Go Metric

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. 

Ten You May Have Missed in 2014

by Gary Pig Gold

BARRACUDAS  Mean Time  (Closer)
Having begun life when great white journalist Jeremy Gluck left Canada with his Jan & Dean collection, only to land smack-dub in the middle of post-punk London, The Barracudas by the time of their sophomore long-player had added quite a dollop of gnarl to their original surf-ish sound. Consequently, Mean Time continues to be cited – and quite rightfully, at least in the eyes of my ears – as the band’s true masterwork. Closer Records thusly celebrated their 30th (!) anniversary of its original release with a full 12-inch vinyl picture disc version, which thankfully retains every single bit of its vintage-’83 jump ‘n’ jangle. And no wonder: that’s none other than Flamin’ Groovie Chris Wilson Himself manning the Rickenbacker (his solo on “Middle Class Blues,” to name but one, could only come from such a wily player). Elsewhere, “Bad News” is an absolutely brilliant Beatle/Byrd big-beat ballad, “I Ain’t No Miracle Worker” easily could have extended Paul Revere and the Raiders’ career on record by at least a decade or two, and “Eleventh Hour” manages to wind the Chocolate Watchband up even tighter still thanks in no small part to J. Gluck’s splendidly Strummeresque howl. Now, it’s been said many times before, but I’m gonna say it again: This is an utterly fantastic record, end to end …which with this, its latest of many incarnations over the decades, leaves each and every one of you with NO excuse any longer to pass it by.          

BEACH BOYS  Keep An Eye On Summer: Sessions 1964  (iTunes)
Dylan does it. The Beatles do it too, though not nearly as creatively and/or completely (no real surprise there). Now the Beach Boys are doing it as well …and they’ll all probably have to keep doing it for another ten years or so, or at least until current Copyright protection legislation is amended – as in extended. Most fortunately for all of us, it was 51 years ago that the Boys in question embarked upon a most ambitious, to put it mildly, period of creativity which still continues to amaze and astound a half century later. Actually, make that Brian Wilson embarked, as it was basically he alone who, whilst touring the world and even making a movie with Annette, still somehow found the time to write, arrange, perform, produce, and release four – yes, I said FOUR complete albums during the twelve months of which we speak. And remember that while, to bring up those Beatles again, John had Paul, Paul had John, they both had George Martin plus co-operative fellow bandmembers and record labels, Brian was basically battling the good, melodic fight more or less solo. No wonder he needed a rest for a few years there in the early Seventies! That all said, perhaps the real revelation of the Keep An Eye On Summer collection is the accompanying, intricately detailed Sessionography which reveals once and for all (one can only hope) that it was the Boys themselves – yep, including Dennis Wilson on drums – who made and played on most of those records throughout ‘64: so Roll over Hal Blaine, and tell Carol Kaye the news. Please!       

RAY CARMEN  Recordiogram  (Cut And Paste) 
Neil Young? Jack White?? An old Voice-o-Graph machine and some almost-as-olde-time Canadian folk tunes?!! Well, after all’s been said and quickly sung into the nearest recording apparatus, Ray Carmen – as he quite often is, by the way – was there first. And best too, armed only with a couple’a Eveready AA’s, a Micro-cassette and a budget far tinier, I’d bet, than a single J. White-authorized lunch voucher. Far from just a bunch of stray guitar riffs tossed together, though there are a minute-and-a-half of ‘em gathered herein, “Big Mistake” and “Strawberries” taste wholly P. Townshend Scoop-worthy, while “Boettler Park” sounds just like the much-needed sequel to Paul McCartney’s “Glasses” (complete with an aerial fly-over direct from Zeppelin’s “Black Country Woman”). “Porch Chimes” similarly brings a SMiLE to one’s ears …and, speaking of everyone’s favorite B. Boy, Ray’s “Far Off Train” certainly recalls another classic album’s tag to boot. Yes, this all really is exactly what songwriters tend to sound like late into the wee hours …when struggling not to awaken their nearest spouses, kids, pets and/or neighbors whenever the muse comes knockin’. Take yours home today!

JOHNNY DOWD  That’s your wife on the back of my horse  (Mother Jinx)
Plastic Ono Dowd, Spanky and Our Dowd, Johnny Gunn, Beelzedowd, “Dowd Latitudes,” Johnny and the Juniors, Timbuk Dowd, 2 Live Dowd, Rank and Dowd (…actually, come to think of it, more – much more – like Blackbird), “When Johnny Met Sally,” “Johnny Teardrop,” Kraftdowd, Sonny and Dowd, Motördowd:  Here is a man, and yet another utterly dumbfounding album, that can go by MANY names.

ELECTRIC PRUNES  WaS  (PruneTwang)   
Since last we heard from those quite high priests of Woodland Hills, CA they may indeed have sorrowfully lost their founding bassman Mark Tulin. But on this, their not only latest but loudest release, James Lowe & Co. continue the reverb-ripped ‘n’ tremolo-dipped mission begun ‘way back when they… well, you know: had too much one night. In fact, right from the very opening 20-second KERRANGGG! which more than launches WaS – with “Smokestack Lightning” no less! – the Prunes prove they’re every single bit as, uh-huh, electric as ever. For example? “Between The Cracks” is much more potent a P-delic pill than even the young Neil ever offered, the contagiously subterrain “Don’t Sneeze On Me” sports an all-hands-on-the-pan-controls midsection that should even give Lindsey Buckingham pause (also, keep those headphones on tight for “Circles” as well!) and “Adoration Stuck” I’d sure love to see and hear The Zombies tackle one of these days very very soon. Then “TOKYO” sends no less than Puffy (AmiYumi) straight through the cooking glass once and for all, plus there’s even a live track – though not from Stockholm, but Brighton it sounds like – called “Bullet Thru The Backseat” that more than lives up to its threat. All in all, one of the increasingly rare cases of an iconic band from the dark distant recesses which somehow continue to act, and sound, as defiantly dastardly as always. Or, as Mr. Lowe himself would point out, “There is a fine line between ‘is’ and ‘was.’ If what you did is more important than what you are doing, you Was.” 

LEGAL MATTERS  The Legal Matters  (Futureman)
Good ol’ Wikipedia has, as countless dozens of others since ca. 1997, attempted to define “Power pop” as, and I shall quote, “a popular musical genre that draws its inspiration from 1960s British and American pop and rock music. It typically incorporates a combination of musical devices such as strong melodies, clear vocals and crisp vocal harmonies, economical arrangements and prominent guitar riffs. Instrumental solos are usually kept to a minimum, and blues elements are largely downplayed. Recordings tend to display production values that lean toward compression and a forceful drum beat. Instruments usually include one or more electric guitars, an electric bass guitar, a drum kit and sometimes electric keyboards or synthesizers.” Well, even by nudging Wiki’s “1960s” up a decade or two and bracketing their drum beat’s forcefulness one still falls far short of defining with any due exactness the pristinely pure, yes, p-o-p Keith Klingensmith, Chris Richards, Andy Reed and friends came up with over six days in a Michigan recording studio last winter. Sure, there’s lots of Straight Up Badfinger, “Ticket to Ride” rhythms, “Nowhere Man” “oooh-la-la-la”s, even some Gilbert O’Sullivan and hints of the great Emitt Rhodes / First National Band collaboration that, alas, never was. But it only takes three minutes in their “Outer Space” – without doubt one of the most delicately, meticulously nuanced gentle gems I’ve heard all year – to make you reach for your copy of The Cowsills’ Global yet again …which is a GOOD thing, by the way.

