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Playlist record reviews

Monthly Playlist – September 2020

Working up that Pink Elephant Greatest Hits reignited a love for me of making playlists. It also reinforced that I had a few years of not taking in much new music – my time on the bus (or walking) had mostly fallen into a rut of playing the same feel-better playlists. I never had a problem getting more than I needed for my year-end list but loving 35 records in 365 days to pare down to 20 didn’t feel like me, looking at prior years when I had almost 100 contenders to cut down to a top list.

I also miss writing about records, and I’m grateful for the promos that still come through. On the third hand, as winter comes and the pandemic rages on, I need some structure and some fun projects to get through it. So I’m going to try a monthly playlist of things I’ve heard recently. This first one covers the last couple months, things still fresh in my mind since the idea occurred to me a couple of weeks ago. From now on, it’ll be (mostly) stuff I heard in the last month.

Using Spotify because of ease; I’ve thought about Mixcloud – home of one of my perennial recurring playlist inspirations, Tutti Time – and SoundCloud but haven’t committed to the learning curve yet. If you have a preference, hit me up.

I’d love to do this on Bandcamp if there was playlist functionality, but we finally got Chromecast on it so I’m keeping hope alive. Obviously, especially when we’re not going to shows and buying merch, I encourage you to buy music that speaks to you.

September 2020

  1. “Trouble”, Reverend John Wilkins. Wilkins’ closing set at Gonerfest’s day show outside Murphy’s nine years ago was a thunderbolt-level inspiration to me and one of those sets I still remember with crystal clarity this many years (and over 1,000 bands) later. The son of Rev. Robert Wilkins (who wrote the Stones classic “Prodigal Son,” his voice and guitar changed the air and stopped everyone who might have been a little jaded after six hours and 9 bands that afternoon. And the thing I most remember is this song, preceded by his introduction: “Let me see your hands if you’ve known trouble!” Followed by a chuckle and, “Well, I know you’re young, but I also wanna remind you it’s early.” I’ve been waiting from that moment to this for this song to be on record and this performance – and the whole record, featuring a crack band including Wilkins’ daughters, organist Charles Hodges (from the legendary Hi rhythm section), and drummer Steve Potts (Gregg Allman, Neil Young), lives up to and even betters that glowing memory.
  2. “4 Days,” Mourning [A] BLKstar. Cleveland’s Mourning [A] BLKstar stunned me the first time I heard them, blew me away the first time I saw them live at The Summit, and keep getting better and better. This first record of theirs for Don Giovanni is a brain-expanding, soulful puzzle-box. This song, with its loping groove and fist-pumping, infectious horn riff against a haunting, indicting melody, hasn’t let me go yet. But it was extremely hard choosing just one track of this. The Cycle should be lived with and savored.
  3. “A Little Lost,” Molly Tuttle. I still remember picking up The World of Arthur Russell on Soul Jazz records from Other Music (so nostalgic for that store I’ve watched the documentary about it twice) and amidst the throbbing sideways disco and the chamber music I expected, his voice-and-cello version of this perfect cut-glass miniature of longing stopped me in my tracks. Molly Tuttle’s covers album …but I’d rather be with you was another case of having a hard time picking a favorite track, but her warm opening-up of this song I love so much kept sinking its hooks in me.
  4. “Dangerous Criminal,” Waylon Payne. Talk about coming from royalty and having to live up to it, this son of country superstar Sammi Smith and Willie Nelson’s longtime right hand on lead guitar Jody Payne (and named after his godfather), had a hard road since his first try for country stardom over a decade ago. But he distilled all of it into this lumpy-in-the-best-way, nothing-to-prove masterpiece Blue Eyes, The Harlot, The Queer, The Pusher & Me. This gorgeous song paints a pastoral backdrop for a keening, high-stakes quest: “But still you keep on reaching, you keep hoping and believing somewhere there’s a revelation on this journey that you’re on. Hey, boy, why are you always alone?”
  5. “Goddess of the Hunt,” ARTEMIS. I’ve been in awe of drummer and composer Allison Miller since the first downbeat I heard her play, so when I first heard about this supergroup she was putting together, there wasn’t any doubt it would be something special. Their Blue Note Records debut, and especially this piece written by Miller, exceeds even that high bar. The infectious hook and spiritual sprawl both have room to play here between the sizzling front line of Ingrid Jensen’s trumpet, Anat Cohen’s clarinet, and Melissa Aldana’s tenor and the panoramic rhythm section of Miller’s drums, Noriko Ueda’s bass, and Renee Rosnes’ (who I previously mostly knew from records with singers and am blown away throughout the record) piano.
  6. “These Days,” Elizabeth Cook. A songwriter I’ve been stunned by for many years shot even farther into the stratosphere with Aftermath, full of the explosive defiance and joy of putting things together and learning to breathe again another writer I saw rightly compared to Bowie. One of the hardest records here for me to pick a song from.
  7. “Want You Back With Me,” Lou Kyme. I met Lou through my Twangfest pals in St Louis 15 or so years ago so there’s even less chance of my being unbiased here, but this is one of the freshest Americana records I’ve heard in a long, long time. What’s the Worst That Can Happen pairs the London-based songwriter with Chuck Prophet’s band, The Mission Express, produced by drummer Vicente Rodriguez. The album’s a thrill ride through the various colors of roots rock with sticky playing from Adam Prieto’s organ and James DePrato’s and Kyme’s guitars, and I haven’t gotten this song out of my head since its release as an advance single.
  8. “Source,” Nubya Garcia feat. Ms MAURICE, Cassie Kinoshi, and Richie Seivwright. This title track from the London-based saxophonist Garcia’s debut album as a leader is an explosion. A flaming fountain of ideas immediately appealing and approachable but always eluding grasping. The London jazz scene is having a moment right now with monumental work by Shabaka Hutchings, The Comet is Coming, Sons of Kemet, and more, and this is a testament to someone finding their scene and everyone building each other up to make something great.
  9. “(521),” Vladislav Delay with Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. In my days diving deep into obscure electronic music I had a specific and particular love for the Finnish composer and producer Sasu Ripatti, so all these years later seeing a mention in The Wire that Ripatti revived his Vladislav Delay moniker for a record with the legendary Jamaican rhythm section Sly and Robbie (I refuse to believe, whoever you are, you don’t have at least a few records featuring them) I lit up like a neon sign and the record didn’t disappoint. This worked for the hottest days of summer, and I’m willing to bet I’m still tangled in its intoxicating textures through the deepest freeze of February.
  10. “Her Name,” Makaya McCraven. I already raved about McCraven’s set at Winter Jazzfest (before everything locked down) being a deserved victory lap, and the Chicago scene right now is having a similar moment to Garcia’s London scene. This continues his mind-blowing forays into the textures of dance music and the possibilities of the cut-up within the context of rigorous improvisation. A music of letting everything in, knowing the value of it all, and using exactly what you need.
  11. “Lightning,” Psychic Temple. Writer-producer-label head Chris Schlarb’s Psychic Temple project accomplishes the almost-unheard-of feat of making guest-artist-filled albums that still feel indelibly personal and not like Rolodex exercises. This double album Houses of the Holy is an embarrassment of riches, with each side backed by a different band. This tune, with Chicago Underground Trio, features lyrics by my dear friend Jerry David DeCicca and it’s as good an intersection of these three approaches to exploring the mystery of the world without trying to confine it or diminish it as I could have hoped.
  12. “Dance With Me – Roundhead Version,” Na Noise. One of my favorite Gonerfest bands, this single sums up what I think this Auckland duo is doing better than anyone right now. Sleekness, danger, and hooks nested inside one another.
  13. “Never,” Lydia Loveless. Loveless’ new record uses the sleeker, shinier textures of Real but turns up more of the rootsy textures of and tumbling narratives of Something Else for a perfect entry in the annals of autumn music, one of my favorite genres that’s not a genre but everyone knows what I mean. The insistent, simmering beat on this song leaves room for the question in the lyrics to sink in even deeper: “I’m standing on my own know, isn’t that what everybody wants?”
  14. “Kick Rocks,” Nick Allison. This slice of classic Let it Bleed-era Stones with a side of The Jacobites hit a particular sweet spot for me in Allison’s Gonerfest set and I’m going to enjoy living with it as the leaves turn.
  15. “Running,” Shamir. I saw Shamir at Bowery Ballroom in 2015 only knowing a single and it was one of my shows of the year. A performer so charismatic when he said, “Let me hear you if you’re ratchet,” even Anne had her hands in the air screaming, with a voice that chilled my blood. The records after that didn’t hit the same sweet spot, but the new one – and this song in particular – won’t let me go.
  16. “Cupid,” Spillage Village featuring Earthgang and 6LACK. A friend and co-worker turned me onto 6LACK a few years ago but I wasn’t aware of the Atlanta collective, he’s part of, Spillage Village so this record hit me like a bolt from the blue. 
  17. “I Felt It Too,” Bette Smith. Rock and Soul dynamo Bette Smith’s new record is full for perfect jukejoint Friday night anthems like this one (and no shortage of Sunday sorting-through-the-wreckage comedowns).
  18. “Ladies Night,” Dick Move. One of my favorite Gonerfest finds, if this New Zealand band doesn’t make you want to bounce around the room, I’ve got nothing for you.
  19. “Finally High,” Liz Longley. There were more shows canceled I’m bummed about this year than I can count before we even get to what hadn’t been formally announced. Longley’s planned trip to Natalie’s in the Spring (tentatively rescheduled for 2021) was on that list and that pain got more acute with the release of her record Funeral For My Past. Exactly what I want from a singer-songwriter, that swirl of guitars on the chorus, “Don’t fuck me up, I’m floating. I’m finally high above it.”
  20. “Hergé: Vision and Blindness,” Jacob Garchik. Ending with a beautiful sunrise. Garchik’s profile has raised in recent years with his film scoring and arranging for Kronos Quartet but I remember seeing his all-trombone choir doing the secular gospel music of his The Heavens suite downstairs at Bowery Electric and wanting to drag people in off the street. I’ve seen him in big bands, as recently as January, and his playing is always impeccable, but I’ve been jonesing for some new writing of his. This new record as a leader, too many years since last time, Clear Line, features the cream of the crop in exciting players including Adam O’Farrill, Jennifer Wharton, Anna Webber, and Carl Maraghi, is a massive step forward and maybe my favorite thing to write to all year.
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"Hey, Fred!" live music Uncategorized

