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Best Of live music

Best of 2023 – Live Music

Small bar, two dark haired white men playing guitars, one singing, one light haired white man playing piano and singing, one light haired white man playing cowbell and dancing so hard he's blurry
The Little Rockers (from left, Phil Cogley (if I’m wrong there, someone please post), Quinn Fallon, Joe Peppercorn, Jason Winner)

This may sound like a joke to most people who know me, but this year, I really felt the strain of trying to juggle too much. Some of that stress resulted from differently demanding jobs – especially switching companies around Memorial Day. Some of that feeling was mental health, including the fact that a bout of COVID and a recurrence of gout both threw my gym habit, which I’d really enjoyed the last two years, off hard. I’ve got some strategies, and it’s all about iterative improvement/a feedback loop I’d been steadfastly ignoring; we’ll see if I can get to a more balanced place of being open to really enjoying everything I head out for and not being so goddam tired.

That whining out of the way; I’m so glad I have a habit of doing these every year because I saw an amazing array of stuff.  Narrowing this down to 20 was extremely hard – even with another 20 of the best sets I saw at a festival. I saw about 170 shows over 12 cities – though a few of those cities were only for festivals, like Knoxville for Big Ears or Memphis for Gonerfest. 

In no surprise, I was at Dick’s Den the most often, with 25 appearances, and I never saw any bullshit music there. It’s not only my clubhouse; it’s where our finest musicians feel comfortable stretching out, trying new things, and checking new players. Not only our jazz scene, but I feel safe saying Columbus’s entire cultural firmament would be poorer without the constantly rejuvenating energy of Dick’s.

Natalie’s Grandview was next up; I was there 11 times (with two more scheduled after this intro – hopefully after this post, but we’ll see how long this takes – but before the end of the year). Beyond the dazzling show that did make this list, it had the most sweated-over, where-does-this-go shows of any venue in town. In another year, the Robbie Fulks (first time with a full band in a few years), the Sadies (who killed me as a trio when I didn’t think I’d ever get used to them without Dallas Good), Sarah Borges/Eric Ambel (who brought my favorite set list they’ve ever done from two artists who’ve never made a bad record), and Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express (who sailed over what’s always a high bar when he’s in town) all would have made this list handily. 

And I want to take a second to shout out something Natalie’s does that I think is important: residencies. Beyond their legendary extension of Bobby Floyd’s Sundays (to which I’ve been an intermittent visitor since they were held at the Lobby on the east side), they’ve made space to give established and up-and-coming artists recurring weekly space on their more intimate Charlie’s Stage to bring guests, workshop new material, and remind us all just how deep the bench is of talent in this town. I saw stellar examples of this by Lydia Loveless, the duo of singer Sydney McSweeney and saxophone player Terrance Charles, Hammond B-3 players Jon Eshelman and Tony Monaco, and the trio version of alternate-universe harmony maestros The Randys, and easily missed half a dozen I wanted to make. My cultural life is richer through the efforts of Charlie and Natalie Jackson; every year, they double down on that.

Speaking of, I want to take a second to shout out fellow Grandview venue Woodlands Tavern: every time I made it out for Colin Gawel’s monthly residencies, I had a fantastic Sunday; more than once taking out-of-town pals, enjoying the guests he’d bring on, especially his rallying for both democracy in general and reproductive rights in specific with two Issue 2 shows before the two elections.

Cafe Bourbon Street either continues getting its groove back, or I continue getting my head out of my own ass and noticing. Every one of the six nights I spent there could have easily made this list; the one show that made the 20 not only still reverberates in my head but also was worth getting COVID again. Ace of Cups, I haven’t been to as often, but the subtle improvements in sound and the bar, while keeping some of the great staff and the overall ambiance, always make me feel good. I especially appreciate the carrying the torch for bigger community building or reinforcing events – the two-day 20th anniversary of Lost Weekend Records and the fundraiser for Arturo De Leon, headlined by the return of the New Bomb Turks; both made my heart swell.

Everything listed below is in Columbus unless otherwise stated; everything is in chronological order. All photographs are by me. When I list an opening act, it’s because that opener helped nudge the show onto this list.

