Ava Mendoza is a guitarist, songwriter and composer, best known for her solo guitar/voice performances, and as the leader of the experimental rock band Unnatural Ways. Performing/recording credits include work with William Parker, The Bill Orcutt Quartet, Marc Ribot, Carla Bozulich, Fred Frith, Malcolm Mooney, Mike Watt, Nels Cline, John Zorn, Negativland, The Violent Femmes, and more. She has received composition commissions from film distributor Kino Lorber, Jazz Coalition, New Music Creator Development Fund, and John Zorn’s Stone Commissioning Series at National Sawdust, as well as an FCA Grant to Artists award.

Malcolm Mooney is a visual artist, poet, singer and lyricist. In the late 1960s/early 70s he was the original vocalist with the German rock group Can. Mooney has performed and exhibited extensively over the past 50 years, most recently with gigs in Paris, New York, London and Los Angeles, and exhibitions in Alberta, Dusseldorf and New York. Mooney is an instructor of abstract painting at Alberta University of the Arts; he received an MFA from California State University in 1987, and a BFA from Boston University’s School of Fine Arts and Applied Arts in 1979.