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I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel by David Shields and Caleb Powell — A Review in Four Parts

Photos: Stills from the film trailer for I Think You're Totally Wrong: A Quarrel by James Franco.

Our writing group meets once a month. We’re an agreeable lot, so when the need to procrastinate arises it’s easy to find other topics to discuss. New episodes of WTF, old New Zealand pop bands, what to make of Hawkwind. But all consensus and no conflict has its limitations. Enter the books of David Shields.

Opinions of Shields vary greatly. I’m the most vocal advocate in the ranks. I’ve been circulating his books since Black Planet and recently passed around one of his newer books, I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel, a collaboration with Caleb Powell.

The premise of I Think You’re Totally Wrong is that Shields and Powell, a former student, meet up for a weekend of discussion and debate. The central argument is this: is it better to pursue a domestic life or one of creativity? They each write and have families but balance them differently.

I Think You’re Totally Wrong is a compelling tug of war. I enjoyed feeling my allegiances shift back and forth between Shields and Powell. I did expect that there would be a range of reactions within the group. I did not expect that the book would be ripped upon its return, having been thrown across the room.

— Mike Faloon

* * *

On October 20, 2015 I sat down to write my portion of a collaborative review of I Think You're Totally Wrong: A Quarrel by David Shields and Caleb Powell. According to Goodreads, I finished reading the book more than eight months ago. I remembered little of this “provocative” and “entertaining” “romp of a...book.”

In the name of relevancy, I thought I might instead review a newer Shields book, That Thing You Do With Your Mouth: The Sexual Autobiography of Samantha Matthews as Told to David Shields, but was too embarrassed to purchase a book with a title this explicit. The library, which I perceived to be less judgmental (PATRIOT Act notwithstanding), held only an e-book, for which I needed to download an app called Overdrive. I spent the next hour unsuccessfully attempting to download the e-book onto my phone and became increasingly agitated.

Brett: I attempted to check an e-book out with Overdrive. The process is a bit frustrating / not intuitive. I'd like to check the e-book back in but I do not see a way to do that.
Gail: Librarian 'Gail' has joined the session.
Gail: Hi Brett, did you download to a device or is it just checked out in Overdrive?
Brett: I downloaded the Overdrive app on my phone and selected NYPL -- I clicked bookshelf, signed into NYPL, and the book is there but I cannot get it into Overdrive.
Gail: you don't see a button to download?
Brett: No, unfortunately not.
Brett: the buttons are "Disable eNYPL PDF" and "Read (in your browser")"
Gail: oh, it may be because it is PDF it is not compatible with the app
Gail: sorry about that
Gail: I can return for you if you are not interested, just need your card number
Brett: 14698015782832 -- thx
Gail: sorry, I am not able to return for some reason... it will disappear from your account after the borrow period on its own though
Brett: OK, as long as I will not be fined. I do appreciate you help.
Gail: no fines for digital materials. Have a great day, thanks for using Ask NYPL.

I turned to Life Is Short — Art Is Shorter: In Praise of Brevity, a collection of short essays and stories edited (with extensive commentary) by Shields and poet Elizabeth Cooperman. My initial instinct was to “review” this book in a Shieldsian manner — collage, appropriation, faux documents — until I realized that had been done already by an actual writer (“Life Is Short Reviews Itself,” by Dinty W. Moore in PANK Magazine). I was reminded that shorter ≠ easier or lazy or a middle finger to the reader. I was moved to tears by George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”:

I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

— Brett Essler

* * *

I threw I Think You’re Totally Wrong across the room, hitting a bookshelf. But it wasn’t a reaction to the book. I had been reading it on the couch while my two-year-old daughter was climbing all over it, and me, when she smacked her head into my chin. You know, where the teeth rattle and the pain traces your jaw. 

Picking up the book, I saw the spine was damaged. About halfway through at this point, I pretty much skimmed the rest of it for book recommendations and other bits of interest. Whenever My Dinner With Andre or The Trip was mentioned, I would want to watch that instead.   

I come away, as usual, with the impression that David Shields elevates his own change in taste / ideas about writing and reading to some sort of universal cultural standard everyone is supposed to ascend to. Also he seems to claim to be doing something new while simultaneously citing ancient, or French, precedent for all this new newness. (I think Caleb Powell brought this up on Bookworm.) I find myself thinking of recent (to me) great books if they had had some “reality” stapled onto them. Umbrella. Hawthorn & Child. Autobiography of Red. I suspect that the Reality Hunger thing is a dressed-up version of someone saying “I just don’t like all that made up stuff.” 

Which is not much of a review of I Think You’re Totally Wrong, I know.

— Brendan Kiernan

(Note: It’s a complete coincidence that when I returned Brendan’s copy of The Saints’ Wild About You the booklet was rain-damaged and the CD case was shattered. — Mike)

* * *

Addendum to Review

Dancing with Myself
Author: Billy Idol (David Shields)
Simon and Schuster, $28.00 USA

Allegedly written by Brian Cogan

David Shields’ style of cultural appropriation reaches a new nadir in his new book, Dancing with Myself. (Typical of Shields’ questioning of the certainty of authorship, his name does not appear on the cover, or anywhere in the book.) Although Dancing is typically full of outside quotes (lots of history this time, it's almost as though at one point Shields was seriously injured in a motorcycle crash and went to rehab and had a lot of free time to read up on basic European history, albeit mixed in with self help quotes).

What's most, or actually not surprising, is how much Shields’ comments on the fluidity of identity in this work. The reader has to question: Was Shields really a part of the early English punk scene, rubbing shoulders with everyone from Sid Vicious to Gene October, or is he hinting that all punks create their own legend? Surely the fact that Shields adopts a pseudonym in this work, a "punk name" if you will, ties the reader closer to his overindulgences as gleefully admitted in this book. While I have seen Shields enjoy beer and wine before, I had no idea about the extent of his addictions to cocaine, heroin and various other drugs until this book.

It's in the latter half of this autobiographical new book, where Shields takes his critique of celebrity and identity to a new level. In his rock star persona, he travels the world, crops his hair, dies it bleach blonde (pre-baldness, or a wig perhaps?) and tours as a modern Idol, singing intentionally ridiculous songs about weddings and dancing. This is where the book finally brings his critique about literary deconstruction to its logical conclusion. We (the audience, also the idol) and Shields (as reader and idolized rock star) wade together through intentionally forced prose and digressions, forming a non-linear garden walk through a miasma of literary tropes about rock and roll excess. By the time "Billy," as Shields calls himself in the book, puts out a record called Cyber-punk (the name of late eighties/early nineties literary movement, as epitomized by William Gibson), it is also clear that Shields is now using cyberspace theory to prove that we are all avatars, all role playing and all with a cocaine habit and a penchant for Thai hookers.