SATISFACTORS  The Satisfactors  (Bongo Boy)
Right from the big-kick-drum kick-off of “She Got Charm,” not only is it frightfully obvious this disc was recorded at none other than the legendary House of Vibes by Kurt Rei… I mean Curtis Roy, but that the tone and tenure overall for the next thirty-eight minutes shall be nothing but loud, lewd, leering and well, lascivious. See, the good folk over at Bongo Boy Records have gone and assembled an NJ-not-NY supergrope of sorts: a fab fourplay of undeniable New York Doll / Rick Derringer / Grip Weed / Mark Lindsay / Billy Idol even pedigree (…imagine, if you can, the Dictators carjacking the Traveling Wilburys’ RV somewhere out on the Jersey Turnpike and allowing only Lucky W. to stay on for the rest of the ride). The result, naturally, is big-bottomed r-a-w-k with lyrics to match; heavy on the anthemic choruses (“I Love Girls” and “Gimme My Rock ‘n’ Roll”? Nuff shouted) and dicey-dumb attitude (“Awrite!” “C’mon baby!”). And while “Had It With You” is most sorrowfully not the Dirty Work Stones track – now THAT would’ve been, um, interesting! – “Johnny Commando” is just about the best J. Cummings epitaph you’re ever going to hear during 2015 and counting. My only advice? These Satisfactors should head direct out of Jersey asap and take this criminally cretinous mess on the road already, to show what’s left of the music business just how it once was and, yep, can still be done.

PETE SEEGER  Sing Out America!  (Dynamic)
This above-generous 2-disc, 50 (!!) song overview, stretching all the way back to the Almanac Singers and Weavers, may indeed be quaintly subtitled The Best of Pete Seeger [RIP, one year ago]. But all you really need to do is just read off, for example, these iconic song titles: “Shenandoah,” “Ida Red,” “Rifleman of Birmingham,” “Casey Jones,” “Molly Malone,” “I Know Where I’m Going,” “Erie Canal,” “Talking Union,” “Where Have All The Flowers Gone,” “This Land Is Your Land,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!” Say no more.

SEX CLARK FIVE  WFMU Monster Session  (Records To Russia)
Wherein the Greatest Strum & Drum Band On Earth customarily takes a mere thirty-one-minutes-forty-five to deliver twenty – count ‘em! – new and unreleased songs for you and everyone just like you. Like those who like arrangements and chord digressions every inch worthy of the late-into-’77 Ramones (“Five Seconds Over Baghdad” and especially “That’s Where Liberty Sleeps”) or even The Hollies vs. the Tottenham Sound (“I Can’t Let Go” no less!) Then there’s the sound of Joe Meek inheriting the Earth …or at least the Air Warden’s Dream (“Searchlights”) and a version of The Who selling out “Odorono” …possibly quite ironic given this Monster Session’s co-production credit going to none other than Shel Talmy. Me? I’m particularly impressed that someone’s FINALLY fingered out exactly how to sound like The Searchers (“While I’m Here”) …and it only took a little over a minute! If for some unfathomable reason you’re still not on intimate footing with the gosh-almighty SC5, this disc just has to be the place to jump in with both ears open. (P.S.: several Bonus Points for cover art by Jack Davis)

SIMPLY SAUCER  Baby Nova  (Schizophrenic)
Over the past forty years, words such as acid, alien, aluminum, anomaly, apocalyptic, astounding, barrage, bite, bracing, brash, brawl-inducing, brooding, chugs, churns, cosmic, criminals, curveball, daydreams, delinquents, detached, droning, earth-shattering, eeriness, electro-damaged, enigmatic, epic, eye-gouging, ferocious, flatline, freakout, frigid, froths, fury, garage, gooey, gravel, greasy, grit, hardscrabble, haunted, humid, incongruous, Kosmische, Krautrock, marvel, melee, mercenaries, metalloid, monomaniacal, otherworldly, passionate, primordial, rabid, raddest, raw, retro-futurist, riveting, sadomasochist, scary/compelling, screaming, searing, seasoned, shamble, shredder, sideways, sinister, sirens, smasher, snarling, snotty, spaceways, stoner, strange, stunning, subterranean, surreal, UFO, unconsciousness, unhinged, unsung, vibrant, visionary, visions, wall-of-hair, weird-ass, wobbling, and wrangling have been used to (try to) describe Simply Saucer. Listening to the band’s latest EP of Detroit-recorded [insert any of the above] music may very well only add to the list. As well it should. 

The Other Night at Quinn’s: Tarana – Ravish Momin, Rick Parker

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

“So laid back but so uptight” — Sebadoh, “The Freed Pig”

* * *

“Everything is all right / Uptight” — Stevie Wonder, “Uptight”

* * *

The leaves are changing. Greens slowly yielding to reds, oranges, and yellows. There's a chill in the air and it’s getting dark early. For the first time in months I have to turn on the headlights as I drive to Beacon. It’s starting to feel like autumn but I'm not ready.

* * *

Lately I’ve been waking up with the sense that I’m further behind—at work, at home—than I was the day before, and I’m not sure that I’m ready for Tarana either. They’re an unlikely duo—a drummer and trombonist each of whom incorporates electronics. On its face the lineup seems like a longshot, the details too disparate to form a fully functional whole. Ravish Momin, Tarana’s drummer and spokesman, uses the phrase “folk music from nowhere.” This could easily and accurately be revised to “folk music from everywhere.”

One of my first notes says, “New Delhi + New Orleans + ‘Autobahn’.” My inner cynic squirms for a moment, wonders whether this will derail into a night of “everything and the kitchen sink,” a multi-genre hodgepodge desperate to display diverse tastes. But those reservations are more blip on the radar than looming threat. It’s remarkable how quickly, how well and how often Tarana get those disparate elements to gell.

* * *

Richard Brautigan’s The Hawkline Monster follows another unlikely duo, Greer and Cameron, as they travel from Hawaii to eastern Oregon in 1902. They’re hired guns. Greer’s preferred rifle is a 30:40 Krag and he jokes with Cameron about his choice of weapons, a 25:35 Winchester. Greer and Cameron are men of few words. As killers they’re also unlikely protagonists. But they’re bound by compatible temperaments and shared goals; who they are as individuals is eclipsed by what they do and how.

* * *

Tarana, like any worthy partnership—musicians, athletes, turn-of-the-century assassins—have an unspoken work dynamic of their own. Part of this is rooted in their stage personas. Ravish Momin (drums, electronics) is the extrovert, talkative on stage and off. Five minutes into a conversation you’ll know his background. (He’s lived in India, Hong Kong, London, and the Middle East.) You’ll know his outlook on music. (“You know four on the floor, right? Why not seven or thirteen?”). But it’s genuine enthusiasm more than rehearsed monologue.

* * *

Game three of the Royals/Orioles series was rained out. Bummer. I was hoping to follow the game, check the score between songs.

* * *

Rick Parker (trombone, electronics) may speak less on stage, but he’s no less a presence.

His trombone booms across the room, a big, breezy tone with wave upon wave of echoes following in its wake. Then he trades the cool currents of brass for bone rattling blasts of synthesizer. He hunches over a keyboard about the size of a power strip or surge protector. It’s remarkable that a device so small has such tremendous output. When he returns to the trombone he points the slide downward, toward the pedals resting on the floor. It’s like he’s taming them, keeping them in check, maintaining a clear “monkeys > robots” hierarchy.

* * *

“Greer and Cameron had an aura about them that they could handle any situation that came up with a minimum amount of effort and resulting in a maximum amount of effect.” – The Hawkline Monster, p. 13

* * *

Momin and Parker run the ROY G BIV gamut, color outside the lines with a wide spectrum of sounds and a fluid economy of motion. Their work-to-impact ratio rivals Greer and Cameron’s, less the body count. Yet for all of the samples and echoes and pyrotechnics, it's the drums and trombone that keep bringing me back, the basics, the fundamentals.

* * *

The Royals are in the playoffs for the first time in nearly thirty years. I watched their bandwagon from afar as they squeaked into the playoffs. I jumped on board during the late innings of their improbable comeback against the A’s. Then they knocked off the Angels, the best team in baseball, swept them aside in three straight.

* * *

Momin sings a line and loops it. The line repeats as he kicks quarter notes on the bass drum, steady and inviting. Parker enters on trombone and Momin shifts to a syncopated snare/kick pattern. Just as the ground starts to feel firm Parker trades trombone for synth, slides into sounds bubbly and expansive. I’ve nearly caught up, nearly plotted all the coordinates, when he uncages these stunning, sublime bass blasts on his synth. Momin changes lanes, accelerates from a steady beat to fills that roll across the toms. He too operates a battery of electronics, which he triggers with foot pedals. Back and forth they go, filling the room with kaleidoscopic sounds, each tune laced with melodies stretched this way and that.

