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.

Scott H. Biram w/ Black Pistol Fire 9/27/13 Cafe 9

An evening of outlaw blues. Opener BPF was a guitar and drums duo like the Black Keys. Twangy energy had their set concluding with guitarist standing on bass drum shack-shaking their finale.
 Scott H. Biram is a hard drinking, hard living, one-man fuzz blues outfit. In 2003,  Biram crashed head-on into an 18-wheeler, lived, and continued to perform with IVs on stage. Booze, guns, and wimmen (not necessarily in that order) pervaded most songs. Biram could coax many styles from his collection of old beatup guitars. His voice also occupied many styles, from woody guthrie dustbowl folk, johnny cash drawls, darth vader rants, and twangy tuvan throat singing. Did a great Dazed and Confused, Bukka White, and R.L. Burnside tunes as well. Spoke fondly of a tribute he performed for Blind Willie Johnson, but I'm sure the evening ended with booze, guns, and wimmen. As the evening went on, Biram's inter-song banter became less discernible and devolved into a monolog of, er..cho..cow..wuh..pow..tuh, which I'm sure is the language of booze, guns, and wimmen.

Lettuce 9/19/13 Toads

Eric Krasno's post-Soulive funk outfit Lettuce hit Toads for some instrumental funk. Hat wearing hollow-body guitar wielding Kras is a great guitarist. Sax, trumpet, congas, keys, drums, and a Sneaky-jack alike on bass made for a crowd on stage....second guitarist too. I often crab about instrumental bands, lacking pizzazz and sustain. That criticism holds for Lettuce, technically brilliant but wanting for a singer. In an instrumental show, songs often blend into a same-ness. Opener Nigel Hall came out to sing closing tune "Movin on Up" which was the highlight,

Califone w/ Richard Buckner 9/17/13 Cafe 9

Opener Buckner is an acquired taste. Woozy poetic folk is punctuated by Buckner's dylanesque delivery that sounds like he's singing while walking around with a rock in his shoe. This notion of sliding in to notes and phrases is off-putting if you are not fully engaged. With a new recording of "jaunty little numbers" (sic), Buckner seemed unphased by the crowd's indifference, and why not? He's been consistent in his craft for decades.
   I am not familiar with Califone's output, but have heard their name for years. Ring-led by Tim Rutilli on guitar, keys (when they work), and noises, this group sounds very Wilco-y. With drums, female percussionist, and bass/keys rounding out the quartet Califone gave a collection of folk songs interspersed with an odd selection of drones and squall. Their new recording Stitches was showcased. Rutilli is the true artists artist. At one point he stopped mid-song to call out a fan for shooting video from the front row ("what are you doing with that phone?, it's driving me f-ing nuts"). During another song he stopped to say that he could not finish the song because "the piano is broken", which was odd because I detected no break in the piano part. The evening was a refreshing blend of music and uncompromising artistry that seems rare today.

Barrence Whitfield and The Savages 9/6/13 Cafe 9

BW has been wailing in the northeast for decades. Boston-based, BW is a mighty stage presence. Wearing a WWII army helmut, he screeches his way through his set. The Savages, a tight bluesy backing band matches the energy. Decent crowd for a friday. BW must be getting old or tired or both, because he skipped the customary serenade while walking down the bar, no matter this guy still puts on a show

Josh Ritter w/ The Low Anthem 8/18/13 Toads Place

The good thing about a double bill where both acts are solid, is that you look forward to an entire evening of music. On paper, that should have been the case on this night. Unfortunately, opener The Low Anthem exhibited little resemblance to the band that got a good review in this blog a few years back at the Green River Festival. TLA has a couple of excellent recordings (Oh My God Charlie Darwin, and The Smart Flesh) with a knack for quiet>>>loud songs. On this evening, with a new female violinist and harmonica player, TLA seemed to plunge straight into cacaphonous squall omitting the song structure entirely. While this plan of attack may work in the jazz world, it seemed silly in the alt. americana landscape. The song about Ozzie Smith was humorous, but their set left not much else.
   Josh Ritter has had a couple of releases since I last saw him. Armed with a tight band, tight songs and a permasmile, Ritter burned through much of his catalog. Band consisted of bass, drums, keys, lead guitar, with Josh on guitar and vocals. Large crowd for a Sunday night. Josh has also been through a marriage breakup recently which seems to have energized his stage presence. Josh seemed genuinely excited to play Toads, a fabled venue he read about in Rolling Stone as a child in Idaho.