The book ends not with redemption, a rehab is hinted at but never really discussed. We have gone through Shields’ veiled comparison of the author as rock star and the malleability of memory and reality in what seems like a pointless journey, but in reality is a masterpiece of modern literary deconstruction. And that Shields chose to write the book as though he was being pressured by an angry book publisher eager to recoup their advance adds to the urgency of the prose. Highly recommended. 

 

The Other Night at Quinn’s: Mary Halvorson & Ches Smith

By Mike Faloon

“No more guitar heroes!”
—The Clash, “Complete Control”

The pine tree outside our dining room window is being cut down today. Last winter its branches—sagging with snow and ice—started snapping off and plummeting, falling fifty or sixty feet and spearing the ground. My son and I are glued to the window when the tree cutters arrive, hypnotized by the crew chief’s ascent and the sight of the first broomstick branches falling. As he scales skyward, the chainsaw clipped to his belt, slowly swaying, always running, hangs a few feet below his boots. He digs his ankle spikes into the bark and pushes higher.

***

Ches Smith’s equipment forms a semi-circle. The drums face stage right, electronics straight ahead, vibraphone stage left. A cross section of the inner sanctum, like a Jack Kirby diagram of the Baxter Building, or those scenes in Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou that show a cut away of Zissou’s ship, the Belafonte.

Smith concocts snare/bass combinations that pulverize, and the way he favors syncopation over speed allows you to savor each pop and punch. When he rotates to the synth/iPad, he plays with one stick, holds the other in his armpit, goes into a holding pattern, before emerging on the other side with something completely different. Then he returns to the set, this time with mallets, digs into increasingly abstract rhythms, climbs upward.

***

The larger branches have dinner plate diameters. The crew chief ties off them off and lowers them to the ground. The other crew members guide the branches to graceful landings. The sky opens up, shades of blue replacing browns and greens, the ground illuminated by direct sunlight for the first time in decades. The crew chief reaches the top of the tree and slices into the trunk, cuts into the very structure that’s keeping him aloft. The falling pieces grow larger, the thumps louder, the sunlight brighter. 

***

Smith rolls on his snare, discharges a blast of synthesizer then turns to the vibraphone. He runs tests and gathers results, takes stutter steps before unleashing full runs. He starts a rhythm, repeats and alters it, plays along with one looped rhythm, then two. Smith builds on and tears down traditions, cuts into the structures he’s leaned on.

Seeing him move from one instrument to another is like watching Steve Zissou aboard the Belafonte, leading a quest to find the jaguar shark, going from station to station, checking on the sauna and the lab, up to the library, and down to the editing room. Each has developed a unique system, fueled by the unpredictable, in the relentless course of running down, engaging with, and releasing something bigger than himself.

***

In the late 80s my cousin was stationed in the navy in San Diego. Near the end of his hitch he needed to get his car back to Syracuse but only had a few days. I flew out with his brother and the three of us drove back across the country, sprinted east to west in just under three days. We spent a day at Mission Beach and then drove through the night, arriving at the Grand Canyon just before dawn.

***

Mary Halvorson moves from side to side, rocks back and forth behind a hollow body guitar. Her glasses slip to the tip of her nose as she dips and dives, rises and rolls across the covers from her solo debut album, Meltframe. There’s something hypnotic yet barbed in the tones she summons. Her songs have an intimacy that might seem at odds with their circuitous paths. She moves full steam ahead before skidding to a stop, smearing the sound, momentarily reversing course before resuming forward motion, like a DJ scratching a record.

***

The park was cloaked in darkness as we approached the canyon. We pulled out blankets and waited, chilly and bleary-eyed from the all night drive, second guessing the wisdom of spending so much time on a sight that remained hidden beneath the night’s shadows. Then the expanse began to reveal itself. As first light trickled in we were struck by the depth, twenty, fifty, hundreds of feet down, no bottom in sight. Then we became aware of the width, yards then miles then lifetimes stretching further and further. Then came the awe. The dimensions melted together, could no longer be considered in isolation. We were speechless before the splendor.

***

Halvorson’s next piece opens with distress signal urgency, exhilarating fretboard dances that quickly evolve into free form freak outs, on the precipice of being too much to ingest. Then she jump cuts, slows the pace and allows her tone to mushroom, wondrously large and enveloping, inducing a subdued euphoria. A rack of pint glasses rattles beneath the counter as Halvorson continues conjuring a six-string version of that Grand Canyon sunrise.

***

I assume that Halvorson’s set is the end of the show. She and Smith are on a “double solo” tour, traveling together but playing solo. Except tonight. While setting up earlier they overhear Steve and James talking and realize that the Quinn’s contingent thinks that the guitarist and drummer will be playing together. “There was a generous spirit in the house and they responded by doing a third set together,” Steve later says. “Everything I’ve seen about their subsequent shows seems to indicate two solo sets and no more. We were privileged.”

There’s so much momentum from the previous sets that I expect the duo show to be bigger, more explosive, a relative summer popcorn blockbuster. Instead Halvorson and Smith opt for a character driven collaboration; it feels like we’re privy to a private dialogue. Across the way a woman shakes her head in disbelief while the man beside her closes his eyes and nods just behind the implied beat. The guy next to me orders a hot dog but doesn’t eat until the set’s over, waits for Halvorson and Smith to finish before taking a bite. We’re mesmerized—staring, basking, monotasking. The music gradually expands and the collective astonishment dilates in synch, Halvorson and Smith breaking down and building up, fostering continuous cycles of depth, width, and awe.

Welcome to the NSA, 2.0

By Brian Cogan

A sneak peak at the upcoming promo video for the new warm and fuzzy, but cool and edgy National Security Agency.

INT. NINETEEN-FIFTIES STYLE OFFICE - DAY

Stodgy fifties/early sixties educational film music plays over stock B&W footage of a large office w/massive analog computers and men on phones. A deep-voiced NARRATOR speaks in voice-over.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

For over sixty years, the National Security Agency has been there for you. Watching for national security threats abroad…

Stock footage of Stalin playing with a kitten

NARRATOR (V.O.)

And at home.

Stock footage of a nineteen-fifties ‘party line conversation’ including a switchboard operator.

INT. MODERN OFFICE - DAY

The NARRATOR appears, with a suit and haircut appropriate for a man much older than his age. He walks by a dull office scene full of middle-aged men on headset phones working in grey cubicles with glowing computer screens.

