn’t sing most of my songs. Also, I was unprepared because of the short notice. I had been focusing on some new repertoire, and I was at a transition stage where I didn’t have my old or new material at 100%. But the show went fantastic. I got a really good response from the small crowd that was there, and I really needed this because my first few solo shows this year were sort of lackluster. Maybe they weren’t that bad, but they definitely weren’t anything great.

Anyways, Toad has been a local watering hole for me for the past few years, and I had been secretly wanting to play there for a long time. For the first time I did the kind of show I’d been wanting to do - combining instrumental pieces on the guitar, singing with the cello, and starting to cross over different genres. I had been tweaking the music for a month since my last show, and it seems like it came together a lot more this time. What I’d like to do now is to develop the repertoire more, and to get another hour of material. There are a few pieces I want to add in the next month: “Bagatelle 2″ by William Walton, “Fisherman” by Leo Kottke and “Cripple Creek” by Leo Kottke. The Bagatelle would be the first classical piece I put in my show, and I want to get more in there. It’s a modern piece, and has some hint of jazz. I think it will be a good bridge piece between other straight-ahead classical pieces I want to do and the folk stuff I’m doing. I want to start booking a few shows at some bigger performing arts centers in the summer, and I don’t want to walk on the stage with just a straight-up folk act. I’m going to try to do what I did at Toad, but bring some more interesting guitar pieces into the mix.

Another few minutes of your time squandered by the bus king…

This one was brought to my attention by Paul in Cambridge

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I figured I’d have something to hand to people when they ask where I’m playing at next and I have no clue. This lists my upcoming shows in the Spring, and my website. I have some more gigs in the works, but no confirmed date yet.

Gonna try to hand these to some booking agents at local venues too.

I found this gem on Youtube. This is mein fuhrer, Noam Chomsky on the history of marijuana in the United States

“There has NEVER been a medical reason for criminalizing marijuana.” I’d give anything to sit down and have a beer with this guy - this modern day prophet. Why is marijuana illegal while alcohol is not? Isn’t alcohol much more devastating on every level, be it physically, mentally and socially? And while we’re at it, why is marijuana illegal while Starbucks coffee isn’t? Every time I take a sip of Starbucks, I have to run home and have a rear-end explosion. This is not right.

I just wrote up this bio in the cafe for my About section:

I play mostly solo acoustic music, mainly because I don’t like to rehearse, I like to travel light, and I don’t like to leave the house unless I absolutely have to. This has been construed by some friends and family to be a form of laziness, and they would be correct. To be fair, I may also be a control freak, I have trouble focusing, and I change my musical identity about twice a month, which may make me virtually impossible to work with for any extended periods of time.

My music is rooted in American primitive, using the cello, and a several guitars. I love simple, raw music. I do branch out to some other genres…a typical set might include music from Nicolo Paganini, John Fahey, Primus, Django Reinhardt, The Carter Family, Bach, and whatever other artist I am into at the moment. In fact, I think part of what interests me in putting on a show is the challenge of juxtaposing music from different genres. This is done by programming the set list, and arranging the individual songs themselves, so that everything is hopefully cohesive and crosses over a bit. I also bring several instruments to my shows simply because I am worried the audience can get bored after 20-30 minutes of the same sound.

Besides the solo shows, I also collaborate with a few other artists, primarily my brother, Emil Altschuler, and Moss Mountain Project.

As far as me personally…I grew up being forced to play the cello. I played in orchestra, and had to take lessons. I hated every minute of it. I quit after highschool, but I picked up the guitar in college. About 2 years ago I picked up the cello again, playing it in a folk-guitar style. This technique, and a possible love-hate relationship I have developed with this instrument, seems to have given the music a dark, gothic sounding twist.

As a side note, I had a perfect, steady job as a computational biologist here at Harvard University for a few years. I loved that job, and I threw it all away to pursue a career in music. It is most probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.

This site is an experiment to see if I can support myself by busking over the internet. You can pay what you want for any song on my Music page, meaning after you hit the “Buy” button, you will have the option to edit the price to any value, including $0.00. Also, you can let me know I’ve done something right in the universe by donating via one of the tip jars to the left (PayPal or Amazon). If you have any questions or comments, shoot me an email, or comment on my blog. I hope you enjoy the music.

This is pretty cool: Caprice No. 20, which Emil and I recorded for his debut CD, has hit #1 on the “hot list” at thesixtyone.com for the classical genre. It is a piece by Nicolo Paganini, meant for solo unaccompanied violin, but we wrote a gypsy/jazz guitar accompaniment for it that I play on the steel string. Also, our Cantabile is close behind. We are at #20 in the “leaders” list in the classical genre. Overall, I am way back at #874. Anyways check it out. Make a profile. Bump your favorite songs (Ol’ Diamondback Sturgeon, Wayfaring Stranger, Country Blues). You can see mine at thesixtyone.com/thebusking

Here’s a video from when Emil and I were going around as “Ill Brutto.” This is Bill Monroe’s “You Won’t Be Satisfied That Way.” I’m on the 12-string in standard tuning, which hurts the hands. Emil’s on mandolin and came up with this awesome part…

The video is too dark, but the audio came out kinda nice.

For a few fleeting seconds, this video actually made me proud to be a Bostonian. Thank you, Boston Dynamics, for redeeming us:

Does anyone else find this astonishing? Wait for the parts where it actually recovers from someone kicking it in the side (really hard), and from a near spill on a patch of ice.

I cleaned up the music page, and the order form is ready to go. You can pay what you want for any song via Paypal or Google Checkout, with the option of setting the price to $0.00. I got rid of a few of the tracks that were bugging me. I just couldn’t stand behind the recording quality. I’m going to re-record a lot of stuff with better equipment and techniques. I also got rid of Emil’s and Moss Mountain Project’s CDs. I just thought it looked too confusing, but maybe I’ll add them later when I can figure out a way to make everything look more clear. For now I just have my slowly growing list of tracks.

I’ve created a profile on thesixtyone.com at thesixtyone.com/TheBusKing. This site is amazing, and I recommend it to any musicians. You upload your songs to your profile, and listeners can “bump” them up and down. It’s like a mashup between Digg and Myspace. Check it out. It’s lots of fun, and the user interface is really intuitive.