Tag: jason moran

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Best Of live music

Best of 2024 – Shows

Stunning year of shows this time – in the usual suspect cities as well as a more than welcome return to Chicago. As you can probably expect, Dick’s Den featured most prominently in my show-going this year, with 26 as I write this (had to cut it off to give myself a break at year’s end, but I’ll probably be there twice more before the 31st) and Natalie’s coming in second at 20, followed by Cafe Bourbon Street at 14, and Rumba Cafe at 11.

As usual, everything listed is in chronological order, all photos are by me, and everything is in Columbus unless listed otherwise. Openers are listed if they added to my impression as I thought about this list.

The Barbarians Reunion, Radegast, January 2024
  • Tony Barba and Friends, Radegast Hall, NYC – A surfeit of credit card points allowing me to do it on the cheap made for a last-minute trip to Winter Jazz Fest in January 2024. I saw great shit there, as well as theater and exhibits, which I’m going to talk about in the Festivals portion of this wrap up… but the single thing that made me decide, “Fuck it, I’m going,” was a Facebook announcement of a reunion in the Brooklyn beer hall Radegast on Sunday night of one of my all-timers, a band of some of my dearest friends that helped define Brooklyn to me when I was first going there often in the early 2000s: the Tony Barba-led, hook-drenched The Barbarians. I rolled into this dark, cavernous room for two sets, wrapping the vintage Barbarians lineup’s mini-set of five stone-cold classics with older and newer material of Barba’s playing with other friends like Noah Jarrett, Conor Elmes, and Dave Treut that made me get off my stool and dance, that knocked me against the bar, that made me regret having a flight that left five hours after I stumbled out into the street, and that put a flag in the ground that said “This is going to be a good fucking year.”
  • Worthington Chamber Orchestra with Ucelli, Worthington United Methodist Church – I’m on record as thinking Mark Lomax is one of Columbus’s very finest composers and the more of his chamber music I hear the stronger that impression gets. I didn’t even know the Worthington Chamber Orchestra existed until I heard about this Sunday afternoon program themed around the underground railroad’s presence in Worthington (a good reminder in the wake of more recent white supremacist news around this suburb), and I was blown straight back in my seat. Lomax’s concerto used the cello quartet Ucelli at its spine to create a different form of cello concerto than I’d heard and, with the WCO under the baton of Antonie Clark, a wild, shifting, stormy narrative that opened up into these gorgeous sunlight textures. Anne and I talked about this for half an hour over dinner after.
  • Benefit for Dre Peace, Natalie’s Grandview – This show was a reminder of one of the things the Columbus music scene has always done very well: show up for each other. And a sterling reminder of the good work Natalie’s does providing stages to support this showing up. While the discussion from someone else with a kidney transplant at this benefit to get singer Dre Peace a new kidney was the single most moving moment of the evening, I was also gobsmacked by beautiful songs from Talisha Holmes, Ebri Yahloe, Starlit Ways and the Liquid Crystal Project. A Night that made my heart feel a little more full.
From Left: Talisha Homes, Ebri Yahloe, Starlit Ways; Natalie’s Grandview, February 2024
  • Nickel Creek and The Staves, Mershon Auditorium – Only got to the venue in time for a few songs from The Staves but their harmonies and barbed songwriting blew me away. Nickel Creek I was later to the party than other roots fans of my generation – I had to back into it through my love of Chris Thile and Sara Watkins’ later work – so this was the first time I’d seen them as a unit. Cataracts burned off my eyes – this was one of the best, most energetic live bands of any genre I’d ever seen: the beautiful tension and floating quality of encore-closer “Holding Pattern,” where Thile’s high-and-sweet tenor took on a flood of shadows as he sang, “Hold me, darling, while the world burns down,” is still stuck in my throat nine months later.
  • The Sleeveens with Goblin Smut and the Whiteouts, Cafe Bourbon Street – Irish-born Stef Murphy’s Tennessee-based supergroup (featuring members of Sweet Knives and Cheap Time) The Sleeveens blew my mind with catchy, crunchy riffs and grooves that recalled my favorite parts of the Stiff records catalog without feeling like just a throwback. And reminded me of the joyous, snotty power of longtime friends/faves The Whiteouts while turning me onto jubilant Goblin Smut. One of my most satisfying nights of rock and roll all year.
  • Hurray for the Riff Raff with NNAMDI, Skully’s Music Diner – I’ve been a fan of Hurray for the Riff Raff for a while – my fandom solidified with a stunning Twangfest set in 2016 followed by their masterpiece The Navigator (my favorite record of theirs until this year’s record of the year for me, The Past Is Still Alive). This set – with a killer opener from avant-R&B chameleon NNAMDI who also held down the bass chair in Hurray for the Riff Raff – did a couple of things I thought were almost impossible at the same time: doing a set of the entire new record that had come out in the last week or so, with one older tune included, for an artist with such an extensive and deep catalog, and having the crowd eat it up; and a set I didn’t move once during. Not to get another beer, not to talk to someone, not to use the restroom. The rare set that didn’t provoke any restlessness. The moment on “Snakeplant,” hearing a full room cheer as Alynda Segarra sang, “There’s a war on the people, what don’t you understand,” was as powerful a reminder I got of the connection between performer and audience as I had all year. Maybe as powerful as I’ve ever had.
Hurray for the Riff Raff, Skullys, March, 2024
  • Jeff Parker and the New Breed, Wexner Center for the Arts – An hour-plus of music whose seamless transitions and taste for ambience and texture – with an astonishing band including Josh Johnson on sax and keys, Paul Bryan on bass and synth bass, and Jeremy Cunningham on drums and sampler, Parker reaffirmed why he’s one of the great guitarists, composers, and bandleaders of my lifetimes, doing favorites of mine like “Executive Life,” the Steve Reich funk of “Max Brown,” and even dipping into forbears for that kind of elastic, electric group dialogue with a sterling read on Weather Report’s “River People.”
  • Seventh Son Anniversary, Seventh Son Brewery – Another reminder of the beauty of my community. Seventh Son – co-owner Jen has been a friend since I was 20 – open their doors and hearts to a lot of community organizations, artists, projects. Their anniversary this year coincided with Record Store Day and assembled some of my favorite people and acts in this town – including probably my favorite DJ duo The Coming Home, Natural Sway, my first time seeing Big Fat Head, and rare, welcome performances from the full trio version of Scrawl and Envelope that had a crowd of at least 1/3 people I wholeheartedly love singing along with me.
  • Scott Miller and Robbie Fulks, Thunderbird Cafe, Pittsburgh – I’ve been lucky to see these two of my favorite songwriters – and two of my gateway drugs to alt.country (whatever that is) – semi-often in the last few years, but this shared bill was tempting enough to schedule a trip to Pittsburgh around an art exhibit Anne wanted to see to overlap their date. And it didn’t disappoint – both singers, solo acoustic, have what feels like an infinite grasp on the history of American music and a wide, deep catalog to draw from. My heart vibrated like it was going to pound out of my chest from the first notes of Miller’s teenage looking-back-rallying-cry “Freedom is a Stranger” to the last downbeat of their shared Roger Miller encore.
Jeff Parker and the New Breed, Wexner Center, March 2024