NARRATOR

We’ve been here for you since your grandfather’s time…working hard to keep America safe and secure.

The Narrator walks slowly past bored older men listening to headsets and jotting down notes on a pad.

NARRATOR

Sure, we monitored your calls…

C/U of man barely listening on a headset phone.

NARRATOR

…and read your mail…

WS: An older bored woman w/large IN and OUT boxes on her desk opens mail from the gargantuan IN box and glares at it before putting it in the almost empty OUT box.

NARRATOR

But we did it for your own good. Someone had to watch and listen intently.

                                    (to an OFFICE WORKER)

Hey Bill, Anything good?

MS: Bill sits at a desk looking bored. He glances at a dot matrix printout.

BILL

 Still yapping on about Aunt Mary’s bunions.

NARRATOR

Keep up the good work, Bill! And on behalf of the American people... thanks!

MS: Bill smiles at the camera.

NARRATOR

Big Brother? I don’t think so! More like a big old goofy uncle. The one who’s always there for you!

VISUAL CUE: Screen starts to look like old scratchy film going off reel.

MUSIC CUE: Sound of needle scratching across record. A new NARRATOR with a younger voice takes over.

NARRATOR 2.0 (V.O.)

Big Brother? No way! More like…Jaeger bombs for all of my bros!

MUSIC CUE: New Contemporary hip-hop plays loudly.

INT. NEW OFFICE - DAY

A much younger NARRATOR 2.0 (same actor, now w/o makeup and wig) comes into frame (office still a bit obscured). He wears an expensive but stylish suit w/o a tie. PBTR office is now a contemporary office with an open floorplan. Impossibly young adults on skateboards and treadmill desks work on ipads and laptops around shared communal tables.

SOUND CUE: Constant cacophony and youthful exuberance.

NARRATOR 2.0

Hello to all my Bronies and welcome to the NSA…2.0! We’re still catching the bad guys, but this time via apps, algorithms and bulk data aggregation! This is not your daddy’s NSA!

Two background actors high five, fist bump, exchange elaborate handshakes and body bump shouting ‘boo-ya!’

NARRATOR 2.0

Look, we gotta catch the crooksters and the hamburglars, right? S’aright. But apparently, stealing your data for our own nefarious purposes isn’t cool anymore. You talked, and we listened!

Quick insert shots of the home pages of Facebook, twitter, Instagram, tumblr, snapchat, Google, etc.

NARRATOR 2.0

            You’ve told us that bulk data collection by itself is ‘wrong.’

                                                (uses air quotes)

Nowadays, the American consumer wants value for giving up privacy and we in the NSA believe in giving back. That’s why we have all kinds of cool swag…for free! Like apps that tell you (and us) where you are on a map! How cool is that? And better yet, you get to be Pacman or Ms. Pacman!

Cut to graphic of Pacman on a map of Bushwick Brooklyn.

NARRATOR 2.0

Free games!

A souped up version of the eighties video game ‘Spycatcher’ appears as a graphic.

NARRATOR 2.0

 And our own improv group, the Patriot Act!

CUT TO: UCB stage with actors dressed like powdered-wig-wearing Revolutionary War soldiers, but with sleeve tattoos and hipster mustaches.

CUT TO: Three bored looking teenagers on a tablet, a laptop and a cell phone.

THREE TEENS (in unison)

            Boring!!!

NARRATOR 2.0

                                                (laughs)

We knew you kids would say that!

                                    (stops laughing)

No, seriously. We knew.

CUT TO: Three mid-twenties kids on couch, same technology, looking more involved.

NARRATOR 2.0

What people want these days is added value. That’s why we installed the Ask-NSA app to everyone’s phone! Iphone? It’s on it! Android? On it! Cheap Chinatown flip phone? We’ve got you covered!

INSERT SHOTS of various phones.

V.O. NARRATOR 2.0

            Yes, yep. Yeparooni.

Return to NARRATOR 2.0.

NARRATOR 2.0

But, we’re not here to spy, we’re here to hang! Say, how many times has this shit happened to you?

SPLIT SCREEN: Two BROS argue on cell phones.

BRO ONE

Jeter batted at least .300 in 1998, bro!

BRO TWO

No way cuz, even though I’m not really old enough to have watched or cared at the time, I disagree!

BRO ONE

Bro!

BRO TWO

 Bro?

BRO ONE

Only one way to settle this! Yo, NSA?

Screen splits in three: NSA operator in upper screen

NSA

 Yes Bro-tizens?

BRO ONE

 A little help, bro?

NSA

            Got it covered. Jeter hit .324 in 1998!

                                                BOTH BROS (in unison)

            Thanks, NSA!

NSA

Least I can do, citizen bros!

Back to NARRATOR.

NARRATOR 2.0

But wait, there’s more! Act now, and we’ll throw in free monthly upgrades!

                                    (and)

Well, even if you don’t act now you still get them, how cool is that? And for your folks, we still have a version of NSA 1.0 available!

WS: A Man in a suit and tie, dark glasses and an earplug sits watching older couple silently eat in a diner for two solid minutes.

NARRATOR 2.0

And for our Muslim friends out there, don’t worry; we’re not targeting you in particular. Heck, we still only have two guys that can even read Arabic and Hank here barely even knows Urdu!

CU: Hank, a painfully white guy wearing an Iraqi soccer jersey, shrugs goofily.

EXT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY

All of the NSA employees are lined up outside the White House, led by Narrator 2.0.

NARRATOR 2.0

So remember, bulk data collection is not spying. It’s just a cool new way to give you all kinds of free goods and services! Right, Zuck-meister?

PBTR Mark Zuckerberg in his trademark shirt w/NSA stenciled on it.

MARK ZUCKERBERG

 Right!

FADE OUT

As scene fades:                       

NARRATOR 2.0 (V.O.)

 So, how do you say that in Mandarin?

MARK ZUCKERBERG

            Figure it out for yerself, dude!

NARRATOR 2.0 (V.O.)

 On it. We’re on it.

Are You Receiving Me? #63 – A Wailing of a Town – An Oral History of Early San Pedro Punk and More 1977-1985

By Mike Faloon

A Wailing of a Town – An Oral History of Early San Pedro Punk and More 1977-1985
Edited by Craig Ibarra
End Fwy Books

Several years ago Craig Ibarra co-produced a compilation album of San Pedro punk rock (The Reactionaries 1979). On the back of the LP’s jacket, tucked in the corner, was a note about a forthcoming book, A Wailing of a Town – Ignored History of Early San Pedro Punk. 