Things I’ve Been Digging – 09/28/2020 (Gonerfest Edition)

Jack Oblivian and The Sheiks, taken from livestream and edited

It’s no secret that I’ve had massive festival fatigue the last few years. I don’t think culture’s primary or best purpose is as a destination vacation. The music – film, theater, books – we love should be part of our day-to-day lives, the food we eat, the air we breathe, and especially the conversations we have.

But as with anything, there are exceptions. At its best, a festival adds to that community; it enriches those lives. A good festival draws tribes together, it celebrates the good work they’ve done, it makes connections, and it plants seeds to grow back in our own communities.

I’ve been lucky to know several of these festivals but my favorite is Gonerfest, deep in Memphis and run by the estimable record store and label Goner Records. With an eye to keeping us all safe in this pandemic, like so many festivals have, they pivoted to digital.

In doing so, my favorite music festival cut a template for any other festival. Gonerfest did the best job I’ve seen in these 6 months of lockdown: they captured everything I wanted from the festival except being in Memphis. And they almost got that!

Dick Move, taken from livestream and edited

One of my favorite things about this switch to online is it amplified the one thing all of us being in the room doesn’t give us: a look at how we’re living. The creative use of everyone’s home turf made my heart swell in my chest: Toads’ punky exuberance on their home turf at Oakland’s 1-2-3-4-Go record store; Nick Allison’s set in fellow Austin band Golden Boys’ art gallery; Columbus heroes Cheater Slicks in a college auditorium beautifully filmed by Guinea Worms’ Wil Foster; Oh Boland in the grass of Galway.

And my favorite, New Zealand taking advantage of their well-managed take on the crisis by throwing a real show: five bands in an actual club (Whammy Bar that’s on my list if I ever make it close to that part of the world again). Two previous Goner favorites delivered and cemented my love for them: Bloodbags’ muscular, thoughtful rock, and the intoxicating dual-vocal swirl and slicing acid trail guitar of Na Noise. The other three bands brought it, Ounce’s twin drummer Sabbath-fried choogle and Dick Move’s swinging rhythm and witty, clipped songs made them among my favorite new bands, as Guardian Singles’ searing pop vibrated the molecules all the way here.

