Stick Men is the trio of Tony Levin on Chapman Stick, Pat Mastelloto drums, and Markus Reuter on something called a U-8. Reuter a Berlin based instrument builder/prog nerd concocted the 8 string day-glo axe of sorts. I mean it had 8 strings, hung around his neck, had a guitar neck, but produced a multitude of sounds. The Chapman Stick is a 12-string contraption that looks like a picket fence post. The sinister high and low end stew of progfunk was described by Mastelloto as pianos hanging around their necks. Levin and Mastelloto play (ed?) in the progenitor of prog King Crimson. Levin held down the low end of most of the Peter Gabriel records, netting him credits on over 100 million sold. Mastelloto could not have possibly screwed together the behemoth drum kit he whacked at last year’s KC Westville show (he’d need Spaceland to apply for an addition permit), but still managed to squeeze out a gong solo. Levin is a sight, 76 by my count, he’s chiseled, cue-balled, and a black moustache, he appears like a cross between Mr. Clean and Snidely Whiplash. When he plays the Stick, both hands spider the neck for a wash of sound that normally plays to arena crowds. Reuter seems thirty-ish with a thick German accent, but as an instrument builder, you can see why he’s pals with these guys. The crowd was gray and grizzled, packed house was made even more tight by having it a sit down affair. The fans bobbed in awe to the display. I did not realize the group’s fairly prodigious output, but they had plenty of material to choose from. Mainly warped instrumentals, but Levin actually sang on one tune. Good version of Crimson’s “Red”, with Reuter playing the Fripp part. Another song from Fripp’s excellent Exposure record is making me want to dig through the vinyl stacks and locate that one. Encores with perhaps my favorite King Crimson tune from the modern era, “Sheltering Sky” from Levin’s first toe in the Crimson output, 1981’s Discipline.
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