The book is now out, but with a new subtitle, An Oral History. I think the revised subtitle is more apt but the defiance implied by Ignored History fits really well--There was so much going in San Pedro; we’re going to be heard.

The easy route for this book would be to focus on the Minutemen, the town’s best-known export, and seek out music biz luminaries to serve as talking heads, sharing stories of when they first heard the band and how they were inspired by them. The Minutemen are legendary and they crossed paths with plenty of well-known bands.

But No Wailing is much more than a band history. It’s really about the ethos developed and practiced by the town’s bands and writers and artists, friends and followers: everyone should be involved, and there was a particular emphasis on developing a unique sound/voice/perspective. Whether hosting a show, publishing a zine, or offering to drive a band home after a draining night, there was no need to just watch from a distance. No Wailing is about the Minutemen on the surface, but it’s really about a group of working class kids and the art projects they churned out.

So it makes sense that Ibarra would steer clear of celebrities and talk with the rank and file, the people who were in closer proximity. In that sense this is the punk rock book that Howard Zinn would have written. That’s certainly noble in theory but such an approach presents a different set of risks. What if you didn’t see the Dialtones at a backyard barbeque or read The Prole or get you haircut at Ivica’s New Wave Salon? Might that slam the door in a reader’s face? Leave us on the outside looking in? In lesser hands, perhaps, but Ibarra’s up to the task—he’s gathered a lot of clay, sculpted it well, and invited anyone who’s willing in for a closer look. Ibarra is a San Pedro native and a longtime pro-Pedro activist. He knows the landscape well. His scope and sequence are rock solid and easy-to-follow, and he knows when to let things run long and when to cut them short. 

I admit that whenever non-Pedro bands were mentioned (Go-Gos, Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth), I expected the next quote to come from a member of one of those bands. It’s a set-up/delivery structure absorbed from other oral histories and documentaries. But those bands remain on the sidelines, referenced but not heard from. They weren’t from San Pedro. Instead Ibarra focuses on local musicians, friends, and family members. He introduces and elevates a wide range of different voices. I’d never heard of Gary Jacobelly but his insights and phrasing had me looking online for his books. (None to date.) All I used to know about Linda Kite was that she was driving the night that D. Boon died. But hearing her side of the story, I was struck by the courage it took to revisit the days before and after that tragic event, grappling with what happened.

In the end, Ibarra is not an outsider reporting on the past. He’s an insider welcoming us in, which makes A Wailing of a Town a page-turning, Let’s-do-it-too read.

Additional updates on A Wailing of a Town 

The Other Night at Quinn’s: Daniel Levin, Juan Pablo Carletti

By Mike Faloon | Photos by Michael Bogdanffy-Kriegh / Studio MBK

Some improvisers warm up, take a reading or two at the start of a set, check their bearings.  Others plunge into fathomless depths, react and respond more than think as they plummet, pulling all bystanders, innocent or otherwise, in with them.  Daniel Levin (cello) and Juan Pablo Carletti (percussion) have clearly chosen the latter.

Levin thumps his fist on the body of his cello, then saws away, excavates intensely satisfying, reedy sounds.  How does the wood withstand such pummeling, not splinter?  Carletti’s mallets roll like thunder across his floor and rack toms.  I need a chance to breathe but Levin and Carletti will have nothing of it.  The surface world is quickly fading from view and with it so many of the elements we usually use to guide ourselves.  We’re sealed in for a delightfully disorienting ride.

***

Comic book artists use the term “gutters” when referencing the white space between panels.  I’d never given them a second thought before reading Douglas Wolk’s Reading Comics.  He details howgutters give greater definition to the panels that precede as well those that follow.  They also call on the reader to do some of the lifting.  “The gutter is where the fun happens…readers get to fill in the lapse in time.”

***

Every time I look at Carletti he’s moving something different across the top of his snare drum—bells and chimes and cymbals.  He even leans back and puts his foot up there to mute the drum before bending out of sight to uncork something that I mistake for a harmonica.  When he pops up, still on high alert, he’s back to the brushes.  Meanwhile, Levin bear hugs his cello, and shakes his head from side to side as he wildly pursues rich, dark sounds.  He and Carletti push each other downward, past the point where sunlight reaches, down near the hydrothermal vents where water gushes out at 850 degrees.

***

Maine, part one: One of my first record buying experiences was in Bangor, visiting my fraternal grandparents.  We went to a department store, and I found a bin of  $3.99 albums.  I bought two.  The Genesis record, …and Then There Were Three, was clogged with gobs of syrupy keyboards; I couldn’t find the songs.  The E.L.O. record, an early best-of, was full of Roy Wood’s mad man cello antics; I couldn’t escape the songs—those woofer-punishing frequencies glued themselves to my psyche.

*** 

The duo pulls back.  Levin plays it lullaby sweet and soothing, then delicately plucks.  Carletti rotates his sticks, holds them vertically, and stirs the perimeter of his floor tom, then trades for a mallet to gently tap the top hi-hat cymbal.  Calm at the center of the storm, a gutter. 

***

Maine, part two: My friend Mike lives in Orono.  He had friends visiting from New York and they went into a gas station convenience store (ironically called The Big Apple).  The friend, accustomed to city-sized delis and bodegas, was blown away by the amount of unused space in the store, the vast acres between and at the end of aisles.  He felt like he’d landed on another planet. 

***

I used to have an aversion to white space.  In music, on the screen or on the page, blank space amounted to wasted opportunities.  I sought out music that was full throttle, full time.  When friends and I worked on fanzines every square inch was crammed with material—clip art, lists, captions, random minutia.  I loved zines like Rev. Norb’s Sic Teen, hand-stapled pages buzzing with squint-till-it-aches four-point fonts and impenetrable layers of clip art, marathon sentences and parenthetical clauses that were like funhouse mirrors.  I disliked, maybe even resented, the abundance of empty space often employed in fancier, bound magazines like Punk Planet.  The choice seemed egregious, almost boastful—We’ve got space—and by extension, money—to burn.  I didn’t recognize the thought and expression in their aesthetic, nor did I see my opportunity to slow down and absorb.

***

Carletti removes the top hi hat cymbal, strikes it as it hovers like a slow motion flying saucer and sets it on the floor tom.  Levin reaches down and pinches a string near the bridge.  A moment later he lifts his cello on to his lap and pushes his bow across the leg that usually supports the cello.  Now he’s holding two bows, playing above and beneath the strings.  The duo’s first set is comprised of three pieces.  The second, so far, just one.  Fewer gutters.  Quicker pace.  More time beneath the surface.

