Photo by Jam Willem Doormembal, used under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC 2.0
To celebrate the 18th year of Ball of Wax Audio Quarterly, and what I hope will be a new era of even deeper collaboration and community, I am excited to announce that we are seeking submissions for Ball of Wax Volume 69, which I am co-curating with Gail Tsai, aka DJ Tsairen.
You may have noticed this ‘quarterly’ hasn’t released a new volume since last June. After 17 years of being almost exclusively the sole curator and producer of Ball of Wax, including two pandemic years of continuing to produce four volumes a year, no matter what, I decided I needed to change approaches. I want more people to be part of this thing, not just as musicians, but helping shape what Ball of Wax is, in whatever way they might be up for. I realized I needed to pause the quarterly release schedule in order to do that, and since then I’ve realized that maybe Ball of Wax doesn’t need to come out four times a year. Maybe some years it will be two, or three, or even one. I want each volume to have a unique curatorial voice and focus, and to culminate with an engaging and inviting live event to celebrate its release. I want to try taking the time to give each release its proper due, to make each event special.
Gail has graciously agreed to collaborate with me on the curation of this volume, and has been an incredibly helpful partner in helping to figure out what the future of Ball of Wax might look like. We will both be reaching out to the community and the world to spread the word, and we will review the submissions together to come up with a final collection, which will be released at a live music extravaganza, ideally this spring, but really . . . whenever it’s time.
The theme for this volume is: Duos. There are no stylistic, genre, instrumental, or other restrictions on music to be submitted, just that it be made by two people (and that we, you know, think it rules.)
Looking for a duo partner? If you’re feeling adventurous, please let us know if you’d like to be paired with another such soul to collaborate with on a new, Ball-of-Wax-facilitated work. Let us know if you prefer remote or in-person collaboration, and, if the latter, where you’re based. We make no promises, but if this works out it could be super fun and cool!
Deadline:Saturday, April 1
Submission Guidelines: here
Please let us know when you send your music if you would like to perform at the Ball of Wax 69 release celebration.
Please spread the word! We can’t wait to hear what you submit.
Hello, I’m interested in being paired with a duo partner. I am open to remote or in-person and I am located in Seattle (in the Columbia City area). Thank you.
Hello ,
Where is the submission link ?
Sorry, I’m a dingus and somehow didn’t include the link in this blog post (now fixed). Here: https://ballofwax.org/about/