* * *

Lorenzo Cain and Nori Aoki are my favorite Royals. Together they patrol thousands of square feet. Cain plays centerfield. In the past week I’ve seen him make at least three highlight reel catches. Watching him chase down a flyball is stunning. He can formulate and act on an accurate plan of pursuit so quickly. He knows his destination before he takes his first step.

Aoki plays rightfield. In the past week I’ve seen him nearly turn at least four routine plays into errors. He charges line drives too fast, nearly overruns them. He takes the most circuitous routes to flyballs. I wonder what, or if, he’s thinking. He has an uncanny ability to turn the ordinary into the nailbiting.

* * *

Momin and Parker cover even more ground than Cain and Aoki. They leapfrog across continents and timelines mixing traditional and progressive jazz with dub and Indian influences and electronics—East and West, looking back and looking ahead. Tarana keep conjuring different places, different regions, effortlessly trotting around the globe. My mental map is covered with push pins and a network of criss-crossing yarn. The world feels smaller on a night like this.

* * *

Cain is African-American. Aoki is Japanese. All too often African-American athletes are described as “natural” and “graceful,” as if they merely coast on natural talents. The implications being, among other things, that they lack intelligence and/or work habits. The stereotypes of Asian athletes lie at the other end of the spectrum; through intellect and diligence they maximize what they were born with. Cain and Aoki subvert those stereotypes, muddy the waters, which only heightens their appeal.

* * *

Director Lizzie Borden said she intended her films to portray alternate takes on feminism. Her characters lived on the fringes of society and she wanted to show that their compasses, though of different design, pointed in the same direction as their mainstream counterparts. She didn’t want to shoehorn words or attitudes into their experiences for the sake of a gaining a wider audience. “Why should we put words in the mouths of women who believe the same things? Why should they speak our language? We should have simultaneous languages."

* * *

Ravish Momin says he’s been accused of selling out with Tarana, playing it too straight. I get it. I understand that using steady beats is a step toward the norm, at least to those who play free/out there with all variables. But it’s hard to overlook the many unexpected choices Tarana pile atop those rhythms. It’s also difficult to picture a drums/trombone/ electronics band as the path to fame and fortune. Tarana is fluent in many of the simultaneous languages—musically and culturally. Arguably they’re forging their own.

* * *

Leaving Quinn’s I notice the vines on the bank across the street. Even in the dark the leaves seem unusually green, vibrant. From parts unknown I hear crickets, and it feels warmer than it has all day.

The Other Night at Quinn’s: It’s Not About Time – The Spanish Donkey

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

It’s chilly tonight, cold in ways our backyard thermometer can’t measure, cold in ways that slow down everything and induce a huddle-round-a-fire feeling, trigger the need to pull in closer.

The Spanish Donkey are having a similar effect.  They push forth enormous arrays of sound—guitar and keyboards mixing and melting, drums securing the perimeter.  Maybe defining the perimeter is more apt.  The band’s outer edge is more permeable membrane than rigidly defined border—it has to be given the frequency of ideas flowing in and out; the dimensions of those ideas shifting from moment to moment.  Keyboardist Jamie Saft stomps on quarter notes.  Drummer Mike Pride pushes steady eighths, and guitarist Joe Morris moves at a pace that I can’t break down.  Yet for all the different dynamics, there’s something dense, highly concentrated, about their sound, all the parts pulling in more than pushing away, more centripetal force than centrifugal.

The band’s name has me thinking of Don Quixote, specifically Sancho Panza, the realist, the voice of practicality. 

Joe Morris looks down at his gear.  He maneuvers massive amounts of sound, yet he’s reserved in his responses, stoic, the cool-headed engineer at mission control.  (Is there something of Robert Fripp in his approach?)  I notice a new keyboard pattern, rich, vibrant organ sounds.  Did Jamie Saft just start that or has he been locked into it for the past five minutes?  I drift to the drums.  Pride fluctuates the patterns, steers clear of easily defined beats.  Before long Morris reemerges, like storm clouds you’ve seen coming for miles but still manage to startle when they open up.  When I stick with one player I lose track of the others, never sure for how long, then I’m surprised by what’s developed elsewhere.

* * *

Season 2 of House of Cards opens with a long, steady shot of a D.C. park at night.  There’s no one in sight and it’s very quiet, too quiet for a city park.  You scan the frame for movement, evidence of action, purpose.  Eventually two figures, dressed in black, enter the frame, jogging side by side.  At first they’re too distant to distinguish.  As they slowly emerge from the dark depths you realize it’s Frank and Claire.  The absence of edits lets you choose where your eye goes.  You’re given the whole and with it a chance to sift through the bits.

* * *

Last weekend I went to a reading in Brooklyn.  I ran into my friend Brendan at Grand Central.  We walked a couple blocks west to catch the F train.  Before we even got on the subway he was wondering if he should have driven.  We talked on the train but couldn’t lose track of time because neither of us was familiar with the F line.  We had to keep checking the map and trying to decode the garbled announcements.  When we got to Brooklyn we saw open parking spaces and free moving traffic, and Brendan was convinced he’d made the wrong decision.  “I should have driven.”

* * *

The Spanish Donkey can blast, play loud, push the amplitude of those sound waves.  But for all the band’s volume, their relative restraint is more striking.  It’s not about the horizontal (movement or structure) or the vertical (contrasts in pitch or tone).  It’s this sense of branching out yet staying within close proximity. 

* * *

Between sets I order a drink.  The bartender, George, chats with Joe Morris.  It takes George a moment to break away to take my order.  He apologizes but there’s no need.  Morris is holding court and I enjoy the eavesdropping.  He uses the phrase “static density.”  I’m uncertain of what the term means but it seems to fit the Spanish Donkey.  I think it fits that scene from House of Cards, too.

* * *

Back on stage Morris shoots through the stratosphere.  Meso- and thermospheres, too.  He heads for the exosphere, still somewhat bound by gravity but merging with other realms.  It’s not like other guitarists don’t hit these levels. They might do so momentarily, but as a solo, an aberration, the break from the routine.  For Morris, it’s the norm, cruising altitude, the place where he builds and sustains.

* * *

Later, still unsure of how to explain static density, I write this as a placeholder: “all three players playing at all times, overrides volume and tempo and other variables.”  But it doesn’t ring true, so I email Morris a few days later and he responds, “The forward motion of time as pulse is so slow that it feels like it’s barely moving.  Therefore we can make form without being burdened by the pulse, unless we chose to be.”

* * *

The reading was outdoors, on the front patio of Hamilton’s in Windsor Terrace.  The afternoon was roll-up-the-sleeves warm, a perfect day to listen to our friend Brian read from his new book and watch tattooed helicopter parents stroll by with canvas bags of coop veggies, trailed by scooter kids in soccer jerseys.  After the reading we all moved inside to have dinner.  The food was good and the laughter loud.  We forgot the time and stayed for another drink.  Brendan said he was glad he took the train. 

* * *

Jamie Saft, army jacket-clad, belly length beard and short cropped hair (anti-mullet?), radiates holiday cheer.  Or crush-the-state radicalism.  Maybe both.  He holds down the middle, provides stability, a foundation.  He’s the Yggdrasil that links the band.  Without him it falls apart.

* * *

In Chris Offutt’s “Sawdust” the narrator, Junior, living in the hills of Kentucky, struggles with the seeming contradictions between the values of his family and those of the outside world.  He’s considering pursuing his GED and, among other things, he’s confused by math: “a pile of stove wood doesn’t equal a tree.  It made me wonder where the sawdust went to in a math problem.” 

***

Pride lifts the massive ride cymbal from its stand.  It’s the size of a small kiddie pool.  And what’s that dangling on the side?  It's not a pair of EKG clips.  Is it a handle?  I can’t tell if he’s adjusting the cymbal or replacing it.  He takes hold of the cord, which is a handle, and I realize the cymbal is a gong.  Pride stands and bangs.  He sets the gong on top of his floor tom and wails.  Sheets of mallet-on-gong sounds rain down.  Then he drops the mallet and appears to pull a stick from behind his back, Green Arrow-style.  (Where’s the boxing glove stick?)