***

Jacques Cousteau once tried, in the early-to-mid sixties, to develop an underwater colony.  The first of these continental shelf stations, Conshelf I, was set ten meters below the surface off the coast of France.  The goal was to allow small crews—aquanauts—to live and work there for weeks at a time. 

***

The way Levin and Carletti exchange ideas so fluidly, so often without pause, sounds like two parts of the same instrument.  Talking with Levin he says, “it’s like I think (Juan Pablo) is playing cello.”  Or at least I think that’s what I hear.  Later I follow up with Levin.  “I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it is more to do with navigating our improvisation using a common language of rhythmic ideas and gestures rather than cello vs. drums like a traditional tenor sax vs. drums scenario.  Much more like I use the cello percussively.  Juan Pablo provides a backdrop landscape and I paint over it in large brush strokes.” 

 

Their collaborations feel like a very long, very wide panel, a panel continuously drawn on paper as it comes off the roll.  Or maybe a Wes Anderson scene where the camera leads a character across the horizon, allows us to move with them.  Or perhaps the inverse, a Spike Lee dolly shot, the character stationary and the camera back pedaling toward us, allowing us to see their world as it passes by.

***

Costeau’s underwater experiments were largely successful.  The researchers were active and content as they conducted experiments within and beyond their underwater dwelling.  But they learned that they were unable to remain submerged indefinitely because they couldn’t live without sunlight.

Tonight Levin and Carletti have built the latest version of Conshelf: Quinn’s, and even now, as the show comes to end and we hang out and run post-game analysis, it seems sustainable.  I see Eric for the first time in weeks, finally pass along the book I’ve been keeping in my car.  Steve gives an update on his house renovations and introduces me to Dan who knows the same pool of Central and Western New York punk bands that I came up with in the nineties.  The night moves on and we’re content in the cozy confines Conshelf: Quinn’s.  Then this:

“Every shing-a-ling-a-ling

That they’re starting to sing’s so fine”

Damn it.  Someone’s playing the Carpenters.  Sincerely and loudly.  We’ve sprung a leak.  The bubble’s going to burst, and there’s no choice but to resurface.

The Other Night at Quinn's: Ben Monder

By Mike Faloon | Photos by Michael Bogdanffy-Kriegh / Studio MBK

“If I walk quiet
I hear the bird’s pretty tune
High in the hills
Me and this beautiful moon”

Kim Deal, “Beautiful Moon”

***

Winter hates jazz.  That’s the latest joke.  Last week’s show was cancelled due to snow.  The previous week’s, too.  Until a couple of hours ago tonight seemed slated for the same fate.  We had an early release at school and I spent the afternoon shoveling the driveway and raking the roof.  I had to use a baseball bat and hammer to break up the ice clinging our front porch.

***

Ben Monder could not be more gentle as he coaxes sounds from his guitar.  His left hand strolls about the fretboard while his right hand hovers above the pick ups.  Yet the notes fly like sparks, spectacular oranges and reds too numerous to calculate.   He has a speed skater’s deceptive effort-to-movement ratio, seeming to coast great lengths on easy pushes.

Monder is seated, one foot on the floor, the other casually propped on a monitor.  He’s wearing a winter hat and unassuming pants and shirt.  He resembles Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat/Fugazi/Evens).  He looks like Emil, our plumber, too.  It’s like the old Electric Company segment—“It’s the plumber!  I’ve come to fix the sink!”—but refitted: “I’m the guitarist.  I’ve come to ease your pain.”  That could be construed on existential or philosophical levels, but right now, after the shoveling, raking, hacking, Monder’s playing brings on pure physical relief.

***

There was some solace in hearing the roar of my neighbor’s snow blower, chomping through the accumulation covering our shared driveway.  But the beast of a machine kept jamming up.  Keith had to stop every few feet, emphatically lift the handles and slam down the front to unclog the auger.  When we finished I asked if he wanted to go to Quinn’s.  He didn’t inquire who was playing, just asked when I wanted to leave.

***

The opening scenes of Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone say so much, thanks in large part to the dearth of dialogue.  Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) moves through her world showing how she is surrounded by others, to varying extents supportive of and supported by them, but very much on her own journey.

***

James Keepnews sees Keith and me looking for a table and invites us to join him.  It’s his birthday.  Well-wishers stop by.  His phone pings like a PBS pledge drive.  He’s unusually amped for tonight’s show.   He’s been talking it up for weeks.  “You have to see this one.  Have to.”  Something about best or favorite or most important modern guitarist.  I forget the words but I’ve come to trust his recommendations.  Hard to believe that all of this—the place, the people, the performances—was new to me a year ago.

Quinn’s is closing soon, shutting down for a couple of weeks for renovations.  It seemed like a natural time to pause these columns, take stock, see what I’ve got, and begin shaping the book.  Keepnews’s enthusiasm won me over, though, so here I am, notebook in hand, transfixed by the sight of Monder’s fingers spider crawling back and forth.  The guitar neck seems so small in his grasp, so deceptively easy to navigate.

 ***

Of all Jackie Chan’s stunts, the one that comes to mind most often is probably the simplest.  He’s running down an alley, desperate to escape, as always.  The wall to his left is too high to scale, just beyond his reach.  He runs at the wall, leaps, uses his feet to push toward the parallel wall, which he then uses to propel himself over the first wall.  Frightened, fleeing human turned vertical pinball.  It’s probably the least risky of his stunts, but it’s a stunning display of will and ability.  Unlike his other stunts, this one—even just the memory of it—leaves me with the momentary impression that I too could scale walls.  Even when rational thought prevails I’m left with the comforting sense that one of us can pull off such feats.

***

Keith and I go back and forth as Monder plays on.

“It’s like two guitars.” 

“It’s like two guitars and a bass—do you hear that?”

“Yes. Two guitars and bass, and a viola, too.”

We’re watching the same show.  Arguably we’re hearing the same sounds.  But neither of us has a scorecard that matches up with the sonics; we’re coming up short in establishing any sort of one-to-one correspondence.  It’s like watching close magic—I’m just a few feet away.  I can see everything.  I can explain none of it.

Monder’s motivations are different obviously; he’s not out to be coy or deceptive.  Yet still we search and poke and prod, look for tricks or codes or patterns; try to make sense of something so far beyond our reach, humanize it.  All the while marveling more than minimizing.

“Did you see that double jointed pinky move?”

“Those are finger extensions, right?”

“How can one person do that?”

