Ingrid Laubrock’s Grammy Season 12/19/25 Firehouse 12

 Fitting artist to close the 2025 Fall season and celebrate 20 years of phenomenal jazz from the folks at the Firehouse. Laubrock has graced the Firehouse many times over the years and her evolution from squawking busker to compositional wunderkind has been a pleasure to view. The trimmed Grammy Season lineup has Ingrid on saxophones, Brandon Seabrook on guitar, Shawn Lovato  on standup bass, Tom Rainey on drums, with special guest DoYeon Kim on gayageum. Ingrid starts with fire and toggles easily from soprano to alto, carrying herself as the bandleader. Seabrook is a Firehouse regular and seems at home with delicate shading or strenuous noodling. At one point, Brandon scrapes what looks to be a small tape player on his strings giving a haunting word-less vocal quality. Lovato’s capable bowing or plucking along with Rainey’s understated timekeeping forms the canvas for the others to spill paint. The gayageum is an odd Korean instrument like a large zither, Japanese koto, the Chinese guzheng, the Mongolian yatga, the Vietnamese Dan tranh, the Sudanese kacapi, or the Kazakh jetigen. With 12 strings, it looks like a diving board with a couple of bridges. The sound could morph from harp, to acoustic guitar with a decidedly “eastern” accompaniment. Laubrock’s excellent recent recording Purposing The Air has her conducting a series of duets based on a book of poetry. Makes sense that one of tonight’s pieces was inspired by a Rilke poem. Firehouse owner Nick Lloyd came out to thank the audience for years of support. The thanks go both ways as I am very grateful to have participated heavily over the past two decades.

The Dream Syndicate 12/9/25 Space Ballroom

 It must have been the roses, and by that I mean The Days of Wine and Roses, the seminal debut from Steve Wynn and The Dream Syndicate that hooked me in 1982. Leading the genre inexplicably dubbed “the paisley underground”, this band typified hard driving smartass rock and roll. Stealing their name from a pre-Velvets avant garde collaboration between John Cale and Lamonte Young, maybe paisley underground referred to a smash of Velvet Underground and the California psychedelic scene. No matter, call me a fan. While the debut knelt at the altar of Reed and Cale’s Velvets, the sophomore recording The Medicine Show swerved delectably toward a Neil Young and Crazyhorse choogle. Smitten with The Medicine Show, Wynn reassembled the band to perform the record for old (me), and new fans. Since a lifetime of music has occurred since the 80s, tonight’s show was split into two sets. The first set billed as the 21st century came with a setlist: Where I’ll Stand, Filter Me Through You, Out of My Head, Black Light, Like Mary, 80 West, How Did I Find Myself Here, and Glide. Wynn is a tireless artist and his post Dream Syndicate endeavors Gutterball, Steve Wynn and The Miracle 3, and The Baseball Project are all worthy of intense rabbit-holing. The second set brought the Medicine Show in its entirety: Still Holding On To You, Bullet With My Name On It, Daddy’s Girl, Burn, The Medicine Show, Armed With An Empty Gun, Merrittville, and the incendiary fifteen minute John Coltrane Stereo Blues ( complete with the bass tease of A Love Supreme chant). Tonight’s lineup was Wynn on guitar and vocals, Mark Walton on bass, Dennis Duck on drums, Chris Cacavas on keys, and the amazing Jason Victor on lead guitar. This group took no prisoners and the opener-less stage stamina was impressive. The tour has coincided with a deluxe repackaging of The Medicine Show with plenty of outtakes and live recordings to wade through. The performance closed with nugget inflected encore: Tell Me When It’s Over, That’s What You Always Say, and a blistering punky reading of Eric Clapton’s Let It Rain.

Saccata Quartet w/ Christopher Cavaliere 12/4/25 Park City Music Hall

 Caught the whole set from opener Cavaliere. Solo acoustic guitarist with an array of looping pedals. The music had an open air feeling, not unlike some early Metheny works, or even Michael Hedges or Alex De Grassi from the Windham Hill cabal. Technically proficient, the music bordered New Age. When viewing this type of music live, one realizes the level of difficulty attributed to such soothing sounds.