Black and white photo, dark skin woman singing, light skinned woman sitting and playing violin
Rhiannon Giddens, standing, and Katherine McLin, playing violin, from the Promusica Chamber Orchestra
  • Meshell Ndegeocello (Blue Note, NYC, 01/12/2023) – I’ve been a fan of Ndegeocello since hearing Plantation Lullabies in High School, but I’d never seen her live, so a week at the Blue Note when I was in town for the constellation of APAP side events was a no-brainer. She augmented the already tight usual band with guitarist Jeff Parker and keyboardist Julius Rodriguez. She opened by saying, “It’s rainy outside; we’re going for a mood,” and held me in the palm of her hand as the band slid from silky looseness to snapping wire-tight at precisely the right moments, all hovering around her voice and guitar or keys. They previewed songs from the at-the-time-upcoming The Omnichord Real Book, dipped into the catalog, and sprinkled the 70-80 minute set with a handful of beautiful covers, including a smoky, slow-jam take on the ‘80s George Clinton classic Atomic Dog. Not the first show of the year I saw, but this definitely set a bar for everything that came after.
  • Promusica Chamber Orchestra with Rhiannon Giddens (Southern Theater, 01/19/2023) – One of my favorite contemporary singers since first hearing Carolina Chocolate Drops, my fandom of Rhiannon Giddens exploded after seeing her solo at one of my first couple of Big Ears festivals in the Bijou Theater. She captured the spectrum of American music in Columbus’s intimate historic theater, working alongside our Promusica Chamber Orchestra at Promusica’s annual fundraiser alongside her musical foil, Francesco Turrisi and upright bassist Jason Sypher. With soaring, nuanced string arrangements from Gabe Witcher (often a visitor to the Southern as a member of the Punch Brothers), she tore into classics like Nina Simone’s “Tomorrow is My Turn” and Gillian Welch’s “Factory Girl” along with originals like “At the Purchaser’s Option” with aplomb and that crystalline tone. Just breathtaking.
  • Teeth Marks/Cardiel/Garbage Greek (Rumba Cafe, 02/11/2023) – It’s no surprise Garbage Greek is the only band to make this list twice. They are my people and have been my favorite straight-up rock band since stripping down and woodshedding during COVID. They always bring it whether they’re coming as a three- or four-piece (Adam Scoppa’s percussion and backing vocals add fascinating textures when he’s available). They’ve brought a strain of harder rock to Rumba Cafe. They’re bringing bands that probably wouldn’t play here otherwise. This example turned me onto beautifully unhinged Mexico City two-piece Cardiel – who fused furious garage rock with acid-tinged improv and even the depth and richness of dub reggae – and local band Teeth Marks, who had an appealingly raw vibe that immediately added me to their list.
  • Columbus Jazz Orchestra with Maria Schneider (Southern Theater, 02/12/2023) – I love our Jazz Orchestra, but sometimes the rep isn’t right up my alley. Obviously, there were no such questions with Maria Schneider, who’s been at the forefront of modernizing the big band language for decades. Watching her conduct a set of her deathless compositions was my favorite example of seeing how the muscles of this band can flex, be delicate, and powerful in the same breath.  
Dark skin woman sitting, playing acoustic guitar
Yasmin Williams
  • Yo La Tengo (Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland, 03/22/2023) – Speaking of delicate and powerful, alternating and at the same time, Yo La Tengo might be the touring band I’ve seen most often over the years, but I’ve never seen a better two sets than they brought to one of my favorite venues in March. Highlights for me included an opening “Sinatra Drive Breakdown,” a breathtaking “Center of Gravity,” a dazzling “Sugarcube,” and an encore starting with a cover from underground Ohio heroes Electric Eels.
  • Yasmin Williams with Tarta Relena (Wexner Center, 03/28/2023) – I’d waited a long while for Yasmin Williams. Canceled at least twice due to COVID, another cancelation and a year wait after I’d interviewed her and written a preview. But this makeup date affirmed everything I love about her records, gave me my first taste of my current favorite acoustic guitarist live, and introduced me to the astonishing Spanish singing duo Tarta Relena. Hymns not bound to a specific tradition, resonating notes tearing rips into universes. Once again, an astonishing show from the Wexner Center that served as a palate cleanser/amuse bouche for the glorious buffet of Big Ears.
  • Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit with Amythyst Kiah (Andrew J. Brady Center, Cincinnati, 04/29/2023) – Maybe the last leg of Isbell’s touring with longtime bass foil Jimbo Hart in a new big room in Cincinnati I wasn’t familiar with before heading down, he and his crack band hit every stage of his career, from the song that introduced most of us to him as a writer, DBT’s “Outfit” through a solid helping of Southeastern songs in the year of its 10th anniversary, and every record since Southeastern rehabilitated his image, including an encore that paired the devastating “Cast Iron Skillet” off not-yet-released Weathervanes with early DBTs standout “Decoration Day.” And Amythyst Kiah and band killed a tight nine-song set heavy on her terrific record Wary and Strange but also sprinkled with hard-edged takes on classics like her set-closing bring-the-house-down take on Vera Hall’s “Trouble So Hard,” which she also appeared alongside Gregory Porter on Moby’s recent revisiting of his “Natural Blues” that introduced many of us to that through a sample.
  • Promusica Chamber Orchestra with Caroline Shaw (Southern Theater, 05/14/2023) – Promusica has been one of our cultural treasures for (barely) longer than I’ve been alive, and their 2022-23 season closer brought Caroline Shaw, one of my favorite contemporary composers, to town finally after originally being booked in 2020. Three pieces gave a taste of the scope of Shaw’s work as a writer and writer-performer – Blueprint for a String Quartet, Is a Rose, and Entr’acte for String Orchestra – and they paired this section with a gorgeous version of the first Brahms symphony which Shaw sat in on in the back of the violin section. It was a rapturous night. I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to see it.
  • Jerry Powell Experience (Lalibela, 06/14/2023) – I was intrigued when, over lunch at a favorite Ethiopian spot in town, Lalibela, I saw a table card advertising that Jerry Powell III, one of our finest jazz drummers whom I hadn’t seen in a while, had a Wednesday residency in the restaurant’s bar. A stripped-down version of his band, accompanied only by a great keyboard player, took us on a journey in two sets: some standards, some more traditional “dinner music,” and some surging extended afrobeat jams. A reminder to be open to what’s in every corner of your town; I end up in the same venues a lot, and it’s not a bad thing; they’re places that are easy for me to get to from my home and from other venues, and that book a large number of shows that align with my tastes. But it’s always good to be reminded how much terrific shit is happening off that well-trod path.
  • Joe Peppercorn/Little Rockers/X-Rated Cowboys/Garbage Greek (Little Rock Bar, 06/21/2023) – Quinn Fallon’s Little Rock Bar has been a locus for multiple groups of my friends; I’ve made friendships there, and I’ve strengthened friendships. I’ve had some of the best nights of the last ten years at its bar or on its patio. Their annual celebration is right before Comfest, so getting some returning out-of-towners is always a delight, but this year was special. Everybody playing, all current or former employees of the bar, brought it. A beautiful solo Joe Peppercorn set. Pickup band Little Rockers’s blazing set included both a gorgeous take on the ‘Mats “Swinging Party” sung by Peppercorn and a killing “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” sung by Patrick Koch. Koch’s own band, Garbage Greek, continued their streak of burning down everything in sight. And Fallon’s own X-Rated Cowboys, with a great record out this year, continued their evolution into a leaner, meaner, more colorful band than the one I started seeing over 20 years ago. A tribute to one of the shapes community takes and much of what I love about this town.
Light skinned man in dark blazer and cowboy hat playing guitar, light skinned woman playing drums
Dave Alvin and Lisa Pankratz