***

There I am, in a dream the other night, staring across a grassy, open field on a sweet spring afternoon.  To my left, the Metro-North train that’s left us stranded.  To my right, in the distance, a hill leading to a farmhouse.  Passengers flock across the field.  An elderly woman lies at the base of the hill, on her side, scratching her dog behind the ears.

***

“It’s not really jazz, is it?”

“No.”

“Free jazz?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But it’s not rock…”

“No.”

“Or classical.”

“No.” 

“But it’s kind of all of them.”

“Yes.”

***

Ree’s most viable option is to sell off the one asset at her disposal: the trees on her family’s property.  But she’s too proud, too defiant, duty bound to do right knowing that this will propel her down the path of greatest resistance.

 ***

Monder has a streak of that.  With his talent he could easily coast down more lucrative roads, delve into the ding dong world of guitar magazine pyrotechnics, lean into the flash and glitz.  I don’t want to reduce Monder to caricature, make him seem like a monk removed from the rest of us.  Granted, he talks less than Ree Dolly but his wit comes through when he does.

Ben Monder: (Appears to be speaking to the audience, but without a mic)

Keepnews: We can get you a mic.

Monder: (Speaking into newly acquired mic) Sounds the same to me but I guess I’m being amplified somewhere.  (To Rojo, the sound guy)  Can you cut the hi-mids?  I’m kidding.  That last song was ‘Windowpane.’  It was written for younger arms.”

***

The elderly woman is smiling, inviting, as people zig zag through the rock garden that leads up to her patio.  I assume there are buses waiting out front but no one in the line is speaking, so I’m not certain.  The line is calm, orderly, with a sense of reverence.  As I walk to the front door I think to myself, How could this fit with my next Quinn’s column?

***

Both of Monder’s feet find their way to the floor for the final tune, foreshadowing a different turn.  The flourishes are more demonstrative as the volume and speed and distortion build, ramp up to monolithic masses of sound, colors streaking by, distorting what I think I know of space and time.

James Keepnews, perhaps—no, certainly—emboldened by the confluence of such an ending to such a show on such a night, makes an on-mic request for an encore.

Keepnews: (To audience) Two words: jazz, mother-------!  (To Monder) I’ve heard you do it with a trio.  How about solo—“Wichita Lineman”?

Monder: I’ll try it.  Really might not work.  I don’t know.

Keith: (To me) Stay for another?

Are You Receiving Me? #62 – Night Birds

Night Birds
Monster Surf 7” EP
Wall Ride

There are many ways to know that the weather's improving.  Thermometers, calendars, and odometers can help.  Overlooked, however, is the arrival of one of those “These songs will go on every playlist for the next few months” records. 

Cue Monster Surf by Night Birds.

Typically the band’s records have one or two surf instrumentals.  This time out it’s 4-for-4, no vocals.  It's weird to hear an entire Night Birds record that is sans singing, but it's a welcome weird—the absence of singer Brian Gorsegner’s vocals is odd at first but easy to adjust to.  (Safe in the knowledge that he’s still on board.  In fact, he plays synthesizer on the EP.)  

For newcomers, it’ll help to know that Night Birds are a surf punk band.  Mostly.  They borrow from the conventions but never too rigidly.  Guitarist PJ Russo is in fine form throughout, opting for a slightly dryer sound than some surf guitarists.  (Perhaps therein lies the distinction between a surf guitarist and a surf punk guitarist—reverb dosage.)  Likewise for drummer Ryan McHale, whose rack and floor toms are booming, much more so than the typical surf record.

Then again, I’m arguing that this isn’t a typical surf record, so that should be obvious.  Joe Keller’s playing furthers this argument, but these crummy desktop speakers diminish his bass in the mix.  (Love the convenience of mp3 files.  Loathe what they do to the low end, especially now that my turntable is back in action and I can hear the difference.)

What else do I have in terms of my “They’re a great surf punk band but this isn’t a surf punk record” argument?  There’s the synthesizers that lace “Agent Zero” and screech their way through “Pyongyang Bound.”  When I first saw the credits I thought, Synths?  Really, guys?  I’ve since done a one-eighty: more synths, pile on the weird!

There’s also the Mel Brooks cover.  Yes, the closing cut is a cover of “Hope for the Best (Expect the Worst)” from The Twelve Chairs.  Following consecutive albums with nods to John Carpenter, Night Birds redirect with a very satisfying (and relatively faithful) Mel Brooks number. 

So far my summer playlist has a lot of good geezer rock (Kim Deal, Guided By Voices, Bob Mould, Ed Crawford’s FOOD, the Baseball Project).  Soon it’ll be time to seek out newer bands.  Night Birds will be the perfect bridge.

(Note: I wrote this review several months ago.  I'm not sure why I forgot to post it, especially considering how many times I listened to this EP.)

Are You Receiving Me? #61 – The Safes

By Mike Faloon

Safes
Record Heat
Wee Records

Luther Perkins played guitar in Johnny Cash’s backing band throughout the fifties and sixties.  His style was laid back.  Some called it lackadaisical.  When asked about his approach Perkins responded that other guitar players spent their time looking for the right notes but he’d found them.  It was a confident declaration.  He knew what he wanted and how to get it; his internal sense of validation was good enough and he wasn’t distracted by extraneous pursuits (at least not on stage).

Record Heat (Wee Rock) is further proof that The Safes have that, too—an unflinching confidence in a simple, invigorating approach.   And passion to burn.  With songs like the opening track, “Hopes Up, Guard Down,” the Safes are as direct as ever rendering Record Heat easy to read and easier to like.  Pretty hard to forget, though.

The band’s driving, grab-you-by-the collar garage pop is colored with big hooks and laced with lyrics that celebrate the people who help them weather a world that continues to disappoint.  But they don’t allow frustration to yield to bitterness, and the band continues to find new takes on proven ideas, especially on side two where tracks such as “Ace for a Face” and “Hot Pursuit” breathe in unexpected places.  (Other nice touches include guest vocalist Kathleen Wilson kicking “K.O.” up a notch, and the band’s dad, Frank X. O’Malley, making a cameo on baritone sax.)

Thousands of bands are pursuing the brass ring of commercial success, trying to cook up a recipe with the right blend of songs, styles, and attitudes that will resonate, strike people as authentic.  Such guessing games yield a lottery seldom won.  They’re all looking for what the Safes have in spades.  You’ll never look back on Record Heat and have to make excuses.

Jason Kao Hwang’s Sing House

By Mike Faloon

Andrew Drury picks up a small, metal object, part of a sink faucet he got from a construction job. He leans over his floor tom, places the faucet on the drumhead and exhales. He works with care and precision, a jeweler placing loupe to gem, magnifying what lies within, revealing mournful, voluminous sounds. A solo sans sticks.