Wayne Escoffery Sextet 8/17/13 New Haven Green

Closing out New Haven jazz week, local product Escoffery and company took the dwarf stage at the green. The green was well attended, they should have sprung for the real stage. Escoffery studied at ECA and has evolved into a "young lion" of jazz. Channeling Coltrane, Wayne played tenor and soprano sax. College chum Jeremy Pelt on trumpet. Unusually dressed Rachel Z on keys, laptop, and atmospherics. Orrin Evans on piano, bass, and drums rounded out the group. With a ten year catalog. Escoffery had plenty to draw on. Tune about a bay on the Red Sea was beautiful. Glad to see so many people able to come out and enjoy some straight ahead jazz on a nice August night.

Vinegar Creek Constituency 8/12/13 Cafe 9

Band picture looked like a four piece bluegrass unit. I arrived late to two guys, mandolin and guitar and vocals so I may have missed the lineup change explanation. Good chops and songwriting for the five or six tunes I caught. Ended with a nice Psycho Killer. What is it about bluegrass and the Talking Heads, YMSB do an awesome Girlfriend Is Better, which I happened to view close up back in the day.

Chuck Prophet 8/7/13 Cafe 9

Annual viewing of Chuck can be like paying a royalty for writing and playing Summertime Thing, which is one of my beloved songs. Packed house for a Wednesday was to the delight of Chuck and Paul (C-9 owner). Temple Beautiful, White Night Big City were good. The Left Hand and The Right Hand off recent recording we learn is about the Mitchell Bros. club owners in Frisco with the distinction of having Hunter Thompson as their doorman for a while. One Mitchell bro killed the other in a coke-fueled frenzy.....whelp. Sings the Willy Mays song, "it's not another episode of CSI people, it's baseball...who knows what will happen?". Encores with Who Put the Bomp?

Gathering of the Vibes 7/25-28/13 Seaside Park Bridgeport

Another year another Vibes. Always a treat to see beaucoup music in a short period of time. Good thing I waited a couple of weeks to make the post. Probably a little foggier than I'd like but here goes.
 Thursday 7/25: Start with Borboletta a Tim Palmieri amalgam doing the music of Santana. Local minstrel and Bar mainstay, Palmieri has hard earned chops. He plays somewhere nightly, and it shows. Bowing to the altar of Carlos, this was a great start. Ryan Montbleau is another area and Vibes regular. His hip latin funk vibe has really evolved. Jason Crosby offered some lame vocals to some originals and a Floyd cover. Dark Star Orchestra filling their regular Thurs night slot had some highlights: Bertha>Peggy-O>Loser>Sugaree>>Dancin In the St.>Cosmic Charlie>Scarlet>St Stephen>Not Fade Away>Sugar Magnolia> encore Samson and Delilah. Late night was Kung Fu. Tim Palmieri's rock shred outfit was a nice end to the day.
  Friday 7/26: Railroad Earth put on a lackluster set. Newer stuff seemed pretty tame. Nothing as good as their first two records. Newcomers The Revivalists were rockin the second stage. Charismatic singer was great. Revivalist singer moves to main stage to help front Galactic with two awesome covers: Who Do You Love, and Gimme Shelter. John Scofield hosted the Uberjam with late-arriving John Medeski and Avi Bortnick. Sco effortlessly peels through some jazz licks, the guy played with Miles for goodness sake. Next up was the Tedeschi-Trucks Band. Husband and wife fronted big-jam-band was full of sound. Covers included; The Sky is Crying, Angel From Montgomery, Sugaree and a great Bound For Glory. Phil and Friends played Scarlet Begonias, Crazy Fingers, Friend of the Devil, Uncle John's Band, Shakedown St., with an encore of Ripple. Latenight Friday slot obligated to Deep Banana Blackout. Jen, Fuzz and company threw down a lengthy Get Up Offa That Thing.
   Saturday 7/27: Local latin heroes Cosmic Jibaros start the day. Funky Meters play some of their classics. The Roots put on a good set. Guitar player scatted his way through a funky Someone That I Used to Know (the popular Gotye song). Closed up with the funky The Seed from an early record. Second stage had Steve Kimock and Bernie Worrell. Grace Potter has come a long way since I saw her in a field in Niantic with a crowd of a 100 just a few years ago. She scorched Nothing but the Water, Your Time is Gonna Come (with Warren Haynes), and a great tribute Cocaine in honor of JJ Cale's passing. Government Mule was next. The Shape I'm In>Getaway/Jungle Boogie (with George Porter Jr.)>Since I've Been Loving You>I'm a Ram>Love Me Do>Working Class Hero>encore After Midnight. Phil and Friends played Cumberland Blues>China Cat>Birdsong>Watchtower> I Know You Rider>New Speedway Boogie>Dark Star/Other One/Dark Star> encore Box of Rain. Latenight had dj sets from Rob Garza of Thievery Corporation that led into James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem. James Murphy made good use of Neil Young's Harvest Moon, and T Heads Slippery People. Latelatenight saw regional jammers Papadosio bring the sun up with their frenetic groove.
   Sunday 7/28: Start the day with Blues Traveller reaching back to some of their hits. John Butler Trio hit hard with Revolution (not the Beatles),Used to Get High, and a rousing Ocean. Black Crowes played Jumpin Jack Flash, She Talks to Angels, Jealous Again, Remedy, Hard to Handle, and Deep Purple's Hush. Closed up shop with Fishbone. So-cal rockers still got it. Lead singer is still hopping off stage and into the crowd (he'll break a hip that way!). Another great weekend of music. Mind the glittersnot and....stay thirsty for live music my friends.