The sounds from the Saccata Quartet would be anything but soothing, but no less mesmerizing in the live setting. Led by jazz-rock chameleon Nels Cline on guitar, with Darin Gray on standup bass, drummers Chris Corsano and Glen Kotche. Cline serves as lead freak guitarist for the band Wilco but his entry into the music world has been more jazz and avant garde. Those skills are put to good use by Jeff Tweedy and company to inject experimental textures into their wonderful Americana-ish songs. I will never forget one (more?) Saturday night at the Vibes when Wilco graced the stage where Cline’s spasmodic jamming actually scared the hippie contingent. Kotche too plays for Wilco but must have a taste for the challenging sounds of improv. Chris Corsano is a polymath sideman equally adept in rock or free jazz, lending his talents to everyone from Bjork to Thurston Moore and Bill Orcutt. Not familiar with Gray before this evening, but I certainly will be rabbit-holing his exploits. The music is better viewed than listened via recording. Cline had a table of effects that he was constantly twiddling, at one point his guitar sounded like wolves in the distance. He had some device where he blew at the guitar strings and amplified the vibration. Gray also had some plastic tubing where he directed his breath at the strings. An array of pots and pans, drumsticks, were also used on the strings for different effects. Corsano and Kotche were masters of shading using an array of drum add ons to color the sound. This was not arena rock drumming, but percussion used in service to the improv. Park City Music Hall is a haven for hippie and jamband offerings, which is why I was surprised at the posting. Comfortable viewing with good acoustics and sight lines will keep me coming back for their fringier affairs.

Ariel Pink 11/22/25 Space Ballroom

 Arrived late for California provocateur Pink. He has a checkered past as an outsider musician with right wing views that led him to participate in J6. Pink on vocals and keys, guitar, bass and drums. There were some synths in the mix, but I couldn’t see from my back of the room vantage point. The music was a whiplash of styles soul, pop, artpop, even death metal. The setlist centered on Pink’s recent release With You Every Night. Life Before Today, Pocket Full of Promises, Credit, Dedicated to Bobby Jameson, Four Shadows, Time To Meet Your God, Sit n’ Spin, House of the Haunted Hebrews, Everyone’s Wrong, Dreaming, Fright Night, Lipstick, Mommy Made Dinner, Anosognosia,  Entertainment, Round and Round,  encored with White Freckles and Are You Gonna Look After My Boys?  The crowd was a heady mix of bros and freaks with some super fans up front that knew all the lyrics. The song structure was complex, a friend likened it to a mashup of The Flaming Lips with The Beach Boys. Perusing the lengthy back catalog, one comes to the conclusion that Ariel Pink’s body of work is uneven. Flashes of brilliance are countered by straight up dogs. The delightful Round and Round sounded like a Cure b-side, while Mommy Made Dinner could have been plagiarized from a third grader’s final essay. The band and the crowd gave off an Island of Misfit Toys vibe, which might just be the point. The tune Everyone’s Wrong had clubby flourishes with the refrain Everyone’s Fucking Wrong, which we could all get behind. Plenty of outsider artists have been reviewed in this blog. Usually, the outsidedness is in service to an unwavering artistic vision. In Pink’s case, he is on the outside because Everyone’s Fucking Wrong. A tough lane to occupy.

Stiff Curls w/ Dan Greene 11/9/25 Three Sheets Cafe

 Rare afternoon show at the old Rudy’s, now named Three Sheets. I took my advice from the previous post and ambled in for Dan Greene’s set. As leader of the Mountain Movers, Dan usually shreds on guitar with possible harmonica. On this afternoon he played something called a “chord organ”. About the size of a large stack-on tool box, the chord organ creates a sound that’s a cross between organ and bagpipe. He played one long piece that brought some flourishes from the Mountain Movers set from 11/4. Upon close inspection, I notice the organ is a GE product probably manufactured in the 60s, restored to working order by Dan. Washes of sound were enhanced by Dan playing with his entire forearm. Chord? How bout an entire octave.

Stiff Curls are a young female duo from Philly. One played bass and the other played keys  The tunes had an indie bent with the keyboard player assuming vocal duties. The bass player was in constant motion which added bounce. The vocals reminded me of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval. Excellent set to a sparse crowd, shoutout to Rick Omonte and Shaki presents for arranging this show.