  • Dave Alvin and the Guilty Ones (Natalie’s Grandview, 06/29/2023) – I got into Dave Alvin buying King of California when I was in High School. My fandom went into overdrive with the one-two punch of Hightone’s 1997 reissue of The Blasters’ debut album American Music and Alvin’s Blackjack David the next year (still one of my favorite singer-songwriter records of all time, and still a record I go to often, especially in the wee hours of the morning). I remember talking to Alec Wightman on the phone from my dorm room, getting tickets for the first time I saw Alvin at the Columbus Music Hall promoting Public Domain in 2000 – starting me down the road of following Zeppelin Productions, who I don’t think have had a year they didn’t make this list at least once since I started keeping track in college. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen Alvin over the years, at least 15, but – and I had a little trepidation given what I’d heard about his cancer battle recently – I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sing better, the richness of his voice almost knocked the drink out of my hand, and his guitar playing had a razor-cut crispness that more than made up for any minor losses in speed. Plus, he’s always had great bands. Still, this four-piece Guilty Ones was just perfection: Lisa Pankratz’s band-leading behind the drums as she elegantly worked every mood of the set, as good on a smoldering ballad like “King of California” as the gutbucket raunch of Big Bill Broonzy’s “You’ve Changed” and the soaring wistfulness of “Abilene.” Flexible and driving bass from Brad Fordham. And Alvin’s longtime guitar foil Chris Miller with harmonies and jousting, never too showy. Watching this, I was reminded of the purpose of a writer as a conduit for remembrance, for honoring moments that might not come back. In the American popular – whatever that means – music world, Alvin’s given us more shining examples of that mood, that form, than anyone else. He doled out many of my favorites in this show, reminding us that memory doesn’t have to be somber: the rave-up “Haley’s Comet,” the sexy-as-its-subject R&B of “Johnny Ace is Dead,” the Sam Cooke homage “Border Radio,” and the double-barreled reflections on youth and California “Dry River” and “Ashgrove.” A perfect night and a prime example of how good two guitars, bass and drums still sound. Anne and I decompressed, dissecting this in a bar a few blocks away, for hours.
  • Fred Moten/Brandon Lopez/Gerald Cleaver with Ingrid Laubrock/Cecilia Lopez (FourOneOne, NYC, 07/10/2023) and Big Joanie with Frida Kills (Baby’s All Right, NYC, 07/10/2023) – Once in a while, there’s a night that reminds me what enraptured me about Brooklyn in the first place. I was lucky enough to have a few of those nights this year. Maybe my favorite all-around started with a drink with Anne right off the Metropolitan Avenue L stop (following a long remote work day), dinner at still my favorite New York steak house St Anselm, jukeboxes and bar hopping down the street to a space I hadn’t made it to yet, FourOneOne for a set from one of my favorite saxophone players, Ingrid Laubrock, who Anne and I saw on one of our very first trips to the city together, in a mesmerizing duo with Cecilia Lopez on electronics, followed by one of my favorite writers and thinkers about music, Fred Moten, leading a burning rhythm section of Brandon Lopez and Gerald Cleaver. Then, with a debriefing drink on the walk back up the hill, saw righteous Brooklyn band Frida Kills open for UK powerhouse Big Joanie, who made one of my favorite rock records in a long time last year, turning out a packed house.
Punk rock trio - three dark skinned women - with a cheering crowd in the foreground
Big Joanie
  • Soul Glo with MSPAINT (Ace of Cups, 07/20/2023) – Another band who made one of my favorite rock records from 2022, Philly’s Soul Glo, paired with one of my favorite Gonerfest discoveries from the last decade, Hattiesburg’s MSPAINT – I’m not sure there’s a lyric Anne quotes more often than “Destroy all the flags and the symbols of man!” – was obviously a can’t-miss pairing. So much better than I hoped. Hardcore’s always been a genre I admired more than loved, with some exceptions, but I generally love when a band uses those colors as a foundation and color with the rest of rock history. MSPAINT’s gnarled organ-trio crunch has taken on additional flexibility and suppleness, featuring more dynamics than the epic piledriver we first fell for but with the same wit and fury. And Soul Glo was every single thing I wanted in a rock and roll band: a rhythm section that knows when to swing and when to pummel, a slashing colorist of a guitarist, and a frontman I couldn’t stop watching—a magical combination and a show perfectly sized and pitched for Ace.
  • Oneida with DANA (Cafe Bourbon Street, 8/16/2023) – Pal Fred Pfening getting back into booking in 2023 was a phenomenal delight and the barn burning avalanche of Oneida was a show for the ages, dipping into some of their longer dance forms – their krautrock tendencies even blossoming into flowers blooming in disco trenches – with an opening set from DANA who get looser and more vibrant while holding their crown of best rock band in town.
  • Waco Brothers with Jon Langford and the Bright Shiners (Big Room Bar, 09/22/2023) – The last few times we’d been lucky enough to see Jon Langford, one of the iconic songwriters and singers going back to helping invent British post-punk with the Mekons, were at the fantastic Hogan House venue. We still had the pleasure of seeing PJ and Abbie, proprietors/bookers of Hogan House, and doing as much for music that wouldn’t come to this town otherwise as anybody I can think of, but it was a pleasure to see the Bright Shiners in a bar and the Wacos in a room where we could dance. Their own crackling songs like “The Man That God Forgot” and “This Town” holding their own with covers from the real rock and roll canon like “Teenage Kicks” and “All or Nothing” – the best rocking dance party of the year. 
  • Johnathan Blake Quintet (Village Vanguard, NYC, 10/12/2023) – On the heels of a phenomenal record (you’ll see some evidence on this year’s playlists), drummer and composer Johnathan Blake brought the power of a volcanic quintet – Dezron Douglas on bass, Dayna Stephens on sax, Fabian Almazan on piano, and Jalen Baker on vibes – for a perfect set that went from Horace Silver (maybe the best “Peace” I’ve ever heard) to his own new tunes to classics from his father Ralph Peterson, Jr. A night that reminded me why the Village Vanguard stays one of the best listening rooms in the world.
Three dark skinned men singing, two light skinned men playing horns, one light skinned man singing and playing guitar, one light skinned man playing guitar
Harlem Gospel Travelers, Eli “Paperboy” Reed, and band
  • Eli “Paperboy” Reed and the Harlem Gospel Travelers (Union Pool, NYC, 10/14/2023) – I don’t always love a repertory show, but this was exactly how you do it. Eli “Paperboy” Reed used his 40th birthday to pack out the Union Pool room and tear into one of my favorite records of all time, Sam Cooke’s Live at the Harlem Square Club 1963, and for the encore, instead of dipping into his own catalog, brought up the Harlem Gospel Travelers and did songs Cooke was doing in concert contemporaneously. He didn’t even dip into earlier, better-known Sam Cooke songs like “You Send Me.” It was a tribute to scholarship but also to sensual delight – the looseness and good time everyone had on stage and in the audience lit me up from the inside on a day that also included the production of Merrily We Roll Along that made my theater list and a return to century-old Brooklyn classic restaurant Bamonte’s, plus always killer DJing from legends like Mr. Finewine as a nightcap.
  • Lady Wray and 79.5 (Brooklyn Made, NYC, 10/15/2023) – I’ve been a fan of Lady Wray since “Make It Hot” and her co-writes/guest spots on Missy Elliot classics. And I’ve seen a few R&B hitmakers who transitioned to classic soul sounds over the years. But I’ve never seen one do it with the kind of grace and wit Wray did here, honoring her earlier life with a scorching “Make It Hot” about a third of the way through the set and devoting just as much energy and enthusiasm to the newer work. Finally, seeing the reigning Brooklyn disco band 79.5 was as much a selling point as the headliner. They didn’t disappoint – sweated so much from dancing that my blazer stuck to me from sweat when we finally tumbled into the chilly Brooklyn night.
Dark skinned woman playing keyboards and singing, dark skinned woman singing, light skinned man playing bass, light skinned man playing guitar
Lady Wray and band
  • Los Rumberos (Cafe Marula, Barcelona, 11/11/2023) – First trip to Spain, especially Barcelona, was more focused on food and art than music, but after a fantastic dinner, Anne found at Restaurante Informal – some of the best sea bass I’ve ever had – where we didn’t have a plan except not feeling like heading home immediately after, we stumbled into Mexican band Los Rumberos, not just playing rumbas but son, cumbia, vintage disco, reggae, in a ball of sweaty, kinetic energy. Blew me back against the bar.
  • Mulatu Astatke (Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa, Madrid, 11/17/2023) – I loved those Ethiopiques compilations, and my favorite was the volume dedicated to percussionist Mulatu Astatke that came out when I was 18. So, seeing he was playing the first night we were in Madrid was a no-brainer. And at 79 years old, fronting a septet of much younger players, he astonished me. Slipping between marimba, timbales, congas, and electric piano, he guided the band like a wizard redirecting a river.
Two light skinned men playing horns, light skinned man playing piano, dark skinned man playing marimba, light skinned man playing cello
Mulatu Astatke and Band

