Membra 5/24/24 Neverending Books

 Membra is the experimental pop songwriting project of Brooklyn-based composer, sound designer, and filmmaker Ned Porter. Found sounds and tape loops are stretched beyond recognition and transformed into left field pop musings.Small crowd for a Friday at the bookstore watched while Ned had some technical difficulties plying his craft. The music on this evening was supposed to be a triple bill with the headline musician,  Nahadoth. Nahadoth is a project of the American Dungeon Synth revival created by local composer, keyboardist, and accordionist Adam Matlock. Adam has been positively reviewed in this blog as part of his many musical personas. Unfortunately, due to the delay in Membra’s set, Matlock had little time to showcase his music. I will have to keep tabs on the Dungeon Synth revival to get a better view of Adam’s music in this genre.

John Hiatt 5/23/24 Infinity Hall Hartford

 Had tickets to see John Hiatt last fall but he fell while hiking and had to cancel the tour. A concussion and an ankle break in your 70s is not an easy road back. Glad he made the effort and was in rare form at Infinity. This theater is comfortable with good acoustics and sight lines. Hiatt is like a a well worn leather coat, comfortable, familiar, and consistent. Hiatt has been making excellent records at a pretty regular clip since the mid 70s. The extensive catalog is peppered with hits and the hiking injury seemed to have no aftershocks on this troubadour. The setlist delivered: My Old Friend, All The Lilacs In Ohio, Trudy and Dave, Crossing Muddy Waters, The Tiki Bar is Open, Tennessee Plates, Master of Disaster, Seven Little Indians, Weightless In My Arms, The Open Road, Real Fine Love, Lift Up EveryStone,  Drive South, Perfectly Good Guitar, Through Your Hands, Feels Like Rain, Cry Love, Memphis In The Meantime, Thing Called Love, Encored with Riding With The King and Have a Little Faith in Me. Hiatt’s Crossing Muddy Water release from 2000 is a near perfect record and was a soundtrack to my daughter’s young years. The songwriting is impeccable, spinning rust belt tales of everyday lives. He told the story of Seven Little Indians,  a song about his father telling tales to a young John and his six siblings. The music of John Hiatt is entirely relatable and made for an excellent evening of tunes.

Jessica Pavone String Trio w/ Dave Scanlon 5/20/24 Neverending Books

 Nice listing for the book store that is dirty. NEB has ditched the mismatched chairs in favor of 20 black plastic beauties. Don’t worry, the ass- swallowing couch from the 70s still props up the back of the room. When I arrive, JP3 is already playing. Pavone and two other violists pluck and bow to great effect. The viola is an expressive instrument, Pavone can easily switch from improv to chamber sounding pieces. Jessica has had an under the radar NYC career dotted with excellent collaborations with the likes of Mary Halvorson and Tomas Fujiwara. She is also a continual presence on the outre marathons of Anthony Braxton. I also notice she guests on a Vampire Weekend record, I guess you never know when a viola is called for. Unfortunately I only catch the second half of the set. Message to bookers and venues, please list the acts and timing in the actual order delivered. I stick around for the apparent headliner Dave Scanlon, a frail balding hipster that I chat with on the way to the bathroom. Dave plays a treated guitar and sing-speaks while blowing a few notes from a harmonica. He states that the one long form piece is about sharks around Greenland. The poetry is obtuse but holds the story line. The guitar work moves from gentle strums to Marc Ribot squalls. Dave has a weird capo on the neck that looks like a wooden leaf press.The harmonica is used to play a single note while Dave turns the sheet music pages and sounds like a distant mosquito. Upon further digging, I learn that Dave is associated with John Zorn’s Tzadik label and is a frequent flyer at the Stone in NYC. Unhappy that I missed most of the set of my intended outing, but happy that I got to view someone new.