Orcutt, Shelley, and Miller w/ The Mountain Movers 11/4/25 Space Ballroom

 Safe to assume any show with New Haven’s own The Mountain Movers as the opener, you want to attend. The twin guitar assault of  Dan Greene and Kryssi Battalene with Rick Omonte on bass, and Ross Menze on drums. The band has wowed crowds with their hypnotic blend of mostly instrumental jams. Omonte fuels some krautrock grooves for the guitars to tangle over. Several under the radar releases are well received in the area.  The Movers sound demands to be heard and I spy Ethan Miller, from tonight’s headline group, swaying in the back. The final tune has Greene and Battalene donning harmonica holders to add to their sound. Fiercely original local scenesters always put on a solid set.

Orcutt, Shelley, and Miller are an avant power trio of Santa impersonators. Bill Orcutt is an outsider guitarist who bubbled up from the Miami punk scene in the 80s. With his then partner Adris Hoyos on drums, they formed Harry Pussy to push the boundaries of noise. Hoyos had no training on drums, and Orcutt famously used a guitar that was down two strings. Instead of just restringing to join the world of six string slingers, Orcutt decided to live with the limitation brought on by his thrash. Bill is Santa number one with his long gray beard. Steve Shelley needs no introduction, As the drummer for Sonic Youth, he has kept time for the indie stalwarts through their myriad of punk and noise releases. With the demise of Thurston Moore (guitar) and Kim Gordon (bass) marriage, so went the demise of Sonic Youth. While I have seen both Thurston and Kim in their post SY lives, Shelley has remained largely underground. Ethan Miller is Santa number two, with his long gray beard, he takes bass duties for trio. I have seen Ethan fronting the excellent Bay Area outfit Howlin Rain. The trio barge through a brief but compelling set of instrumentals. Orcutt plucked and stabbed to great effect, at one point he seemed miffed that he hadn’t broken more strings forcing him to further adapt. Miller was very capable on bass, supporting the others with his motorik throb. Shelley, too, was in constant motion. Great evening of boundary pushing sounds.

Negativland 10/31/25 CCAM at Yale

 Negativland is sad. You might say that would be implied by their name, but that’s incorrect. For the past 40 years, the ragtag troupe of self-proclaimed “culture jammers” has pushed the boundaries of copywrite law by cutting and pasting the world to reveal their irreverent take on commercialism, Christianity, climate change, and countless other topics that don’t start with “C”. The current lineup has Mark Hosler on bass and electronics and Jon Leidecker on laptop samples. A third member, “TheWeatherman”, a reclusive  likeminded freak, also makes a ghostly appearance which is fitting for Halloween. On this evening, they are joined by the visual artist Sue C. While Mark and Jon handle the sound collage, Sue creates real-time video that is projected on six large screens behind the performers. The CCAM clubhouse is a perfect setting for this wonderful mashup of sound and vision. It appeared Sue had a lightbox, she swirled and slid household objects on the box that were refracted and projected on the six panels. Cardboard TP circles, marbles, feathers, a piece of screen, a glitter-infused iPhone case, were just some of the objects I could discern. She did have some words and images that focused the culture jamming. I learn that Sue is part of the Meow-wolf collective, a loose group of visual artists who perform trippy video installations in galleries and museums. Introduced by CCAM head Ross Wightman, the three perform an hour long collage. Ross says Negativland were a dream score for the excellent CCAM Sound Art Series, and I concur. “Playing” to a full house dotted with pirates and ghouls, the performance ensues. It is largely improvised, but touches on Negativland themes. “Which Side Are You On” and “Christianity is Stupid”  were a few of the “hits” that were interspersed. Towards the end, The Weatherman appears on screen to explain to us how to change the lightbulb in our refrigerator, this somehow involves putting a transistor radio in the freezer and taking a bite out of a Mennen speed stick, don’t ask. Seems the Weatherman doesn’t travel, but is “phoned in” from his Seattle living room. After the performance, the Q and A usually has some gear heads that want to elucidate transformers and transducers et al, but you can tell that Mark and Jon are sad at the current state of the world. The current rapid fire destruction of the US dwarfs the nibble round the edges subversive approach that is the essence of this band. They even implore any budding law students (I guess those not destined for SCOTUS) to talk to them about their take on regulating AI. Negativland has been sued by everyone from U2 to Casey Kasem, and that was the point. It must be jarring for them to see the Wild West of AI blow past their philosophy on copywrite law. These guys don’t perform much but must realize that spreading their irreverent gospel might infect some future culture jammer in the audience. Once again,I was happy to enjoy he ride.