Festival Sets:

Dark skinned woman singing, dark skinned man playing trumpet, light skinned man playing saxophone, dark skinned man playing upright bass, cheering crowd in foreground
Irreversible Entanglements
  • Winter Jazz Fest (NYC, Various Venues, January 2023)
    • New Standards Songbook
    • Irreversible Entanglements
Light skinned woman playing bass and singing, light skinned woman playing guitar and singing, crowd in foreground
Scrawl
  • Lost Weekend Records Anniversary (Ace of Cups, February 2023)
    • Scrawl
Light skinned man, filming, light skinned man playing guitar, three backing singers - two dark skinned women flanking a dark skinned man, dark skinned man singing, keyboard player and horn section in the background, crowd in foreground
Lonnie Holley with Mourning [A] BLKStar
  • Big Ears (Knoxville, Various Venues, March 2023)
    • Lonnie Holley with Mourning [A] BLKStar
    • Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band
    • James Brandon Lewis
    • Trio Imagination
    • Staples Jr. Singers
    • The Jazz Bins
    • Rica Chicha
    • Peter One
Light skinned woman playing upright bass, crowd in foreground
Amy Lavere
  • Twangfest (St Louis, Off Broadway/Tower Grove, June 2023)
    • Amy Lavere and Will Sexton (Tower Grove Farmer’s Market)
    • Paranoid Style
  • Summer Solstice (Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, June 2023)
    • Barzuto All Stars
Light skinned woman singing, flanked by two light skinned men playing guitars
King Louie Memorial Family Band
  • Gonerfest (Memphis, Railgarten, September 2023)
    • Alien Nosejob
    • Virvon Varvon
    • COFFIN
    • Civic
    • King Louie Memorial Family Band
    • The Courettes
Light skinned woman singing and playing percussion, light skinned man playing drums, light skinned man playing banjo
Rica Chicha
Categories
"Hey, Fred!" live music

Things I’ve Been Digging – 04/12/2021

The last photo I ever took of Bob, how I like to remember him, at Ace deep in conversation with a few of my favorite people. From left: Chris Quickert, Bob Petric, Nick Schuld, Aleks Shaulov

As we get closer to the first little slice of normalcy – my second vaccine is coming up this week – there are reminders that we’re not out of the woods yet: horrifying statistics around the world, anecdotal evidence from every channel.

One that hit close to home for me was Saturday’s public announcement of my friend Bob Petric’s death. I probably didn’t know Bobby as well as at least 100 people on my friends’ list, but I had genuine conversations with him once or twice a week. 

The definitive retrospective comes from great writer and longtime friend of Bob’s, Bela Koe-Krompecher at the Alive: https://www.columbusalive.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/04/11/remembering-thomas-jefferson-slave-apartments-guitarist-bob-petric/7180845002/

He was someone I thought about regularly: the sly one-liner, the big laugh when you landed, and that hand on your shoulder that reminded you he was glad to see you. When I was at a loss for what to do, getting off work or a summer afternoon, “Head down to Ace of Cups and see Bob” was always one of the best options on the table.

Before and parallel to that friendship was his presence in my life as a guitar player. I never got to see Girly Machine (I squandered a few opportunities as a kid), but I saw Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments every time I got the chance. The way he fused an almost hyperactive, polished technique to a frenzied wildness was breathtaking. There was the emotional quality of opening a nerve at the same time he compressed the entire history of the guitar and cracked the sky at the same time.

I saw a couple of TJSA shows that were shambolic trainwrecks but even those had a few minutes that affirmed I was in the right place. Far more often, they were mind-blowing. Petric’s melodic, fiery counterpoint to Ron House’s wry, cracked lyrics over a shifting series of great rhythm sections were what I’d reach to 9 times out of 10 when someone asked me what “Columbus music” sounds like.