* * *

Morris, Saft, and Pride create different densities.  They rotate through the roles of high, medium, and low pressure.  It’s the contrasts, the differences, that generate movement, push things along.  I mention this to Mike Bogdanffy-Kriegh.  He says it reminds him of a quote from Moby Dick, “the tornadoed Atlantic of my being.”[1] 

I email a writer friend, Sean Carswell, about the scene from which the line is taken. "The Pequod (the main whaling ship) travels through some straits near Sumatra.  They encounter a pod of whales there.  They also encounter a Malay pirate ship.  They flee the pirates.  The escape leads them into an even larger pod of whales.  Ishmael describes it as being two or three square miles.  There is a birthing center in the middle.  Ishmael drops into a whaling boat (each ship has several smaller row boats for catching whales) with Queequeg (the harpooner) and Starbuck (the second mate).  Queequeg harpoons a whale.  The whale flees into the center of the pod.  He drags the boat into the birthing center. In the midst of all this chaos, the whaling boat is suddenly stuck inside a beautiful, serene, peaceful place where humans almost never tread."

There’s something about the Spanish Donkey that elicits the timeless, the epic, the classic.  Maybe it’s the way they treat time, push it aside, give it less spotlight.

* * *

Junior, a modern Sancho Panza of sorts, adds, “After all that ciphering, there wasn’t anything to show for the work, nothing to clean up, nothing to look at.”  It sounds like a description of most commercial music—linear, sequential, everything accounted for, no mess and easy to digest.

* * *

Joe Morris: “I use the term free music.  Free from any industry, institutional or critical oversight.” 

* * *

The Minutemen followed their greatest success, Double Nickels on the Dime, with an EP titled Project: Mersh EP.  “Mersh” being Minutemen speak for “commercial.” The cover art shows a trio of executives gathered in a boardroom.  Behind them a line graph.  In the foreground one exec cries out, “I got it!  We’ll have them write hit songs.”

* * *

Joe Morris: “People ask, ‘Do you make any money?  Will it be historically significant?’  My answer is, Screw you.  It took me a long time to get to that.

* * *

Nights at Quinn’s are all about the sawdust, not the mess itself, but all that goes into making the mess, insuring that there is something to show for the work.  I flash back to the Buddhist monks in Werner Herzog’s documentary, The Wheel of Time.  Gathering for an initiation ceremony, they build a sand mandala, a large, stunningly detailed sand painting the size of a ping pong table.  Hunched over the table wearing masks and holding narrow metal funnels, they work in shifts for several days, laboring 18 hours a day.  No attempt is made to presever the mandala when the ceremony ends.  The monks' work is swept aside like crumbs on the floor.  

* * *

The next day there’s an on-line dialogue about the show.  Joe Morris writes, “It's places like (Quinn’s) that are the hope and the future of all of this.  Small, local and brave as hell is always the best.”

---

[1] “But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.”

 

The Other Night at Quinn’s: Iron Dog

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

There’s nothing quite like a quiet day at home, especially a beautiful, sweatshirt autumn day.  Today is one of those.  It’s also Rosh Hashanah, so there’s no school.  I’m catching up on house projects when Richard arrives, his truck filled with firewood.  The image of his battered pick-up with the homemade sidewalls dumping firewood on the driveway should evoke cozy winter fires, blankets and cocoa and soft falling snow.  Instead I see a massive, splintery pile of disorder and an afternoon of stacking wood.

***

Iron Dog take the stage and take the place by storm, albeit a storm that forms slowly before opening up.  They’re a trio from Brooklyn.  Sarah Bernstein (violin, vocals), Stuart Popejoy (bass), and Andrew Drury (drums).  For the first minutes of the show it’s like a three-ring circus, each band member working in their own spotlight.  My attention shifts from one to the next as their performances travel on parallel lines, related but separate.

My first notes seem confused.  One reads:

Violin = 16 rpm
Drums = 33 1/3 rpm
Bass = 45 rpm

Another says:

Drums = nomads of ancient Northern Africa
Bass = ships of Zhu De
Violin = strings of Renaissance Europe 

***

Slowly, piece after piece, the wood clunks into the wheelbarrow.  The driveway pile shrinks as the garage stacks rise.  I square the ends and fill the middle, wood chips snagging on my work gloves.  I have music on but it’s not loud enough to mask the sounds of leaves crunching underfoot and rustling overhead.  I’m surprised by how satisfying the work is.  (Don’t white collar types always say such things when their manual labor is optional and occasional?)

***

“Ain’t it funny how we waste our days?”
–So Little, “Waste”

***

Stuart Popejoy stands in the glow of a red neon sign.  His legs are locked in place and he bends every which way at the waist, Reed Richards freed from the lab.  Popejoy holds his bass nearly upright and both hands are in constant motion, so rapid yet so fluid.  His sound is malleable—conventional, then distorted, then synth-like—always there to serve as the gum that everything else sticks to.  Then there’s the intensity and direction of his gaze.  He stares at the ceiling, looks up and beyond.  I half expect his eyes to roll back into his head, like he’s ready to speak in tongues.

Technically Andrew Drury is the drummer but he’s revised the job description, just as much a player of strings and brass as percussion.  He bows a dust pan, then a piece of sheet metal.  He turns his sticks, holds them vertically and stirs on the floor tom.  He turns a shower fixture into a mouthpiece, places it on the head of the same drum, and blows.  Later he performs mouth-to-drum resuscitation, rotating his floor tom ninety degrees, holding it in his lap, and using the tiny hole on the side as a mouthpiece, rendering the thing a woodwind.  But the Sanford and Son equipment is only a means to an end, the emerging sounds even more interesting than the choice of tools. 

Sarah Bernstein plays strings (violin) and sings, part John Cale, part Nico.  Standing behind a semi-circle of effects pedals, her sound ranges as far as those of her bandmates.  She leaps about the upper layers, bounces and skips across the dense canopy of the band’s sound.  Then she slices through the mix, blasts down to the floor.  When she interjects lyrics, they’re more spoken than sung.  I can’t make much literal sense of the words.  They seem to volley between serious comments and “for the sake of the sound” non-sequiters, something else to consider when sorting through the sonics.  Here’s one I like: “improper contest attire.”

***

When I was growing up my friend Joe had a circular above ground pool.  If everyone walked or swam in the same direction we could create a mini-whirlpool; the water swirled round and round and carried us along.

***

For all of the band’s individual prowess, Iron Dog are best when they all push in the same direction at the same time, generate a different kind of above ground whirlpool.  How they decide when and how to converge, though, is a mystery.  One moment they’re circling around one another.  The next there they are, a three-person flash mob. 

***

So many things feel like they’re winding down, closing up for the season.  The patio furniture is stacked and stored.  Temperatures are dropping and the Mets are playing out their final games of the fall.  The exception, the new thing that cuts across the grain of the winding down/closing up, is my mom’s move last weekend.  The house-to-apartment move blurs by, months of phone calls and emails, debates and discussions dissolve in a few hours.

The movers unpack the truck—boxes, then furniture.  Mom directs traffic from the kitchen table.  We shuffle and reposition and restack, try to keep under control what’s flowing in through the front door—a horizontal version of Tetris.  We are also prepared to smooth the way emotionally, put her at ease, try once more to sell the virtues of the new apartment, but there isn’t a need.  She’s moving in and moving on.  Within days she’s calling to say that we need to move faster on the sale of the house, that it’s time to stop dragging things out, pick up the pace.  After all that’s been dumped on her in recent years she was re-establishing some sense of control.

***

The Biblical name for Rosh Hashanah is Yom Teruah, which translates to “day of shouting” or “making a noise” or “day of awakening blasts.”  Iron Dog traffic in all three, but I think awakening blasts fits best.  Some bands push boundaries.  Others deny the existence of boundaries.  Iron Dog use them to gain traction.  They know full well what the norms are and relish stomping on boundaries, pushing over them, or under or through.

***

From Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run:

Bank clerk (Uncredited): What does this say?

Fielding Melish (Woody Allen): Umm, can’t you read that?

Bank clerk: I can’t read this.  What’s this?  Apt natural?

Fielding Melish: No, it says, Please put $50,000 into this bag and act natural.

Bank clerk: (Confirming) It does say act natural.

Fielding Melish: Uh, I am pointing, uh, a gun at you.