  • Chicano Batman with Lido Pimienta, The Bluestone – I was blown away when I first saw LA R&B/rock powerhouse Chicano Batman at A&R bar back in 2017 and they’ve only grown in power – intense grooves and sweet harmonies, a kaleidoscopic sense of melody and an encyclopedic understanding of rhythm made a set I couldn’t stop dancing during. Lido Pimienta accompanied by an astonishing percussionist blew me away with poison-tipped songs and a voice that made my spine straighen.
  • Shannon and the Clams with Tropo Magica, Ace of Cups – Long one of the best live bands in the world, Shannon and the Clams brought their doo-wop tinged soul-rock back to Ace to promote their best, most painfully textured record yet, The Moon is in the Wrong Place, for a night of pure but never monochromatic beauty and catharsis. And they brought Tropo Magica who – back when they were still called Thee Commons as a four piece – Anne and I rolled the dice on at Ace almost a decade ago not knowing anything and walked away with a new favorite band, destroyed. An opening set I couldn’t imagine anyone else following, but, of course, Shannon Shaw, Hunx, and the rest of her band did with grace; making transmuting personal tragedy and quieter moments into anthems that feed the audience’s souls seem easy.
  • Contrary Motion, Urban Arts Space – More of this, please. A stellar chamber music program in honor of Pride Month spanning the spectrum from legends like Pauline Oliveros and Julius Eastman to the first great local contemporary composer I ever heard, Rocco DiPietro (who also worked with and wrote a great book on Eastman), to a striking new piece from co-director (with Sam Johnson) Noah Demland.
Chicano Batman, The Bluestone, May 2024
  • Megan Palmer and the Mezzanines, Rambling House – One of Columbus’s finest exports, Megan Palmer, has been setting the world on fire in Nashville for a while but we always benefit when she comes back through town. This collaboration with Dave Vaubel (The Randys) and Max Button’s delightful Western Swing/countrypolitan covers band The Mezzanines, augmented by the firepower of guitarist Brett Burleson gave fascinating rhythmic textures I wasn’t used to on Palmer songs I’ve been singing along to for years – a samba here, a rolling rockabilly riff there – and she’s always had good bands. Her adding rich violin textures to half of the Mezzanines repertoire was icing on the cake.
  • The Mavericks with Nicole Atkins, Rock the Ruins, Indianapolis – This double bill – finally getting to see the Nicole Atkins lineup with great Memphis guitarist/songwriter John Paul Keith on leads – in Indianapolis, a city Anne and I already love, was a no brainier. A beautiful summer night, The Mavericks changing up the set list in interesting ways – including frontman Raul Malo smiling more than I’d ever seen and finding the perfect balance between the dance party and the after party – and Nicole Atkins and band making those sometimes very intimate songs into anthems as big as the sky.
Nicole Atkins and Raul Malo, Indianapolis, August 2024
  • Meshell Ndegeocello, Wexner Center for the Arts – Meshell Ndegeocello has been on an artistic hot streak lately – following a masterpiece in a career strewn with masterpieces, Omnichord Real Book with an expansive, as-overflowing-with-ideas-as-its-subject tribute to James Baldwin No More Water – bringing the latter live to the Mershon stage under Wex auspices was breathtaking. Going to church in the best ways. The two shows from the Wex on here were – finally, after a while – just scratching the surface; the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Nathalie Joachim, and Tyshawn Sorey were all best-of-year contenders. It was just a stacked year.
  • Steve Dawson and Diane Christiansen, Hogan House – This was a reminder how good Fall is – Anne and I had to leave one of our favorite events, Art of the Cocktail, at the CMA early to make this; we’d also given up tickets for one of my favorite current jazz singers, Cecile McLorin Salvant, at the Wex because we’d bought those when Dawson and Christiansen were announced; all the same night. It’s also a tribute to Hogan House – a venue run by PJ and Abbie Hogan that brings these celebrations of the power of song to our town on a regular basis and constantly blows me away with its welcoming vibe, its remarkably good sound, and the friendliness and charm of its owners I’m lucky enough to call friends. Even with all that going on, within the first few notes of a set that reached back to Dolly Varden classics and leaned heavily on Dawson’s last two stellar records, Time to Let Some Light In and Ghosts, Anne and I both knew there was nowhere we’d rather be, and posted up at a bar halfway home to talk mostly about this set for an hour.
Meshelle Ndegeocello, Wexner Center, September 2024
  • Kris Davis Trio, Columbus Museum of Arts – A piano player who’s given me many of my favorite records and shows over the years making the trio record that stood above for me in a year of astonishing trio records, with one of the finest rhythm sections working, Robert Hurst and Johnathan Blake, hitting the highest heights in that CMA auditorium.
  • Davila 666 with The Ferals, Ladrones, and Las Nubes, Rumba Cafe – The same night as the Kris Davis Trio (what’d I tell you about fall?) brought back one of my all-time live rock backs, Puerto Rico’s Davila 666 for the first time in five years and they tore the roof off Rumba, partying like 2 am while the sun was still out and leading a stacked bill that introduced me to one of my favorite newish bands, Ladrones.
Ladrones, Rumba Cafe, October 2024
  • Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Natalie’s Grandview- I’ve been seeing Dave Alvin shows presented by Alec Wightman’s essential Zeppelin Productions since 2000; Wightman also promoted the first time I ever got to see another of my songwriter heroes, Jimmie Dale Gilmore. This appearance by those two fronting Alvin’s crack Guilty Ones band (Chris Miller, Lisa Pankratz, Brad Fordham) was a clinic in the power of songs – songs they grew up with in a lifetime of music fandom, songs that helped make their names like Alvin’s “Marie Marie” and Gilmore’s “Dallas,” songs by their friends (a jaw-dropping reggae take on a Butch Hancock song), and an example of how to balance an unflinching eye with belief things can get better and people can be better.
  • Jason Moran and the Bandwagon, Village Vanguard, NYC – One of my dream gigs for a long time has been to see Jason Moran and the Bandwagon in their standing Village Vanguard residency – a group that turned my head around when they first came to the Wexner Center under the auspices of Chuck Helm and who are still blowing me away in a variety of contexts – and luckily the last New York trip of the year allowed for just that. The final set of the week was dedicated to Duke Ellington with a side trip to songs he’d written for multi-media collaborations with Joan Jonas (the great artist was in attendance) and the bone-deep love of that music, the keen, active listening and responding between Moran, Tarus Mateen, and Nasheet Waits, and the ability to make it all alive was on full display.
  • Jesse Malin and Friends, Beacon Theatre, NYC – The reason we made that final New York trip and the icon of a saying Anne brings out regularly, “You can’t give yourself away.” Malin has thrown benefits, donated, opened the doors of the many bars he co-owns, for every benefit, every friend of his who was in need – and he’s friends with everyone in the music scene – and so it was only appropriate they all returned the favor. Even those of us who have but a couple specific memories flooded the Beacon Theatre with the kind of love I’ve talked about in this list – hell, in almost all of these lists – written large and in neon. I saw a few things after this – some great – but Malin and his band roaring through “Meet Me at the End of the World” and “Turn Up the Mains,” The Hold Steady exploding “Deathstar,” and Lucinda Williams doing their co-write “New York Comeback” are still echoing in my head.
Jesse Malin and Friends, Beacon Theatre, December 2024