A tangent: one late afternoon, Anne and I were at HiFi Bar in Manhattan (RIP) who had an astonishing jukebox, a precursor to the now-ubiquitous internet jukes, called El DJ. El DJ boasted a hard drive we controlled with a trackball through an interface that cross-referenced bands. One highlight of EJ DJ, for me at least, was a surprising number of Columbus acts: Times New Viking, Gaunt, New Bomb Turks, and, of course, TJSA. 

As the two-for-one happy hour shifted gears, I put on “Cheater’s Heaven” off their seminal first record Bait and Switch and owner Mike Stuto lit up. “Who played Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments?” He exclaimed from across the bar, and Anne and I spent a great hour talking about Bob’s guitar, Ron’s singing, the connection between our town’s scenes. When I think about Columbus crossing the world – and there are a million stories – that’s the one I go to first.

So while this is not something I was digging, there’s never a bad time to remember our friends and tell the friends here we love them. If you’re reading this, I love you. If I haven’t told you lately, I’m sorry and I want to do better.

If you haven’t listened to TJSA, maybe the best place to start is the blistering live record from their legendary tour with GBV just released on Bandcamp:

Some other video evidence of this juggernaut at the top of his powers:

This one taken by great friend (of mine and the band’s) Shirley Tobias

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
Best Of live music

Best of 2019: Live Music

In a year when I swung wildly between the longing to retreat at full steam into my shell and desperate, frenzied attempts at connection, it sometimes got harder to find solace in music. But whenever I’d get discouraged, live music was still there and reminding me why it’s been such a force in my life all these years. In the same way gratitude and attention helped pull me back – even if sometimes only for a little while – I found some of the greatest joy in old forms given surprising faces, artists I’d loved for years scaling a new Parnassus or two, further refinement and sharpness of voices.

140 shows in eight cities and narrowing it down to these 20 (with another 10 sets from various festivals) was as hard as ever. I found it interesting that old standby Dick’s Den got the most of my business, hitting an average of twice a month; Ace of Cups continues to ease into Bobby Miller’s booking as he lines up perfectly with the room and saw me 15 times this year; I finally got off my ass and made the amazing booking (for my taste mostly from Jen Powers but also from other dedicated souls) at Dirty Dungarees a priority with 8 stops. Rumba Cafe, The Johnstone Fund for New Music’s shows at Short North Stage, the Wexner Center, and Natalie’s all made their usual strong showings.

None of us know what’s in store but I’m excited again – for plans already booked (NYC for Winter Jazzfest, and other APAP-adjacent fun and again for my birthday, a reunited Bikini Kill in Detroit) and the continued synchronicity of my community. Some of what has me pumped: the most exciting cultural opening of the year, Scott Woods’ Streetlight Guild is already more than delivering on its promise; I’ve seen the new Natalie’s space in Grandview and it’s everything they do well on a larger scale; Filament perfected its mix of exciting touring acts and local conjurers to create the best intimate listening room in town; my first trips to the renovated Snowden-Gray Mansion revealed a brilliant room for exciting, traditional jazz; word on venues I haven’t made it to yet like BluNote Cafe and Savoy Club has me hungry to visit them.

All photos are taken by me unless otherwise stated. Everything below is in Columbus unless otherwise stated.

Mark Lomax II and Urban Art Ensemble, Lincoln Theatre

Mark Lomax II and Urban Art Ensemble: “The 400 Premiere,” Lincoln Theatre presented by the Wexner Center for the Arts (01/26/2019) – This spellbinding evening represented the culmination of Mark Lomax, Columbus’ finest living composer’s most ambitious project to date. As though 12 full-length, wide ranging albums tracing the African diaspora from the ma’afa into the future wasn’t enough, Lomax arranged a suite for the Urban Art Ensemble including almost a half hour of brand new material. Blistering performances and the finest integration of strings with jazz I’ve ever seen, this kept me floating for days, from a composer and drummer I’ve been watching for 20 years.

Punch Brothers with Gabriel Kahane, Southern Theatre (03/20/2019) – Two artists with a foot in western chamber music and a foot in vernacular forms gave us expansive, open-hearted takes on staying engaged and in touch with the world. Kahane’s solo set focused on the Book of Travelers material with digressions into the rest of his work including a setting of the “That’s Not Your Man” tweets about Ohio-born president Rutherford B Hayes and a wrenching “The Ambassador.” The Punch Brothers continued their mission of refinement and complication with righteous, mysterious pieces like “Three Dots and a Dash,” and wistful snapshots like “New York City” and “Julep.”

Timothy Holley and Karen Walwyn, Wexner Center for the Arts (04/07/2019) – One of many highlights of Mark Lomax’s Wex residency was this presentation of renowned cellist Holley and pianist Walwyn. That afternoon they took us on a journey through African-American composers that opened my eyes with stirring pieces by Florence Price, Trevor Weston and more.

Dale Watson, Woodlands Tavern

Dale Watson and his Texas Lonestars, Woodlands Tavern (04/19/2019) – The reigning king of the neo-honky tonk movement came up from Texas for a reminder that classic forms are as alive as you want them to be. Watson paints his stomps and waltzes in bright neon instead of sepia and one of the few times I’ve ever seen someone ask for requests from the audience and mean it as when he looked directly at me after I shouted for “I Hate These Songs” off the first of his Hightone records I bought 20 years ago, said, “Okay, we’ll do that one,” and launched into a perfect, aching version of that ode to music’s ability to embody all our pain.

Kath Bloom, Dirty Dungarees (04/30/2019) – Kath Bloom – who I grew up with the collaborative records with Loren Connors – gave a wrenching, perfect low-key set that resonated with everything I’ve always wanted a singer to be. A bone-deep love for the past fixing her eyes firmly on the now and a reminder that we can all keep getting better at things if we work hard enough and care enough.

IDLES with Fontaines DC, Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland (05/14/2019) – The most exciting rock and roll show I’ve seen in a while and the best summation of what rock and roll can do if we trust it, how it can still be a system to unlock new horizons instead of a system to box us in and keep us adolescent. IDLES are maybe the most exciting live band working today and their stew of hardcore rhythms, churning atmospheric guitars and hints of Birthday Party sardonic wit and Fontaines DC are coming up behind. A sold out crowd I was happy to be in, not tolerating, full of palpable love for the world, the kind of love where you want it to be better.

