Bill Laswell To Tour in “Defiance”

East and west coast dates, plus a live album, in September

By Blurt Staff

Bill Laswell fans in New York, L.A. and San Francisco get a rare treat next month when the legendary producer/bassist tours the U.S. for the first time in three years. "Tour" used lightly - it's only four dates (see below).

He's calling the touring ensemble Method of Defiance: Laswell on bass with Dr. Israel on vocals, the legendary keyboardist Bernie Worrell, drummer Guy Licata, trumpeter Toshinori Kondo,  and vocalist Hawk, with special guest DJ Krush. Method Of Defiance will also release a live album, Nihon on RareNoise Records in the U.S. on September 22nd.  The band will be recording a studio album for a 2010 release. The band recently played a triumphant show at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, after which Island Records founder Chris Blackwell said simply, "It's Bill Laswell's time."

The Morning News has a good article on Laswell and MoD HERE.

The backstory:

Bill Laswell is man who is happy not to play the rock star game, instead opting to set his own rules and goals.  Blackwell cited Laswell as the "consummate musician who's around completely for the music...he never stops working and never stops reinventing himself." While he's an electric bassist/producer/reconstructionist/sound assassin who operates outside the rules of the game, occasionally Laswell's work meets the mainstream. In fact, there's more than a good chance that many own one of Laswell's sonic escapades and don't know it. He's a Grammy Award winner and the creator of Herbie Hancock's Rockit/Future Shock.  He brought Proto-Turntablism and Electronica to a mass audience, and since then has worked with an unimaginable range of musicians, artists and thinkers, among them William S. Burroughs, Afrika Bambaataa, John Zorn, George Clinton, Mick Jagger, Rammellzee, Zakir Hussain, Paul Bowles, Hakim Bey, The Ramones, Laurie Anderson, The Last Poets, John Lydon, The Dalai Lama, Peter Gabriel, Ryuchi Sakamoto, Motorhead, Brian Eno, Tony Williams, Sting, Carlos Santana, Pharoah Sanders, Bootsy Collins and hundreds more from the Americas, Africa, The Caribbean, Europe, The Middle East, China and Japan.

Tour Dates:

September 11        Brooklyn, NY               Williamsburg Music Hall
September 12        New York, NY             Bowery Ballroom
September 16        Los Angeles, CA         Roxy
September 18        San Francisco, CA      Regency Ballroom