Favorite Festival Sets:

Mendoza Hoff Revels in the bar mirror at Union Pool, NYC, January 2024
  • Winter Jazz Fest, NYC
    • Kaila Vandever, Zürcher Gallery
    • Marc Ribot and Mary Halvorson, Bowery Ballroom
    • Burnt Sugar with Vernon Reid, Brooklyn Bowl
    • Mendoza Hoff Revels, Union Pool
    • A Night at the East, Crown Hill Theatre
Shabaka, Bijou Theatre, Knoxville, March 2024
  • Big Ears Festival, Knoxville
    • Mary Halvorson’s Amaryllis, Tennesee Theatre
    • Jlin, The Point
    • Jason Moran and the Harlem Hellfighters, Knoxville Civic Auditorium
    • Chocolate Genius Inc, Bijou Theatre
    • Christian McBride and Brad Mehldau, Tennessee Theatre
    • Sexmob, The Standard
    • Charlie Dark MBE, Jackson Terminal
    • Shabaka, Bijou Theatre
    • Davone Tines and the Truth, Tennessee Theatre
    • Henry Threadgill/Vijay Iyer/Dafnis Prieto, Tennesee Theatre
Talisha Holmes, Columbus Arts Fest, June 2024
  • Columbus Arts Fest
    • Talisha Holmes
    • Soulutions Band
    • Trek Manifest and the Aye-1 Band
Faheem Najieb Quintet, Jazz and Ribs, July 2024
  • Columbus Jazz and Ribs Festival
    • Faheem Najieb Quintet
    • Milton Ruffin Quintet
    • Clave Sonic
Etran de L’air, Railgarten, Memphis, September 2024
  • GonerFest, Railgarten, Memphis
    • Pull Chains
    • RMFC
    • So What with Derv Gordon
    • Etran de L’air
    • Water Damage
Vernon Reid Conducting Burnt Sugar, Brooklyn Bowl, NYC, January 2024
Categories
Playlist record reviews

Monthly Playlist – February 2021

Thinking a lot about absent friends lately, and I’m sure that colored these choices. But usual winter melancholy and spiraling showed up, so I tried to counteract that with as much dancing as possible. Courtesy of Hype Machine, a merch table for this playlist: https://hypem.com/merch-table/42OpOdyNgQoMcq1KHEqQ45

Continue reading for notes on these songs.