Bank clerk: That looks like gub.  That doesn’t look like gun.

Fielding Melish: No, it’s gun.

Bank clerk: No, that’s gub.  That’s a b.

Fielding Melish: No, see, that’s an n.  G-u-n.  It’s gun.

***

Here’s another of Bernstein’s lyrics that I catch: “We make lists because we don’t want to die.”

James Keepnews catches the line, too.  He leans over when he sees me write it down, but he hears it differently: “We like lists because we don’t want to die.”

Between sets we go back and forth, our impromptu take on the old Miller Light ad (“Make!”; “No, like!”).  Then we find ourselves asking for clarification.  Bernstein indulges us.  She chuckles, too, because she can’t remember the line from memory and reaches for her lyric sheet.  (It’s “like,” not “make.”)

***

They’re variations on the same theme, deciphering lyrics and liking lists, stacking firewood, moving boxes—different ways to clear space and carve out order, reign in the chaos of the day.

The Other Night at Quinn’s -- Peter Evans and Sam Pluta

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

“If you put all the knobs on your amplifier on 10 you can get a much higher reaction to effort ratio…Just a tiny tap on the strings can rattle your windows, and when you slam the strings, with your amp on 10, you can strip the paint off the walls…and with a tiny movement rule the world.”

— David Fair, from the liner notes to Half Japanese’s Greatest Hits

***

Words have been failing me lately. This afternoon a co-worker called with a simple request. I was willing to comply. I was able to comply. But I couldn’t communicate either of those facts. The more I tried to convey that all was well, that his request was reasonable and easy to fulfill, the more he felt compelled to explain what he wanted and why, and the more agitated he became. And the more I spoke, the worse it got.

***

The crickets are cranky tonight, unusually loud, rattled by something in the air. I think that Peter Evans and Sam Pluta are to blame. Our house is far from Quinn’s but apparently it’s still within the blast zone. Evans and Pluta have stirred something that’s still reverberating miles away and hours later.

*** 

The more I try to help my mom, express my support and help her sort through her situation—needing neck surgery, having to find an apartment and sell her home—the further we drift, the more she doubts my motives and the more I add to her frustration. I can’t find the right words.

***

To some extent there’s always a gap between expression and reception, some contrast between what we intend and what’s understood, the divide between output and input. With Peter Evans (trumpet) and Sam Pluta (electronics) that contrast is intentional, the juxtaposition of their instruments, analog and digital, metal and plastic, is at the core of the design.  

***

Peter Evans doesn’t play trumpet so much as survive it. I’m surprised he walks away from the experience unscathed. He blows like a man living on borrowed time, as if he’s thrown himself on a live grenade and has but a few desperate moments to divulge a deep well of secrets—You’ve got to hear this! And this! And this and these…and these…so much to say, so little time—and are you listening?

Sam Pluta, meanwhile, sits at a table of electronics—iPad, Manta keypad, laptop. He performs with equal intensity, coordinating a million missions impossible. He samples Evans’ trumpet lines, reshapes and regurgitates them. One moment he unleashes a rapid succession of piercing, shrill sixteenth notes. The next, table-rattling half notes that plunge to Mariana Trench depths. I catch myself looking over at the glass drink case behind the counter as if it might shatter.

*** 

I’m still stressed from work when I arrive at the show, frazzled by a long, taxing, head-spinning day of preparing for the start of school. Monday through Wednesday I made great strides in getting ready to kick off the new year. Today, though, I went into my last meeting with three things on my “to do” list and left with a dozen. Welcome back! 

***

Witnessing Evans push so many ideas through his mouthpiece is like watching traffic funnel into the Holland Tunnel, but this isn’t a matter of cars crawling along, lurching forward. Evans has six—or eight or twelve—lanes of ideas barreling ahead, accelerators stomped to floorboards, yet somehow converging, blurring into one stream. 

Pluta bends to rhythms I can’t hear and leans into the noise like a bowler or a ballplayer, Carlton Fisk in game six. And when he pauses to push up his glasses, take a moment before pursuing his next thought, it’s with purpose and precision, one index finger on each bow, none of this “jab at the bridge” nonsense. A perfect contrast to his willingness to smudge, smear, contribute to the unholy racket.

Watching them perform, seeing their sounds, so to speak, streak about the club reminds of the lightbike races in Tron—the speed, the turn-on-a-dime joyride thrill of breaking from norms, an “illegal exit” in Tron-speak. 

***

I run into friends and get swept up in their enthusiasm for tonight’s show. Another asks how my mom’s doing. Joe McPhee shows up and I’m able to buy him a drink. Each interaction sands down what the work day built up, takes the edge off. I’m still not sure how much I’m ready to be challenged but that’s comically irrelevant given what Evans and Pluta uncork.

***

Evans puts his hand to the trumpet’s bell, pulls out the notes, clears the way with a magician’s touch and a dynamiter’s impact. His motions can be gentle but the results continue to pummel. There’s also a dance to his movements with the microphone. In one regard, Evans is restricted physically, tethered to the mic—he needs to keep funneling sounds to Pluta—but turns that limitation, that friction, to his advantage, turns it to traction that propels him forward. The evident action is from his neck up, but like a volcano there’s much more bubbling beneath the surface, alveoli working overtime.

Pluta is more than the sum of his gear, but the tools that he utilizes are worth lingering on. The Manta keypad, designed by Jeff Snyder, became Pluta’s “main axe” about six years ago. Slightly larger than a clipboard and covered with a series of octagonal keys, it lights up with each touch, illuminating Pluta’s fingertips. Each tap a tiny explosion. As for the laptop, with its countless overlapping windows, a virus gone haywire, it’s for display purposes. “If I looked at that I’d get distracted.” The brain of his electronic nervous system is the software he designed for his doctoral dissertation.

***

When I teach it’s imperative that words affect change. It’s the essence of the gig. I’m used to delivering unwelcome information and to flat out failing, but I’m part of a dialogue in which language routinely, if inconsistently, moves things forward. But no matter what I say I can’t change things for my mom. For the longest time I thought the details were bogging me down—when she’d move and where—but they’re secondary. The hard part has been realizing that no matter what I say, no matter how carefully I select my phrasing, words cannot alleviate her physical challenges, can do nothing for her pain and frustration. Communication is moot.

Evans and Pluta don’t traffic in the elements that typically draw me to music—melody, harmony, rhythm. Yet for all the noise—and man, can they sandblast—it’s the quiet, subtle acts that provide the tractor beam, the ways in which they listen, react and create in the moment.

I need a show like this, something that overpowers the baggage I bring to it, treats my headspace like taffy on a stretching machine, and reaffirms—at jet engine decibels—why we keep trying.

Barrakuda McMurder: A Cigarette Meet Date EP

By Mark Hughson

Remember on Futurama when Fry was excited to blast off into space, but they had already reached the moon before he could finish the countdown?  That is what I felt like when acquiring this new EP from Barrakuda McMurder.  Such is the world we live in, and such is the artistry of prolific pop-punker Grath Madden, who releases music before we even have a chance to anticipate it.

That being said, this download-only extended player deserves a prominent spot in the Steinways/House Boat/Science Police/BMM discography, so don’t think that its unassuming presentation equates to a toss in the recycle bin. 

Despite worrying about his health, I’ve always enjoyed Madden’s vocals.  Most punk singers go full tilt into whatever realm they are comfortable with, but Madden eschews the typical approaches and sounds neither sugary nor screamy.  When the songs are poppy, his vocals are infectious but never sweet.  When the songs are angry, frustrated diatribes his voice is downright acidic, rather than the worn-paper-thin “snotty” style.  It’s really a wonder to behold in this sub-genre, and more impressive still it’s done in one song (or some kind of single track quadrilogy thing),“California Won/Leave Me Alone/No, Seriously, Leave Me Alone/Oh, Vivien.”  The beginning sways, then the song drops off a cliff of self-deprecation, followed by a catchy as hell, pure pop punk number, and the obligatory gem about a girl.  If you’re a fan of Madden’s refusal to follow the verse-chorus-verse structure (as seen in mini-form on many Steinways songs and in long-form on House Boat’s “21^st Century Breakroom”), then you’ll be glad to add this 4-minute pop punk half-marathon to your collection.  There are two bonus tracks as well, for those of you who want a taste of lo-fi bedroom pop or can’t get enough joke songs about poop.