NusMusWes24 Festival, Wesleyan 5/11/24

 What if we had a festival and nobody came? And nobody manned the exhibits, some exhibits fail to materialize, had no written descriptions of said exhibits, and had a stunning lack of administerial oversight? Well that was the Saturday morning leg of this festival which was designed to celebrate the modern composition luminaries that have graced its uber-liberal hallowed halls. John Cage, Alvin Lucier, and Anthony Braxton are top tier musical theorists that have left an indelible mark on what we know as “music”. The CFA website listed three musical installations set up on campus that were open from 8am-midnight. The first was a video project  “Saturn to Jupiter” by Brent Wetters, the next “For Alvin Lucier ( automated pipe organ) by Brian Parks, and the third was “Deer Tick: Solar Sounders on the Lawn” by Daniel Fishkin. I go in the Ring Family Auditorium at 11am to view S to J, only to find the theater empty. The computer on the front console beckoned judging from the “start” screen on the big screen. As the only human in this subterranean sharp edged concrete igloo of a structure, I press start. The screen goes blue, then asks for my username and password. Cage couldn’t have drawn it up better! As I go to leave, the morning handler stops in and says he will reboot. While he reconfigures, I trek to Memorial Chapel to view the pipe organ. Tiptoeing through the Gaza protest encampment then passed a lacrosse match to enter the beautiful, but once again human-less, venue, I am greeted, personally, by a self propelled pipe organ emitting a low level hum. On the altar, this antiquated musical keyboard had a variety of labeled knobs and dials. With no human or written descriptors, one was left to wonder Luciers attachment to the piece. On the way back to the auditorium to see if my one music nerd acquaintance had righted the ship, I pass by the quad where the solar sounders should be. Again, no human, but I do see several speakers and a couple of expensive looking microphones lurking furtively in the perfectly manicured shrubbery. Was I supposed to pinch the mics and sell them on eBay? Again, not sure because of the now annoying lack of people. The video was restored and the Saturn to Jupiter piece was a series of short films and stills taken on a frozen path from Winnipeg to the North Pole. Eerie frozen landscapes and nature shots were punctuated by same of wind battered seemingly abandoned industrial outposts. The sound was a mixture of of boots crunching on very cold snow, wind, and some distant, largely unintelligible conversation snippets. Imagine, there was more human contact in the video of the tundra than from the festival itself. The contradictions on my walk were striking, lacrosse match vs. the Gaza encampment; the skull and bones buildings vs. the submerged cubist igloo and let’s not forget modern music festival vs. me. As I was leaving the auditorium, I shared a laugh with a Spanish couple, the only other patrons of this part of the fest. I tell them that somewhere in heaven, John Cage is smiling at my attempt to find sound…..or not.

The Decemberists w/ Ratboys 5/4/24 College Street Music Hall

Caught the last few tunes from Chicago based rockers Ratboys. While not entirely male, lead Ratboy  and singer was decidedly female. Standard quartet with bass, drums and lead guitar joined the lead Ratgirl. Jammy rockers, Ratboys did a good job of warming the near capacity crowd for a Saturday.

The Decemberists have been positively reviewed in this blog before. Archaeological wordsmiths from Portland OR, this band has been making quality music for years. The brainchild of lead singer Colin Meloy, they straddle the lines between indie-pop-quirky Americana. The lyrics are often dark with tales of murder and intrigue from bygone eras. I mean who uses petticoat, or “birthed me down a dry ravine” in a song lyric? Like the career arc of Mofro (reviewed a few weeks back), the Decemberists discography is a steady barrage of timely quality releases with gems to be polished on each record. Assisting Meloy are a crew of multi-instrumentalists that shape the sound. Bassist Nate Query moved from electric to acoustic standup with ease. Accordionist Jenny Conlee also played keys on certain tunes. Chris Funk played a variety of brass instruments, starting out on a French horn flugel combo. Lead guitar moved to occasional banjo, and there was a young female singer that helped the guy-girl nature of some tunes. The setlist was culled from most releases :All I Want is You, Shankill Butchers, The Bachelor and the Bride, Don’t Carry it All, (new tune) Burial Ground,  The Crane Wife, Traveling On, The WantingComes In Waves ( from the fabulous Hazards of Love record), Long White Veil, Make You Better, Severed, 16 Military Wives. Closed with the apt I Was Meant For The Stage and encored with the new Joan In The Garden. Go to Spotify and preview this tune, it ends  with a 14 minute drone scrawl of feedback that gets the listener wondering what is happening. Erudite pranksters, one can only think that the tune is a message from Meloy to someone. Always enjoyable to see what these smarty pants are up to.