Continue reading “Monthly Playlist – February 2021”
Categories
"Hey, Fred!" live music

Things I’ve Been Digging – 11/30/2020

The weirdness continued unabated in this season with distant Thanksgiving – which itself has problems, like everything in American society birthed in blood and torture and the positive feelings we’ve imbued it with come partially despite that history and partially resting on the pedestal of it – but I found things to love and hope you did too.

Probably the last of these for a while; my plan for the next four weeks is to put up my best of the year posts.

Patti Smith, taken from stream and edited

Music: Patti Smith, presented by Fans.

Weeks from the 45th anniversary of her landmark record that broke so much open for so many of us, Smith reminded me of her unique blend of the intimate and the expansive and took me to the church I desperately needed.

Accompanied by long-time collaborator Tony Shanahan and her daughter Jesse Paris Smith, Smith led us on an hour trip through highlights of her catalog, including readings of a new piece and a delightful chunk of Year of the Monkey, and one cover, a beautiful read of Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush” (with a nod to its own 50th anniversary and Young’s 75th birthday) that highlighted its fragility.

Smith found new contours, new crevices between the notes, new facets to shine her light of today through on songs she’s played thousands of times. “Dancing Barefoot,” dedicated “to the women” crackled with benediction and absolution; “Pissing In a River” circled its prey, building up to the incandescent flare-ups of “Come on, come on” and “What about it?”

The opening “Grateful” from maybe my favorite of her records, Gung Ho, set the tone – “Ours is just another skin that simply slips away” for a sunny afternoon of true gratitude, radical acceptance and taking stock, without blindness. That song faded into the righteous incantation: “Throw off your stupid cloak; embrace all you fear. For joy will conquer all despair in my Blakean year.”

She introduced “Southern Cross” with “This is a song about remembrance; it’s a song about life, really,” and more than anything else, this set reminded me that all remembrance can be, should be, must be, a celebration of life.

From left: Jason Moran and Nasheet Waits, The Bandwagon. Taken from stream and edited.

Music: Jason Moran’s Bandwagon at the Village Vanguard.

I’ve never been in NYC around Thanksgiving – not a parade guy – but I’ve always been jealous of many traditions for the locals, including that full week stand of the Bandwagon at the Vanguard. 

There are a handful of shows that burn into my memory and I still recall with surprising clarity Jason Moran on piano, with Nasheet Waits on drums, and Tarus Mateen on bass, blowing the top of my head off at the Wexner Center in 2003. With no exaggeration, those 90 minutes blew open what I thought jazz could be, it expanded my parameters for thinking about music. I was vibrating with excitement when I walked in – having been a fan of the records for several years – and I could barely hold my molecules in one gravitation field after.

In the ensuing 17 years, I’ve seen all three of them multiple times – Winter Jazzfest and Big Ears, back at the Wex and late night at Jazz Standard – but never quite managed to catch another trio set. So even through a screen from miles away, I almost cried.

This was the music of conversation, argument, emphatic declaration, at the highest possible standard. Jittery, powerful abstractions melted into standards like “Body and Soul.” They paid tribute to the legendary Geri Allen with one of her classics “Feed The Fire” and they tore into a greasy honky-tonk stomp. This was the kind of music that made the world make more sense and made gratitude swell up in me.

The Maria Schneider Orchestra – Taken from stream and edited

Music: Maria Schneider’s Orchestra at the Jazz Standard.

Another of those legendary jazz Thanksgiving traditions is the great Maria Schneider leading her Orchestra at Jazz Standard. This would have been her 16th year on this week at the Standard, and with possibly her best record Data Lords released so recently, I’m overjoyed she found a way to mark the occasion.

She put together a limited run stream of clips of her band from the past couple years – including trying out some of the dark, knotty Data Lords pieces like “CQ CQ, Is Anybody There?” – outtakes from the studio sessions, and a Zoom conversation capturing a little bit of the all-important “hang” that happens whenever that many musicians gather.

Like the Moran, I almost cried a few times. These perfect solos rising out of this massive, inviting but awe-inspiring architecture. The band breathing as one and fragmenting into the night’s sky or a city street.

Categories
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.

Categories
Best Of visual art

Best of 2019 – Visual Art

Henry Taylor, Venice Biennale

“If you notice anything,
It leads you to notice
more
and more.”
– Mary Oliver, “The Moths”

In this year – by turns more magnificent than I could hope and immeasurably shitty – visual art continued to be a balm, a lifeline, and a reminder to wake up and try harder. I was lucky enough to catch 75 exhibits over 9 cities in two countries. I left this one ranked – unlike the two performance lists which I put in (mostly) chronological order – we’ll see if I stay comfortable with that.

Everything below is in Columbus unless otherwise noted. All photos have been taken by me for reference for discussion with no claim on the original work, unless otherwise noted.