Here’s the link for the goods:

https://barrakudamcmurder.bandcamp.com/album/a-cigarette-meet-date-ep

The Other Night at Quinn’s — Man Forever & Mike Gamble

By Mike Faloon | Photos forthcoming

Despite my allegiance to shows at Quinn’s, I need some bait on the hook before I decide to go. Weeknight shows in Beacon involve a bit of juggling on the home front and I want some sense of the sounds I’m in for. Not the guarantee of a good time—I don’t need someone to bait my hook—but the prospect of adventure.

The name Man Forever didn’t conjure any particular images or sounds, so I went online. I found footage of the main Man, drummer Kid Millions, aka John Colpitts, playing drums in a variety of mobile settings. He performs in rush hour subway cars and aboard an airplane. He plays in a shipping container. (“One of the biggest nightmares of my performance career. I really didn’t think it through…How was I going to get a steady flow of oxygen into the container?”) There’s also a clip where he simply sits in the back seat of a luxury sedan and rolls on his snare drum while a friend drives. (“Most people were saying my career was more or less dead.”)

He doesn’t go out of his way to dazzle with his chops. It’s just him and a snare and the basics—where he is eclipses how he’s playing, which only makes his goals more ambiguous and the pieces more enticing. Are these serious pursuits or put ons? Is Millions a dude who digs drumming in different locales or a smartass with a few nickels to rub together and a twisted need for our attention? Maybe “or” is the wrong conjunction. Perhaps “and” is more apt. Some strange mix of Keith Moon and Holden Caulfield and Andy Kaufman? I’m drawn to the uncertainty, having to puzzle it out.

* * *

“Andy Kaufman went way beyond blurring the distinction between performer and persona, past the point where you wondered what separated the actor from the character; you wondered if he himself knew anymore where the boundaries were drawn. What did he get out of such performances? The joy of not telling the audience how to react, giving that decision—or maybe just the illusion of such decision making—back to the audience.” – David Shields, Reality Hunger

* * *

Mike Gamble opens the show, a one-person band, guitar, drums, and laptop. He’s wearing a white dinner jacket and a multi-colored “Won it at the state fair” hat. Combined with his leopard print guitar strap I don’t know what to expect. Van Halen in a funhouse mirror? Harmony Korine-caliber cringing?

* * *

“Fielding Melish, the president of San Marcos, goes on trial tomorrow for fraud, inciting to riot, conspiracy to overthrow the government, and using the word ‘thighs’ in mixed company.” Woody Allen, Bananas, 1972

* * *

Gamble plays guitar while sitting behind a snare drum and floor tom, a lap top to his left. His guitar parts steer toward the melodic, surfy at times yet slowed down and stretched out. Feedback lurks but doesn’t puncture as he volleys between intense strumming and tender flourishes—push, push, push, coast. Then he plays back a portion of that guitar track and searches for a beat, accompanies his moments-ago self on drums, time traveling back to the conversation he’s just initiated.

So much music is about movement, the passage of time. It’s usually linear. Verse leading to chorus. A followed by B. Gamble’s approach is more spatial, verse and chorus, A on top of B. The audience is able to make more decisions, pick up patterns, find bits we overlooked the first time amidst the one person call and response.

* * *

Fielding Melish, played by Woody Allen, is questioning himself in court, acting as his own attorney. He speaks as a lawyer, jumps into the witness stand to respond, then returns to the courtroom floor.

Fielding Melish, lawyer: I would not joke with this court if I were you.

Fielding Melish, witness: Wouldn’t you or couldn’t you?

Fielding Melish, lawyer: Does the code name Sapphire mean anything to you?

* * *

Kid Millions: “We’re going to do one piece tonight. I think you’ll be able to tell when it’s over.”

* * *

Left to right, Man Forever is Matt Evans, standing, bongos and drum sticks; Kid Millions, full kit; Max Almario, sitting, snare drum. They’re grouped together, u-shaped, clustered in the center of the stage. The sight of three percussionists reminds me of Tucson’s Lenguas Largas, mutant space punk built on three guitars, a bass, and three drummers. They’re an amazing spectacle, all those drummers bashing in unison, non-stop looks of “I can’t believe we get to do this” on their faces. Anti-prank, pure joy.

* * *

Bongos trigger one of two reactions. They shouldn’t. They’re universal in use. They should conjure countless images. But my immediate bongo menu offers college campus drum circles and Andy Kaufman, making with the gibberish. After all Gamble took me through I’ve got prank on the mind again, thinking of those Kid Millions videos, looking for a put on.

* * *

In Reality Hunger, David Shields sculpts 618 quotes into a call to arms to “ignore the laws regarding appropriation, obliterate the distinctions between fiction and non-fiction, and create new forms for the twenty-first century.” Shields doesn't attribute any of the quotes even though most of them are the work of others.[1]

* * *

Matt Evans moves back and forth, approaches and retreats from his bongos like a dance partner. Max Almario, motionless from the shoulders down, bobs his head, chicken pecks, as his snare patterns cut through the mix. Then there’s Kid Millions, eyes closed, mouth open, playing with Max Fisher[2] enthusiasm but heightening that character’s bright-eyed approach, trading aspirations and approximations for experience, a performance both loftier and more grounded.

Millions opens the set going double time on the kick drum, a barrage of eighth notes. The tempo won’t change for the next half hour. Neither will the instrumentation. All drums, all rhythm. Piles and piles of captivating rhythms, patterns always and never changing. Man Forever are relentless.

* * *

Russian Ark is a 2002 movie comprised of one 96-minute shot. There are no breaks, no edits. They employed one camera that followed the action from one set to another. It’s an astounding level of commitment but I turned it off after ten minutes. I needed to blink, I needed those momentary breaks that come from changing camera angles. Plus, I didn’t care enough about the characters. Once I’d experienced the novel approach the cupboards were bare.

* * *

David Shields appeared on The Colbert Report to promote Reality Hunger. Colbert cut out the notes and threw away the rest of the book.

* * *

We sit awestruck, dudes in a wind tunnel, the old Maxell ad come to life. Though with pints and t-shirts in place of wine glasses and leather jacket. I can see all of the sounds that Man Forever produce but it takes a moment or three to determine the drummer of origin, figure out who’s making what. A couple of minutes pass before I change tactics, decide to take in the whole rather than untangle the parts and everything falls into place. They thunder like buffalo. They move like birds in flight. One after another taking their place at the front of the flock, taking the lead without breaking the pace, then yielding to the next, pushing ahead, falling back.

* * *

David Shields: “I wish I’d thought of it (the notes in Reality Hunger) as a mock-requirement that I’d planned all along. In fact, it was a compromise worked out with (the) publisher.”

* * *

There’s no Tubby Time to close shop tonight. The King steps aside for A Tribe Called Quest. And we talk, buzzed on great music, chasing down words, Man Forever’s novel line up more springboard than stopping point.

 

---

[1] Including the quote cited above, which I wrote in an email exchange following an interview I did with Shields.

[2] Jason Schwartzman’s character in Rushmore.

The Other Night at Quinn’s – Josh Rutner Trio

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

“I don’t get no respect.” – Rodney Dangerfield

* * *

I was Rodney-ed twice when I bought the latest Bob Mould record. The first from a clerk in her early twenties.

“Are you getting that? It’s pretty good.”

Her tone was patronizing, like SHE WAS SPEAKING TO ME IN ALL CAPS AND VERY S-L-O-W-L-Y, ADDRESSING A CONFUSED OLD MAN WHO’D SOILDED HIS SHORTS AND WANTED TO PAY WITH GREEN STAMPS AND A SACK OF SWEET POTATOES.

No surprise, right, a little condescension from a twenty-something watching a forty-something buy new music made by a fifty-something. I certainly thought worse things when I was in her position, working at a record store in the early nineties, every inch the judgmental know-it-all, watching some Woodstock casualty shell out for the new Crosby, Stills and Nash album. There are newer, better bands! Get with the times, geezer!