Sing House listens and waits. Bandleader Jason Kao Hwang brings his violin to his chin. Trombonist Steve Swell raises his mouthpiece to his lips. Drury continues. Hwang and Swell start nodding to the implied beat, they’re ready to come in. Drury continues. Hwang and Swell rest their instruments. Everyone has a voice in Sing House and right now Drury has more to say; a different way to give the drummer some.

* * *

I ask Drury how he thought to play drums like that. He says he wasn’t interested in a “grandiose display of cleverness.” He had a gig with cellist Peggy Lee in Vancouver. She couldn’t find her pick up and had to play unamplified, “which meant disaster…drum sets always bury cellos and (make) for some really boring-to-listen-to music.” Drury decided to focus “on all the quiet sounds…that drum sets make, like when you sit down and something creaks. I think I might have used sheets of crumpled paper as drum sticks that night.”

* * *

The stage is dense tonight, more so than usual. I’ve seen a lot of duos and trios at Quinn’s, along with a handful of quartets. Sing House is the first five-piece. More important than the number of names on the scorecard, though, is the scope and range of the personalities, and when everyone’s playing, thumping and bumping and wailing and flailing in wonderful unsynchronized unison, there is so much to take in, so many places for the eye and ear and mind to go. 

Yet for all the activity, the scene takes me back to one of Adrian Chi’s Bite the Cactus comics, a particularly pensive one called “Drawn to the Desert.” The panels depict the before and after of Chi’s move from the city of Toronto to the suburbs of L.A., from stimulating to numbing. Then she makes friends and starts taking weekend camping trips, discovers Joshua Tree and Matilija Falls, Death Valley and King’s Canyon. “The incredible majesty of these places made the suburbs seem far away and insignificant. There’s an indescribable ecstasy sitting in the desert, hiding in the shade of a boulder, that draws me back again and again.” 

* * *

Steve Swell’s eyes are closed. His face is clenched. His right hand, bandaged from a recent surgery, gives him the appearance of a boxer before the gloves go on. He jabs the air, strikes the space before him, rapidly, desperately pushing and pulling the slide on his trombone. But there’s more to Swell’s brand of the sweet science than just the number of punches thrown. Location and impact count too, especially when playing within the ambitious blueprints laid out by Hwang.

I run into Swell a few weeks later. He asks, “Those other things you write about, are you thinking about them while you’re listening to the music or do they come to you later?”

I’ve been writing these columns for a year. They’ve occupied so much of my thinking, but no one’s asked so directly about one of the basic building blocks of these pieces. I think he says something about schizophrenia.

“I don’t mean schizophrenia in all its bad connotations but, I believe this, there can be ‘good’ schizophrenia. When we play music or write poetry we are dealing with everything we already know or have been exposed to up to that moment just before the actual act of making music or writing poetry. It’s all we have to work with. We shut off the learning part and turn on the working part. All the information, disparate as it may seem, comes to the fore when we are creating.”

* * *

Chi’s comics appear in Razorcake, a non-profit punk magazine based in Los Angeles. Razorcake captivates me for a number of reasons. Their contributors embrace and repudiate the stereotypes of punk culture. They cover music that is loud and aggressive and filled with emphatic, thump-the-table-rattle-the-utensils lyrics. They also bring to bear considerable intelligence and a willingness to contemplate. In a recent column Razorcake co-founder Sean Carswell used the phrase “Meditate on this with me.” Not “react with me” or “get angry with me,” but rather “think with me.” They offer more than escapism; an invitation to engage in a search, one that resets, redirects. 

* * *

Bassist Ken Filiano solos. The fingertips of his left hand move in small increments, shifting and balancing on the strings beneath. His right hand goes Nadia Comaneci, leaping above and below his left—low then high, high then low, faster as he goes—plucking harmonics with each perfect landing.

The ensemble resumes, frenetic movement in all directions. Just when the whole thing might become too divergent, overextended, Filiano repeats a simple phrase, provides just enough foundation, doesn’t reign in the others but provides the background, the context, that offers shape, like Hercules digging a trench to redirect a river.

Between sets Filiano and I talk about books. I mention Larry McMurtry’s Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen in which he writes about being in his sixties, still searching for a way to balance life as a reader with life as a writer; when he reads a lot he feels that he’s neglecting his writing and vice versa. Filiano recommends Lonesome Dove. “He doesn’t create his characters, he listens to them.”

I wonder to what extent Jason Kao Hwang mirrors this approach with his Sing House compositions. It’s remarkable how well this cast of characters functions within Hwang’s structures. In that sense he reminds me of Gabriel Byrne’s character in The Usual Suspects, orchestrating a group of disparate personalities. I’m tempted to match up the five members of Sing House with their counterparts in The Usual Suspects. But who’d be the Stephen Baldwin?

* * *

Christopher Forbes sits at his keyboard, momentarily on the periphery, moving slightly, sizing up the situation, contemplating his next move. He enters quietly, pulls his fingertips across the keys, one sensitive brush stroke at a time. Then he ramps up, plays at incalculable, seemingly reckless speeds, but always sure footed; nimble movements within the turmoil, a striking combination of velocity and grace. The classic game is set aside for blitz chess.

Visually Forbes fits the image I have of Lenny Angrush from Jonathan Lethem’s Dissident Gardens. It’s the combination of beard and glasses, upturned porkpie hat and jacket-less-than-pressed. Lenny’s a chess hustler and well-read idealist. He’s also a baseball fan who tries in vain to convince the new Queens-based team (the soon-to-be Mets) to adopt a pro-labor song as their anthem. But Lenny never finds a place where his efforts as a provocateur are welcome. Forbes, on the other hand, is building a place where his are essential.

* * *

Jodorowsky’s Dune is a documentary about director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s quest to make a film adaptation of the Frank Herbert science fiction novel. The project never makes it off the launch pad but in the mid-seventies Jodorowsky and his collaborators spend months recruiting cast members, including Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, and Mick Jagger. They also develop a shot-by-shot breakdown of their proposed movie. “Fever dream” might be more apt—the book is comprised of 3,000 illustrations and the film-to-be has a running time of fourteen hours.

* * *

Explaining the band’s name, Hwang says, “Sing is a common sound in the Chinese language. Depending upon the tone, inflection, context and dialect, the meanings and the calligraphy vary greatly. I hear Sing as a sound.”

“So in that sense it’s like a syllable,” I ask, “a building block, a part of a larger whole?”