Natalia Goncharova, Palazzo Strozzi
  1. Various Artists, 2019 Venice Biennale: May You Live in Interesting Times (various locations, Venice) – It’s hard to compete with new – my memories of the first Whitney Biennial I was lucky enough to visit are stronger than my memories of this year’s (for more reasons than one) – so it’s not surprising I was so dazzled by my first Venice Biennale. That said, my eyes almost popped out of my head, from the main exhibit curated by Ralph Rugoff with the best overview of artists grappling with the current shifting, chaotic moment, to the various national pavilions haunting and inspiring, to the satellite exhibitions (a storefront dedicated to Sierra Leone knocked me over), this took me back to the best parts of that childlike state where everything’s new and I’m hungry for all of it.
  2. Barbara Hammer, In This Body (Wexner Center for the Arts) – Barbara Hammer’s work has always fascinated me and the Wex – led by its curator, Film/Video Studio Program Curator Jennifer Lange – outdid themselves with this exhibit put together up to Hammer’s death this year. The kind of grappling with mortality that doesn’t come easy, a fusing of rigor with the sensuality her work reminded us can never been separated from politics and society. I spent hours in the main installation, walking through X-Ray negatives bathed in a haunting film, I even went the day after my stepsister’s funeral, and it comforted and challenged me every time.
  3. Natalia Goncharova, Natalia Goncharova (Palazzo Strozzi, Florence) – This was a happy surprise for my first trip to Florence and a source of immense chagrin that the only thing I know of Goncharova previously was her costumes for Dhagliev. A cornucopia of classic high modernism practiced at a level almost no one could match. Masterpieces in dialogue with all the better known names of her time – Picasso, Chagall – while never feeling like she was trying on techniques. A time that felt like the end of the world mapped out and sung in a voice I couldn’t forget.
Joan Mitchell, David Zwirner
  1. Suzanne Lacy, We Are Here (SFMOMA and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco) – Suzanne Lacy’s a brilliant example of an artist who works directly with society, never content to only let her work be uplifting. This retrospective, spread across downtown San Francisco’s two main institutions, reminded me how vital her work still is and how inspiring her mission).
  2. Joan Mitchell, I Carry My Landscapes Around With Me (David Zwirner, NYC) – Joan Mitchell’s been one of my favorite painters since I first saw her work; some days, she’s easily my favorite of the Abstract Expressionists. This retrospective of her large-scale paintings at David Zwirner was earth-shattering for me; taking that fusion of abstraction and landscape many of us associate with Kandinsky and exploding it into other worlds. A crystallized moment of the 20th century and a reverberation through the foreseeable future.
  3. Jason Moran, Jason Moran (Wexner Center for the Arts) – Moran’s one of my heroes since I first heard Black Stars when I was in college. His appearance with the Bandwagon is one of my all-time top five concert experiences at the Wexner Center. This look at his – often collaborative – visual art was stunning. The detail-rich replicas of key spots from jazz history loom in the middle, heavy with history as tombs but also vibrating to be reactivated. His video work with Carrie Mae Weems and Stan Douglas hinted at secret histories. I had some issues with the selection of the live performance aspects – would have liked more things like the opening Ogun Meji – but I kept visiting and unpacking this.
Jason Moran, Wexner Center
  1. Various Artists, Everything is Rhythm: Mid-Century Music and Art (Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo) – 40s-60s contemporary art and music are obsessions of mine, still, and this multimedia presentation in the always excellent Toledo Museum was the best, most approachable tying-together of those threads I’ve ever seen.
  2. Lorna Simpson, Darkening (Hauser and Wirth, NYC) – I knew Lorna Simpson’s photography work a little but this selection of layered, gripping paintings felt revelatory. The light growing dim so you have to lean in and then the cold opens you up.
  3. Various Artists, Detroit Collects: Selections of African American Art from Private Collections (Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit) – Private collectors in museum contexts are problematic but everything about this warmed me up, members of Detroit’s black community talking about collecting black art and fascinating examples of what draws them to it and keeps them going. A deep dive into the best parts of collection and curation – paying tribute, keeping voices alive, giving you something to pass onto your children.
Anselm Kiefer, German Abstraction After 1950, SFMOMA
  1. Various Artists, Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything (Jewish Museum, NYC) – Various artists taking on Leonard Cohen, one of the most imagistic lyricists of the 20th century made this lifelong Cohen fan’s heart grow three sizes. The variety of work, from an amateur men’s choir doing “I’m Your Man” in multichannel video to an organ that played a word with each key to an installation where “Famous Blue Raincoat” synchronizes with a flood of iconography, there was so much to love here.
  2. Various Artists, Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection (Guggenheim, NYC) – Celebrating an anniversary, the Guggenheim turned to artists to contextualize the parts of the massive modern art collection and it’s the best use of the iconic Frank Lloyd Wright building and the best use of a giant collection of holdings I’ve seen in years.
  3. Various Artists, German Abstraction After 1950 (SFMOMA, San Francisco) – This era – Kiefer, Richter, et al – is a personal favorite of mine and this was an embarassment of riches I couldn’t believe I was seeing all in one place.
Nancy Spero, MoMA PS1
  1. Peter Hujar, The Speed of Life (Wexner Center for the Arts) – I loved the John Waters piece that ran in parallel with Hujar, and I loved seeing the two dialogue with one another but the Hujar wrecked me every damn time. A reminder how potent portraiture can be in letting us see and a reminder to be grateful for our networks and the love around all of us.
  2. Simone Fattal, Works and Days (MoMA PS1, NYC) – An artist I knew nothing about before this trip to PS1 knocked me sidewise. Sculptures and watercolors working through the consequences of archaeology and imperialism, knowledge and the stories we tell ourselves. I needed far more hours than I had to properly appreciate this but it’s still with me.
  3. Walid Raad, Walid Raad (Paula Cooper, NYC) – Walid Raad’s alternate history work reminds us all how science fiction tropes can illuminate real world pain and challenge. His puzzles dare you to tease out the facts from the greater truth and complicate your own feelings as you work through them.
  4. Nancy Spero, Paper Mirror (MoMA PS1, NYC) – Spero’s work benefited from the volume and the jumble of this perfect PS1 show, words coming at the viewer like daggers but so many you can’t focus on any one, you have to give into the flood.
Huma Bhabha, Gagosian Rome
  1. Gordon Parks, The New Tide: Early Work 1940-1950 (Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland) – Gordon Parks’ social realist photography is always a wake up call to being alive and this tight, well-curated collection in Cleveland was exactly what I needed in a summer of too much feeling sorry for myself.
  2. Sondra Perry, A Terrible Thing (MOCA Cleveland, Cleveland) – Perry’s video work dug deep into infrastructure and invisible labor in a biting, potent critique that sung.
  3. Various Artists, arms ache avid aeon (CCAD’s Beeler Gallery) – Jo-ey Tang’s work with the Beeler Gallery is coming into its own; I love his specialty of slow exhibitions that evolve over periods of time and this look back on the fierce pussy collective, capped by a symposium that was the most energized I felt all year, was a dazzling, meditative explosion.
  4. Huma Bhabha, The Company (Gagosian, Rome) – In a trip spent gorging ourselves on old masters and antiquity, Bhabha’s sardonic looks at the modern age was the perfect palate cleanser.