Michael Beach, taken from livestream and edited

It’s not Gonerfest if I don’t discover at least a handful of new favorite bands. Beyond the Kiwis mentioned above, I fell hard for the crispy-edged Stonesy Americans of Michael Beach and Nick Allison & The Players Lounge and the skewed anthems of The Exbats, a trio with a dazzling lead singer behind the drums.

The regulars also came out swinging hard. Jack Oblivian and The Sheiks kicked things off with a rugged, sultry set from the beautiful twilight panorama of Midtown from the rooftop of Crosstown Arts. Zerodent bit off twitching, aggressive postpunk. True Sons of Thunder set a surging baseline and got me excited for their new full-length on Total Punk. Aquarian Blood continued to grow into their beautifully textured take on moody British folk.

Toads, taken from livestream and edited

Goner has always done a great job with side activities and they excelled here with a chat room, Zoom “bars” and a killer slate of films and talks. My favorite was the footage of the documentary on Memphis-centered civil rights group The Invaders with one of central participants and the soundtrack composer King Khan (who played the first Gonerfest, MC’ed Saturday’s day show, and introduced excellent sets by his daughters, Saba Lou and Bella and the Bizarre) but I was also entranced by This Film Should Not Exist, about a shambling Country Teasers/Oblivians tour, and Tyler Keith’s (Apostles, Neckbones, Preacher’s Kids) deep dive into Hill Country gospel and blues with jaw-dropping footage of Shardé Thomas, RL Burnside, and Rev. John Wilkins.

The thing I hope most for – on that secondary list after staying healthy, employed, warm – in this moment is that collectively we’re able to meet in person and feel the heat of music together next year. But I’m also warmed by this feeling of being less alone and getting to do something with my friends. Even from our own houses.

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Uncategorized

Things I’ve Been Digging – 09/21/2020

A grey sky and a choppy sea, like I’ve been feeling

It feels like not a week goes by that doesn’t give most of us a reason to go, “It’s a dark week. Things look bleak.” Losing Justice Ginsburg was one of the hardest of those hits in this fucked-up time. A beacon of how to live, passionate about your work but also the greater world and your friends and your greater community and a way to harmonize all of those things I constantly strive for and frequently fail at. One of the best of us and another reminder to keep trying. Keep working.

As always, one of the biggest things that pulls me back from those whirlpools of despair is art. The other is friends. I hope you’re also finding something that gives you light in this darkness and my sharing this is always tied to the hope you’ll share those things with me and your own community.

From left: Wayne Shorter, John Patitucci, Teri Lyne Carrington, taken from livestream and edited

Music: Wayne Shorter Quartet at SFJAZZ.

I’ve waxed rhapsodic here a few times about SFJAZZ’s essential work and their breathtaking pivot to digital with their site closed due to the pandemic. Their monthly Wayne Shorter tributes have been a key part of this – the first four monthly, featuring a different frontline each time backed by Shorter’s rhythm section of Danilo Perez on piano, John Patitucci on bass, and Brian Blade on drums were all special. 

This week, they ended with maybe even more of a bang: a 2017 performance of Shorter with his quartet featuring Teri Lyne Carrington on drums instead of Blade. Shorter’s universes beguiled me almost since I knew what music was, his intricate compositions that feel like nothing I’ve ever heard at the same time they feel as familiar as the blood in my veins, his ability to write for specific band contexts that still work generations removed. 

This presented an example of one of the great working ensembles with that uncanny communicative empathy that jazz is based on, that conversation so many of us use as a metaphor for collective improvisation, everyone building up a situation by listening to one another and finding a new angle on whatever’s happening. 

As Herbie Hancock said in the YouTube chat (if I haven’t mentioned it before, one of the excellent things SFJAZZ does is engage artists and listeners in the chat while the video plays) during their hypnotic dive into Arthur Penn’s early 20th century standard “Smilin’ Through,” there’s a great, shifting parallel quality with Patitucci and Carrington dialoguing on a related but separate plane to Shorter and Perez. A rich, swirling take on the Fairport Convention-popularized folk standard “She Moves Through the Fair” detonated landmines of surprise and delight. The entire set beguiled and charmed and sometimes baffled me in the best way.

Kate Hutchinson, Lonnie Holley, Immeasurable Explosions – taken from Livestream and edited.

Music: Immeasurable Explosions (Knoel Scott and Marshall Allen), Chiminyo, Lonnie Holley, and Kate Hutchinson, from the Boiler Room with Night Dreamer and Worldwide FM.

The Boiler Room – known for hard-hitting, cutting edge DJ nights – has become a vital livestream player in the last few months and is always something I’m glad to see pop up on my YouTube subscription reminder. This week’s was a truly delightful surprise. On a sunny afternoon with the first chill of the season in the air – anyone who knows me knows how much I love Fall – they put together the perfect lineup for straddling these seasons. 

Kate Hutchinson kicked off the night with a perfect DJ set hitting on light reggae, tropical house, throwback disco, horn-drenched drama, electro hip-hop… summer beats with just enough of a chill. Just enough dashes of melancholy, enough grit in the oyster (or cynar in the fizzy champagne) for a tribute to the sunshine and the long shadows. Hutchinson also contributed excellent, insightful introductions to the broad spectrum of artists.

Lonnie Holley gets a lot of praise for the spiritual, incantory quality of his work, and the use of the materials of his life in a way that merits comparisons to his work as a sculptor; all of that remains true and was clear here. But there’s also an autumnal quality, a sense of honoring people around him and the people who’ve gone before, the changing of seasons in a lot of senses, that felt rich in this short set. Anytime I see him, even over a screen, I feel like I’m bullshitting and need to try harder.

Chiminyo previewed a marvelous record out later this week – I Am Panda – with a combination of tracks and live percussion: light dub, classic spiritual jazz, and early 80s synth textures flow together into roiling, stormy anthems. Sun Ra Arkestra alums and longtime friends and collaborators Knoel Scott and Marshall Allen teamed up for a mix of poetry and multi-instrumental duets that recalled nature and cracked the thought of nature open to the “Other worlds they have not told you of” in their old bandleader’s parlance.

Aoife O’Donovan, taken from livestream and edited

Music: Aoife O’Donovan at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Barrytown, New York, presented by Dreamstage

Anyone who’s ever read any of my writing – best of lists, etc – knows what a massive fan I am of Aoife O’Donovan. This stream, on a new-to-me platform called Dreamstage, took excellent advantage of a gorgeous-sounding church in the Hudson River Valley that let her voice and guitar (and piano on a couple numbers) breathe.

