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Meta Music Overdrive

Steve Holtje — Mon, 14 Nov 2022 21:26:52 +0000

Meta Music Overdrive Steve Holtje November 14, 2022 - 16:26

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Mike Doughty's Ghost of Vroom

Union Pool, Brooklyn, NY

Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022

Mike Doughty's Ghost of Vroom felt to me like a philosophical demonstration of how much of a musical performance can be purely gestural, with no inherent meaning. Some of the gestural aspect was literal: Doughty acted as a conductor, not a la Leonard Bernstein (though with just as much demonstrative motion as Lenny famously exerted) but rather in the mode of John Zorn leading a Cobra performance, Butch Morris's "conduction," or Steven Bernstein's more loosely guided Millennial Territory Orchestra. Doughty, a habitué of the fertile downtown NYC scene of the '90s, would be well-versed in all of these (and did participate in Cobra).

But on a meta level, it was an exploration of how little meaning a band's vocalist frontman can convey while going through the motions expected by audiences from someone in that role.

The first set lasted an hour and involved the expenditure of so much energy on the part of the musicians (and, for that matter, some audience members nodding vigorously and bopping along) that I was surprised when Doughty announced that it was, in fact, a first set and not the whole evening's show. Though made up of discrete sections separated by cessation of playing and subsequent applause, that hour was so stylistically and verbally coherent that it could have been considered a unified suite. As such, its title would have been "Oh, Whoa, Wooh, Alright, I Said Alright," if named as songs usually are by the most frequently vocalized words. There were other spoken/shouted phrases, but even in the small space of Union Pool's indoor performance space, they were unintelligible. Even when actual words were discerned, their meaning as language was unclear; both sentences and exclamations were deployed not to function as language but instead to fill the rhythmic and performative roles of language without actually functioning as information-conveying language.

Not that the hour wasn't, in fact, made up of individually titled pieces, which Doughty would convey to the band before launching into each one. Said musicians were long-time Doughty collaborator Andrew "Scrap" Livingston on cello, Matthew Milligan on electric bass, and two guests: avant-superstar electric guitarist Marc Ribot (often wielding an EBow), and drummer Madden Klass (Wheatus). Besides his conducting and (very intermittent) vocalizing, Doughty occasionally played electric guitar, mostly in a rhythm role; used a laptop to play chopped-up vocal sounds that basically were just various vowels repeated rhythmically; cued the other musicians in and out -- mostly, it seemed, to vary the density of the textures -- in a physically vigorous way involving arm and hand motions; and moving spasmodically with the rhythms, with one repeated gesture being the removal and then replacement of the cap he wears on his shaved head. In an odd way it resembled a highly condensed version of James Brown fronting his band, but with the drumming of Klass much more forcebeat than funk

And now, finally, to confront the question of the band's name. Doughty has an ambivalent relationship with the fame of his 1992-2000 band Soul Coughing, whose first album was Ruby Vroom. Ghost of Vroom could be seen as an update of that band (though with Doughty the only member in common), a parody of stylistic elements of that band (its improvisation a nod to what Doughty once called "slacker jazz"; his free-associative lyrics that in delivery nod to rap without offering rap content; the use of sampling), a gesture of accommodation of audience demand, and arguably all of these at once: like I said, meta.

A more conscientious reviewer would have stayed for the second set; I, however, had been exhausted by the frankly stunning power of the first set. Not that I'd gone as a reviewer; I went as a longtime fan who paid for his ticket. Only in retrospect did my fascination with what I'd witnessed make me ponder it and then set down these thoughts. I could be completely wrong about all of this.

The show I saw was the second of four weekly appearances with Ghost of Vroom and assorted guests at Union Pool on Sundays this month.

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Concert/Sandy Relief Donation Drive at Death by Audio Tonight

Steve Holtje — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:39:18 +0000

Concert/Sandy Relief Donation Drive at Death by Audio Tonight Steve Holtje November 14, 2012 - 10:39

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Tonight at 8 PM there will be a concert at Death by Audio that not only features three of Brooklyn's best upcoming bands, but also a donation drive for Sandy relief. Recommended donations are food, water, flashlights, D batteries, cleaning supplies, hand warmers, diapers, baby food, blankets, sleeping bags, hypothermia blankets, carbon monoxide detectors, folding chairs and tables, sternos, and catering equipment. (But no clothing, please.)

