photo by Natalia Almada

Well, it’s been a very successful week for Fully Altered client, guitarist Marc Ribot, who if you didn’t already hear, is celebrating his 55th birthday with a retrospective of projects he has led or co-led in the past (including Rootless Cosmopolitans and Shrek featuring Sebastian Steinberg, Mat Maneri, Shahzad Ismaily, Sim Cain, Christine Bard, Jim Pugilese, Roy Nathanson and Marc as ringleader, Los Cubanos Postizos and The Young Philadelphians with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and G. Calvin Weston); projects he is presently leading or co-leading (including the Marc Ribot Trio and Spiritual Unity (an Albert Ayler tribute band) featuring Henry Grimes, Roy Campbell and Chad Taylor, and Ceramic Dog, Marc’s “power trio” with bassist Ismaily and drummer Ches Smith) and projects he may lead or co-lead in the future (most notably Sun Ship, a late Coltrane “tribute band” with Taylor, Grimes and guitarist-on-the-rise Mary Halvorson and a slightly different lineup of Ceramic Dog with Hungarian violinist Eszter Balint).  All of the birthday shows have been packed so far and for that I’d like to thank some of the writers and publications who helped make these turnouts possible:

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