TAG is a twenty-years-running collective trio of major figures in edgy-sound-sculpture from New Orleans & Jackson, Mississippi: Bruce Golden, Will Thompson & Chris Alford. Their music is genuinely shockingly original, a shattered and scintillating amalgamation of shards from the worlds of jazz, gutbucket, electronica, Delta dirt and anything else near the kitchen sink.
Their recent release, "Deer Heads to Infinity", (recorded a decade ago after a string of Gulf-South concerts), was produced and engineered by Randy Everett, who produced the recent Grammy-winning album "Rawer than Raw" by Bobby Rush (Winner: Best Traditional Blues Album). In fact, Randy Everett has been a close studio and performance colleague and collaborator of Bruce Golden's for nearly four decades.
In the words of group-member Bruce Golden: "As Mississippi-born artists, we're always only a hop, skip, jump, swing, beat, or leap from tradition. We can get like dirt smells when it rains, a field burning, then like homeboy Milton Babbitt on a train out of town. We watch, listen to and absorb our places and spaces in order to paint stories of sound, because story-telling is how a creative culture imagines itself."
In the words of group-member Chris Alford: "Jung wrote about “...the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than chance...” and TAG chooses sound events and the ritual of performance to explore the meaningful experiences created in those moments. Curiosity, preparation, and experience guide TAG in their music together--not just coincidence or chance. The game still continues, sometimes with invitations to additional like-minded players for TAG-URIT, making the trio a quartet. But that's another story"
Bruce Golden (drumset(s)/multi-percussions, samplers, and random sound creators)
Born in Mississippi—refuses to leave.
Early musical influences are primarily the band music and vinyl of his youth: John Lee Hooker, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, Sun Ra, and Captain Beefheart.
His music often focuses on "intersections, juxtapositions, and contrasts of diverse/divergent elements on the space-time continuum," and "the ratio of process to product in (different styles of) music."
A music major at Jackson State University from 1975-1980, Golden grew strength from the leadership, wisdom, and support of Dollye Robinson, Kermit and Ellistine Holly, Nathan Brumfield, William “Prof” Davis, Emma Baham, and inspiration from numerous other faculty and students. While there, he embraced percussionist Alvin Fielder’s doctrine of “No Compromise” and continues to support his chosen musical endeavors by working as a library media specialist at Ida B. Wells Academic and Performing Arts Complex in Jackson, MS.
He has enjoyed long term musical partnerships with a number of groups and musicians and continues to work with George Cartwright (CURLEW), Rhonda Richmond (CASSANDRA WILSON), Lee Barber (the BARBERS), Evan Gallagher and Jeb Stuart (ARS SUPERNOVA/RAMESES LUKAS TRIO), Rob Cambre (ANXIOUS SOUND), Will Thompson and Chris Alford (TAG, DOT ORG), and the MISSISSIPPI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA.
William A. Thompson IV (keyboards, computers, banjos, electronics)
aka "Will Thompson," aka "WATIV"... Will had been a major force in New Orleans creative sound-art for over twenty years. He has been a top-call partner in music of all styles, as well as leading his own Project "WATIV" alongside Simon Lott, James Singleton & Chirs Alford, one-half of the two-headed monster known as "Trapper Keaper" (alongside Marcello Benetti), and fronting "the Red Organ Trio" for fifteen years. He has always, however, kept his feet anchored in his native Mississippi as well, in particular as a member of the "Doctrine Trio" for two decades alongside two true masters of the music: the late, great Alvin Fielder and Dr. London Branch.
Will also earned wide-praise and exposure for his "Baghdad Music Journal", which was a sound-memoir of material sourced from his time serving in the National Guard in Iraq circa 2004. The project was chronicled on NPR soon after and resonates still today.
Chris Alford -- (guitars, etc)
a sensitive devil, incomparably sleek and sneaky,m classy and devious.
a long-time member of such New Orleans projects as "WATIV" & "Palindromes," as well as countless others.
Also a core-member of the 20+ years running Mississippi power-trio Nekisopaya, Chris Alford is one of the most exhilarating guitar-artists in the Gulf South.
Together, they are TAG, and you should accept no substitute. It is a rare event indeed, and you should be there, or else be somewhere else decidedly-less-hip.
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