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