SIGNAL Ensemble with Brooklyn Youth Chorus: “Richter Reich Part,” The Shed, NYC (05/30/2019) – Two of my favorite composers given life in an immersive installation of one of my favorite visual artists, this was meant for me, and it delivered in spades.

Meah Pace, Rubenstein Ballroom at Lincoln Center

Meah Pace, Rubenstein Auditorium at Lincoln Center, NYC (05/30/2019) – Another case study in someone making old forms feel new and completely their own through intense commitment. Meah Pace turned out a version of “Gimme Shelter” that made me forget any I’d ever heard before and got a relatively staid crowd in this Lincoln Center auditorium dancing and cheering, and her own songs like “Promised Land” held their own. Probably my favorite surprise all year.

Tav Falco and the Panther Burns, Le Poisson Rouge, NYC (05/31/2019) – I’ve been a huge fan of Falco’s for years but I’d never gotten to see him live. This did not disappoint – his jagged, art-damaged takes on country blues and bubblegum even led him going back to standards like Dean Martin’s “Sway” and a poignant take on the Jaynetts’ “Sally Go Round the Roses.”

Joanne Brackeen, Mezzrow

Joanne Brackeen/Lonnie Plaxico Duo, Mezzrow, NYC (06/01/2019) – Another legend I’d known from records but never seen live, Mezzrow was the perfect room for Joanne Brackeen’s fluid, sparkling take on the piano. Lonnie Plaxico – whose electic, electric records for Blue Note in the late ’90s/early ’00s were huge for me – was the perfect duet partner, sticking to upright on classics like “Autumn Leaves” and “When You Wish Upon a Star.” A perfect New York summer evening.

Daddy Long Legs, Rumba Cafe (07/11/2019) – My first time checking in with Daddy Long Legs live since a fantastic show where they backed R&B oddball T. Valentine at the Lakeside Lounge (RIP) and they’ve grown into one of the best bands working. Two guitars and drums attacking the sound made famous by the ’60s Stones with the fire of conquering generals.

The Mavericks, Rose Music Center

Los Lobos and The Mavericks, Rose Music Center, Huber Heights (07/20/2019) – Rose is the perfect venue of its size and Ohio is richer for having it. This double bill made in heaven found the Mavericks (augmented by accordion, percussion and a full horn section) celebrating their 30th anniversary and Los Lobos 35 years from their breakthrough How Will the Wolf Survive album. Two muscular, swinging party bands, unabashedly Latinx, and the perfect thing for a summer night.

Davila 666, The Summit (07/24/2019) – Davila 666 returned after years of solo projects and reminded me why they’re one of the best bands I’ve ever seen. Songs I hadn’t heard in almost a decade, in a language I don’t speak, proved their hooks are still burned into my brain, daring me to sing along and dance like a madman. This was the perfect thing for Anne’s birthday to fall at midnight.

Amanda Shires, The Basement (08/15/2019) – Shires’ own records and bandleading get better and better every time I’m lucky enough to see her. In a Basement almost too crowded, she brought me to tears with a Songs:Ohia cover and made me swoon and shake with her originals. One of the greats.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Rumba Cafe

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists with Control Top, Rumba Cafe (08/21/2019) – It had been too long since I saw Ted Leo, his Pharmacists’ current lineup was the best Clash-style rock I’ve ever seen, hints of The Jam and Nick Lowe, classic Thin Lizzy and The Kinks. A fireball of joy and pain and grooves. Philly’s Control Top blew me away with tight songs, thick bass lines, and sparking, grim guitars.

Central Ohio Discovery Ensemble with composers Jennifer Jolley, Linda Kernohan, Mark Lomax, Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz, Michael Rene Torres, Charlie Wilmoth; and poets Scott Woods, Barbara Fant, Jennifer Hambrick, Louise Robertson, Dionne Custer Edwards, and Jeremy Glazier: “The Big Score,” Columbus Performing Arts Center (09/08/2019) – This collaboration is exactly the kind of thing I want more from Columbus. I was talking with one of the performers and said Jack and Zoe Johnstone have filled an immeasurable gap in Columbus, the one genre we were largely missing was new chamber music. This mix of some of our most interesting composers with some of our finest poets was a homerun 85% of the time and was always swinging for the fences.

Midnight Hour, Strongwater

Midnight Hour, Strongwater (10/03/2019) – This cinematic, sultry collaboration between Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad was perfect. A crack band highlighting Green on Red’s Jack Waterston on guitar and vocalists Loren Oden, Angela Munoz, and Saudia Mills, this moved from silky soul to rippling jazz to grinding funk.

Angel bat Dawid and Tha Brothahood, Wexner Center for the Arts (10/10/2019) – Angel bat Dawid embodies the soulful fire music tradition of Chicago and rides it into space. Her ringing clarinet and vocals have an incantatory power that levitated me right out of my seat and her crack band switched between reeds, percussion, electronics, Art Ensemble of Chicago-style but completely modern and singing these praises for today. The set that gives me the most hope for the future of jazz and the future of music at the Wex.

Fantastic Four, PJ’s Lager House

The Fantastic Four, PJ’s Lager House, Detroit (11/29/2019) – A quintessential Detroit night, the contemporary lineup of an underrated soul combo who recorded for labels like Motown and Westbound churning through Northern Soul classics like “The Whole World is a Stage,” “I Love You Madly” and “I’ve Got to Have You” in a tiny rock club with a cooking five piece band behind them. Passing tradition on in the right hands.

Reverend Horton Heat with Dave Alvin, New Bomb Turks, and Voodoo Glow Skulls, Majestic Theatre, Detroit (11/30/2019) – I don’t think I’d seen the Reverend Horton Heat in 15 years – whenever that tour with Supersuckers and Split Lip Rayfield (RIP) was – though they were the band I saw most often for many years. Our friends and hometown heroes New Bomb Turks plus the promise of Dave Alvin sitting in with the Rev got us to Detroit for our anniversary and this so far exceeded expectations I can barely describe it. Voodoo Glow Skulls had a crazy-fun opening set that made me nostalgic. Turks burned through a furious set that showed they haven’t lost a step in all these years. And the Reverend, augmented with a great piano player and a great, swinging drummer formerly of Brave Combo, had everyone in the palm of his hand. Watching he and Dave Alvin trade solos on classic Blasters tunes like “Marie, Marie” and “Long White Cadillac” reminded me why I loved live music in the first place and why I love it still.