Headlining quartet People Get Ready, which recently released an eponymously titled first full-length album on Brassland after a few EPs on Quite Scientific, consists of co-founders vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Steven Reker (Silver Haunches; David Byrne's touring band) and drummer Luke Fasano (Yeasayer) along with vocalist/keyboardist Jen Goma (A Sunny Day in Glasgow) and guitarist James Rickman (Slow Gherkin). Though they are notorious for incorporating dance and performance art, they're also more than capable of putting on a riveting show without those elements. A few tracks superficially suggest the Shins, but with less predictable rhythms, more keyboard, more vocal versatility, and a generally more left-field view of music, most of the tracks are a lot harder to come up with comparisons for. Reker has several different voices he uses, and he and Goma also sometimes combine their voices in an eerily synchronized unison that sounds like one uncategorizable voice, as can be seen/heard below.

Grooms, one of my favorites, has already made two fine albums, but
hearing the trio's recently completed (not yet released) album shows it continues to evolve stylistically. The easy comparisons for their earlier work (Sonic Youth, Pavement) have been eclipsed by Travis Johnson's use of a wider array of guitar textures, some shoegazey and some rougher or brighter. The compositions and arrangements also often have an Asian tint, with the scales and intervals suggesting his musical ethnographic explorations have focused on China recently. Siouxsie & the Banshees used to incorporate similar elements, but more superficially, even parodically; Grooms makes it more interesting (and doesn't much sound like S&B).

Also playing is Formica Man, which I knew nothing about until this show was announced, but which sounds so rabidly post-punk/no-wave on the tracks on their Bandcamp page that I can't wait to hear them.

Death by Audio is at 49 South Second St. (at Kent Ave.) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a short walk west from the Bedford Ave. stop on the L train.

Souther Rises Again

Steve Holtje — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 04:52:24 +0000

Souther Rises Again Steve Holtje July 23, 2012 - 00:52

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J.D. Souther

Studio 201

July 21, 2012

Fans of '70s rock know John David "J.D." Souther's work even if they don't recognize his name. Linda Ronstadt, always good with a bittersweet ballad, made several of his highlights of her mid-decade LPs. Fellow Detroiter Glenn Frey and Souther hooked up again after both had moved to Los Angeles, and this eventually led to Souther co-writing several of the Eagles' biggest hits.

Those who do know his work swear by his output for the talented if commercially unsuccessful supergroup Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, and his occasional solo LPs offered his own versions of his songs made familiar by others plus plenty of "deep tracks." But after his fourth solo LP in 1984, he didn't release another one until 2008' If the World Was You. Fortunately he's kept his comeback going, and the opportunity to hear him in a very intimate setting arose thanks to a friend of his owning the unusual concert space Studio 201, on the far West Side in a building of art studios.

I'd been hemming and hawing about going; it was a pricey ticket ($50 plus fees) for an underemployed wretch such as myself. Then my friend Davie Kaufmann, who'd bought a ticket, was unable to go and gave me her ticket on the condition that I tell her about the show. So Davie, this review's for you.

The intimacy of the setting (around a hundred capacity, I'd guess) was matched by the band: Souther on amplified acoustic guitar, with pianist Chris Walters and double bassist Jerry Navarro. No drums, no lead guitarist, no electric bass. And, unlike the comeback albums (there's also 2011's A Natural History, which revamps songs from across his career), no horns. Stripped down like that, his many classic songs could be heard independent of the production contexts where they were first heard, whether on his records or others'.

The first song he played, "Go Ahead and Rain" from his 1984 album Home by Dawn, was a prime example of this effect. There's nothing inherently wrong with the slick, shiny production of the album version, but as played on Saturday night, it had greater intimacy, and sounded a bit less obviously like a plea for sex -- or, at least, a sexier plea for sex.

Then, in case that song had been a little too obscure, he hit us with a biggie: "New Kid in Town." He didn't mess with the arrangement too much, but obviously it was more sparely presented in this setting. Most notably, Souther, even at age 66, is a far more subtle and expressive singer than his old pal Glenn Frey, the Eagle who sang it on Hotel California.

Then, in case that song had been a little too famous, Souther switched gears and played the rocking "House of Pride" from If the World Was You. When its more rhythmic sound inspired audience clapping over the intro, Souther quipped, "It's like a square dance, only fucked up."

Before the next song, he said he was "basically a saloon singer, like my dad." Then he launched into Duke Ellington's "Do Nothing 'Til You Hear from Me," delivering it with elegant wit. We are by this point jaded by the jazz moves of '70s rock stars, but Souther is far better versed in jazz style than the likes of Rod Stewart (more on this later!) and his rendition of this classic from the cusp of jazz and R&B was charmingly understated, phrased slyly in perfect accord with Souther's image as self-confessed womanizer.