* * *

It’s another perfect summer night—clear skies, “shorts or slacks?” temperatures, and just enough condensation on my pint glass to remind me that my snow shovel can keep collecting cobwebs. Young couples sit at the counter, older folks, too, sipping and flirting. 

* * *

The second response came a moment later from a clerk in his mid-fifties, about ten years my senior.

He spied my pending purchase and coyly asked, “Do you remember?” His tone implied that, in fact, I did remember.

“Huh?”

He said it again, “Do you remember?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“Do you know his first band, Hüsker Dü?”

For years I frequented the record stores of downtown New York, forever wondering when it would be my turn to be subjected to the scorn of some mopey clerk who was judging me by the records I’d chosen. But nothing like that ever happened. Those clerks were many things—indifferent, distracted, hung over, hard of hearing, humorless—but never so directly playing a status game. I found it amusing that now, buying the Bob Mould album at age forty-five, I’d get a dose of “Hmm, not sure you’re worthy of that record.”

“Yeah, sure, I know Hüsker Dü,” I said, still unsure of what he was driving at.

He paused, stared, gave me the wait time a parent gives a forgetful child. His tone small font rather than all caps: "Are you sure there isn’t something you want to tell me? Come on now, this will be much, much easier if you say it. Come on now, think.” He let another moment pass before explaining that Hüsker Dü translated to “Do you remember?”

“Oh, right, I knew that.”

He gave me the subtlest of “Sure you did” eye rolls.

Too old to hang with the hip and unworthy of the wise. If only I had a necktie to loosen.

* * *

Saxophonist Josh Rutner’s sound has a jittery undertone, pleasing but unsettled, questioning, pursuing. Like Sonny Rollins, he has an excellent sense of when to go with a rhythm, play it tuneful and memorable, and when to give it some teeth and cut against the grain.

* * *

Quinn’s has a hipster element, sure. There’s a steady flow of young Brooklyn expats, but hipster-friendly never sinks to hipster doofus. The music’s consistent. People are approachable. The atmosphere is kitschy yet genuine and the prices are reasonable. These are common sense elements. They appeal to grey hairs, too. Hipsters and geezers co-existing. It’s a wonderful thing.

* * *

Rutner stays in bounds with his tone, but not always, not absolutely. He tackles the age-old challenge of working within the confines of a genre, adhering to the unwritten rules, while bending or breaking them to establish his voice.

* * *

Jason Turbow’s The Baseball Codes looks at the many unwritten rules of the national pastime and the ways in which players get tangled up in the endless contradictions within those expectations. My favorite being Ben Davis of the Padres bunting to break up an eighth inning no-hit bid by Curt Shilling of the Diamondbacks. Davis followed one rule—always play to win—but broke another—bunts ain’t for busting up no-hitters. Davis incurred a heap of “You don’t do that!” from old and new schoolers alike. The righteous indignation that followed, the red faced anger, especially from D’backs manager Bob Brenly, was pervasive. That’s not how you respect the game.

* * *

Bassist Dan Loomis and drummer Jon Wikan round out tonight’s trio. The group takes a couple of tunes to find their footing. Loomis and Wikan exchange knowing glances and goofy grins, glances and grins that go beyond the typical rhythm section having a good time. Are they challenging each other? Trying to trip each other up? To what extent is Rutner aware of their dialogue?

* * *

Jason Turbow: “Because of a Google alert set to "unwritten rules" I see stories all the time about the unwritten rules of office etiquette ... and riding elevators ... and Facebook ... and etc., but I haven't yet stopped to click on one. Ultimately, these things all boil down to respect, both of the people participating and of the process itself. How that gets defined is where the interest lies.”

* * *

Maybe I’m reading too much into the non-verbal stage banter, looking for ways in which the band is adhering to or breaking protocol. Maybe it’s all in bounds. Maybe they’re just animated performers. Loomis is, talking to himself and his instrument, coaxing things along—Come on, we got this.[1] Man and machine as one, the antithesis of David Herman’s plight in Office Space. “C’mon, let’s go! That’s what I need! Let’s do that! Let’s do exactly that, you little…”

No respect at all.

* * *

Wikan is animated, too, his performance, his appearance, his share of the knowing looks. He stops and starts, changes beats, alters trajectories. I seldom notice the ways in which people dress, but Wikan’s patterned button-up is loud enough to stand out, yet blends with the backdrop, provides a bit of camouflage.

* * *

Jason Turbow: “There are certainly unwritten rules of jazz. When Oscar Peterson recorded the Exclusively For My Friends sessions in Germany, it was unspoken between him and Ray Brown that Brown would take the lead in ways that Ed Thigpen was not expecting, and that led to some very awkward tension.”[2]

* * *

Dan Loomis: “So many looks for so many reasons.”  

* * *

Wikan reminds me of a seventies character actor, the kind of guy who guested on Barney Miller, hauled into that ancient holding cell before the first commercial break, crackin’ wise with Fish and Yemana, antagonizing the rank and file while charming the audience. Rutner is Barney Miller, the bemused leader, tolerating the high jinks while running the ship. Loomis is Wojo, the good-natured go between.

* * *

By the time the band breaks into the third tune, drawing on “The Executive Suite,” they’ve worked up an undeniable, irresistible cohesion. Think of all the ways people communicate these days—all the ding dong devices we strap ourselves to—and these dudes are duking it out with sticks and strings, chunks of metal and wood.

This is when the looks of “These guys are on it” start to circulate. Rutner and Loomis lock into the refrain, loop it as Wikan goes off, unleashes a full dose of what he’s been hinting at, the perfect set up for the next passage. The next passage is quiet, vulnerable, a raw nerve exposed, Rutner at his most expressive.

Wikan opens the next number with a tom-intensive bounce that reminds me of “St. Thomas” by Sonny Rollins. Ironic that Rollins would surface again. Last week the New Yorker ran a piece titled “Sonny Rollins: In His Own Words.” It purports to be an open letter from Rollins, but it was actually written by Django Gold, an Onion contributor. The piece has Rollins regretting that he devoted his life to music and generally disparaging jazz. The piece ticked off a lot of fans for a variety of reasons. Many focused on Gold’s decision to present his satirical point of view as that of Rollins’s voice and also, initially, the New Yorker’s decision to not run a disclaimer. It’s about respect. You don’t do that.

* * *

Chris Kelsey, musician: “If the music isn’t big enough for us to shoo away a petty annoyance like this Gold bug, maybe it deserves to be the exclusive province of cultists that it’s well on its way to being.”

* * *

Vince Kueter, musician: “What if it’s an Andy Kaufman-esque stunt and the over-reaction is the key part of the performance?”

* * *

Rodney Dangerfield: “Every time I get into an elevator the operator says the same thing, ‘Basement?’”

* * *

Josh Rutner: “That night was the first night I’d played with (and even met!) Jon. Any looks shot around the group were most likely approving “all right” looks.

* * *

I dig this show a lot, am drawn to watching and hearing the band push and pull their sound into cohesion. But a sliver of subconscious thought that there was some measure of discord in those looks, some break with "the right way."  There wasn't. And just to punctuate that that wasn't part of the proceedings the show ended with Wikan’s daughter, probably six or seven, still here at the end running up on stage, then scurrying this way and that, thrilled just to be, imbuing everything with the feel of a picnic that’s run long into the night.

---

[1] Note for upstate readers: Loomis looks like Vinnie the beer consultant at DeCicco’s in Brewster, the guy who stocks the shelves and works the tap room but also walks the aisles making recommendations.

[2] Jason Turbow: “That would be way cool if I hadn't made it up.” 

The Other Night at Quinn’s: Joe McPhee & Chris Corsano

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

My day begins bedside. Persuading my mom, recently hospitalized yet still tenacious beyond measure, that it’s time to leave her home of nearly fifty years, move out of her castle. 

My night ends ringside. Watching two Quinn’s mainstays, James Keepnews and Steve Ventura, promoter and co-owner, argue about poetry long after the show is over.

“Olson doesn’t need footnotes! Charles Olson is the greatest American poet!”

“What about Eliot? What about Ezra Pound?”

The day is dense with things that matter, as any day is, but today there’s a more pronounced gap between the realistic and the idealistic, what is and what should be. There is also the Joe McPhee/Chris Corsano show, two sets, each remarkable, each something everyone here, Quinn’s on a Thursday, can agree on.