O’Donovan might be our finest current songwriter of the key decision, that moment when a character is on a precipice that will change their life. She has a fine eye and ear for those details when everything about to change, how it feels in the moment and how it feels when recollected. Prime examples of that here were the opening one-two punch of “Hornets” with its cautious reassurance “I’ll be there to have and to hold you” on the chorus but also the verse, “Turning back’s the only way to go;” and “Porch Light,” maybe my favorite of her songs, with the weary, imploring taunt “You want to live a life of loneliness? Baby, so do I. I want to sit under the porch light and watch the yellow moon rise.” Just a devastating as the first time I heard both those songs, maybe more, as her voice has found new contours and places to shine the light in a few years of touring them.

She also hit songs from previous bands of hers: a lovely, rippling, Sometymes Why tune, “Clover,” and two standards she did with her first widely known band, Crooked Still, “Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down” and “Lakes of Ponchartrain,” in new arrangements. That knack for rearrangements also shone in her settings of Peter Sears poems, “Night Fishing” (dedicated to the late Justice Ginsburg) and “The Darkness.”

The centerpiece of this dazzling hour of music was two of the lustiest songs in her catalog. “Ryland,” which she performed in the supergroup I’m With Her, with its silky chorus  “Just let me lie, under the apple tree, I planted for my love and me.” She segued that – with a laughing, “Of course I pair the song about apple cider with the song about bourbon,” – into the aching, affectionate standout from Fossils, “Oh Mama,” with its infectious sing-along chorus: “Oh Mama, sing me a love song, pour me some bourbon, and lay me down low.”

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live music Uncategorized

Things I’ve Been Digging 09/14/2020

George Cables Trio, taken from livestream and edited

Music: George Cables Trio at Village Vanguard

In the wake of Gary Peacock – one of the great bassists, especially in a piano trio format – an exemplar of classic post-bop piano jazz George Cables played a Vanguard set with nothing to prove and everything at his disposal, backed by as good a rhythm section for this kind of heart-filling music as you could hope for, Essiet Okon Essiet on bass (who I last saw live with the late, great Harold Mabern, one of Cables’ few peers in this lane) and the almighty Billy Hart on drums.

Cables took us on a mesmerizing journey through the history of modern jazz piano with a rapturous version of McCoy Tyner’s “You Taught My Heart to Sing” with tumbling darkness threading the chords, a righteous dive into Wayne Shorter’s “Speak No Evil,” and a version of Sonny Rollins’ “Doxy” that made me forget every other version for a little while. 

He also restated his unshakable command and glittering crown on standards, with jaw-dropping versions of “All The Things You Are” and “Body and Soul.” Just as good as those unassailable classics were originals of his like “Traveling Lady” with fiery propulsion underneath its deceptively light touch and the touching elegy “Farewell Mulgrew,” 

Jason Moran, screenshot taken from Livestream

Music: Jason Moran Cecil Taylor Tribute at Harlem Stage

For fans my age, Jason Moran did more to turn us on to a spiky, rich legacy of jazz piano that felt in danger of being sidelined or marginalized in the early ‘00s: Geri Allen, Jaki Byard, and especially Cecil Taylor. He’s still one of my favorite players, as evidenced by him appearing on several of my favorite sets at the last Big Ears I made it to.

Almost as valuable as live streams in this isolated age are institutions digging into their archives and this Harlem Stage tribute to Taylor they brought back the Moran set from is an event I distinctly remember wanting to go to and the logistics and timing of travel just wouldn’t work. It’s not as good as being in a concert hall but sitting here watching the sunset out of my office window, I feel the magic in this brand of witnessing and giving thanks.

Maybe the greatest night of jazz I ever had in my life was watching Taylor lead a large ensemble on my birthday at the Iridium. Moran conjures that impossible-to-replicate quality while sounding like himself. He makes the piano sing with nods to Taylor, the way those spikes are flecked with a romanticism that’s born of being in touch with a greater mystery. The cracks in the very sky. It’s a breathtaking 15 minutes that made me end a long day (an exhausting 11 hour workday, an excellent meal) feeling like I was flying.

Red Baraat, taken from livestream and edited

Music: A Friday Night Despair Reprieve (or Turning Despair Into Gold): Red Baraat, archived from SFJAZZ Fridays at Five; Lucero Livestreamed from Minglewood Hall with Jade Jackson and Laura Jane Grace streaming from venues near their homes.

Even for those of us who (in the before times) try not to live our lives desperate for Friday or a vacation or some great disruption, who know it’s important to include joy throughout the week, Friday night feels sacred and that specialness has eroded some with most of us having another night we only see the members of our household after getting off a zoom call with the same people from work.

Had a little frisson of that specialness this Friday, logging off of work and tuning into bands who mine their past and even when they look at uncomfortable truths, they never, ever despair. Started with the weekly Wussy broadcast – one of these days I’ll do a deep-dive on these regularly scheduled streams that make my heart sing and whose joys aren’t as easily summed up looking at any one episode, but this was a particularly good installment.

I bounced after an hour of Wussy to the essential SFJAZZ Fridays at Five series that’s shown up here before. This time was the great Red Baraat, which stirred a lot of personal feelings for me – they played one of my best friends’ wedding years ago, and I was texting that friend earlier in the day, worried about the fires in Portland.

Led by Sunny Jain – also on the personal tip, I was glad I made it out to see his electric Wild Wild East band in NYC for APAP in January – Red Baraat plays ecstatic, spiritual party music that’s rich in community. Melding long rock guitar lines with traditional bhangra, Latin claves, and go-go, they’ve found a way to honor the differences in these various dance musics and cultures without ever feeling appropriative or like they’re using something as garnish. In a rippling set, they hit all their major hits from “Tunak Tunak Tun” to “Gaadi of Truth” to “Shruggy Ji” including a dance competition in the middle of the latter. If you get a chance – in whatever form the aftertimes looks like – to see Red Baraat, don’t miss it. It will make your heart full.

Another band that digs into their own history and kept their eyes open, but even when they confront disappointments and disillusionment their songs always leave room for hope and possibility. Lucero’s the rare band that got more interesting to me as they added elements, keys and horns, as they took on the burdens and benefits of their Memphis lineage, giving Ben Nichols’ voice (the raw tonal quality of his physical instrument and also his history-drenched songwriting).