“Yes,” Hwang replies, “I should ask a linguist as to what sonic unit this sound would be categorized.”

* * *

As with any book-to-film adaptation Jodorowsky wants to make changes to the source material. Among them is an alternate ending in which Duke Leto’s son Paul is killed. Paul’s consciousness spreads among the masses and sparks a rebirth of the planet. Dune is transformed from a desert to a garden, vast and verdant. From one can come many. Sing House inverts that dynamic: within the one there are many.

* * *

Hwang motions, leans into the beat as he counts off. There are plans afoot. Follow me. His fingers slide along the strings, inward, toward him, evoking the highest, faintest, most fragile of pitches, the smallest specks of paint that prompt you to step closer to the canvas. I’ve been so focused on Hwang’s role as composer and conductor that I’d momentarily lost sight of the performer; overemphasized his ability to work Cerebro and overlooked what an asset he is in the throes of battle.

Then there’s an explosion. The band’s back in full force yet diverging. They’re in one place physically but sonically they’ve scattered, to each his own pursuit, like a Sol LeWitt wall drawing, so many lines radiating from a series of single points yet carefully placed within the larger piece.

* * *

Jason Kao Hwang: “The music is a house, with the score’s quintessential melodies, rhythms, harmonies and textures offering rooms in which musicians extemporaneously sing. In this dramatic architecture, the unique voice of each musician is empowered to individually interpret and also, transcend interpretation to become an originating spirit that is inextricably unified to the composition’s destiny. This is how music grows greater than the imagination of one to become a meta-language of memories, dreams and hope. This is how my compositions house imagination, identity, and greater purpose. This is the jazz of Sing House.”

The Other Night at Quinn’s: Avram Fefer

By Mike Faloon | Photos by Michael Bogdanffy-Kriegh / Studio MBK

“That’s what’s most important if you want to be free: respect for and exasperation with boundaries.” – Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

***

Saxophonist Avram Fefer plays a phrase, passes it to the rhythm section and momentarily steps back.  The Michaels (Bisio and Wimberly) grab it and go, a rebound turned fastbreak.  Then they pull back, work the perimeter, set up the next play—a trio in top gear from the start.  Later Fefer says he told the band to “skip the first set and get to the second and third.”

For months I’ve been telling my neighbor, Keith, about these shows.  He was able to make it tonight and couldn’t have picked a better introduction to Quinn’s.  Early on it’s evident that this will be a memorable night.  Joe McPhee and Iva Bittova sense it.  They’re among the past performers who have returned tonight as fans.  Fefer senses it, too.  He takes a moment to snap a photo when bassist Michael Bisio solos.  Then Fefer stretches, reaches to the ceiling, twists side to side, and preps for what’s to come.

***

“You say something true, but high-minded—preferably a couple of things true, but high-minded, to set up the rhythm.  Then you deflate the whole lofty mess by saying something really true…that leaves the reader with not just a laugh, but insight.”  Art Spiegelman, Introduction to Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book

***

Fefer floats on high, glides on long, sustained thoughts, as Bisio eases into a hypnotic bass line, locks in with Wimberly.  A refrain emerges.  They stay within the boundaries and it’s wonderful but it’s not to last, not in this form.  They toss aside what they’ve built, let loose a flurry, beautiful and messy, a blizzard of ideas, too many to track yet, too tantalizing to ignore.

The group changes directions once more, mixes the melodic and the manic.  The rhythm section clicks into a groove, repeats a phrase that you can latch onto, while Fefer takes off, pushes to the upper register, strains just short of piercing.  Only as he descends do I realize the extent to which my body tensed up during the ascent; I feel my shoulders drop as he releases, returns to solid ground.

***

Curses, a comic by Kevin Huizenga, revolves around the existential adventures of Glenn Ganges.  Glenn’s brother, Wayne, teaches at a seminary school.  In one story they go golfing with two of Wayne’s fellow professors.  The older professor talks about a recent visit to a bookstore.  He looks around at “all the books on display—and (thinks), Behold, the vanity of man!”

Wayne responds, “But in all those books God displays his wonders, too—through human imagination, art, history, ideas…”  Theoretically I agree with the brother, take the humanist approach.  But when I first read the comic I sided with the older professor.  There are so many books published each year, plus the articles and reviews and posts.  Why add to the heap?  Do I write to engage and connect or merely distract myself, chase the red dot on the floor?

***

Keith and I arrive early only to find the counter full.  The booths up front are occupied, too.  Yet he’s taken with the place by the time we sit down—the décor, the menu, the prospect of great music on a Monday night.  We drove up together but I haven’t asked how long he wants to stay.  I don’t want to ask.  He might have to—or want to—leave early.  A set departure time will only get stuck in my head and I’ll focus on what I might miss, rather than the experience before me.

***

Fefer and Bisio move aside, which signals a Michael Wimberly solo.  I spot an open seat.  I ask Keith if he wants to move closer.  He gives me a nod that says, I’m good right here.  By the time I walk up Wimberly has switched to mallets and they’re a blur, the white felt leaving streaks in the air.  Then he moves faster, the sticks like helicopter blades.  My eyes can only process one or two images per revolution, they can’t keep up.  It’s over too soon but I stay up front, linger with the sights I’d been missing in back—the various shades of gold on Fefer’s well-worn horns, the hairs on Bisio’s fraying bass bow, Wimberly’s fingers pushing in slow motion across the drum head of his floor tom.

***

“The very best works construct a bridge across that abyss of human loneliness.” – David Foster Wallace, “Good Old Neon”


***

Fefer, Bision and Wimberly build bridges early and often.  It’s evident when Fefer acknowledges his predecessors.  With humility and reverence he covers Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s “Volunteered Slavery.”  He talks about traveling with Archie Shepp and playing with Ornette Coleman.  And always with a sense of inclusion, big tent rather than closed circle.  It’s evident, too, when Fefer claps on the beat, invites others to join, tries to span what’s left of the performer/audience divide.  Iva Bittova moves to the front, calls out on the upbeat, bellows and beams.  It’s a well-timed response to what’s emanating from stage and quickly spreads around the room.

***

After the show Keith and I settle our tab, ready to head home.  We stop by the merch table but no one’s there.  The band is scattered around the room catching up with friends and fans.  Hundreds of dollars worth of records and CDs sit unattended.  They’re available but they’re secondary.  We find Avram Fefer and go overboard on his records.  Then we do the same with Michael Bisio.  (If Michael Wimberly had brought albums for sale we’d have completed the trifecta.)  Each of them is gracious, genuine.  The show’s over but the night’s just beginning.  Keith suggests that we stay for another drink.