On the urging of a friend, Brad, I went to Union Pool last night with a soon-to-be-married friend, Hank, for the third night of a three night stand of Harvey Milk. I wasn’t disappointed.
Harvey Milk, and heavy, metal-ish music is not something I am all that familiar with. Lately, the closest thing to metal that I can claim honest appreciation and love for is the band called Earth. Brad had given me some of Harvey Milk’s music a couple years back and it sat, unlistened-to, in my iTunes until the announcement of these three shows. They’ve been around since the early 90s and I really didn’t know much about them other than some kind of cult-like following and Brad’s recommendation. I decided it was a thrice in a lifetime opportunity that I should take.
The opener was Luke Roberts. He played West Virginia Front Porch style music with an acoustic guitar and voice. His songs consisted of one progression repeated on the guitar and his singing. There was only ever one guitar part to the songs but the vocals and lyrics created verse and chorus. He was pretty good and at the end of his set had H.M. as his backing band for about three songs.
Harvey Milk was loud and quiet, angry and sweet, up and down. There were metal riffs, classic rock riffs, guitar solos, guttural vocals, and as-sweet-as-he-can-manage vocals. There even was a quiet period with an orchestral backing track. The ride was unpredictable and great. I was surprised at all turns. I was exhausted with jet-lag and was planning to leave early but after each episode of the show I was intrigued enough to stay for the next. The “Lord of the Strings” tee shirt was a clincher for me, too. All in all I like Harvey Milk.
So there you go, the second metal-ish band that I like. (That doesn’t count listening to Metallica while mowing the lawn at age 13.)
Last night Martin joined me at Le Poisson Rouge to see a performance by Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin. It was awesome.
I took a photo of the stage before they began. This is over the drum set towards the percussion setup. the band consists of Nik Bärtsch on piano, Kaspar Rast on drums, Björn Meyer on electric bass, Andi Pupato on percussion, and Sha on bass clarinet and alto sax (yes, “Sha”). Four of the guys are from Switzerland and Björn is Swedish.
The music is self-described “Ritual Groove Music” and is sometimes called “zen-funk.” All the compositions are “modules” titled Modul 48, Modul 52, Modul 27, etc.I choose to ignore these names and descriptions and focus on the sound of the music. Â To me, it’s a bit of jazz instrumentation and style combined with the repetitive rhythms of Steve Reich with a lot of mathyness in the way of polyrhythms and odd time signatures. It’s right up my alley. I discovered this music though a route I can’t remember anymore in September 2009 (thanks, last.fm, for keeping track for me) and was amazed as what I’d found. It seemed to be the perfect mesh for my sensibilities and I was instantly hooked. I’ve been waiting for the band to come to New York ever since.
The band was extremely tight and played perfectly. They weren’t reading music and had the music internalized. Live, the music is much like it is on record, but it was fascinating to watch it being created live. The percussionist and the drummer were so connected that they seemed to be two people playing one part. There were so many times that their parts complemented each other perfectly. They showed restraint when it was called for and went all-out when that was called for. Andi, the percussionist played a lot of different instruments and it was a lot of fun to watch him.
Here is a good photo (aside from the annoying watermark) of Andi at his setup. The thing hanging on the left is, I think, a waterharp or a waterphone. It must have water inside as well as a microphone. He would hit the ball part with a stick or his hand, and sometimes he’d rake a stick over the vertical things sticking up from it. It had an echoey, etherial sound that would add a cool tention to the music at times. The UFO-looking thing in front is a drum of sorts. He’d play it with a stick or his hands. Once, he rigged up a mallet on a fulcrum so that he could set it bouncing while playing other instruments. It would bounce progressively faster like a super ball dropped on the floor. that was a cool effect too. He played shakers of many kinds and chimes and the large frame-drum behind him, which was very bassy.
Björn played some extremely fast and busy basslines at times and at other times hung back and supported the groove. Sha would alternate between melodic passages and repetitive lines, sometimes laying out altogether. Nik, the composer and bandleader, played piano. Often, one or both of his hands would be inside the piano flicking or muting strings to good effect. His parts were arpeggiated and fast and sometimes just harmonic support. Each instrument had its role at any particular point in the music but those roles would change quickly and often. It was easy to zone out and just let the music wash over me.
Nik is inspired by the idea of a ronin, the name of this band. On his site, it says “There are two paths a samurai can walk: that of a clan member, and that of a ronin, a lonely warrior.” I guess Nik sees himself as that lonely warrior going into territory where nobody else has gone. He wore Japanese-style clothing at the concert.
They are also a perfect fit for the label that has put out their last three records, ECM. The production values of Manfred Eicher work well for this music.
I would highly recommend this music to anyone who has an inclination towards anything I’ve mentioned above (mathyness, jazziness, Steve Reichyness). I will most definitely see them next time they come to New York.