Categories
Best Of live music

Best of 2018 – Live Music

“Hear a song from a band that saves you”
-Ashley McBryde, “A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega”

I understand the intrinsic dangers of ranking subjective art but I grew up loving this kind of list and I occasionally enjoy reading back over them. I saw over 100 shows this year and another 20 could have easily made this. I still found most of my nourishment in little rooms – and a big one or two – hearing something loud blast my face or something so delicate it made me shut my damn mouth and lean in. Everything is in Columbus unless stated otherwise.

Shows:

Cory Henry and the Funk Apostles, Skully’s
  1. Cory Henry and The Funk Apostles (Le Trianon, Paris, 05/02/2018) -Photo is from the Columbus show at Skully’s which was also damn good and where I got much closer to the action. I was already a fan, of Snarky Puppy and Henry’s gospel-tinted solo work and familiar with his ability to hold an intimate crowd rapt. But this still felt revelatory. Not only has Henry broken through to making some of the richest funk music around, colored by classic Stevie Wonder and Willie Mitchell productions without being a throwback,. As I wrote for JazzColumbus, “No one stopped moving for the entire 90 minutes they were on stage. Like every great bandleader, Henry believed in himself and his team enough to let every member shine. The unit stretched songs and vamps out into uncharted territory without falling into slack jam-band clichés. Every tune walked the line and exploited that sweet tension in coming together and falling apart, dark-hearted duende wrapped in a glowing love for the world.”
  2. Mourning a [BLK]Star (The Summit, 07/27/18) – I ended a long week of celebration, centered on A’s 50th birthday, with a solo trip into the night climaxing with one of the most beautiful sets I’ve ever seen. Cleveland’s Afrofuturist soul band Mourning a [BLK]Star hit their stride this year with two spectacular records and the set I saw epitomized a band leaning into their power with intense focus. Layered, surprising harmonies, thick grooves, edge-of-a-switchblade horn charts, all in the service of truth that cracked my chest open.
Nicole Atkins, The Basement

3. Nicole Atkins with Ruby Boots (The Basement, 08/16/18) – I’ve been a fan of Nicole Atkins for years but as much as I loved her earlier work – “Girl, You Look Amazing” is still on every playlist I make where I expect dancing – Goodnight Rhonda Lee felt special. This tour made a forest fire out of that love. It was as close as I’ll ever get to seeing Patsy Cline in her prime – not in any sense of imitation but in the sense of someone finding that perfect crossroad between country and torch song. Any time you can stand that close to a flame this bright and this warm, take it.

4. Marah (Mercury Lounge, NYC, 01/13/18 and Hogan House, 04/20/18) – In the early 2000s, Marah reaffirmed my faith in rock and roll more often than any other band. I got to see the reunited version, with Serge Bielanko back in the fold, and they still did it. Better yet, I got to see them in both modes, acoustic and full-bore raging electric machine. The latter had the benefit of being at one of my favorite rock clubs in one of my favorite cities, à propos for the anniversary of If You Didn’t Laugh You’d Cry. One of the quintessential New York records of this century at one of the last-standing LES rock clubs from that era, it doesn’t get much better. I wanted to hug everyone. Then I got the songs-forward acoustic version at one of my favorite short-lived venues, Hogan House, those two voices and two guitars and complicated love (between the brothers and for the world) inches away from me. It doesn’t get much better. 

5. Mickalene Thomas/Teri Lyne Carrington (Wexner Center, 10/04/18) – Mickalene Thomas’ canvases always dazzle, look for more on the breathtaking exhibit on the art list, but I was not expecting this foray into multimedia performance to blow me away. Thomas manipulated footage and abstract images behind a laptop to a score by the great Teri Lyne Carrington, also on drums. One of my favorite trumpet players working today, Ingrid Jensen, and an astonishing turntablist I couldn’t find the name of for all my googling rounded out this muscular, delicate quartet. Mesmerizing, throbbing repetition and ecstatic release, a reminder that the cut-up technique doesn’t have to be academic and that deep attention to history and desire should underpin all world-building as much as they did here.