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Spaceland Ballroom 7/17/13

You know you're in for it when the front door has a sign "free earplugs".  I didn't heed, being the tough guy scenester (sinister?).  JSBE delivered some skullripping sound. Two guitars, a drum, and a glow-in-the-dark purple theremin was all that was needed to shred the ears of the pretty full audience. JS clad in leather pants, slurred-snorted-and-squealed through the set. While I might think that leather pants on a 95 degree day might be a stretch, it did not seem to bother JS. He latched on to the fact that he entered the club from the Outer Space and in to Spaceland. This band has been around for a while. While the music is rooted in blues, it seemed to land near the White Stripes. I am not familiar with their catalog, but listen for "bay-buh" or "kamoan" to appear in most songs. JS spent much of the vocal duties right on top of his microphone, which I'm hoping is disposed of after each show. This made for muddy vocals, but that's not the point. JSBE was not here for linguistic annunciation, but for some loud rock and roll. JS summed it up best "you know the best thing about Outer Space?...............you don't have to listen to the bullshit!"

Wicked Knee 6/22/13 Realartways Hartford

Psyched to learn of the collaboration of old friends and free show at RAW. Billy Martin leader on drums and percussion, Curtis Fowlkes on trombone, Marcus Rojas on tuba, and Steven Bernstein on trumpet, flugelhorn, and slide trumpet. These guys have been playing improvised jazz for 30+ years as part of the downtown scene. Most as part of John Lurie's Lounge Lizards. The show was billed as "ragtime funk", and while this quartet surely has the chops to deliver on some nawlins groove funk, they seemed unable to ditch the skronk avant vibe. While I am a listener who is ok with either genre, it seemed as if the crowd was unprepared. Martin spending time on "percussion table", Bernstein wowing with multiple horn prowess, Fowlkes ever the deft-slide blower, and Rojas on lead tuba sounding as if he was cradling an injured calf in his arms resulted in more improv and less funk. Highlights were "sugar foot stomp", and a dizzy Gillespie tune, and some standards put through the Martin kaleidoscope. While this seemed like an uneven opening, I have faith that preserverance will help this allstar band become more of household name.

Kronos Quartet w/ Wu Man A/I Fest New Haven Green 6/22/13

One of the great things about being a city dweller is that I can ride my bike around and happen upon Kronos and Wu Man doing a sound check for their show that is to happen later that night. Modern classical group with two violins, viola, and cello is enhanced by chinese pipa player Wu Man. Modern chamber music that touches many cultures. Kronos' excellent Flood Plain recording from a few years back is on heavy rotation in my collection. While not able to be present for the actual show, this four tune warm-up as viewed from 10 feet away was great. Got to hear Harrington interact with Wu Man about time and tempo of a certain piece.

