Ava Mendoza, Recorded Live

The ecstatic guitar virtuoso, Ava Mendoza stopped by the studio for a Playing Hooky livestream session on June 17, 2016. Recorded live straight from the shipping container/recording studio in the idyllic garden at Pioneer Works, at the end of her set Mendoza was joined by contrabassist Devin Hoff.

Ava Mendoza plays guitars and stompboxes, and writes music. She has played guitar for most of her life, and for the last decade has been actively playing her own music, as well as with different groups. She has toured throughout the U.S. and Europe, and recorded or performed with a broad spectrum of musicians including singer Carla Bozulich (The Geraldine Fibbers, Evangelista), Fred Frith (Massacre, Henry Cow, Art Bears), Nels Cline, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Weasel Walter, Tune-Yards, and more. She has played on recordings released by labels Weird Forest, Tzadik, Clean Feed, NotTwo, ugEXPLODE, Resipiscent, New Atlantis, and others. In 2011 Mendoza was named one of Guitar World‘s 10 Female Guitarists You Should Know. She is based in Brooklyn, NY.

Devin Hoff is a musician and songwriter born whose main instruments are double bass and bass guitar. He has worked in many musical contexts and with a wide array of jazz, free jazz, avant-garde rock, and folk musicians, including Nels Cline, Vijay Iyer, Xiu Xiu, Carla Bozulich, Ben Goldberg, Howard Wiley, and Good for Cows. He wrote and recorded an album of solo double bass music, Solo Bass (2009), and continues to perform in that medium.

Clocktower Radio's Playing Hooky is a bi-monthly, live in-studio performance series, streamed live on Clocktower Radio at clocktower.org. The programs are offered as a distraction from the work-week blues, and recorded, collected, and posted to this page alongside insightful interviews with the performers. Past episodes include performances from Frankie Cosmos, Helado Negro, Ikue Mori, Ned Rothenberg, and many more.

•