Sexmob 4/25/25 Firehouse 12

 Had this one circled on the calendar. Sexmob is a 30 year old collaboration of  downtown musicians. Led by slide trumpeter Steven Bernstein, Briggan Krauss on sax, Tony Scherr on standup bass, and Kenny Wollesen on drums. The premise is simple, take the widest possible swing at popular music, deconstruct, re-assemble, and let your audience guess. This band has spent time mining the work of Nino Rota, James Bond scores, Grateful Dead, Bill Withers, and everything in between. Packed house for the second set finds Bernstein in a chatty mode. Hard to believe this group had never graced the Firehouse stage before this evening, though most members have played here as part of other groups. The set starts with the Ellington composition Black and Tan Fantasy, next up a Nino Rota film score piece with some amazing bass work from Scherr. An original inspired by the trombone master Roswell Rudd showcases the slide trumpet. Imagine if a trumpet and trombone had a baby, the result is the unique slide trumpet. Bernstein has said his instrument “frees him from the constraints of sounding like other people”. The group oozes downtown cool, Steven with a clean shaven head and both ears pierced looks like an impish Mr. Clean. In the 90s, Bernstein did time with John Laurie’s Lounge Lizards ( from which this blog takes its name).  Steven has cobbled together quite a life in music, arranging for a dream team of jazz musicians for the Robert Altman film Kansas City, backing Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, and my favorite as musical director for the Ramble series (music events at Levon Helm’s barn in the Catskills). I urge readers to check the Wiki on the vast scope of artists who have employed and collaborated with him. He fumbles around with some charts before settling on a world premiere, someone in the crowd yells “what is it?”. “You’ll get it”, replies Steve. Turns out to be a Liza Minnelli chestnut from way back. Closed the set with the  Jager-soaked bass and slide trumpet duet Ripple by the Grateful Dead. This group bridges the familiar and challenging with the greatest of ease.

St Vincent 4/18/25 College Street Music Hall

 Annie Clark AKA St Vincent parks her glammy art pop troupe in NewHaven for a Good Friday. Even as a Grammy winning artist with notable high profile collaborations, her music is elusive. Absent is the money driven focus of “hits” or “success”. St Vincent has been birthing angular guitar driven art pop since the early aughts and most was on display this evening. I correctly guess that Clark is 42 and share a Terri Gross story about her artistic beginnings. Seems that her uncle is Tuck Andress, the guitar virtuoso half of the duo Tuck and Patti. Andress helped Clark cobble together a home studio which must have enabled her sideways entry into the music world. Clark is an accomplshed guitarist and is joined by lead guitar, bass/keys, keyboards and drums. Clark is a sight, with an oversized shirt with questionable undergarments, she oozed a confident sensuality. Adding to this effect was the wafer thin female bassist who chose black latex booty shorts for this evenings attire. Side note, the bass player seems to also be an AI entrepreneur. The setlist: Reckless, Fear The Future, Los Ageless, Broken Man, Birth in Reverse, Dillettante, Pay Your Way in Pain, Flea,  Cheerleader, Big Time Nothing, Marrow, Violent Times, New York, Sugarboy, All Born Screaming, and Encored with Candy Darling. The music runs the gamut from pop sing along moments to industrial blowouts. The NYC art world is on display with the eponymous anthem and the Candy Darling name check. The Hall was filled with a wide swath of ages and close to a 50-50 gender mix. One can see why St Vincent has admirers (collaborators) like David Byrne, she is a true artist, making art on her own terms.

EXTC w/ Bud Collins Trio 4/16/25 Space Ballroom

 Bud Collins Trio haunted juke joints near UConn when I was there in the 80s. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a Bud Collins, and I seem to recall more than 3 members though that might be collegial double vision. Noodly, guitar centric jams dominate their output. Guitar, drums and bass make the trio on this evening. The guitarist singer had wire rimmed glasses that slid down his nose in a Schumeresque fashion. BC3 are about my vintage and you can sense they were gushing to open for any incarnation of the 80s-90s punk pop powerhouse known as XTC.

EXTC is Terry Chambers, original XTC drummer, joined by guitar and bass to stroll through the XTC catalog. Few bands have a flawless record, in my opinion, XTC has two. English Settlement from 1982 and the Todd Rundgren produced Skylarking from 1986. The original band was fronted by singer songwriter Andy Partridge, bassist Colin Moulding, guitarist Dave Gregory, and Chambers. Injecting art-pop sensibility with a decidedly British punk ethos, XTC were college radio darlings. Partridge was quirky, he suffered from severe stage fright, quashing any notion of a tour. Adding to their appeal, the band served up the single Dear God which riled the censorship police in Britain. Maintaining a small cult status, Chambers convinced his ex-band mates to allow him to tour the material after all these years. The setlist was stellar. This is Pop, No Language in Our Lungs, Ball and Chain, Real by Reel, Towers of London, Senses Working Overtime, Burning With Optimism’s Flames, The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead, King For a Day, The Mayor of Simpleton, No Thugs in Our House, Sgt Rock, Respectable Street, Living Through Another Cuba/ Generals and Majors, Making Plans for Nigel, Stupidly Happy, and closed with Life Begins at the Hop. Listening to these songs, I wonder if Partridge realized how hard they would be to recreate live. While there is no substitute for the campy Parttridge, the stand in guitar and bass tag teamed vocal duties to great effect. The guitarist even enlisted the crowd to sing backup on Ball and Chain and Nigel. Chambers was a force on drums. Ball and Chain, Living Through Another Cuba showcase a tribal backbone. 80s XTC caught lightning in a bottle and the flame still burns for a new audience. Glad that Chambers finally got a chance to tour this classic back catalog.

