Robyn Hitchcock w/ Emma Swift 3/25/16 Cafe 9

A few months ago, I told everyone with an ear to mark their calendars and buy advance tickets for Robyn Hitchcock. I was shocked when the show was listed as "sold out", a few days later, leaving me on the outside for a show I hyped. One friend bought a ticket, and was listed on will call. We decided to try to weasel entry for two. At the door, we tried our best "who's on first", and were told to wait while the purchase was verified. After a few minutes of blending into the crowd, success. (I'm chalking this up to a karma balance against the unscrupulous but somewhat hapless promoter who has been known to rip off local legends and opener for the Rolling Stones, Sons of Bob, but that's a story for another time). I am certainly glad I gained entry, for RH is a brit folkie psychedelic force of nature. The evening started with Emma Swift, a young Aussie who now resides in Nashville. Her twangy folk songs were nicely delivered, even covering a Lucinda Williams tune. She stepped off and made way for RH. Setlist included "She Was Vibrating", "I Often Dream of Trains", and the beautiful "Ghost in You". While the music was fantastic, the inter-song banter was amazing. Think of Syd Robin Williams Barrett and you're close. At one point, RH launched in to his own radio show program using both mics for different voices. He told the sound man to make him sound like he was playing "two 12 strings....with a delay". At one point, some British mad hatter in the crowd leaned over to point out the RH tour t-shirt depicting a polka-dotted pyramid dreaming of a crab. The evening highlight came when he launched in to "The Cheese Alarm", one of my faves complete with Indian-inflected open tuning raga guitar solo. Another song intro dealt with his fascination with the Clint movie Magnum Force, in which the denouement included a scene where Clint looks at the camera and says "everyone's got to know their limitations, Briggs", which turned out to be the song's refrain. Emma came back on for some duets including an awesome Bowie cover "Sound and Vision", they ended with an expertly delivered "Queen Elvis".

Oneida 3/16/16 Bar

The Wednesday night shows at Bar are free, which is a good and a weird thing. Oneida is billed as krautnoise, implying the trippy virtuosity of German psych-noodlers Can crossed with industrial noise onslaught. Oneida is helmed by crazed drummer Kid Millions, two guitars, one lambchopped keyboard/knob twiddler, and another keyboard player who "sang" and looked like he was in a perpetual state of epileptic seizure. The drum-centric groove ebbed and swelled and was sprinkled with some usually unintelligible lyrics. The loud washes of sound were great and I assume are mostly played for a paying (intended) audience. Now the weird part, being free, you are never sure who is going to wander/stumble into the room. On this evening, it was a gaggle of tipsy bachelorettes, who wiggled and selfied themselves in front of the band. Let me say that Oneida is in unfamiliar territory when it comes to soundtracking a batchelorette party, and (a)cid seizure was not pleased at their lack of reverence. While inarticulately trying to say that "free" should not equate to a lack of respect, he decided to sing the ladies a little krautnoise ditty instead. The song started slow then high-geared it in to a frenzy with epilepsy-boy spitting the chorus "putyourfuckinphonesaway", the girls had no idea he was poking fun at them.

Lucinda Williams w/ Buick 6 3/12/16 College Street Music Hall

Good crowd at CSMH for Lucinda. Entered to the instrumental rock jams of Buick 6, which turned out to be Lucinda's backing band. Seasoned session rockers consisting of guitar, bass (standup and electric), and drums gave a sufficient kick to talented singer songwriter LW. Known for her classic release "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road", LW has a full catalog of melancholy slow burn and southern rockers. Set list included: Pineola, Lake Charles, Car Wheels, Essence, Blue, Joy, Blessed, Dust (from a poem written by her father), new song Ghosts of Highway 20. LW is a music lover and I always  appreciate her choice of cover songs to close the show. Tonight was no exception, doing a heartfelt "Change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke. She sang "I Ain't Got No Home in this World" by Woody Guthrie complete with a recently uncovered lyric referencing  "old man Trump" , apparently the Donald's father was the landlord that evicted Woody from his Brooklyn apartment. LW closed with Neil Young's "Rockin in the Free World", the fist pumping anthem riled the crowd as if to rip the song from any connection to Trump's announcement spectacle and return it to it's rightful owner ( a nasally long haired peace-nik from our neighbor to the north).

Cinder talk w/ Naytronix 3/9/16

Naytronix is a synth trio anchored by Tuneyards bass player Nate.  Together with drums and guitar, Naytronix played pop songs with a heavy dose of synth looping. Nate sang and gestured like Merrill Garbus, the freaky frontwoman vocalist for Tuneyards. The drummer had an interesting synth pad in addition to his regular kit. Nate and guitar player used keyboard and loops to amplify their sound. The dreamier introspective songs were not as interesting as the uptempo numbers. One hipster turned to me and said "a lot of pre-recorded tracks", yeah that's the whole point.
Cindertalk is the one man band of Jonny Rogers. He had a square table with about 20 glasses with varying levels of water in front of him. Each glass was individually mic'd so that CT could get sound by rim rubbing or tapping. The glass sound was recorded and looped. CT added to the sound with guitar and/or keyboards, his slimline loop pedals seemed very high tech. CT vocals reminded me of Gary Numan.