* * *

From SCTV, Season One. A round table of film critics gathers for dinner. Host “Heraldo” Rivera attempts to moderate a discussion. Every movie he mentions is met with contempt.

Heraldo Rivera (Joe Flaherty): One thing we can all agree on is the food here at Sardi’s.
Pauline Kael (Andrea Martin): I haven’t had a good meal since the forties.  

* * *

“We are only so lucky to be alive to disagree.” Matthew Specktor, American Dream Machine 

* * * 

Joe McPhee, saxophone, slowly ramps up, eases into the night, confident but not distant, sounds of every size and shape and color emanate from the golden bell of his horn. Sounds high and loud and piercing, pitches that we’re programmed to flee from in other settings. Sounds that signal, to many, get out of the way. Sounds that beckon the fortunate few to stay, climb in, reclaim. 

One of McPhee’s cases has a sticker that boasts: “Pissing Off the Planet…One Person at a Time.” The case sits on the edge of the stage, up front and just off center.

Drummer Chris Corsano is McPhee’s partner. His snare drum is titled up, toward his hi-hat and crash cymbals, a percussive half pipe. Corsano lowers his left hand and rattles off a one-handed roll, see sawing on the rim of the snare. I’d been wondering how he’d keep up with someone of McPhee’s stature but that passes quickly. It’s a stunning display, it shouldn't be possible, like a skater attempting a one-legged 180 Ollie.

* * *

After the show Ray Charles’s “What I’d Say?” comes over the PA. The entire spring of fifth grade health curriculum in five minutes.

* * *

Whether taking giant steps or small strides McPhee saturates the senses with sounds that howl and coo, never bark, and when they bite it’s with purpose. At one point he sings into his instrument, his voice faint beneath a sequence of squeaks and squawks, struggling to be heard. Then he snips the safety line and sails off the tracks with quick, loud bursts. It’s a whirlwind ride, a sonic roller coaster less the long lines and rodent mascots and in-your-mug merch pushes. What better way to spend a summer night? 

Several weeks ago, talking to a friend about tonight’s show, I heard about the time Joe McPhee gave one of his albums to a neighbor. The neighbor wasn’t familiar with McPhee’s music, nor his reputation as a free jazz legend known around the world. He’d heard that McPhee had recorded, might be more than a dabbler. McPhee ran into the neighbor a few days later. His response: “People pay you to play like that?”

* * * 

Corsano is set up on stage left. He’s difficult to see from the back. People move up to get a better look. His snare is titled the other way, angled toward the floor tom. That’s unusual, to see a drummer drastically change the angle of his snare. Is it on purpose or did the stand slip?

* * *

I didn’t take many of my mom’s albums. She kept them tucked away in the hall closet, unplayed for years. Mostly Disney records from childhood and folk records from college. Nothing that I read about in record guides or those “Best Albums of All-Time” lists that I used to binge on in Rolling Stone. I swiped her copy of What’d I Say by Ray Charles, though. Housed in that heavy card stock of the era, the disc spilled out of the sleeve the first time I pulled it down. The title track sizzled my mind. The rhythms were so close to something I could play on the drums, tap on a tabletop, and yet so far, patterns I could sense more than replicate. And then there were the lyrics and his delivery. I can’t picture my mom, otherwise all Jiminy Cricket and Kingston Trio, digging this.

* * *

I wonder, watching McPhee volley from pretty and soothing to and aggressive and out, how many times people have asked (pestered?), If you can do X, why bother with Y? Why step into that? If you can play pretty, why deviate?

* * *

A couple of McPhee’s longtime friends are sitting next to me. One says, “That was up the road.” To which the other responds, “That was way up the road.”

* * *

Something about McPhee’s range reminds me of comedian Sarah Silverman. A few years ago Fox Sports invited her into the booth for an inning of a Red Sox/Yankees game. They paired her with Joe Buck, a semi-smug, “hair trumps substance” broadcaster. She is talented—smart, charming, pretty. She could tone down her act, vie for sitcoms and soda ads, but she lives to subvert, redirect. Fox should have known this.  Within moments she was totally, wildly inappropriate, joking about “Massholes” and LSD.  Buck wigged out. “No, we do not condone that whatsoever. No. No. We’re going to the next topic.”

I would have too. I’m a teacher. I’m a parent. I’m a square. But I’m also wise enough not to give Sarah Silverman an open mic even after she confessed to barely being a fan and admitting she’s “got nothing.”

 * * *

McPhee and Corsano work through two sets of original material, interjecting the occasional reference other songs, a Thelonious Monk tune, “Lift Every Voice,” the African-American national anthem, there.  Their ability to take flight is matched by the ways in which they can land a tune.  Regardless of the heights they scale they can bank, dive, and then pull up, smoothly land the thing without spilling a drop. 

They don’t speak much between songs, just take a couple of breaths. Not the deep renewing breaths I expect, that I need mentally. Theirs is the breathing of conversation, thought gathering. Then one of them counts off—McPhee tapping his horn or Corsano a drum—and they’re back on it. 

When McPhee is asked about that sticker on his case he relates the same story about the neighbor but ends the anecdote with a different line: “They pay you to play that shit?” 

* * *

My mom was in her late thirties when she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. She never spoke of it. Never complained. Never wallowed. She accepted her condition, perhaps too much so. Weeks would pass without any signs. But sometimes my brothers and I would hear her in the night, her knees, later her wrists and fingers causing her so much agony, and all she could do was wait it out. That was twenty-five, thirty years ago when I last lived at home. I can’t imagine what she endures now. If we ask, then as now, she deflects, downplays what’s she’s going through.

* * * 

Corsano’s snare stand is wobbling now, a moving target. Then it tilts at an awkward angle, flops over. Obviously this is unintended but he’s unfazed. He holds a stick with thumb and pointer finger, his other fingers splayed open. It’s more release than grip, yet he pushes on, using the stick then his palm to strike the snare. Later I ask about his battle with the broken stand. “Let’s just say it wasn’t my intention,” he jokes, adding, “I’m just trying to listen to Joe.” When the parts won’t work like he wants them to, he puts others first and plays on. It’s my mom’s struggle in microcosm. 

* * * 

I was in Gloucester recently and talked music with a relative. These nights at Quinn’s came up, to which he said, “Jazz, oh, you mean the music that doesn’t go anywhere.” I got defensive, sparred a bit. In hindsight, in some cases, I see his point, but it’s not always about the distance traversed. In some ways McPhee and Corsano stay put on their final tune of the night, hover. McPhee’s face reveals great exertion yet his sound is so subdued, so quiet, like intense whispering. Meanwhile Corsano, who’s brokered a truce with the troublesome stand, has reconfigured his snare drum with a banjo bridge and a cello string, his right hand frantically sliding side to side, his left on the string. They match each other's pitches, the symbiotic nature of their relationship never more evident.

* * *

It’s all over far too soon. Everyone’s beaming, invigorated, chatty. But it’s like a forest floor in mid-summer, ready to be torched. I mention visiting Gloucester. James Keepnews mentions poet Charles Olson who often wrote about the area. (Actually, it’d be more accurate to say that he nearly crumbled upon hearing that I’m unfamiliar with Olson’s The Maximus Poems.) Steve Ventura chimes in, siding with Ezra Pound, and it’s on. The Maximus Poems vs. Cantos. I know neither, rarely read poetry. The fun is in the sparring, watching them dig for details, give high stakes treatment to things few consider. There’s talk of a rematch on Steve’s birthday.

* * *

“I nodded. I didn’t disagree, but my friend had a right, just like me, to his own version of the tale.” Matthew Specktor, American Dream Machine 

* * * 

My mom concedes, admits it’s time to move out, move on. It’s not a debate I want to win. It may be the right choice but it feels wrong, something that a better society wouldn’t allow to happen.

Later I ask about the Ray Charles album. “That was good music when I was in college. We used to sing that at fraternity parties. I may have gotten that from your aunt. I think we used to do The Twist to that one.” Now I know from whom she got the album and where and when and how she listened to it, danced to it, but I still can’t picture it. 

* * *

 “An American is a complex of occasions.” – Charles Olson, “Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 [withheld]”