To all the people in the world who were disappointed by Arcade Fire winning the Grammy for Album Of The Year purely because they had never heard of Arcade Fire before:
At least the award for Best New Artist has some loose criteria. Apparently the nominees have to have been heard of by a fair amount of people. For example, the winner of that Grammy, Esperanza Spalding, is hardly a new artist. She has released three albums under her own name, the first of which came out in 2006. That’s 5 years ago! A nominee, Drake, has released music as early as 2006. Florence & The Machine released singles in 2008. (Granted, it was in the UK, so how can we be expected to know about that?) Mumford & Sons toured the UK in early 2008.
Some are relatively new. But ask their fans and you might get a different answer.
Last night, Liz and Toby and I went to Santos Party House and took in a few bands. Here are mini-reviews:
Tamaryn: Boring but the guitar player had a good sound (put a space echo on it and that’s what you get). They were sorta 80’s goth-ish. Drenched in reverb. More style than substance. Nothing to write home about unless you wrote, “Dear mom, Tamaryn was boring.”
Minks: The first song was rocking and promising. They might be from LA, judging by their looks. The second song was suckier and the singer lost his balls. He basically started mumbling. We left after that song. Again, more style than substance.
Dom: Interesting band that looked promising. Three guitars and a drummer playing with a track. The singer had a cool high squeaky sort of voice but could have sung better. Sometimes one guitar player played bass. They played a part of the Super Mario Brothers music between songs. They looked like they were going to get rocking and kinda guitar-wanky-in-a-good-way but didn’t really. I felt they were sorta 80s rock-ish. Ultimately a let-down.
Diamond Rings: Standing around the corner we heard electronic beats and a synth and a guy singing. I thought it sounded kinda crappy and lame but we were just hanging out. I stepped into the room to see a guy with a blond swoop coming out of a blue jays cap and some sweet eye makeup. He was playing the keyboard next to a laptop which was producing the beats. He was actually really good and I think it took me seeing him to figure that out. I thought he was sort-of a cross between Rufus Wainwright, Eddie Izzard, and [someone else I can’t remember]. The guy can actually write songs and is a good performer. He also played some songs on guitar with the laptop backing him up. Usually I see duo or solo bands and wish they just had a band but I didn’t with this guy. He held his own.
Diamond Rings
Marnie Stern: I am not too fond of her record(s) but, live, she is great! I really enjoyed her set a lot. I didn’t know much about her or the way she looked; I just knew she was a female guitar goddess who loves finger-tapping. First off, she doesn’t finger-tap all the time, which is good. Second, her appearance made it better, for me. She’s unassuming, short, has long blond hair in a decidedly non-hipster style, and wore a cute dress/skirt thing. Basically, she looked like a regular girl. And she looked like she was having a lot of fun up there too. Cracking vagine jokes with the bass player and stuff. I may not run out to buy her record but I’d see her perform again for sure.
Marnie Stern
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.: Dressed in NASCAR outfits. Great vocal harmonies and pretty good poppy stuff. It just wore thin after a couple songs for me. Sorta too saccharin for me. They did a cover of “God Only Knows,” introducing it by saying they wish they wrote that song. Me too. Or, I wish they could write songs that good too.
Wild Nothing: Boring songs, bad lead singer. Lame, lame, lame. I booed them. I may have had too many by that point. That’s when we went home.
Deerhoof was awesome yet again. They never fail to rock and impress. This time Ed and John both played electric 12-string guitars. I saw them at the beginning and thought that they’d play them the whole time, because that’s what they do. And they did. I gotta say that the 12-string sounded really awesome and lush on some songs but on others (Dummy Discards A Heart, for example) they lacked the riffage precision. Still, it wasn’t so bad and that’s just nitpicking.
They unveiled a new song which is presumably on Deerhoof Vs. Evil and that was a good song. There were two covers in there but I didn’t recognize them (Martin did). Some of the hits were played as well. “Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back” was pretty much the only silly song they played. (And don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Flower, Panda, Dog on the Sidewalk and all those.) This lineup of the band is great. I love the addition of Ed.
I can’t wait for the new record and I can’t wait to see them again.
As I was riding the elevator last week in my office building, the door opened at the 14th floor while someone got on or off there. In the hall I saw a door with a sign for EMF, Electronic Music Foundation. When I got back to my office, I looked it up on the internet and found this. It looked interesting and I also saw an announcement of a performance for the following Monday (yesterday), so I decided to stop in and see.
Tomoko Sauvage is a maker of electronic music. She uses bowls filled with water as the foundation of her instrument. It’s similar to the Indian instrument jal tarang but she uses them in a different way. While the Indian instrument is played as a percussion instrument, Tomoko does not hit them with sticks. In each bowl she has a hydrophone (an under-water microphone) and has those running to a mixer.
