Uncommon Ground ^ Seth

Seth
Seth
was raised in the dairy farm-dotted countryside of Wisconsin, surrounded
by the sounds of wind blowing through cornfields, cattle being led in
for milking, and classic rock radio. He sat on the front porch listening
and breathing in life in rural America. At seventeen, he picked up a guitar
and started singing along.
At
twenty-four, Seth moved to Chicago and was enveloped by the sounds of
buses, elevated trains, nine million people talking as they moved between
high-rise office buildings. In the city he heard the music of John Cage,
Pauline Oliveros, Tom Waits, Sonic Youth. Seth absorbed the the city just
as he had previously digested the country, and now the sounds of those
two worlds swirled inside him.
You'll
hear a lot of things at a Seth performance. You'll hear rock and country.
You'll hear folk music and performance art, spoken word and the blues.
At times this is all happening within the same song. What could be the
recipe for cacophany is not with Seth. Despite his love of genre-mixing,
in the end Seth is truly a lover of simplicity. Songs, born as elaborate
productions, are carefully stripped down until all that remains are the
absolutely essential elements. Nothing is there that isn't necessary.
He has said “I'm looking for the point at which I have provided the
least amount of audible information to the listener and am still able
to get the point across.” This relationship with spare production
gives Seth the ability to perform as a solo artist or with a band with
equal effectiveness and gives his recordings a haunting beauty.
Seth is fascinated by the religious and popular cultures he abhors. He is preoccupied
with the concepts of high and low art, but not trying to decide which
side to be on. Seth sits on the fence, stealing pies from the windowsills
on both sides. He is a painter and photographer, a folksinger and composer,
a poet and a vaudevillian. Some might call that being easily distracted,
but Seth always has several projects of disparate processes going at a
time. He prefers it that way, since they all inform each other in various ways and no one project is an island unto itself.
Seth
has released two CDs on his own label, epiglotic, and is about
to release a third. They are nowhere sometimes (to be released
early 2004), Cryin' Songs (2003), and consumerist
love poetry (2002).
Seth
has been performing in the Midwest for eight years. Below are some of
the venues at which he has performed or had visual work shown.
Glass
Layers Performance Festival (2003)—Chicago
12 Past Performance Festival (2002)—Chicago
The Ridiculist Banquet (2001)—Chicago
Underground Lounge—Chicago
Subterranean—Chicago
The Abbey—Chicago
Cue Club—Chicago
Beat Kitchen—Chicago
Morseland—Chicago
Excalibur—Chicago
Penny Road Pub—Dundee, IL
Christy's Landing—Madison, WI
Dudley's—Madison, WI
Mango Grill—Madison, WI
Turtle Tap—Beloit, WI
Gabe's—Iowa City, IA