litigious hipster

Live: More People Should See The Eames Era

I saw The Eames Era at Pianos last Saturday night (6/17/07).   They kick ass live like they do on wax.  The band's interplay was tight, but they weren't afraid to loosen up and shimmy every once and a while.  The lead singer (Ashlin Phillips)  has tons of charisma.  Her playfulness is infectious, without being too twee or cloying.  Mmmm hipster vocab.

All in all, it was a great lil' Saturday night date.  They even started on time!  A Pianos first (for me)!

More people should see The Eames Era live before they get huge and open for No Doubt on their next tour (or something similar) -> you heard it here first!!!

Live: Flight of the Conchords are Great, but The Blender Gramercy Theatre Makes My Balls Hurt

My my.  Just 1 year ago I was watching Flight of the Conchords at Crash Test at Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre.  I had just signed my first lease in NYC, and had seen Radiohead up close at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden. The Conchords were filming their series for HBO.   Life was good.  The Conchords made me and my bro' LOL hard on that June night.

The other week at The Blender Theatre at Gramercy (?!) the Flight of the Conchords were just as great.   Even though I had seen or heard most of the songs through youtube, they remained fresh through unpredictable improv.   The only problem was that I couldn't enjoy the show properly because I was crammed into a tiny, uncomfortable seat with no breathing room for my balls.  As a result, the show left me with mixed feelings.  It'll be a while before I park my booty in Blender's hellhole of  a seating arrangement.

Live: Dinosaur Jr. Sound Unnecessarily Bad

Ah, Irving Plaza.  Or, should I say the Fillmore at Irving Plaza.  OK, moving on...

Last Thursday night I went to see Dinosaur Jr at Irving Plaza.  This was my second concert there - my first was Mission of Burma back in January.  That concert sounded pretty good considering all of the bad things I had heard about the venue.  This concert, however, sounded pretty awful.

Dinosaur Jr. like to crank their sound up to 11 and rock out.  That's all fine and good.  However, when the sound mix is bad, it ends up going to hell.  This made me want the show to be over as soon as possible, and had me sticking my fingers in my ear more often than not. 

There were lots of highlights from the show though.  I honestly don't know the names the songs besides the ones I know from You're Living all Over Me and Beyond.  What I do know is that Murph is one of the best rock drummers I have ever seen.  His drum fills are incredible, and his parts really breathe life to the songs and give them balance (if there is such a thing as balance between J's blistering guitar work and Lou's pummeling bass).

So all in all, it probably wasn't Dinosaur Jr's fault that they sounded so bad.  Next time I hope they play a better sounding venue.

Another thought

If you are a member of the performing troup I saw at the Stone this past weekend and you google yourself and somehow end up here... well, I'm sorry.  Next time play something more melodic.  Just kidding.  Seriously, I hope there are no hard feelings.  It was clear that everyone who played that night had talent, I was just writing about my reaction to the performance.

Turn On the Bright Lights

Interpol is playing a show at the Bowery tonight.  I couldn't get tickets.  Instead I am sitting at home studying for the patent bar.  Damn.

Don't Fart in My Face Unless I Can Smell the Shit

Improv Night at The Stone - 6/2/07

I could sort of smell this guy's shit...

So I dragged my friend to improv night at John Zorn's performance space The Stone.  I was hoping to hear some jazz in the vein of what I had heard Zorn's Masada trio play at the Lincoln Jazz a few months back, but alas I should have known that Masada is Zorn's "most accessible vehicle" (see linked article). 

Its not that I didn't like some of what I heard last night at The Stone.  I certainly appreciated it - it stimulated me a lot, and was a nice palette cleanser to the symphonic rush of The National's show a few days prior.  However, a large portion of it was, to me, masturbatory bullshit.  Also, Zorn didn't show even though he was listed on the bill.

Here's who performed at the 10 PM showing (I believe):

Christopher McIntyre (trombone)
Steve Drury (piano)
Mike Lowenstern (clarinets)
Ned Rothenberg (reeds)
Annie Gosfield (keyboards) [More like electronic sounds via keyboard, at least I think this was her]

The 1 hr performance went down like this:  2 or 3 performers would come out, improvise a bit, leave, and a few more performers would come on.   The sounds seemed completely improvised, but there was no semblance of melody, time, or sanity.  A lot of it made me think of what it would be like to have a paranoid schizophrenic musician in my head, blurting and bleeting out lines on a whim.

Mike and Christopher didn't impress me terribly.  Most of the time Mike appeared to be trying his hardest NOT to make a sound with his clarinet - blowing on it, sucking air through it, but not producing anything close to a conventional note.  Chris kept busy modifying his trombone tubing this way and that, and using lots of fancy tongueing work to make a lot of farty sounding noises.  The problem with the performances from these two is that they didn't evoke much feeling from me.  I don't know if that is the point of this kind of music, but what is art supposed to be if it is completely unenjoyable?

Ned Rothenberg was something else, in a good way.  He started off the night playing a piece on bass clarinet with Annie making drum sounds here and there.  His performance was really masterful - even if it wasn't melodic or conventional, it certainly was inspiring.  There was lots of droning in a first piece he played with Annie - it reminded me a lot of a didgeredoo. 

My favorite piece of the night was a solo one that Ned performed.  It was about 10 minutes long, and Ned took maybe 3 breaths the whole time.  Besides the impressive continuous breathing technique, his sounds lodged themselves deep within my head.  He played a sort of  atonal arpeggio - tweaking and shifting the scales along the way.  Besides that, his fingers were pretty mesmerizing - I've certainly never seen anyone play a reed instrument like he did in my life.  If anything, Ned saved the whole night for me.  Great stuff, and I hope I can check out more of his music in the future.

Steve and Annie didn't do much for me.  Steve's piano work was best when it was delicate and sparse.  However, most of the time Steve was banging the shit out of the piano keys and violently plucking the strings inside.  It was more headache inducing than enjoyable.  Annie added some atmosphere at certain points with her  standard set of drum sounds and computer blips.  The best thing that she did was modify something that sounded like Super Mario jumping. 

The biggest problem I had with all of the performers of the evening was a lack of dynamics - or perhaps, a lack of dynamic restraint.  Everything was either too loud and violent or too soft (as in breathy nothingness).  There wasn't much in between.

My friend, a fellow former trumpet player (yes, I used to play trumpet) thought it was total shit.  He thought the whole thing was smug bullshittery, and that these guys have their heads so far up their ass they don't know what shit smells like anymore.  His language wasn't nearly as scatological as I've just made it out to be, but I've been told that here in blog-land fart jokes sell big. 

I tend to disagree, and will be returning to the Stone in the future.  However, if everything is like this I won't be making too many repeat trips.  I'm at least going to stay away from improv night for a little bit.

Or, perhaps I am veiling the devil's advocate in my head under the guise of 'my friend'.