Lucero, taken from Livestream and edited

Part of what makes Lucero interesting is their perpetually open ears, and this show drove that home with the openers. Northern California’s Jade Jackson’s set took the sharply observed and lived-in songs off her two records and sent them into the world with such authority I’d be shocked if kids in bands aren’t already playing them in their garages, especially “Motorcycle” and “Bottle It Up.” 

Against Me!’s Laura Jane Grace gave us the stunning intensity she’s known for on classics like “True Trans Soul Rebel” and brand new songs that already sound like classics, including “The Mountain Song” which was a lilting lullaby for a life going wrong with tenderness for the choices taken and the choices never offered, and the chunky, dancing “Apocalypse Now and Later.”

This stream, playing a fan-chosen set list, prompted witty banter “Apparently, our fans don’t think most of our fans know what they’re talking about” as they went through a cross-section of exactly what makes them beloved in a perpetually replenishing ocean of bands born out of the raw material of The Replacements and Social Distortion. 

Surprises for me included a lovely cover of Jawbreaker’s “Kiss The Bottle” and two of the songs that always feel like Memphis to this regularly visiting outsider. “Smoke” roared through its keening, empty-streets melody as Nichols exhaled that for-the-ages dialogue in the chorus: ‘He said, ‘Lesser men than me have put up better fights.’ She said, ‘We’re doing pretty good if we can just get out alive.’” “Downtown” featured Brian Venable’s guitar playing that sticky horn riff, giving the lyric’s pleading at the start of the night a foreshadowing of a party going out of control.

This was a night – including a stop at Goner Records’ Goner TV with a reading by the great Ross Johnson from his new memoir – that reminded me there’s good if you’re looking, it’s not all always dire.

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live music theatre

Things I’ve Been Digging – 09/07/2020

IDLES, screenshot from livestream

Music: IDLES live from Abbey Road.

All praise to Anne for turning me onto London’s IDLES, one of the freshest, most exciting rock bands out there. I was laid up with pneumonia when they first came through Columbus, but I made up for it the next year at Beachland.

For such a live machine, you can sense the palpable frustration in the tour for their record being delayed. These three streamed shows from historical Abbey Road studios gave a potent but tiny glimpse of the power they find in coiled stomps and wild catharsis.

Classic subverted agitprop lines like , “I got new shoes ’cause I mean business” and “Never fight a man with a perm” have the punch of recognizing an old friend. The new tunes painted their kind of righteous fury in new neon colors like the throbbing mutant disco of “Mr. Motivator,” rotating on singer Joe Talbot, snarling “How’d you like those clichés?” in a way that didn’t deflate the previous verse but kicked it like a champion footballer over the stands right into the sun.

They paid tribute to some rock history with a brilliant, glistening dirge take on The Ramones’ “I Want To Be Sedated.”

Barbara Fant, screenshot from livestream of Rhapsody and Refrain

Poetry: Streetlight Guild’s Rhapsody and Refrain, featured reader Barbara Fant.

It’s no surprise to anyone who’s known me – online, in person, or any mix – that Scott Woods has been one of my inspirations for over 20 years, and I’ve been proud to know him for at least 15 – I remember the moment we first talked, at Larry’s on a Monday, but I couldn’t tell you what year it was. When he opened his venue, Streetlight Guild, expectations were high, and he has exceeded them so handily he makes it look easy without ever hiding the amount of work it takes.

So it’s no surprise Woods has made the most out of the moment’s forced pivot to online work. My favorite example of that right now is his sequel series to 2019’s mind-blowing Rhapsody and Refrain series, one poet a month for the 30 days of September. This week, I was lucky enough to catch the great Barbara Fant, whose voice it had been too damn long since I’ve heard.

Her melodious tone – frequently inserting singing – feels like a culmination of all the spoken word artists who made me fall in love with the form as she rained gems that made me with I could stop and play the tape back, spinning out riveting images like “Prayers fall when we open up our mouths like caskets,” or “We have been this magic before.” Melting these deep images into sticky hooks without ever sacrificing the mystery of the form.

If you want a reminder of the phenomenal poetry scene we have and how great we can be if we support people doing that excellent work, you owe it to yourself to check out Rhapsody and Refrain. And if you weren’t tuned in for Fant’s set? See her next time.

Screenshots from WWOZ Virtual Groove Gala livestream. From left: Irma Thomas, John Boutte, Samantha Fish

Music: WWOZ’s Virtual Groove Gala

There’s no shortage of cities I love, but New Orleans is special. New Orleans felt like magic that first moment I stepped off the plane. Even having a stroke at the end of my second trip didn’t diminish my unbridled affection for that town. I was just thinking this year it had been too long and then all travel stopped.

Among the things I’ve directed money toward since there’s no going out includes becoming a supporting member of New Orleans’ phenomenal public radio station WWOZ. That’s paid off with an amazing weekend of archived Jazzfest sets and, Thursday, an online version of their annual gala (additionally bittersweet because of their 40th anniversary this year). At the end of a long day, I’m not sure anything could have been better to cast on my porch.

This stirring cross-section of Nola joy hit generations, genres, and simultaneously stoked my missing the big easy and soothed that longing. Kermit Ruffins and band brought a stripped-down version of their jazz party with tunes like “Sunny Side of the Street.” Amanda Shaw and Rockin’ Dopsie Jr teamed up for a righteous dance party crowned by a fiddle-drenched take on the Hank Williams classic “Jambalaya.”

John Boutté with a silky duo of piano and bass behind him, swooned through a delightful Nat King Cole tribute with “Straighten Up and Fly Right” and “Nature Boy” before leaning into his original “Sisters” like putting a cherry on top of the cake. Samantha Fish’s own sharp, gritty songs like “Bulletproof” hit the back of my skull, but my favorite was the slow-burn blues “Need You More.”

And, of course, the crowning set was the legend Irma Thomas. Accompanied by her pianist, she treated us to a slinky read of her “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is,” a keening “For the Rest of My Life,” and a jaw-dropping, definitive version of one of the great New Orleans songs (high on the biggest Mount Olympus of all American music), Percy Mayfield’s “Please Send Me Someone to Love.”

