electricgauchos.com - the official Electric Gauchos website

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Electric Gauchos History
Founded by Steve Ball, Martin Schwutke, Fernando Kabusacki, Christian de Santis, and Fernando Samelea,
Electric Gauchos play original instrumental music for electric guitars and drums
spanning the genres of three continents.

Their LIVE CD Blue Orb features members of
Discipline Global Mobile Artists
Los Gauchos Alemanes and the League of Crafty Guitarists
and was compiled from LIVE shows in Buenos Aires and Seattle.
Blue Orb features new and classic Gauchos material arranged for loud electric guitars and drums.
Features guests including Bill Rieflin, Tobin Buttram, Trey Gunn and Tony Geballe.

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NEW: Press Kit

Electric Gauchos - 2004 Line-Up (Seattle)

Steve Ball | Fernando Kabusacki | Travis Metcalf | Derek DiFilippo | Fernando Samalea

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Rough Mixes: Recorded Live in Seattle, June 2004

San Justino(6.1M mp3)

Seven Ate Nine (6.9M mp3)

EGV2 Session One (16.1M mp3)

Not Bad for a Monday (7.1M mp3)

Not Bad for a Tuesday (8.3M mp3)

Not Bad for a Wednesday (2.71M mp3)

Shred Lock (19.8M mp3)

http://www.steveball.com

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Acknowledgments

Electric Gauchos
from the 1997 incarnation include

Martin Schwutke
Christian de Santis
Tobin Buttram
Bill Rieflin

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Special Thanks To

Barry Cleveland
Curt Golden
Hernan Nunez
David LaVallee
Seattle Guitar Circle
Paul @ Premier Soundworks

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In the works: Electric Gauchos Box Set featuring:

Blue Orb (Seattle and Buenos Aires, 1997)
Mendoza (long-form Improvisation, Buenos Aires 1997)
Not Bad for a Monday (Songs and Sketches, Seattle 2004)

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Electric Gauchos - 1997 Line-Up (Argentina)

Steve Ball | Fernando Kabusacki | Martin Schwutke | Christian de Santis | Fernando Samalea

PREVIEW: the new long-form Improvisation, "Mendoza" parts 1-9. These are Rough Mixes of for the Electric Gauchos Box Set, coming out early 2006

Mendoza, pt. 1 (3.9M mp3)
Tonight, beginning to mine the hour+ studio improvisations by Electric Gauchos, recorded in Buenos Aires, almost exactly seven years ago, in October of 1997 featuring Christian de Santis, Fernando Kabusacki, Martin Schwutke, and myself on electric guitars, and Fernando Samalea on drums.
Part I articulates the primary themes of this piece.

Mendoza, pt. 2 (5.6M mp3)
If you look closely at this picture in the songtile below, you can see a truck in the distance heading straight for the group. Life on the road in Argentina can be dangerous.

Part II presents the primary contrasting voice to the three main themes.

Mendoza, pt. 3 (9.4M mp3)
This third 'major/minor' theme appears and also re-appears in part six of this nine part improvisation.

Mendoza, pt. 4 (15.9M mp3)

Now, really getting into the deep heart of this improvisation.
Much of my work over the past year with the Seattle Guitar Circle was inspired and informed by these improvisations. Very little was said for these Electric Gauchos sessions; we showed up, plugged-in, and played. This nine part sequence that is unfolding one day at a time in this "Music Diary" unfolded in real time, live in the studio, almost exactly as I'm presenting it here -- all I'm doing in 'production' is mixing (making each individual instrument sound good relative to the other instruments) and discovering the natural transition points.

Mendoza, pt. 5 (4.3M mp3)
Getting even moodier as we approach and pass through the middle. This is really the great divide of the whole shebang, beginning with a burst of enthusiasm that eventually peters out into a musical metaphor of doubt, searching, and a dissonant loss of connection with where this melody began, and where it is eventually going.

Mendoza, pt. 6 (7.9M mp3)
Part six is a reintegration into the world: people enter the scene. Within this, the musicians deliver a driving persistent theme undisturbed by waves of distraction, indifference, and ambiguity. The major third will not stay down: it keeps poking up from beneath the noisy business busy-ness buried beneath the mundane ambient chatter of the outside world.

This Electric Gauchos songtile photo by Ingrid Pape-Sheldon.

Mendoza, pt. 7 (14.7M mp3)
I experience the process of this this work much like painting -- I'm barely aware of the effect these colors and shapes and meanings and messages may have on an observer (who is, by definition, in a future time and place from the one in which it's being rendered) -- but this interaction is not what drives or motivates or 'validates' the work.

