BenKN and Friends play shows around New England

I’m excited to announce that I will be embarking on a solo mini-tour around New England next week!  For some shows, I’ll be performing with my good friends The Pleasants and Let’s Get Married.  I’ll also have new silkscreen artwork to show (printing it as I write this – I’ll post images next week)!

Also, this weekend is Solar Fest – a solar powered art and music festival in Tinmouth, VT.  This will be my 3rd year there and I can see it being a Karis-Nix tradition for many years to come…. this year I’m performing in addition to showing art and clothing designs!

Complete show information at the bottom of this page or available at www.benkn.com

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My Friend’s Amazing Clothing Line – Stay Vocal

For those who haven’t heard from me about this yet, my buddy Alex just launched a new website for his clothing line.  Really inspiring!

Check it out at www.stayvocal.com

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Other News around Albany, NY:

Sea of Trees CD Release / WEXT Birthday!

@ Valentine’s, Albany, NY – Saturday, July 17

Double whammy! w/ these guys who are also righteous: Sgt. Dunbar, The Rain in Spain, Barons in the Attic.   More info here…

The Pleasants, the Red Lions, & Let’s Get Married

@ Valentine’s, Albany, NY  - Sunday, July 18

My near and dear friends Amanda Rogers and Mike Matta have a beautiful new project.  They call themselves the Pleasants.  Sooo wonderful… they knocked my socks off a couple weeks ago when I saw them perform. I’m super proud and excited for those guys.  *single tear*

They’ll be playing Valentine’s (Albany, NY) this Sunday night with…

… my buddy Tyler, who puts on the best shows in New Hampshire, with his outfit, Let’s Get Married. Let’s Get Married are awesome. I’d describe them as playful, lo-fi indie pop (along the lines of the Dead Milkmen) mixed with Vampire Weekend or the Strokes.

And then to heap perfection atop perfection, the Red Lions will also be bringing their ridiculously inspired talents to the bear on Sunday night.  I had fun helping to shoot some video for them not too long ago and was reminded how amazing they are.  Hope you can drop by on Sunday!

Take care,

BenKN

I just got back from my tour in Europe as a guest singer with the band, Arms and Sleepers.  It was amazing… and not without it’s share of adventure.  There’s some photos of the trip on my Facebook here … and a blog and some more pics the band posted here!

Also, hello to new people from this year’s LARAC festival!  It was raining but you guys were undeterred, and are thereby dubbed “the champs.”  Thanks for stopping by!

Just wanted to send a couple quick notes about some upcoming shows.

Tomorrow night, I’ll be at the Troy Riverfest (Troy, NY) showing my clothing designs and painting on the sidewalk (can’t find a web link, but it’s a chalk drawing competition… what should I draw?  Any ideas?)

…and then tomorrow night I’m performing with some good friends at

Red Square in Albany, NY!  Music starts @ 8pm!  It’s also a birthday show for our friend Becca so there’s free cake – open to all!

Here’s a link to download songs for free! (Free for one more week!)

Then next weekend at Art on Lark, also in Albany, I’ll have some new silkscreen poster art available.  Come find me!

Here’s a list of shows and art events currently on the books:

Sat June 19 – Troy, NY – showing art @ Troy Riverfest

Sat June 19 – Albany, NY – performing @ Red Square

Sat June 26 – Albany, NY – showing art @ Art on Lark

Fri July 9 – Greenfield, MA – performing & showing art @ Rockfest

Sat July 17 – Tinmouth, VT – performing & showing art @ SolarFest

Thu July 22 – Dover, NH – performing @ Dover Night Out

Fri July 23 – Kittery, ME – performing at Buoy Gallery

Sat Jul 31 – Amsterdam, NY – performing at Riverlink Park

Thanks and take care!

BenKN

For those who aren’t familiar, Arms and Sleepers are Boston-based electronic artists (a duo, actually, who bring along extra musicians and vocalists on their tours). Their performances utilize programmed beats, synth patches, chimes, and abstract atmosphere to put down a bed of sounds that, combined with projected visuals, creates a very immersive and transcendental experience for their live audience. My newer solo music pursues some of these qualities, but A & S really strips away traditional song structure. Though it typically ramps and relaxes in a fairly intuitive way, it’s definitely unencumbered by normal conventions, which has been a nice experience for me.

There were definitely some other firsts for me on this tour, too. The thing I thought about the most was how I usually find that the process leading up to a show to be fairly routine, and then the show itself to be something you have to navigate and steer along the way, by communicating with your audience, reading the crowd, adjusting the set-list as you perform. But this tour was totally the opposite. There were so many logistical hurdles – long drives, little sleep, parking on narrow streets, unloading a ton of gear, setting up a very complicated back line, soundchecking a very nuanced sound-situation on variable PA’s, multiple instruments – that performing was often the most predictable and relaxing part of the trip!

This was, in part, because we usually played a pre-formatted hour and a half set, all synched to the projector, which beamed abstract video clips to support the music behind us. There were no lights on us other than the projector, so this whole set up lent itself to being a set which, though difficult to prepare, was a ride everyone took together without any ability (or the need) to change anything. We’d just go up, play our parts, try to loose ourselves in the music – no need to worry about much other than paying attention to your entrances and such, because once you hit start there’s no stopping the computers and projector. Very different than my aforementioned experiences as a performer, and a nice experience to have, for sure.

I really liked the visual component. Having visuals as part of the show is something I’ve thought about for a long time and, indeed, have thought about for my next record… I’m totally hooked, they add so much! The visuals were edited by Max, from the band, who found the source material, processed it, and chopped it up. While we were rehearsing in Maine, I happen to have some videos and animations I’ve made in the past on my hard drive, so I was able to contribute source material for this tour – it was very cool to see it blown up behind us, such as this video for the song, Steal Me. I was going to wait for my next record to be finished to start adding visuals to future shows, but now that I’ve seen the projections in action, I really want to get it going right away so I’m chopping up images and clips from an online graphic novel that will be released with my new music (this Fall) … needles to say, I’m very excited, can’t wait to share it with you!