These institutions are important – those of us who are weathering this better financially should try to support what’s important to them, but that doesn’t let the government off the hook.

Categories
"Hey, Fred!" Pink Elephant Lounge Playlist

Notes on a Mix for the 10th Anniversary Pink Elephant that Shifted to the Ether

Representative photo of the party with cherished regulars.

Pink Elephant – full name: Open Bar at Jerry Courtney’s Pink Elephant Lounge – is probably the best thing I do every month it happens. For damn sure the thing the most people talk about and the thing that makes the widest cross-section of people happy. And it wouldn’t have even come close to happening without Anne Courtney. I did not want to commit to one entire Friday night a month when we started; it took serious arm-twisting and persuasion.

More to the point, it wouldn’t be anywhere near the success it is without Anne’s tireless enthusiasm and a hell of a lot of work, 90% hers, every single time (we switched to quarterly after seven years of monthly-unless-we’re-out-of-town). I clean up after; I provide some minor hosting duties; but everything that makes the party is Anne. Months I’m not feeling it, her enthusiasm buoys me and keeps the engine running.

If you’ve ever been to one and had a good time, take a second to thank her. I definitely am. And, of course, when and if we’re all safe to congregate, show your thanks by coming out. There will be another cold drink and a gauntlet of smiles and hugs to run.

So, since we’re celebrating at quite a distance this time – doubly a bummer because it’s the big anniversary and we had some fun plans – I’m doing a greatest-hits mix. Things you’ve heard if you’ve ever been at a party early enough or late enough the speakers were audible over the din and things that I think sum up a subset of the hours-long kitchen sink mixes I queue up and let run throughout the party (with some “judicious” choosing as we get late).

Think of these notes on the songs as my enthusiastic rambles by the porch steps or the fireplace. Enjoy if you have the time or interest but far, far from essential.

This will be streamed on Radio 614 (thank you, Radio 614 folks) 6-8 pm the day of the virtual party, listen in with us! As usual, I made the playlist with more songs than would fit so what’s not in the Radio 614 stream are labeled as bonus tracks but left in their original sequence.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4N1ET5ullmR3qcTDRF4rlL

Continue reading for notes.

Continue reading “Notes on a Mix for the 10th Anniversary Pink Elephant that Shifted to the Ether”
Categories
live music theatre

Things I’ve Been Digging – August 31, 2020

Andrew Cyrille Quartet, taken from livestream and edited

Music: Andrew Cyrille Quartet, The Village Vanguard 

Drummer Andrew Cyrille, who I first became a fan of with his exciting work with Cecil Taylor, led a mysterious, beautiful Quartet this weekend from the Vanguard. 

Cyrille’s supple feel with bass player Ben Street buoyed these songs like an abstracted nature painting. Throughout, the interlocking front line of David Virelles on piano and Bill Frisell spun wildly original and wholly organic melodies and harmonies. Highlights included Cyrille’s shadowy ballad “Special People” turning into crashing waves; Frisell’s tantalizing slow-burn “Worried Woman;” Frisell’s “Drink” with its slinky melody, moves from a leisurely build to a classic 60s saloon groove littered with spikes and a barely sublimated frenzy.

Screenshots from livestream of The Jacksonian

Theater: The Jacksonian by Beth Henley, presented by The New Group

With this New Group production in 2013, Beth Henley proved her sharp, sweltering take on the South is as sharp as her heyday with Crimes of the Heart. As a benefit directed by Robert Falls, reunited most of its cast for a riveting return to the poisonous swamp of the human heart in 1964.

I can’t think of an American actor who does a better downward spiral than Ed Harris and Perch, the disgraced dentist making one last swing at getting his life together in the eponymous hotel, is a remarkable role for him to sink into. Amy Madigan as his estranged wife and Juliet Brett as his neglected, confused daughter are powerhouses. Bill Pullman, riffing on Flanner O’Connor’s Misfit, finds the sadness in a lifetime of malevolence, and Carol Kane (stepping into the shoes of the late, great Glenne Headly) is a vibrant, exciting foil. 

The Jacksonian is a classic potboiler with teeth and language that crackles and steams; this reading increased my regret at not catching it on a New York trip that year tenfold.

Optic Sink, Screenshot from Livestream

Music: Goner TV episode 3, featuring Optic Sink

Goner Records looms large in the landscape of music I enjoy. Through their record label and store, their friendships with and promotion of Columbus bands, and their annual festival, they’ve been my gateway to Memphis as a tangible reality I love every bit as much as the mythopoetic Memphis I grew up with as a vision and a dream.

They’ve done spectacular work keeping this international community I’m on the fringes of but love so much connected in these distanced times: teaming with other labels like Slovenly for day-long blowout livestream marathons and, more recently, their every other Friday Goner TV broadcasting from the store and giving us a glimpse into Memphis and what’s coming next on the label.

This week’s was my favorite yet, previewing the debut album from Optic Sink with a live in-store. In NOTS, one of my favorite, most exciting, cerebral without being dry, bands of the last 10 years, Natalie Hoffman’s guitar and vocals lead the band’s cracking, dark narratives and off-kilter, surprising, prickly earworms. 

With Optic Sink she moves to keys and the cracked-mirror science fiction vibe from the NOTS mix comes to the fore with longer, slower, murkier songs. But these new tunes still have a dancefloor punch and pop nougat wrapped in their intriguing mystery; based on this evidence, I’m very excited to hear the record. 

This Goner TV also featured Hoffman’s Optic Sink bandmate Ben Bauermeister in his solo electronic guise A55 Conducta which was even more what I didn’t expect from Goner – though I know the mutual affections run deep with Bauermeister’s work in bands like Magic Kids and Toxie – but it was a fucking party.

This also featured video from longtime Goner cohorts Quintron and Ms. Pussycat, multidisciplinary Memphis artist Don Lifted, and made me miss the city it’s based in terribly.

Categories
dance live music theatre

Things I’ve Been Digging – August 24, 2020

Selection of Screenshots from the August Bang on a Can Marathon

Music: Bang on a Can Marathon

Bang on a Can’s founding composers (Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Michael Gordon) have put on a marathon of new work since the mid ‘80s and the current climate changed the marathon’s form but didn’t diminish any of its vital joy, intensity or defiance.