Mendoza, pt. 8 (7.35M mp3)

These nine improvised Themes and Variations continue to evolve and unfold before my eyes and ears. In the home stretch now.
One approach I've been using as a guide in mixing:

Mendoza = Music for 18 Musicians x The Intercontinentals x Metal Machine Music

Mendoza, pt. 9 (4.4M mp3)

Nine days later, nine sections of a process that began exactly seven years ago, Parts I-IX, are now completed. End to end, there is 49'13" of remarkably coherent music, all improvised, from the first note to the last. Anyone who is both brave and with broadband might braid these nine segments together and get a pre-view of what the CD version may hold.
I take it as a given that the same people who may very well appreciate my recent previous pretty piano presentations from past weeks may find these long, growling, ambiguous-third-riddled all-electric-guitar-and-drum explosive electric explorations challenging, unlistenable, or boring. For me, hearing this unfolding intelligent dialog between four guitars + drummer, all speaking in -- and more importantly, listening to -- the same language, and seeking the same end, is both vital and energizing.

copyright 1997-2005 Electric Gauchos, Blue Orb Music Publishing, Ballistic Music

PREVIEW: the new long-form Improvisation, "Mendoza" parts 1-9. These are Rough Mixes of for the Electric Gauchos Box Set, coming out early 2006
	Mendoza, pt. 1 (3.9M mp3) Tonight, beginning to mine the hour+ studio improvisations by Electric Gauchos, recorded in Buenos Aires, almost exactly seven years ago, in October of 1997 featuring Christian de Santis, Fernando Kabusacki, Martin Schwutke, and myself on electric guitars, and Fernando Samalea on drums. Part I articulates the primary themes of this piece.
	Mendoza, pt. 2 (5.6M mp3) If you look closely at this picture in the songtile below, you can see a truck in the distance heading straight for the group. Life on the road in Argentina can be dangerous. Part II presents the primary contrasting voice to the three main themes.
	Mendoza, pt. 3 (9.4M mp3) This third 'major/minor' theme appears and also re-appears in part six of this nine part improvisation.
	Mendoza, pt. 4 (15.9M mp3) Now, really getting into the deep heart of this improvisation. Much of my work over the past year with the Seattle Guitar Circle was inspired and informed by these improvisations. Very little was said for these Electric Gauchos sessions; we showed up, plugged-in, and played. This nine part sequence that is unfolding one day at a time in this "Music Diary" unfolded in real time, live in the studio, almost exactly as I'm presenting it here -- all I'm doing in 'production' is mixing (making each individual instrument sound good relative to the other instruments) and discovering the natural transition points.
	Mendoza, pt. 5 (4.3M mp3) Getting even moodier as we approach and pass through the middle. This is really the great divide of the whole shebang, beginning with a burst of enthusiasm that eventually peters out into a musical metaphor of doubt, searching, and a dissonant loss of connection with where this melody began, and where it is eventually going.
	Mendoza, pt. 6 (7.9M mp3) Part six is a reintegration into the world: people enter the scene. Within this, the musicians deliver a driving persistent theme undisturbed by waves of distraction, indifference, and ambiguity. The major third will not stay down: it keeps poking up from beneath the noisy business busy-ness buried beneath the mundane ambient chatter of the outside world. This Electric Gauchos songtile photo by Ingrid Pape-Sheldon.
	Mendoza, pt. 7 (14.7M mp3) I experience the process of this this work much like painting -- I'm barely aware of the effect these colors and shapes and meanings and messages may have on an observer (who is, by definition, in a future time and place from the one in which it's being rendered) -- but this interaction is not what drives or motivates or 'validates' the work.
	Mendoza, pt. 8 (7.35M mp3) These nine improvised Themes and Variations continue to evolve and unfold before my eyes and ears. In the home stretch now. One approach I've been using as a guide in mixing: Mendoza = Music for 18 Musicians x The Intercontinentals x Metal Machine Music
	Mendoza, pt. 9 (4.4M mp3) Nine days later, nine sections of a process that began exactly seven years ago, Parts I-IX, are now completed. End to end, there is 49'13" of remarkably coherent music, all improvised, from the first note to the last. Anyone who is both brave and with broadband might braid these nine segments together and get a pre-view of what the CD version may hold. I take it as a given that the same people who may very well appreciate my recent previous pretty piano presentations from past weeks may find these long, growling, ambiguous-third-riddled all-electric-guitar-and-drum explosive electric explorations challenging, unlistenable, or boring. For me, hearing this unfolding intelligent dialog between four guitars + drummer, all speaking in -- and more importantly, listening to -- the same language, and seeking the same end, is both vital and energizing.
copyright 1997-2005 Electric Gauchos, Blue Orb Music Publishing, Ballistic Music