6. David Byrne (Rose Music Center, Huber Heights, 08/11/18) – The last time I saw David Byrne was the weekend after 9/11; easily one of the most potent, emotional shows I’ve ever seen. Everyone I talked to about this tour said “American Utopia is something special,” so I took a chance on letting something compete with those memories and I was so glad I did. Byrne is a lesson in continuing to follow every curiosity and pulling every thread as hard as you can. As A said, “That’s the 66 I want to be.” His use of downtown choreographer extraordinaire Annie B-Parsons dovetailed with the first time I’ve ever seen wireless amplification used to what I think should have always been its purpose: a rock show put onto a plane without being tethered to stacks of amps (or, thanks to its drumline qualities, a trap kit). This freedom was parlayed into an intense respect for sound and content instead of settling into a parlor trick. The most dazzling spectacle I’ve ever seen in a rock show but simultaneously mammoth and human-sized and crushing, as evidenced by my tears in the upper rows on the final encore, Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout.”

Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days, Wexner Center

7. Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days (Wexner Center, 02/24/18) –This year had the final half of Chuck Helm’s last season at the Wexner Center and the first half of Lane Czaplinski’s. This show was a perfect example of the former. When Helm first saw, and brought, O’Farrill to Columbus as part of Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Bird Calls project, he took care to single out the young trumpeter and now brought O’Farrill’s cracking project as a leader. When I spoke with him about the impetus for the project, O’Farrill spoke for a while about the inspiration he gains from film and the intense, cohesive, nuanced pieces they brought spoke to that influence. Atmospheres that gripped me by the color and threw me around with every piston in the muscular engine firing.

8. Various Artists, New Black Eastside Songbook (Short North Stage, 03/14/18) – Poet/curator/organizer Scott Woods conceptualized and provided titles for a six-song suite collaboration with exemplars of black art in town for something righteous, moving, and true. His expansive genre tastes and clear eye for the world, as it is and as it should be, guided this project. Woods pulled together our best musicians and gave the freshest, most accurate perspective on the town I’ve grown up in. Ogun Meji Duo, featuring our finest composer in Mark Lomax II and my favorite saxophone player Eddie Bayard, absorbed and tossed back Columbus’ rich jazz history (destroyed like so much else with the very deliberate placement of the interstate) on “Welcome to Bronzeville.” Paisha’s barbed satire on “Things to Do in Black Columbus” and Jordan Sandridge’s cri de coeur “Rahsaan Rollin’ in the Dirt” and the acid commentary of Krate Digga’s electronic suite “Blight Privilege” all grabbed me by the collar. Counterfeit Madison’s “Olde Towne Beast” was the best, most focused song I’ve ever heard from her: rich and textured and throbbing. I had tears in my eyes as everyone convened for the finale “Bulldozing the Ave.” The best – bar none – example of what Columbus is capable of was on that stage (and the encore performance at Natalie’s).

9. Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams (Woodlands Tavern, 02/28/18) –This duo, sans rhythm section, with resumes encompassing Broadway and Bob Dylan, Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles and Little Feat, served as a reminder of the beauty and breadth of roots music. Wrenching originals like “The Other Side of Pain” and “Save Me From Myself” held their own with stone classics like the Louvin Brothers’ “You’re Running Wild,” Carl Perkins’ “Turn Around” and gospel traditionals “Samson and Delilah,” and “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.”  Campbell’s flexibility and empathy as a co-writer shone in songs he’d written with both Julie Miller and William Bell, and their voices sounded like they were born to make music together.

10. Thumbscrew (Village Vanguard, NYC, 07/22/18) –This collective trio of Mary Halvorson on guitar, Michael Formanek on bass, and Tomas Fujiwara on drums, put out two phenomenal records this year, Theirs and Ours, along with serving as the backbone for Halvorson’s art-song project Code Girl. The last night of their week at the mother church of jazz was a reminder of how far you can take forms and how much beauty you can plow with an ensemble who know and trust each other. Rare telepathy that glimmered like juggling flaming knives in ever-more complicated patterns but also brought it down to the simple joy of ballads. 

  • Miriam and Nobody’s Baby, Alphaville
  • Reigning Sound, Alphaville

11. Reigning Sound with Miriam and Nobody’s Baby (Alphaville, NYC, 07/21/18) – Greg Cartwright may be the best songwriter of the 20th century (see his high placement on the best sets from festivals list) and his Reigning Sound project, 20 years on, is the best showcase for his variety of moods, riffs, and mots juste. The current line-up with the Jay-Vons backing him doesn’t play very often these days so this Brooklyn show was a treat. Betraying no rust, they proved they can kick up a dance party and reduce you to tears, sometimes in the same song. Opening was my first chance to experience Miriam Linna’s (The Cramps, The A-Bones) new project Nobody’s Baby and it was exactly the kind of sassy, joyous homage to the music she grew up loving you would hope, featuring a crack band including Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan and Daddy Long Legs’ Murat Atkurk.

Curtis Harding, A&R Bar

12. Curtis Harding (A&R Bar, 04/04/18) –No one’s making better revved-up soul-inflected rock music with a sexy groove than Curtis Harding. Promoting his stunning Face Your Fear record, he set the staid confines of the A&R Bar on fire with songs you couldn’t help dancing to, whipping the crowd into a frenzy. One of those shows that send me back out in the night happy to be alive and a little in love with everyone sharing that experience with me.

13. Kronos Quartet – A Thousand Tongues (Wexner Center, 01/25/18) – This live performance of longtime Wex visitors/commissioners Kronos Quartet accompanying Sam Green’s (an artist with his own extensive and fruitful relationship to the Wex) documentary about them was a summation of all the magic they’ve brought so many like me over the years. A victory lap and a reminder how much gas there still is in the tank.