This, the third version I think, was as full of magic as anything I’ve been lucky enough to see since we’ve been shut inside. Highlights included Olivia de Prato’s dark and holy read of Missy Mazzoli’s Vespers for Violin, singer-cellist Layla McCalla’s songs inspired by Langston Hughes, Ken Thompson’s fiery world premiere of Nicole Mitchell’s A Much-Deserved Ass Whooping, and Jodie Landau’s beguiling version of Jacob Cooper’s Expiation.

Patterson Hood, screenshot of livestream

Music: Patterson Hood

I think I first heard of the Drive-By Truckers when I was in college through the one-two punch of No Depression magazine and niche CD site Miles of Music (also where I got my first Marah records), around the time of Pizza Deliverance. I first saw them around 2000-2001 when I was down for an Anime Weekend Atlanta and it stands as one of the most electrifying live shows I’ve ever seen – for years I don’t think I missed them any time they were even close to me.

My fandom for DBT has ebbed and flowed, but they won me back big in the last two records. Patterson Hood (and partner/only other constant member Mike Cooley) has not only built one of the most consistent catalogs of songs, but he’s lit an example of how to grow up in rock-and-roll. He’s stayed true to his impulses and interests, but he left room for them to expand. He’s grown into his curiosity and let his empathy grow instead of shrink. His home-recorded livestreams during this pandemic have been a balm, like hearing from an old friend reporting back.

That said, it might make me an enormous hypocrite that my favorite of these streams so far and the one that nudged me to add it here was his delve back into “The Heathen Songs.” As he and Cooley were gestating their breakthrough Southern Rock Opera, they also wrote a flood of songs for what ended up being the next two records, Decoration Day, The Dirty South, and Hood’s first widely distributed solo disc Killers and Stars.

That was my favorite period of the band, when they shrugged off some thought-it-was-a-joke-song classic college rock feint of the first two and opened up the aperture of their view of the south, and only indulged the big guitar jamming sporadically, with songs that ripped my heart out at the same time I was partying with my friends on the dancefloor.

This trip back down memory lane had a clear eye for what those songs meant to him at the time – particularly on his “divorce trilogy”: “Hell No I Ain’t Happy,” “(Something’s Got to) Give Pretty Soon,” and “Your Daddy Hates Me” – and what the songs mean now. That delicate balance between catharsis and wryness gained new, slippery facets on the driving-hot-nails elegy of “Do It Yourself,” “And some might say I should cut you slack, but you worked so hard at unhappiness. Living too hard just couldn’t kill you, so in the end you had to do it yourself.”

The long – almost two hour – set hit his winking nods on “George Jones Talkin’ Cell Phone Blues” and “Uncle Disney” and a hilarious shaggy dog story wrapped around a talking blues about an early tour involving one of the Columbus’s greatest bands and my dear friends (and, clearly, Hood’s) The Lilybandits.

Hood also put in a plug for Lilybandits singer Todd May’s current gig with Lydia Loveless and spoke with love about Wes and Jyl Freed, the recently deceased Carl Dufresne and Todd Nance, and other friends – famous and not. That love littered the set like the confetti from the war we all should be lucky enough to fight and luckier to survive.

Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, from the artist’s official website

Dance/Theater: Chameleon: A Biomythography by Jaamil Olawale Kosoko

Kosoko was in Columbus in late 2018, touring his hypnotic epic of intimacy, Séancers, at the Wexner Center. While in Columbus, he took advantage of a Wex residency grant to help develop his new piece Chameleon. When I interviewed Kosoko for a preview of Séancers, we talked at length about Audre Lorde, a mutual inspiration of ours.

That inspiration flowers in Chameleon, subtitled a biomythography in a nod to Lorde’s Zami and delving into his ancestors, the pain and joy of his background and the vital chimerical work of making art and surviving as a queer, black man in the toxic nature of America. The power of memory, but also the vital, tragic tonic of forgetting.

Talking about his uncle, Kosoko reflects, “Once he told me, ‘The past will always leave a footprint,’…After his funeral, no one wanted to go inside; it was much easier to pretend he never happened. Although I had been the one to feed him, to clean him, to brush his hair, I was afraid. Not so much for him as I was for myself: for how fast my concerns shifted from keeping him alive to removing every infected memory of his existence. What scared me – and still does – is how successful I was. No one speaks his name: his voice, his laughter, are all questions; a black-bodied amnesia taken back by the ethers. Was he ever really here? On this earth? In that stank room? In that stank, angelic body? Was he ever here teaching me something about love?”

But the work isn’t just its lacerating words, it’s a melting, roiling collection of indelible images cracking the world open. And alongside that, Kosoko fully engaged interactivity, the internet and the moment, taking the snatched-away opportunities for this to premiere at Princeton and Tanz with a combination of Vimeo and Discord, context and community and dialogue. A masterpiece that left me looking for my throat and heart on the floor of this second-story room.

Categories
live music theatre

Things I’ve Been Digging – August 17, 2020

Screenshots from the broadcast of Antigone in Ferguson

Theater: Antigone in Ferguson by Sophocles, translated and directed by Bryan Doerries with music by Phil Woodmore, presented by Theater of War.

Theater of War uses classical plays to essay contemporary social issues and their adaptation, by artistic director Bryan Doerries in collaboration with Phil Woodmore and a diverse choir, of one of the great tragedies of systemic power unchecked, Antigone in Ferguson had been on my radar for a while but this Zoom version was my first chance to see it as part of the moved-online 6th annual Michael Brown Memorial Weekend.

A stellar cast, led by Oscar Isaac as Creon and Tracie Thoms as Antigone, burn through this excellent take on Sophocles, modern enough without feeling like, as Anne summed it up, “You’re rapping to the kids about Shakespeare.” The production also made beautiful use of the contemporary choir, with soaring, earworm songs, in the place of the Greek choir.

Bokanté, screenshot from SFJAZZ Broadcast

Music: Bokanté, presented by SF JAZZ as part of their Fridays at Five Archival Series.

For me, getting glimpses into institutions, scenes, locales I either can’t visit or can’t visit as often as I’d like has been one of the few but big silver linings of this pandemic. High on that list is San Francisco’s SF JAZZ Center dipping into their recorded programming to present slices of their monumental work to the world at large for an extremely reasonable subscription fee.

Maybe my favorite of these end-of-the-work-week shows aired this week with the electrifying, joyous, and mysterious band Bokanté. Fronted by Guadaloupean by way of Montreal singer-songwriter Malika Tirolien with a crack band put together by Snarky Puppy’s Michael League, these hooky, dynamic songs highlighted the promise and glory of mixing elements with the song itself as your guiding light.