Low, with Mike Doughty Spaceland Ballroom 6/20/13

Was hard to figure who would open this show. We entered Spaceland to the snarky strums of Mike Doughty. As a frontman for the seminal Soul Coughing, Doughty had a penchant for delivering oddly poetic lyrics to a smack-soaked downtown jungle backdrop. He even worked as a doorman for the Knitting Factory for a while (rhubarb butter anyone?). Trading in heroin for coffee and losing the band, Doughty worked smart, riffy, folk, with occasional beats (more bacon than the pan can handle, anyone?). Just Doughty and drums, he ripped through some back catalog: 27 Jennifers, Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well, Real Love, Nectarine, and a host of others. His new record of un-knowable covers seemed weirdly absent. I love this guy, even though his uber-hipster lyrics were often muddied by the guitar.
  Low has been around forever. Husband and wife Alan Sparhawk (guitars) and Mimi Parker (drums) with bass/keys to round out the trio. I saw a description of Low as being "slow-core", which makes no sense until you start listening. Soft harmony vocal treats often give way to thunderous walls of squall. The new release, "The Invisible Way" produced by Jeff Tweedy is great and was well represented at this show. "The Great Destroyer" was also very good. This show was a run-up to Low's performance at Wilco's Solid Sound Festival. Don't put on some Low when you want to get up and dance, but if you are couch-bound and looking to reach for dreamland, wrap yourself in some Low and enjoy.

Calexico with Susana Baca International Festival of Arts and Ideas 6/16/13

Rain held off for a change for the A/I fest first Sunday of events. Opener Susana Baca is a Peruvian Diva of sorts. Sporting a peach colored wrap, this venerable latin songstress offered up some slowburn songs from Peru. All songs and inter-song banter were in spanish, and while I couldn't understand them, they were certainly beautiful.
  Calexico is an in-demand band. They were the anchor group for the Dylan movie "I'm Not There" soundtrack. They collaborated with Iron and Wine for the excellent "In the Reins" ep. Their solo material "Feast of Wire" and "Carried to Dust" and "Algiers" are all good. The malleable Tex-mex sound worked well for a good turnout at the New Haven Green. Their cover version of "Alone Again Or" by Arthur Lee's Love from 1967 could have been written for these guys. Fleshing out their sound by adding some new musicians, as well as welcoming Susana Baca's band to the stage made for a good earfeast.

!!! with The Yellow Dogs Spaceland Ballroom 6/14/13

Unfortunately, only caught the last few songs of Tehran by way of Brooklyn's Yellow Dogs. Their blend of middle-eastern trance-punk was very infectious. Beats, repetitious guitar, and crazy hair were their craft.
  Headliner !!! (pronounced chk-chk-chk) were great. Lead singer strolls into the club wearing "Some Girls" boxers, and he definitely had a Jagger complex. He gyrated and felt himself up as if he was auditioning for the Lipped-One's younger stand-in. Five nerdy beat purveyors rounded out the band. Guitar, drums, bass, synths x 2, with occasional sax and trumpet created a full sound. You can see why this band is a festival staple. Frenzied, clubby songs had the entire crowd moving. Singer routinely hopped off stage and sashayed through the crowd which made one feel like you were part of a Candid Camera nerd-core porn film. Evening was capped by singer wringing his sweat-drenched shirt onto his face while while gyrating to ecstatic encore, I mean climax.

Josephine Foster, Victor the Spaniard, Daniel Greene: Marsh Botanical Garden 6/5/13

The Marsh (as in O.C.) Botanical Garden is on Prospect street and has a cool greenhouse where this happening happened. Local "teacher" Daniel Greene sang simple folk songs of relevance to the New Haven community. The self-proclaimed assistant mayor of State St, offered up some funny local stories which fared better than his "i-wrote-them-on-the-back-of-a-napkin-while-riding-the-bus-to-get-here" style of songcraft. Next up was Victor, who was definitely from Spain, but gave no indication of his last name. Maybe he was in the Spanish witness protection program. He played beautiful percussive, flamenco-y songs of love, horses, and friends. His instrumental about the Pacific side of North America was great, i mean.......nice. Headliner Foster has a couple of recordings. Her woozy, old timey voice got tiring after a few songs.

Dave Douglas Quintet 5/31/13 Firehouse 12

Trumpeter and purveyor of positive karma Douglas hits F-12 as part of his 50th birthday gift of touring 50 states. "Connecticut, while not the first, is certainly not the last." Bringing improvised jazz to odd venues and locales, Douglas is idealistic. Pulling from two recent recordings, Be Still and Time Travel, the quintet was firing on all cylinders. Sharing the stage was Jon Irabogon on sax, Matt Mitchell on piano, Chris Tordini on bass. and Rudy Royston on drums. Be Still was an album of hymns requested by his dying mother. Title cut from Time Travel and Garden State from the same record were great. Closed with a Scottish ballad, this jazzy chameleon can slip in and out of any musical genre.