He then surprised the band, and perhaps even himself, with a mostly solo rendition of The Fleetwoods' hit "Mr. Blue." Though it was very sweet, he fumbled a few bits and said afterward, "I haven't sung that song since eighth grade." He'd essayed it, he revealed, because the intro of the next song reminded him of it. The next song? Another of his Eagles co-credits, "The Sad Café." And, again, he's a better singer than the Eagle who first sang it, in this case Don Henley on The Long Run. Souther made the emotions behind it sound more personal.

It wasn't until the seventh song of the set that he played something from one of his own '70s albums, in this case 1976's underrated Black Rose. "Bang My Head Against the Moon," the LP's funky opening track, here was combined with a song we'd heard in the pianist's opening set, Walters's own song "A Denser Roux," played instrumentally as the introduction. (Walters plays piano in the style of the New Orleans native he is, and writes songs that recall the humor of another Big Easy product, Randy Newman, crossed with Mose Allison; though the unannounced opening set was initially irritating because it was unexpected and meant I wouldn't be able to make it to another show I wanted to go to later, Walters won me over.)

The beautiful "I'll Take Care of You" (another from Home by Dawn) was accompanied only by piano until Navarro bowed one bass note under Walters's coda. Souther then told us that it was his mother's favorite song of his, and that he'd written it for his little sister. This led into a series of comments about his family, and how if he hadn't had a career in music, he might have become a teacher, but after getting tenure at some college, he probably would have gotten fired for "having an affair with a co-ed," so it was probably for the best that music had worked out for him. Then his love of classic jazz brought a fine rendition of Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'," with a Gershwin quote inserted by Walters in his solo.

We were returned to Souther's songs, and his more recent work, with "Journey Down the Nile," which he introduced as "a history lesson," but as has probably become clear by now, he was carefully and effectively alternating several strands -- favorites from his old albums, his Eagles co-writes, his comeback material, and jazz standards -- so of course a very familiar song came next: He introduced "Faithless Love" (another one from Black Rose) by noting, "This song just got its thirtieth recording." After listing a few of the others, he said, "I'm glad Linda made me finish this song." She'd walked in when he was halfway through, stuck figuring out how to get out of its "weird little bridge."

"For All We Know" -- the 1934 ballad by penned by J. Fred Coots and Sam M. Lewis and known through versions by Billie Holiday, June Christy, Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, etc., not the 1970s Carpenters song written by members of Bread -- returned him to the jazz vein he'd been mining so successfully tonight. Its lyrics (for example, "For all we know this may only be a dream / We come and go like a ripple on a stream / So love me tonight; tomorrow was made for some / Tomorrow may never come for all we know") fit snugly with the themes and moods of Souther's many own fine ballads, and his delivery was especially touching, the best of his jazz excursions this evening.

At its conclusion, he quoted Duke Ellington's famous quip, "There are only two kinds of music: good music, and the other kind." He then thanked us for listening to a set that was probably not what we'd been expecting , and talked in depth about his music education. There was a lot of jazz love in there; clearly the evening's setlist was not the result of some recent affectation. That's probably why his jazz singing is so good, and sounds so natural: it's been part of his soul for so long that he's not self-conscious about it and doesn't have to overthink it. Some fans might complain that the set didn't include "Prisoner in Disguise," "White Rhythm and Blues," "Silver Blue," "Trouble in Paradise," or even more Eagles songs than it already had. But hearing his distinctive voice unleashed on jazz favorites was not just a pleasant surprise, it was stunningly effective.

However, it was back to the '70s for the rest of the set. First came his biggest hit from his own albums, "You're Only Lonely" (from the 1979 LP of the same name). This was another example of welcome contrast with the polished production of the original leading to an impression of greater emotional depth. In particular, the '79 rendition's arrangement and style paid homage to Roy Orbison, but I prefer the less melodramatic approach he takes now, which sounds more sincere.

After a bravura finish to the set with another Eagles tune, "Heartache Tonight," sounding more aware of the tragedies portrayed than in Frey's vocal on The Long Run. After its conclusion and the well-earned enthusiastic applause that followed, Souther skipped the hollow formality of exiting and making us beg for more, instead declaring, "I don't wanna walk all the way back there. You wanna hear another song?" Of course we did. And not only did we get it, we got more amusing reminiscence: "I used to be a clarinetist. And a saxophonist, and a drummer. Then some damn fool left a guitar at my place. Now he's managing a drugstore in Texas. Shit happens."