Reverend Horton Heat and Dave Alvin, Majestic Theatre

Favorite Festival Sets:

Anbessa Orchestra, Cleveland Museum of Art

Heron Oblivion, Melted, Bluestone (02/24/2019)
Rachel and Vilray, New York Guitar Festival presents Memphis Minnie: In Search of the Hoodoo Lady, Brookfield Place, NYC (05/31/2019)
Anbessa Orchestra, Summer Solstice Fundraiser, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (06/22/2019)

Sheer Mag, Burger Boogaloo

Amyl and the Sniffers, Burger Boogaloo, Oakland (07/05/2019)
Sheer Mag, Burger Boogaloo, Oakland (07/05/2019)
The Scientists, Burger Boogaloo, Oakland (07/06/2019)

Sweet Knives, Gonerfest

VIVO String Quartet, “Black Angels,” VIVO Music Festival (08/30/2019)
Sweet Knives, Gonerfest, Memphis (09/26/2019)

Kelley Anderson, Gonerfest

The Oblivians with Quintron, Gonerfest, Memphis (09/27/2019)
Kelley Anderson, Gonerfest, Memphis (09/27/2019)

Categories
Best Of visual art

Best of 2018 – Visual Art

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
-Mary Oliver

Delacroix, Metropolitan Museum of Art

This has been a year of incredible highs and incredible lows, the latter all self-inflicted. Wearing myself so far down I was susceptible to a week in the hospital with pneumonia. To spraining an ankle so hard I was in a boot for two weeks. But one thing that always helps center me, that lights and maintains the fire called wanting to go on, is attention. And no cultural activity centers me more, nothing puts me in my place, nothing bows the strings in my soul like trying to focus on visual art.

And I will say this in all three posts but the best macro-gratitude exercise I undertake every year is keeping track of what I see/listen to (I need to be better about tracking what I read) and going over it at the end of the year. I took in around 75 exhibits this year and narrowing it down to 20 was hard. I am, always, very, very lucky.

Anyone else sparked by this or who bothers to read these, I appreciate you . Drop me a line, let’s talk about what we both saw or what I’m an idiot for leaving off. Everything here is in Columbus and any photo is taken by me unless stated otherwise.

Mickalene Thomas, Afro Goddess Looking Forward, 2015, Courtesy of the artist via the Wexner Center, Copyright Mickalene Thomas / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

1. Mickalene Thomas, I Can’t See You Without Me (Wexner Center for the Arts) – I can’t think of an artist who better epitomizes taking all of art history and synthesizing it into a voice utterly, unmistakably hers, than Mickalene Thomas. The bounty of riches presented with I Can’t See You Without Me was like tapping into a deep vein and realizing it’s full of stars: completely personal, in touch with the world (and worlds behind the world) and full of monumental, magic beauty. Everything I love in art was in this show and while I visited it five or six times, I regret not seeing it seven or eight more.

David Wojnarowicz, Whitney Museum of Art

2. David Wojnarowicz, History Keeps Me Awake at Night (Whitney Museum of Art, NYC) – Dispatches from one era when the world was on fire still shone brightly in this dazzling retrospective of one of American art’s foremost poets of ecstasy and rage.

3. Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrors (Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland) – I still remember the first time I saw one of Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms, at my first Whitney Biennial. It was an eye-opening reminder of the power of repetition to unlock a world and a potent mix of serenity and discord. I came to love the permutations of her varied work over time, most prominently in a stuffed, ranging retrospective at the Whitney. but this hyper-focused touring show was a concentrated dose of the mix of sensations that first drew me in.

4. Kerry James Marshall, Works on Paper (Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland) – An epic-scaled domestic scene in panels fragmenting it like a comic strip and also recalling large Renaissance triptychs, was surrounded by other drawings in this tight, sharp show of an artist who only gets better.

5. Various Artists, Trigger: Gender as a Tool and Weapon (New Museum, NYC) – This ferocious trip through depictions of gender ended a January New York trip on a head-spinning succession of high notes, including Ulrike Muller’s jagged abstractions, a dazzling Mickalene Thomas video collage. This summed up everything I love about the New Museum when it’s clicking, work within the last 10 years – without cheaply valorizing youth – that summed up and exploded 40 years of the institution. A good sign for the future of the Wexner Center as the curator of this spectactular exhibit is the new director to succeed Sherri Geldin as director.

6. Hilma af Klint, Paintings for the Future (Guggenheim, NYC) – This hypnotic, transfixing, spiritual show cemented another contender for an originator of abstraction and opened my eyes to a voice I knew almost nothing about. A paean to the magic of drilling down into oneself with specific instructions not to show most of her work until 20 years after her death, working on instructions from spirits she communed with through a seance group. You couldn’t write af Klint’s story in a way that seemed believable but the art was as accessible as layered and elusive.

A Color Removed, SPACES Gallery

7. Michael Rakowitz with Amber N. Ford, M. Carmen Lane, RA Washington, and Amanda King with Shooting Without Bullets Youth Photographers; A Color Removed (SPACES Gallery, Cleveland) – Rakowitz in collaboration with a variety of local artists created an assemblage of the color orange, underlining the irony of trying to blame the deaths of children on the warning color or lack thereof. And it was one of the most devastating things I’ve ever seen in my life. A quiet temple to absence, loss, and rage.

8. Mary Corse, A Survey in Light (Whitney Museum, NYC) – I walked into the Whitney that sweltering July day knowing I loved Wojnarowicz, steeped in him since I was a teenager. I had no such knowledge or preconceptions of Corse and her deceptively simple canvases pulled my breath right out of my body. Working with the most fundamental element not just of painting but of sight – light – she made me look at it in a different way that recalled the meditative work of so many earlier artists but was still like nothing I’d seen.

9. Eugene Delacroix, Delacroix (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC) – This presentation of one of the old masters I knew the least about was refreshing in a way art of that vintage doesn’t usually affect me. The breadth of his literary influences and the wide range of stylistic techniques were dazzling; a self-portrait casting himself as the main character in Scott’s Bride of Lammermoor led me to dub him the creator of the cosplay selfie. And it was not just the Musee de Nancy frame that led me to say, and my companions to repeat the rest of the weekend, “Delacroix is lit.”

