Mark Dresser Quintet 12/13/13 Firehouse 12

Expert bass player Dresser played with piano, drums, trombone, and the versatile Rudresh Mahanthappa on sax. On the way in, I overheard Mario Pavone lauding Dresser's first set, "I heard Duke and Muhal, thanks for the nourishment." Turns out Dresser's recent release is titled "Nourishment" from which much of the second set was culled. Five players gave a full sound with waves of improv onslaught. Telemojo started with an odd prepared piano intro that grew into a five-man blowout. Dresser talked of a new technology that allows him to play, realtime with players in other parts of the world...like a hi-fi super-skype. He is working at NYU with artists playing in Belfast and Zurich simultaneously. I have been a fan of Dresser's since his Knitting Factory days. Equally adept at plucking or bowing, Mark Dresser is a restless improviser.

Grandchildren w/ Snake Oil 12/4/13 Bar

   Regional opener Snake Oil was billed as an instrumental rock band influenced by Can, Lungfish, and Fela...count me in. Muscular drums and bass were the perfect backdrop for shapeshifting guitarist and organ/keys. Classically trained asian woman played moog and korg that gave the feel of 70s instrumental work like Soft Machine or Planet Gong. Trippy guitar workouts enhanced by moog atmospherics were nice. This band reminded me of the 90s No Wave band Pell Mell.

  Grandchildren from Philly were a rock sextet with a multi-instrumental flair. Acoustic guitar/lead vocals, melodica/drums/trombone, bass/percussion, keys/laptop/trumpet, drums/synthdrums, and guitar gave a loud percussive sound. Song structure that ebbed and swelled was great. This band reminded me of Blitzen Trapper or another Philly product Dr. Dog. Good live show, lots going on.

Cat Power w/ Nico Turner Center Church on the Green 11/15/13

General admission sold out show at a church implies one waiting in line at 7pm to be scrunched into a pew to view the evening's opening act. Nico Turner was a female guitar and vocalist. The looping guitar had strains of Tom Verlaine, but the vocals were unintelligible, nervous ramblings. Imagine your high school punker androgynous girlfriend breaking up with you via two soup cans and a string and you are in the ballpark. Nico Turner had the performer audacity to ask the audience "how much time do i have left?" and I don't mean squeeze-another-song-in-cuz-you-guys-luv-me-so-much time left. Turner's shy vocal delivery may have made sense in a subway bathroom hallway, but it did not translate well to a historic church.
  Cat Power is the nom de plume of Chan Marshall. CP has released some great recordings in the past decade. Husky voiced and oddly arranged covers dot her landscape. CP has a sketchy performing past, with examples of her cancelling tours, substance abuse, and mental illness. I feel that these qualities are the recipe for a rousing success or a miserable concert experience. After the opener's hapless performance, I was skeptical. CP came out to sing and play guitar to a microphone-less microphone. The sound of the vocals was nonexistent....trouble right? She was a trooper and moved to piano, the mic worked and we got a glimpse of the true CP. As she progressed, the house lights came on in a blinding flash as if God was saying "last call". CP soldiered saying "it's only light". Her covers of Satisfaction and Wild is the Wind were good but were shrouded by the venue trying to take her down. This is an artist who once sang the word "no" for 45 minutes at a show. CP has been a Chanel model, a Gap model, Giovanni Ribisi's girlfriend, Beck's muse, Dylan coverer and more. She can now add musician's equivalent of the TV show Wipeout to her resume. Cat Power.......more like Fight the Power, ugh.

Plants and Animals w/ Kindred Queer 11/13/13 Bar

Opening act Kindred Queer is a local group sounding like a modern mix of Fairport Convention and Renaissance. Drums, six string electric bass, guitar/vocals, and female cellist/vocals. The harmony vocals and use of cello gave a baroque flavor to this quartet.  Not sure if KQ has Yale ties, but their musical IQ seems high. I urge concertgoers in the New Haven area to check this band out. Original songwriting with a folk groove, KQ has a future if they want it.
   Plants and Animals was billed as a Canadian Blitzen Trapper, which is truly a compliment. Frenetic drums, capable bass, lead guitar/vocals, lead vocals/rhythm guitar was their lineup. Songs flipped from 70s rock to spacey indie. Lead singer had charisma and chops. While I agree with the BT likeness, P and A resembled early Grant Lee Buffalo in their delivery. Decent crowd got a dose of songwriting that was absent in the last two Bar entries.

Nik Turner's Hawkwind w/ Nightbitch 10/30/13 BAR

A fitting musical event for the day before halloween. Local group, Nightbitch was more metal than prog. Frontman had a Vedder-esque delivery and they came armed with some capable songs. The evenings highlight was a revisit from the 70s prog behemoth Hawkwind. Founding member Nik Turner on sax and flute is now in his 70s. Guitar, bass, drums, and spacekeys with Turner played in front of a video screen that switched from vintage video to trippy blaxploitation footage. Hawkwind was prog-metal somewhere between Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath. Turner's current (much younger) bandmates certainly worshipped at the altar of original Hawkwind. The scantily-clad twentysomething female on keyboards spent much of the time suggestively gyrating, which was definitely part of this bands m.o. Performing much of the epic album Space Ritual to a near capacity crowd, Hawkwind hasn't skipped a beat (and even if they had, who would know?)

William Tyler 10/23/13 BAR

A few weeks ago a guitar hero, ex Captain Beefheart and Yale alum Gary Lucas was in town to play some songs from his recent chinese pop record. Unfortunately, the show was at the Yale Center for Asian Studies at 4pm on a Tuesday (aren't all college students watching re-runs of The Rockford Files at this time?), so I missed it natch. So I was excited to see that William Tyler (Silver Jews, Lambchop) was coming to Bar for a free show. Tyler, solo, had immense hands. It looked as if he had tarantulas on his wrists as he moved from fret to fret. The first tune was a vibrato drenched loopfest called "Cadillac Desert" inspired by a book on US water policy in the southwest. Another tune was about his girlfriends parents house 60 miles south of Dublin. This music was ambient, and washed over you to impart some landscape. It sounds like I'm describing new age. This music was more challenging than new age, darker, better.

The Claudia Quintet 10/4/13 Firehouse 12

Drummer Jon Hollenbeck leads this unusual fivesome. Accordion, bass, vibes, clarinet/sax, and drums/piano gave an old timey feel to this thoroughly modern jazz. Most of the set came from the recent release containing songs about September. In an effort to cope with the pang of 9/11, Hollenbeck constructs songs for cathartic healing. Expert playing from all members. On one tune Hollenbeck forced weird noises from mini cymbals inverted on toms and snare. Fantastic looped piece had cuts of an FDR speech interspersed (how much the political dialog hasn't changed since 1936). "The Limpidity of Silence" was a partial spoken word piece based on a poem. Outside the club, the artists LAMPfest (light artists making places) was in full swing with video installations and light sculptures art-ifying 9th square.