Memorize The Sky 5/24/13 Firehouse 12

Aaron Siegel, drums and percussion: Zach Wallace, standup bass: and Matt Bauder, clarinet, sax, flute, and electronics. Odd trio of jazzbos. Siegel played drums, bells, and a tiny xylophone with roofing nails as mallets. Wallace spent alot of time bowing drone backdrop to the four tunes that comprised the second set. The real attraction was Bauder who approached playing his wind instruments from five inches away from reed or mouthpiece as if the instruments were whispering. Circuit-bending electronics from Bauder offered weird textures and waves of staccato percussion. At one point, these bleeps and blaps sounded like a metronome humping a geiger counter, go figure.

Peter Case 5/7/13 Cafe 9

Peter Case has been around. Born in Buffalo, got into his first band Pig Nation and lived in a house with 20 other hippies. Hitchhiked to Boston and saw Lightnin Hopkins. Moved on to the Nerves, then the Plimsouls. These bands have cobbled an excellent career of guitar-based indie rock. Was a shame that only 20 people came to this show. Peter's hobo look and voice have not changed over the years. "I hear your voice everywhere I go", "Who's gonna cure your crooked mind?", "Poor Old Tom", "Words in Red". Closed with "Saw you in the first light"

David Rothenberg 5/1/13 Peabody Museum

As part of the celebration of the 17yr cicada emergence, sound artist and author Rothenberg sets up in the hall of dinosaurs to play looped whalesongs and cicada drones while playing clarinet or bass clarinet. Not sure if an entomusicologist is a real vocation, but this guy is it. Spoke of the origin of these natural sounds. The whalesong, sung exclusively by males, is just assumed to be an attempt to attract females. Rothenberg points out that there is no evidence showing that whale females have any interest in these songs. I purchased a whale re-mix disc where Rothenberg sent whalesongs to world renowned sound artists (dj spooky, scanner, warren burt, stephen chopek and others) to re-mix. With penpals like that, well you know.

Slobberpup 4/23/13 Cafe 9

Slobberpup, a free jazz skronkfest had Joe Morris on guitar, Jamie Saft on keys, and frenetic drummer. Morris is a local axe-wielder who is on top of the improviser food chain. Saft, whose beard stretches to below his knees, was reviewed in  this blog with his dub trio last year. If you plug Saft's name into pandora, you're likely to get dub, metal, free-jazz, or movie soundtrack music. This music was difficult listening and came to the same sheets of sound as my previous blog entry. While the Akron Family aimed from rock, Slobberpup lasered from jazz.

Akron Family 4/22/13 The Spaceland Ballroom

First time at the new Space-node. The Spaceland Ballroom is the largest "Space" yet. It is connected to the Outer-Space by a hallway. The Akron Family create sheets of sound with some droney vocals. Two guitars (sometimes bass), keys (sometimes drum machine), and drums. Song structure was loose, and many of the songs were deemed "new". Good crowd for a Monday night. Final song, "I Get Tired Standing on Something I Can't See" was killer.

Holy Ghost Tent Revival 4/16/13 Cafe Nine

How can you resist  a show with a name like HGTR? Young tour warriors from North Carolina. Southern rock with kind of a psycho trombone player out front. Good song structure: "One Step Outside Your Door", "Sway Like the Old Days" had a nice acapella ending. Trombone, guitar/vocalsx2, bass/vocals, and drums. Sparse crowd for a Tuesday.

David Wax Museum, Kingsley Flood, Plume Giant 4/14/13 Cafe Nine

Caught the last song of Yalie trio Plume Giant. Transplanted to Brooklyn and a complete recording under their belt, this two-guitar, fiddle, and harmony vocal trio are great. Wished i got to the club earlier to hear more. Kingsley Flood I noticed was on this year's uber-hip Newport Folkfest lineup. This band will fit nicely. A savory blend of Avett Bros., Wilco, and punk, this band could rock. Guy and girl singers made for great frenzied interplay. Girl played fiddle and sax too. Songs like "Set in Stone", and "i Don't Wanna Go Home" seriously rocked. Chatting with lead singer Yassim who said they were only on Newport's bill for summer festivals. Headliner David Wax Museum has been in this blog before. I like their sound of guy-girl vocals and latin influences. Unfortunately, the girl was sick and unable to play. DWM soldiered on as a trio. They put on a good show despite missing a key component. The girl sings, plays fiddle, and percussion (banging on cow skulls and such) so she was sorely missed. No letdown because this was truly a great triple bill. I would recommend seeing any of these bands.

