Ball of Wax Audio Quarterly

Photo by Andy Maguire, used under Creative Common License Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Greetings old friends, new friends, and strangers!

First, a quick note: For those of you following along, work on Ball of Wax Volume 69 continues at the pace demanded by thoughtful collaboration and uncontrollable life events. Thanks to all who submitted for your patience!

In the meantime, it is time to send out the call for Volume 70!

Continuing Ball of Wax Audio Quarterly’s commitment to greater collaboration and inclusivity, and supported by a 4Culture Arts Projects grant, Ball of Wax is accepting submissions for Volume 70, a compilation of music by trans/non-binary musicians in Washington State, curated by Mia Rose Malone.

Mia writes, “I want this compilation to represent and celebrate the diversity and radical creativity that is wholly unique to trans/non-binary artists. It took me some time to adjust to everything that is being a trans woman and to feel stable and safe enough after transitioning to figure out where my life goes from here, and I’ve reached a point of clarity now that makes it clear to me that I want to spend my life doing whatever I can to lift up and increase trans visibility, because the more visible we are, and the more people see that we’re also just fucking human beings doing regular fucking human being shit, the safer we’ll all be.”

All profits from this project will go to Rainbow Railroad, a non-profit organization that helps at-risk LGTBQI+ people get to safety worldwide.

Deadline: Sunday, October 1
General submission guidelines: here

Please let us know when you send your music if you would like to perform at the Ball of Wax 70 release celebration, somewhere in King County this coming fall or winter.

• There are no stylistic, genre, instrumental, or other restrictions on music to be submitted, just that it be made by trans and/or non-binary-identifying artists residing in Washington State.
• If it’s a group project, not all members need to be trans/non-binary, but that identity should feel appropriate to you as a group.
• Brand new, unreleased work is great, but recently released music is fine too.
  All artists included will be paid. (We need to do some number-crunching to figure out the exact amount, but it will be somewhere in the $50-$100 range.)

Please, please, please spread the word to artists you think we should hear from.

We look forward to hearing what you send.

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.