So, all that said, this tour has been very valuable for me, allowing me an opportunity to perform in a different way, catalyzing ideas that had incubating in my mind for a long time, not to mention the beautiful drives and wonderful people… so a big-time thank you to Arms and Sleepers for the opportunity to come out with them on this pan-European tour, and many thanks to all the beautiful people we met on our travels – the audiences, promoters – everyone was so appreciative and had very kind and sincere things to say to us.

I’m still going through all the photos and videos I took, but so far here’s where you can find some of the images and clips I’ve posted – I’ll be sure to put some up on MySpace, too…

Facebook Album: Arms and Sleepers w/ BenKN European Tour, Spring 2010

Thank you, everyone, hope to see you again soon and keep in touch!!!

Click here to download!

Hey friends, because I’m meeting so many new people on my tour with Arms and Sleepers, I wanted to offer all the people I’m meeting throughout Europe (and anyone else, too) a chance to download my music for free!  I hope you enjoy the music and please share with your friends!  Great meeting you all, we’re having a great time out here.  Here’s some other links you might want to check out so we can keep in touch…

Facebook: www.facebook.com/benkn

MySpace: www.myspace.com/benkarisnix

Twitter: www.twitter.com/benkarisnix

Thanks!

-Ben

Mirza and Max of the band have enlisted their friend Kyle and myself to play drums and sing, respectively, to fill out their sound for an ambitious month of touring throughout central Europe… our first show starts tomorrow so I just retouched the website a bit to make it easier to post photos and videos during our travels. I don’t have all the dates up on my site, but they’re all listed here at Arms and Sleepers MySpace page if you want to check our schedule. For those of you outside of Europe, I hope you can follow along with us on our travels on the website!

Talk soon,
-Ben

Check back here or on my Facebook page for photos!

-Ben

PS: sorry for the no-contact over winter…. I tend to hunker down over the coldest months but I’m thawed and back in action.  Some exciting news to share on the music front… more later… promise!

So… way back in 2008 some of you may remember a hypothetical “password” that I suggested giving to people to access a back catalog of tunes, demos, b-sides, etc. Well, in typical Ben KN fashion, that didn’t come together until 2010. I had some troubles getting it to work, but, BEHOLD! It now functions properly to delivereth bonuses for the multitudes.

Click here to visit the new “downloads” page and for info about passwords!

Even though most of you who ordered things over the past couple years didn’t hear about said password, I’ll be gettng in touch over email to send friends, fans, and past costumers a unique password they can use to get extra stuff (not sure if I can find info for people who bought tracks on iTunes, though). Feel free to email me [benkarisnix@gmail.com] if you can’t wait that long, or if you ordered through a digital retailer. And if you wish, share your password with any friends that you think would enjoy the songs… or have them email me and I’ll make up a new one for them.

Sidebar: for you NY-ers out there, good show in Albany on the January 30th with myself, Brian Bonz & John Brodeur… some new tunes to share! Here’s the facebook event:

Concerned that our caravan remained ill-prepared for our skyward journey, we stopped in the village of Hanaford, where we procured additional rations of indigenous foods such as “granola bars” and “Recess Peanut Butter Cups.” These foods served merely as a supplement to our normal foodstuffs of “hummus,” gifted to us on an earlier occasion by the Tribe of Two Sheiks. Though satisfied with our new supplies, we also happened upon Mr. Dunkin, who, against our better judgement, seduced our morning appetites with sweet breads and desert pastries. I cannot deny they were delicious, but with time against us we had little time for pleasantries and, after an initial indulgence out of courtesy, we politely excused ourselves from his fragrant abode.

Finally satisfied, we proceeded to base camp and readied our gear for the assent. The landscape was tranquil and lush with autumn’s palate. Enchanted, we gave little heed to our casual suspicion that at higher altitudes a frostier environ may await us. Thankfully, some small voice of conscience compelled us to pack a few valuable items which saved us from harm. Indeed, as we climbed, soil gave way to snow, and golden leaf to alpine bough.

The path was steep, and the temperature dropped rapidly, yet we persevered, donning additional garments as needed. Finally, near exhaustion, our spirits were buoyed as the trees gave way to reveal a new terrain. Astonished, we found ourselves in a magical, skyward universe apart from natural world of forests and animals, nor any artifact of modern civilization. Our new world was one of cobbles, ice, and frosted stones.

Circumventing a scant nestle of shrubby pines, we even discovered a small, frozen pond. With exhaultation we careened across the ice, delighting in this unexpected encounter, while at the same time resting our legs from the climb.

Refreshed, we strode the remaining path to the summit.  Thus seated on the treeless mountaintop, our eyes poured over the impossible ribbons of distant, curled Earth below.  From this vantage I took a moment to send message back to civilization via a mechanism akin to carrier pigeons of old. Its “tweet” was duly received. This gave me pause, as I pondered the technological powers of humankind posited in ironic contrast to the wonders beheld in the absence of humanity’s reckless footprint.

After a quick meal on the crown of Mt. Eisenhower, we made our slow descent. It was a difficult journey to base camp, but the required levels of concentration to navigate the ice had the effect of contracting time, so that we quickly found ourselves back in the forests below. Upon completion of our journey, our bond as fellow spirits dedicated to exploring new frontiers and, indeed, the very boundaries of human endurance, was sealed, and we vowed to reconvene in the Spring of next year for another expedition into the heart of hither-to unknown countries.

Save Our City Video