Helen Money w/ Sea of Bones 3/20/13 Bar

Opener Sea of Bones had an abrasive 3-man doom-metal sound. So abrasive, that I had to wait in another room to save my ears. There were plenty of fans, this is just not the kind of music i'm familiar with. Sheets of sound driven by guitar, bass, and drums is the requisite band geometry. My problem is the inaudible, gravel-throated lyrics that punctuate the noise...i don't see the point. The sound of three cavemen being dragged by a city bus, even if the show was free, is difficult. The final "song" started with a nice reverb-drenched instrumental intro (like "Set Your Controls to the Heart of the Sun", by Pink Floyd), which was great until they started to sing and the song devolved into unlistenableness.
    Helen Money, from Chicago then LA, was billed as a punk cellist. Her music was a sinister mix of plucks and loops. Cellist of choice for the SST punk label, one could see why Sea of Bones opened. Money didn't try to sing, the array of loops and effects made for interesting soundscapes. Money also had a jazz background, one tune was an homage to a recording studio where Charlie Parker recorded. Beautiful plucked cover of a Mahavishnu (i think) song.

Mary Gauthier w/ Scott and Joanna 3/14/13 Cafe Nine

Nice to see Mary at Cafe Nine. Canadians Scott on guitar and Joanna on drums beefed out Mary's sound into folk rock territory. A singer-songwriter from Nawlins, Mary has led a checkered life. A junkie prostitute in her teens led to jailtime. Mary rocked some favorites: I Drink (either the saddest or the funniest song ever, covered by Blake Shelton), Drag Queens and Limousines, Last of the Hobo Kings, In and Out of Love ( written on a tourbus in Vienna). Rousing last song Wheel in the Well then closed with Mercy Now (soon to be covered by Boy George). Mary Gauthier is the consummate songwriter, winning the CMA for the Gay Country category is just the start for someone who came to the craft later in life.

The Big Gigantic 2/20/13 Toads Place

Capacity crowd of 20 yr olds to see drum and sax combo BG. Found a relatively safe viewing location amongst the throng. A young wide-eyed hipster could not stop high fiving me the entire evening. Kids in shorts (it was single digits outside), shirtless binky sucking next,next gen hippie converged at Toads for the scene. The show was similar to the 2011 GOTV Saturday late night, two white guys one played drums while the other played sax and laptop. Computer generated bass shook one's leg hair but the music was not inspired. Vocal snippets and computer crescendo seemed to move the crowd, but not me. This music is more of a backdrop for the scene, kind of like disco for the times. It's ironic that BG used to be affiliated with the Motet, one of the best percussion-heavy jam troupes in Colorado history. I left early for an easy exit to see the streets crawling with cops poised to scoop up those with the largest pupils. As with most music like this, it is best heard outside.

The Residents, Iron Horse Northampton MA 2/13/13

I consider myself fortunate to have persevered blizzard charlotte's aftermath to view the "40 Years of Weird" tour by the Residents. While I cannot begin to explain the checkered history of this avant-art-rock collective, my notes on the evening's festivities seem like the best kind of review. To set the stage, two giant inflatable snowmen with intertwining candy canes form an entrance to the stage. The players, Randy: lead singer/talker dressed as Santa, Chuck: keyboards and electronics, dressed as a chicken, and Bob: on guitar, dressed as a bug. Here goes: Picnic n the Jungle//Demented Midget in a co-dependent relationship with a giant//Struggles//Snakefinger dies of a heart attack in Austria in the 80s// Randy has fight with his swivel chair shaped like a huge pair of lips//between songs Randy rocks autistically on candy cane entrance// chuck lives on a chicken farm, randy lives with cat Maurice on West Pico in LA// randy was beat by eddie murphy for the donkey voice in the Shrek movie...fahk//chuck aims electronic etchasketch at keyboard for a feedback solo//bob seems like Buckethead in his metal-prog approach to guitar//randy has been married 11 times//mandy's butt->everything is black// friend lenny does porno films, rnady's profile pic has him with fake phallus so he "couldn't even make it in the porno business!"// maurice gets hit by a car but only needs a small amputation//lost all money in media-rich "mole" phase in the 90s//randy kicks candy cane, it deflates as he exits// bob skronks out a version of "o tannenbaum" as randy blows up a huge christmas tree with eyeball as the star// closes with "auld lang syne"...............wow