Roosevelt Collier’s snarling, sparkling lap steel guitar and a trio of percussionists including Jamey Haddad and Weedie Braimah were the main second voices throughout songs, weaving around and punctuating Tirolien’s French and Creole lyrics with thick grooves supplied by League and the Snarky Puppy guitarists. None of these felt like experiments or a cobbled-together mishmash. Everything hung together with beautiful tension and unity.

Screenshot from the broadcast of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity

Theater: The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity written and directed by Kristoffer Diaz, presented by Play-Per-View.

Obviously no one can keep up with every single thing, even in art forms we feel like we specialize in but I was extra chagrined that this 2010 Pulitzer shortlisted play had missed me so completely. But going in cold, with just that knowledge and the reputation of Play-Per-View who have been a lifeline and a guiding light for high-quality theatre translated to this new virtual time, added to my unbridled delight.

Diaz’s play takes on the promise and limitations of America, art, and the grinding terror of late-stage capitalism through the lens of professional wrestling. It features crackling performances, most of whom were involved in the Chicago premiere or the New York run. 

The work orbits around an astonishing, hilarious and heartbreaking Desmin Borges (You’re the Worst) as Macedonio Guerra, a true-believer wrestling fan who can’t seem to rise above the jobber level until he finally gets the chance as part of a racist double-team where his character is turned into “Che Chavez Castro,” sombrero and all, with fellow Brooklyn native VP (Usman Ally, full of crackling, witty energy) recast as “The Fundamentalist,” and given a shot against the reigning champ of the title (Terence Archie, with a perfect blend of self-awareness and ego run amok).

Two hours passed like nothing as I was completely enraptured by this smart, intense play, that keeps getting more relevant as safety nets get ripped away and inequality gets harder and harder to look away from.

Categories
live music record reviews

Things I’ve Been Digging – August 10, 2020

Recorded Music: The Anthony Braxton Project by Thumbscrew

I’ve been thinking a lot about teachers and passing music down. There’s magic in folks removed from the source remaking material and finding their way, but there’s something special about people who have played with and studied with a composer. There’s no greater living American composer than Anthony Braxton – and precious few even in the same league – and his ensembles and classrooms gave legions of the finest genre-bending musicians to the new music scene.

My favorite of the tributes in time for his 75th birthday is this concise look at rarities from the Braxton book by Thumbscrew, a collective trio balancing sharp originals with a keen command on jazz history, featuring two members who worked directly with Braxton (Mary Halvorson on guitar and Tomas Fujiwara on drums and vibes) and Michael Formanek on bass.

Only two tracks on this project – honed in a residency at Pittsburgh art space City of Asylum – break the seven-minute mark and they cram twists, turns, and an almost overwhelming sense of delight into that space. “Composition No. 68” features thick, juicy arco playing from Formanek while Fujiwara’s high-wire vibes spark off Halvorson’s flurry of barbed guitar. “Composition No. 35” also stakes out space for the vibraphone, especially in a joyous cat-and-mouse intro.

Throughout, Thumbscrew highlights Braxton’s approachability, his sense of infectious melody, without ever dumbing down or selling out his idiosyncratic vocabulary. “Composition No. 14” threads the record as a solo showcase for each player. “Guitar” projects a wide-screen constellation of Halvorson’s signature melodic string-bending. “Drums” leans into Fujiwara’s sense of understated drama, drenched in an almost symphonic mood. “Bass” showcases Formanek’s sense of space and texture.

It’s hard to go wrong with The Anthony Braxton Project as an introduction to either Thumbscrew or Braxton’s compositions. It’s my favorite thing to write to for the couple weeks it’s been out, and it works beautifully on an intellectual and visceral level.

Adonis Rose Sextet, screenshot from livestream

Live Music: The Adonis Rose Sextet, presented by the New Orleans Jazz Museum and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

At the end of a long workday – I was logged back in at 6:30 pm when they started and went well past their hour set – this unknown-to-me band was the perfect, refreshing tonic. Loose-limbed, intense classic hard bop led by Rose’s exciting, suspenseful drumming. They covered classic repertoire (including a burning take on Horace Silver’s Jazz Messengers classic “Ecaroh”) with a singular focus and passion, mastering the balancing act this mid-century American music requires to breathe and live:  a fine-tuned interlocking machine of love for the world.

Blacks’ Myths and Wendy Eisenberg, screenshot from live stream

Live Music: Movement In Stasis, Day 2, presented by Experimental Sound Studios and Sonic Transmissions Fest.

Experimental Sound Studios, already one of Chicago’s treasures, has filled a much-needed niche in these COVID times by providing a steady streaming home for experimental music of all stripes, often teaming with other players in the scene like Ken Vandermark or Corbett V. Dempsey gallery.

This collaboration with Austin festival Sonic Transmissions Fest single-handedly justified my (scheduled earlier) mental health day from work. I caught three sets (out of four, I sadly missed Mars Williams).

Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey, broadcasting from their home, showed off the continuous refinement of their unique language and telepathy. The first piece, with Laubrock on tenor, danced through growling almost-R&B, nudged by Rainey’s jostling, lively drum part then dropping out for Laubrock to lean into almost Brotzmann-esque stuttering and disruption of the gorgeous melody. The latter piece with soprano used instrument’s vocal textures to devastating effect with Laubrock’s unmistakable tone, Rainey’s drums almost acting as hypeman and instigator.

Wendy Eisenberg played an undulating solo electric guitar piece with a subtle rhythm track by the reservoir she stood next to. Glowing crystalline cells of melody stuck in my blood, then dissipated into a foam of something confounding and even more beautiful. Eisenberg built this piece on the glory of disjunction, on the surprise and delight of nature and humanity, and reminded me what keeps me hungry for new music.

Blacks’ Myths, the DC duo comprising Luke Stewart on bass and Warren G. “Trae” Crudup III on drums, streamed an intense, enticing duet from their respective homes. Painting surreal landscapes with the colors of a traditional rhythm section, their set was as surprising as it was deep. In Crudup’s hands, rolls and ride time exploded into flurries reminiscent of Sunny Murray, Stewart used string noise and mutes to create a rich negative space and long, organ-like tones of distortion to provide narrative propulsion.