9. Charles White, A Retrospective (Museum of Modern Art, NYC) – Another artist I wasn’t as familiar with as I should have been, a 20th-century American, this selection of White’s work was the perfect thing to see upon first arriving in the city. Enormous, dazzling, powerful and rich with the contradictions and terror still reverberating through the fabric of daily life. Almost impossible to take in but refusing to let me go, demanding and not letting me off the hook.

10. Various Artists, Inherent Structure (Wexner Center for the Arts) –  The Wex hit a home run with this vibrant look at the ways contemporary artists continue to suck the marrow out of traditional concerns of abstract painting while tweaking and subverting it. One of the best-arranged exhibits I saw all year, where every corner I turned revealed something else about what I’d seen and what I was about to see without pandering to the obvious. Artists I already loved like Amy Sillman illuminated a gateway toward those I knew less (Angel Otero) and those completely new to me (Channing Hansen).

11. Carolee Scheenman, Kinetic Painting (MoMA PS1, NYC) – This expansive retrospective, going back to the ’50s, was a lesson in how not to weaken in rigor, in curiosity, in feeling. Scheenman did almost everything and did it all with blinding heat and depth that continually revealed itself. Shaming and inspiring and astonishing.

12. Marlon de Azambuja and Luisa Lambri, Brutalismo-Cleveland (Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland) – Another piece in the fantastic Front triennial, this collection of local materials in an iteration of de Azambuja’s ongoing series investigating Brutalism paired with Lambri’s photographs in something that was unsettling and perfectly in keeping with its surroundings (not just the Breuer wing of the CMA but Cleveland itself).

Phyllida Barlow, Hauser and Wirth

12. Phyllida Barlow, Tilt (Hauser and Wirth, NYC) – There was no shortage of art I saw this year that grappled with the way we in more privileged vantage points have realized the world doesn’t sit on its axis as comfortably as we once thought. Very little did it with the same arresting punch as British artist Barlow. A queasy circus singing a melody in its own voice, a voice that haunts me weeks later and I want to hear more of. Seeing the nods to Brutalism in these pieces transported me to the de Azambuja earlier on the list and the way those two artists of different nationalities exhibiting in different cities and different seasons spoke to one another in my head was a tribute to trying to see as much art as possible.

13. Sarah Lucas, Au Naturel (New Museum, NYC) – There’s a recurring theme in what shook me this year: artists I damn sure should have known better. Sarah Lucas epitomizes this, storied career as a sculptor I mostly knew as a name, one of the Young British Artists, with Hirst and Emin. This intense, witty, beautifully vulgar retrospective was everything I want art to be – speaking not just truth to power but a specific, personal, idiosyncratic truth.

14. Junya Ishigami, Freeing Architecture (Cartier Foundation, Paris) – Most of my first trip to Paris was spent doing exactly what you’d expect – the Louvre, D’Orsay, Centre Pompidou, Shakespeare and Company, wandering boulevards, drinking wine, all spectacular. So I was surprised by how affecting I found this show of a visionary Japanese architect. Breathable open spaces that feel like the future; echoes of ’70s science fiction movies like Silent Running but also evocative of the flowing purity of a Basho line or the meditative canvases of Agnes Martin. I wanted to live here. Paris, sure, but also inside these models.

15. Cyprien Galliard, Nightlife (MOCA, Cleveland) – I’ve been a fan of Galliard’s since the Wex showed his photographs but I’ve never been as enchanted as by the swirling dive into the after-dark of this video installation. Rodin’s The Thinker shattered by a bombing (the version in Cleveland), a tree planted to celebrate Jesse Owens also in Cleveland, fireworks over the site of the 1936 Berlin Olympics where Owens, shuddering plant life around Los Angeles streets, all throbbing to a looped sample of the Alton Ellis classic Blackman’s Song, the original chorus of “I was born a loser” melting into the re-release of “I was born a winner.” I could have stayed there for hours

16. Martha Rosler, Irrespective (Jewish Museum, NYC) – Martha Rosler’s acerbic retrospective at the Jewish Museum was the kind of fresh air and reawakening to the atmosphere of terror around us I needed. Steeped in language and sharply aware of the limitations and obfuscations of every vocabulary, this was as immediate and accessible as a slap in the face but also layers upon layers.

17. Susan Phillipsz, A Single Voice (Tanya Bonakdar, NYC) – Phillipsz is the master of the subtle, disorienting environment and one of the finest artists at using sound in a gallery setting. An installation with film of a violin player playing a snatch of score from a Karl-Birgir Blomdahl opera, with 12 speakers bouncing the violin tones through the room and surrounded by canvases caked in salt and named after the Lachrimae. Defying description and intoxicating at the same time.

18. Jennifer Packer, Quality of Life (Sikkema Jenkins & Co, NYC) – Packer achieves a balance of the intimate and the explosive that’s unlike any work I’d ever seen. These breathtaking canvases all had an interiority that I found beguiling, coupled with potent colors and surprising juxtapositions that grabbed me by the collar and forced me in off the street.

19. Ernest Withers, A Buck and A Half A Piece (Brooks Museum, Memphis) – Everything at the Brooks Museum this trip reminded me why it’s a must-stop in Memphis, the Jaume Plensa work very nearly made this list. But that slice of Memphis photographic history on the main floor wouldn’t let me go. Withers was a master at documenting cultural life (like the photo of Rufus Thomas and Elvis Presley above), civil life (with arresting images of the civil rights movement like the SCLC conference) and day-to-day “ordinary” life the way we should always see them: as parts of the same fabric, not discrete plants grown in their own pots.

20. Various Artists, All Too Human: Bacon, Freud, and a Century of Painting Life (The Tate, London) – It’s no surprise Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud were massive to me from the moment I was first aware of them; so seeing this retrospective on their home turf in my first trip to London was amazing. But more than that, this retrospective accomplished the tricky feat of showing these names as the nucleus of a burgeoning movement without overly inflating or denigrating the lesser-known student works. It painted the kind of picture that normally I’d have to buy the catalog to come close to.