Deaf Wish, Spacebar

14. Deaf Wish (Spacebar, 09/04/18) – Twisted catharsis with a side of fist-pumping doesn’t sound much better than Australian noise-rockers Deaf Wish. Over the years (since first seeing them at Gonerfest in 2011) they‘ve streamlined their sound sacrificing none of the beautiful weirdness at its core. This was one of the best rock bands working, at the height of their powers, giving me that rush I got from Sonic Youth when I was a teenager without ever sounding like an imitation.

15. Marisa Anderson with Sarah Louise (Ace of Cups, 06/28/18) – There’s no better practitioner of solo guitar than Portland’s Marisa Anderson. She plays the electric guitar as though it’s a conduit to the hidden truths of the universe. A stylist who’s synthesized every great voice on her instrument and come out with her own sharp and beautifully nasty twang. The second appearance of “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning” on this year’s list, which could be the universe trying to tell me something. Sarah Louise’s beguiling opening set reminded me of ’70s British folk and drew me in with its curiosities and complications.

Mwenso and the Shakes, Rumba Cafe

16. Mwenso and the Shakes (Rumba Cafe, 09/08/18) – New York’s Michael Mwenso brought his virtuosic, gleefully unpredictable band (part cabaret revue, part ’70s funk extravaganza, part postmodernism at its zenith) to town in one of the purest expressions of fun I got in a club all year. They kept the wildness of their jam session roots while translating that vibe into a show that made sense to an audience. Charisma to spare and earworms that burrowed into my head for days.

17. Ashley McBryde (Bluestone, 11/08/18) – There isn’t a finer practitioner of Mellencamp-style roots-rock and Patty Griffin country today than Nashville’s Ashley McBryde. Leading her crack six-piece band through a set heavy on her new record Girl Going Nowhere, but with room for already-classics from her debut like “Bible and a .44” and “Luckiest SOB,” she led a class on opening your arms to an audience without pandering. She opened with “Livin’ Next to Leroy” and its crushing opening lines, “Three doors down, there’s tinfoil on the table,” and led us on a journey of lyrics as finely observed and chiseled as a Michelangelo sculpture but with every bit as much concern for the bounce and flow of the music.

18. Zonal and Moor Mother (Corsica Studios, London, 04/26/18) – Techno Animal cohorts Justin Broadrick (Godflesh) and Kevin Martin (The Bug) have reformed under the name Zonal. When a show of theirs was a possibility on my first ever trip to the UK it was a no-brainer and their murky, abrasive, bass-drenched techno is more potent than ever. The x-factor on the middle of the set was Philly poet-rapper Moor Mother who, from her first line “There are no stars in the sky,” teased a rainbow of colors in the viscosity of the music and made whole lives visible in the fire she breathed.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy at Stuart’s

19. Bonnie “Prince” Billy (Stuart’s Opera House, Nelsonville, 10/08/18) – Will Oldham is an inspiration in a lot of ways for me. A polymath, unmistakably devoted to the craft of his songs, who never takes himself that seriously. His unfailing curiosity toward putting his songs into various contexts both keeps him interested and shines light on possibly unexplored textures in the original. This small tour featured chamber-music arrangements with violin and cello, a three-piece horn section, a backing singer/duet partner from the opening band, and the prince playing very little guitar. “I See a Darkness” had a muscle-y gospel punch and “The Way” was recast as a powerful statement of intent, a line in the sand.

20. Amir El-Saffar and the Two Rivers Ensemble (Lincoln Theatre, 10/10/18) – One of my favorite trumpet players returned with his expansive, roiling Two Rivers Ensemble and with a special guest: El-Saffar’s teacher (and one of the great maqam singers in the world) Hamid Al-Saadi. This was perhaps the finest religious music I’ve ever heard, obliterating any description and leaving me staggered.

Festival Sets:

I’ve got that persistent festival fatigue like everybody else. Art should be part of your life, to the extent you can make it one, not a destination vacation or a cattle call. That said, I hit several and saw sets that were as good as anything, that made me want to go for 12 hours, gorging myself, and those should be acknowledged.

Algiers, The Standard
  1. Algiers (Big Ears Festival)
  2. Nicole Mitchell – Art and Anthem for Gwendolyn Brooks (With Jason Moran) (Winter Jazzfest) 
  3. David Hidalgo and Marc Ribot (Big Ears Festival)
Greg Cartwright with Coco Hamel and Gentleman Jesse, Memphis Made Brewing


4.  Greg Cartwright (Gonerfest)
5.  Susan Alcorn (Big Ears Festival)
6.  Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die (Winter Jazzfest)
7.  Pierre Kwenders (Cleveland Museum of Art, Summer Solstice
8.  Jenny Scheinman’s Mischief and Mayhem (Big Ears Festival)
9. Jason Moran and Milford Graves (Big Ears Festival) 10. Marc Ribot’s Songs of Resistance (Winter Jazzfest)
11. Roscoe Mitchell – “TRIOS” (Big Ears Festival)
12. Sarah Manning (Winter Jazzfest)
13. Harlan T. Bobo (Gonerfest)
14. Evan Parker’s Rocket Science (Big Ears Festival
15. Bloody Show (Gonerfest)16. Tyshawn Sorey Trio (Big Ears Festival)
17. Oblivians featuring Stephanie McDee (Gonerfest)
18. Craig Taborn Quartet (Big Ears Festival)
19. Diamanda Galas (Big Ears Festival)
20. Ethers (Gonerfest)