Alan Sparhawk w/ Circuit Des Yeux 4/4/25 Space Ballroom

 Glad to have entered early enough to catch a couple of tunes from CDY. Circuit Des Yeux from Chicago has one member, voice and electronics artist Haley Fohr. Armed with an otherworldly vocal range, effects table with voice manipulator and drum machine, Fohr applies her voice to clubby, industrial slices of her catalog. I saw her about ten years ago in the back room at Bar. On that evening she knelt in the corner and growled into the microphone for her set. Perennial critic’s darling, Fohr exudes uncompromising artist vibe. Look her up on Spotify and notice an intriguing side project, The Ballad of Jackie Lynn, where Haley inhabits the persona of a coked-out country singer and performs a song cycle about her dysfunctional fictitious life. Her booming low register is sampled and processed to produce a club choir amalgam.

Alan Sparhawk is adrift. Duluth resident started the critically acclaimed indie band Low in the 90s. Sparhawk formed Low with childhood friend and eventual wife Mimi Parker. Parker played drums and sometimes bass while Sparhawk played guitar. The real treat was their vocal duets. The voices chillingly complemented each other. Listen to under the radar records like The Great Destroyer or The Invisible Way and I dare you not to become a Low fan. In 2022, tragedy struck when Parker died of cancer. One can only imagine the personal and artistic devastation that resulted. Burying himself in his craft, Alan’s output has been uncompromising and wide ranging. On one recent recording, he puts his voice through some ultra pitch tuned modulator that sounds like a cross between Alvin of Chipmunks fame crossed with Laurie Anderson in a helium chamber. Largely unintelligible vocals set to dance beats are an unusual extension of the lyric heavy crescendo slowcore known as Low. His most recent record, backed by the Americana group Trampled By Turtles, is a delicious collection of literate songs. Unsure what to expect on this evening, the show starts with a set from the Chipmunk recording. Sparhawk joined by bass, and drums jumps around maniacally, like some kid that just raided the Molly cabinet. Perhaps dance therapy is one way to shake off the grief. The drummer even has red plastic rimmed glasses as if he were trying out for the Buggles. Alan switches to guitar for the second half and pulls from the other excellent recording. The versatility is amazing, at one point doing a cover from the recently departed Roy Ayers. Finishes the set with a nod to another recently deceased hero, David Lynch. While chatting with Manic Mark, I got a funny story about seating requirements from Low, we both resolve that Sparhawk is a true artist and can do whatever the fuck he wants. This evening will go down as a showcase of the resilient wide ranging artists on the scene. From the modern composition activism of Raven Chacon, to the vocal creativity of Haley Fohr, capped by the grief release of Alan Sparhawk…..wow.

Raven Chacon 4/4/25 CCAM

 Raven Chacon is a multidisciplinary artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation outside of Albuquerque. He graces Yale for a mini residency, interacting with students, having his chamber compositions performed at Schwarzman, and tonight’s stop at  the CCAM  clubhouse for some Q and A and a noise performance. Speaking with lead CCAM wrangler Ross Wightman, we learn that as a young Native American headbanger, Raven and a drummer friend spent time in the desert making some unholy racket, no parents or neighbors to file a noise complaint. Given his answers to Ross’ questions, seems that Raven’s forays came with some peyote buttons. He started with a bass, but the strings broke ,then the neck, and he was left with a bass pickup and a desert generator. The next step was noise. His mother urged him to higher musical education. Given the lack of like-minded noiseniks in town, Raven enrolled in the prestigious CalArts program to study with James Tenney. A new world opened up, Cage, Cardew,  Riley and other West coast modern composers mentored the young Chacon into the Pulitzer Prize winning artist he is today. Ushers passed out earplugs knowing the squall that was about to ensue. A table of effects pedals and iPads unleashed a torrent of white noise. The beauty of a noise performance is that different sounds emerge and fade. One sequence sounded like a beating heart, another sounded like squeaky bus brakes morphing into birdhouse at the zoo territory. The shades were not drawn, at one point a Bernoulli effect ambulance siren drove down York street, forcing a wry smile from Chacon. The Pulitzer was won for his piece Voiceless Mass written for church organ and choir. Raven also plugged the upcoming NYC End Tymes Festival, highlighting noise artists performing in churches, abandoned subway tunnels and the like. Raven’s social activism frequently puts him in the cross hairs of the political steamroller, land rights, indigenous peoples rights, he even obtained grant money to stitch together sounds from J6 (the current administration pulled that funding lickety split).  Cage’s infamous composition 4’33”, four and a half minutes of complete silence,  sparked a young Chacon.  The reaction to his people being silenced informs his art to this day. Another great performance at the hands of Yale’s Center for Collaborative  Arts and Media (CCAM).