2016 was a huge year for Evil Clown. The first performance of a graphic score by PEK to be performed by the Leap of Faith Orchestra, The Expanding Universe, occurred in June. To prepare for the show, I put on 5 shows at the Nave Gallery of the Clarendon St Church in Somerville. Each of the shows featured Leap of Faith and one of the other Evil Clown Ensembles (String Theory, Metal Chaos Ensemble, Turbulence) where the smaller units performed shorter sets in the first hour and everyone played together for the second hour. The Church had plenty of space for a large ensemble and lots of equipment, so I rented a large U-Haul and brought a ton of the percussion gear… There were a lot of stairs for the load in, so after this series, I sought other venues for the full orchestra.

Turbulence, the ensemble which is mostly horn players, had its first session early in the year as a duet with Steve Norton and me at Evil Clown Headquarters (Vortex Generation Mechanisms). There were a couple of other performances and at the end of the year we debuted Turbulence Doom Choir which was me, two tubas, and Yuri on drums with lots of electronic processing.

Mid-year I switched our regular venue from the Lilypad to Outpost 186 which is right around the corner in Inman square. Outpost 186 is not as nice a space and had no beer, but it was much cheaper and persistent problems at the Lilypad about time of load-in were not a issue. For 5 years starting at the beginning of 2017, this was a once a month residency on the 3rd Saturday of the month.

Towards the end of the year, Mekaniks, the first Evil Clown Ensemble to be centered on electronic sounds and signal processing, had it’s first 3 sessions at Evil Clown Headquarters.

PEK – 1/9/2024