She can move the water with her hands to get sounds, which is what she started the performance with. She incorporated feedback coming from the speakers through which the music came. The pitch of the sound varies with the volume of water in the bowl. Adding more water lowers the pitch and removing water raises the pitch. She had a delay and loop pedal through which she ran the sounds to create loops of the music. At one point she removed all the water from one bowl and added sparkling water, which created a bubbly sound. Finally, she had water dripping from small cups above to create a random, dripping sound. Removing and adding water, she changed the pitch of the drips.
The performance was interesting and the sounds were watery, drippy, and at times, soothing. I enjoyed it a great deal.
I look forward to hearing what else the EMF has to offer.
My friend Tony and I went to the Blue Note last night to see Chick Corea’s trio for a program called “Further Explorations of Bill Evans.” Chick got together Eddie Gomez and Paul Motian, two guys who had played with Bill Evans, but never together. Paul was in Bill’s first great trio with Scott LaFaro and Eddie joined Bill Evans later on after Paul was no longer in the trio. Chick Corea says he has a great affinity and respect for Bill Evans (what jazz pianist doesn’t?) so got this trio together for some shows at the Blue Note (and beyond, perhaps?). Chick also said he got his hands on some never-before-played-out-or-recorded Bill Evans compositions from Bill’s son Evan (yes, Evan Evans) and wanted to play some of those for the first time.
As a bonus, and really, the impetus of going to the show, I won tickets via Twitter. I just re-tweeted the contest entry and was randomly chosen to win the tickets by Chick’s production company. Tony, who had tried four times previous, was jealous that I won with one try. So I took him to the show.
Chick Corea is awesome. I’ve been a fan for a long time. I particularly like his work with Miles Davis in the late-60s and early-70s as well as the avant stuff he did with Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland, and Barry Altschul in Circle. The cleverly named, Arc, is a trio of the aforementioned without Braxton and is also supergreat. His early records on Blue Note are also great. Tony recently introduced me to Return To Forever, which is his foray into “fusion” and has some really great stuff going, particularly the original ECM record. Chick loses me in the late-70s and 80s (and 90s and 2000s, I guess, too) and I find that stuff less interesting and a bit more cheesy. But, needless to say, I was really excited to see Chick and this band play not only because I’d never seen Chick or Eddie Gomez perform live.
The show was amazing! They started off with a free improvisation that lead neatly into Waltz For Debby. I wouldn’t be able to report the rest of setlist except for “Reflections” if it wasn’t posted on Chick’s website. So, after Waltz For Debby, they played Rhapsody, Diane, Reflections, Laurie, and My Ship.
my one crappy iPhone photo of the show
All the songs were played wonderfully and there were segue-ways between most, creating a continuous stream of trio music. They paused before Reflections and maybe after it as well when Chick joked about the magical moment we were all about to experience. I had no idea he was a funny guy, but he is.
What I love about Chick’s playing is that you can always tell it’s him. Even in different styles, slow or fast, you could close your eyes and know that it’s him playing. And that playing is good, too! At times, he even reached into the piano to pluck the strings to great effect.
Eddie Gomez was amazing! He can play as fast as I’ve ever seen someone play the bass. He and Chick really had something going on. They complimented each other very well and seemed to finish one another’s thoughts. It turns out they have played together before, which I learned thanks to this awesome jazz discography site. Paul and Chick haven’t played together before, apparently. Now, I love Paul Motian. I love love love the Paul Motian trio with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano and have seen them many times at the Village Vanguard. Paul is a great drummer with a unique style. But, I have to say, I don’t think he was the best drummer for this trio. His “painting with the drumsticks” style and loose rhythm wasn’t a great fit for the other two players, in my opinion. Who might be better today in 2010? Tough question. I thought of Joey Baron but I’m not sure he’s perfect either. Maybe Jack DeJohnette (who has also played with Bill Evans). Don’t get me wrong, Paul was great. Just not a perfect fit.
After the show, we got to chat with Chick and get our picture taken. Tony said it looks like we got to meet the president…of Bolivia!
Tony and Dan meet Chick
Thanks, Chick, for a great show.
Tony, Chick, Dan
np: Chick Corea: Return To Forever: “Sometime Ago/La Fiesta”
I’ve been buying more vinyl lately too. Mostly bcause I like vinyl and they usually come with a free mp3 download. Sometimes they even come with a CD or CDR. I am also in teh process of getting rid of all but my most precious CDs. I do like packaging and liner notes and I wish that was available for digital downloads (on iTunes it sometimes but rarely is) but I do not have any particular attachment to the CD as a format. It’s on its way out, I think. And here’s the part I have trouble beleiving about myself: even after working at a recording studio and having recorded several records, I am not bothered by the lossy format of AAC or MP3. I can hear it on real lo-res or old mp3s but I can’t really tell the difference with a 256kbps AAC encoding. So, keeping CDs as a better digital representation of my music really isn’t that important to me. All of this music will still be available somewhere in the future (except for the ultra-rare, which I’m keeping.