After that bit of irreverence, he made a 180-degree turn and played the sweetest and best song from If the World Was You: "I'll Be Here at Closing Time." It's as good a song as anything from his long and productive career, aptly closing the show with a reminder that for all the famous old tunes, by himself and by jazz giants, he's not living in the past. He's reinvented himself with a new angle on the old tunes and with new tunes that both uphold and extend his legacy. - Steve Holtje

Blackness at the Edge of Night

Dusty Wright — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:39:42 +0000

Blackness at the Edge of Night Dusty Wright June 16, 2011 - 00:39

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Daniel Lanois's Black Dub

Webster Hall, NYC

Brian Blade is God! (Nod to Mr. Clapton's graffitti homage.) If there is a better drummer on the planet playing with a better touring band, I want to know about it right now. Last night at Webster Hall, Black Dub killed it. They wiped the floor of any and all bands playing any borough of New York City on this particular evening. And believe me, there was plenty of competition. But as we all know, competition for an audience's attention tends to bring out the best in musicians. And Lanois's insanely tight quartet was more than up to that task and at the peak of its collective prowess.

Back to Mr. Blade. It was during the transcendant version of "Ring the Alarm" -- off of the debut (watch live studio version below) -- that I flashed on a "what if." Besides being one of the greatest drum performances I've ever witnessed live -- and I've seen and played at least a thousand shows in every musical genre -- I was rendered speechless. His shoulders didn't move. He was all wrists and hands, a blur of activity that pushed time to a fourth dimension and then brought it back to our spacial place and time. Lanois looked as blown away as I was. And he gets to play with him every night.

But "what if..." What if Miles Davis were alive and gigging? Would he have snatched the aforementioned drummer knowing that he was heir to the Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, Lenny White legacy? Sure. I mean, Blade has done time with some heavies -- Wayne Shorter (a member of his quarter since 2000), Bill Frisell, Joni Mitchell, Dylan, and Mr. Lanois, to name but a few. On this particular night he could have replaced both Jack and Lenny on Bitches Brew. No doubt Mr. Shorter, who played on that seminal jazz fusion record, feels the same way. And one need only watch this Louisiana-born native live to grasp his superman jazz/roots-rock/funk/pop time-keeping chops.

If you follow my blog, you'll remember that I gushed about this band in November at their Bowery Ballroom show. I don't need to recap their set from last night, as it was nearly the same set as in November but even more dynamic. No doubt a product of playing together for the past eight months. And I was a bit harsh on my critique of their debut album, but damn if they don't extrapolate their songs in concert. It's like the epicenter of a detonated neutron bomb. The beauty of the silence in the space of each song that surrounds the explosion of sound from the instruments, harmony vocals included, that all four of these Black Dub warriors share with their audience is life changing.

Go see them now. Get right with God.

The Luminous Voice

Robert Cochrane — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 13:45:11 +0000

The Luminous Voice Robert Cochrane July 5, 2009 - 09:45

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Antony & the Johnsons

Manchester Opera House

4th July 2009

The foyer of Manchester's elderly and ornate Opera House is awash with a sense of polite anticipation. Its audience for this evening's performance is as eclectic a gathering as the event they have arrived for. If you didn't know, it would be hard to guess what unites, albeit briefly, this assemblage of souls. The occasional towering transvestite indicates an alternative twist, but there is no particular age group, and no apparent niche prevails.

What has brought them here for this second, and final night?

The posters reveal a monochrome shot of an androgynous face, whose right eye is accentuated by a starburst. The visage is Antony Hegarty's, an English-born singer/songwriter now resident in New York.

This is the most basic of facts, for he is that curious amalgam, a leftfield eccentric with mass appeal. Some people are born for a setting that befits their talent, but many never bask in such surroundings.

A few years ago Antony and the Johnsons played the tiny oven that is Manchester's Academy 3. It was a breathtaking performance, not because of spectacle and scale, but from the sheer physical presence that his voice commands. If a pin had been dropped that night you would have heard it, amongst the audience clutching their brimming plastic pints of beer, who usually chatter through the quietest moments of songs. They were reverential to the point of subservience.

The idea of this maverick talent filling a more opulent venue, and one that befitted his extraordinary gifts, seemed unlikely, but terribly unfair, but then the unlikely occurred.

He won the Mercury Music Prize in 2005, and this alerted the wider world to the best ever secret they'd be permitted to share.

Tonight as the lights turn a haunting kind of blue, that voice fills the gilt Rococo and brocade cavern of Manchester's Opera House. A bubbling warmth and sadness catches the audience; there is a divine, disembodied melancholia afoot. What resembles the remnants of an ice crystal is projected onto the stage, and the voice continues to soar with sublime subtlety and sadness.

Spectacle distracts the eye, and then, many minutes in, the source of this sound, awash with strings, emerges from out of the light, robed in white like a prophet, lunatic, or refugee. In what can only be described as a cross between a shroud and a surgical gown, the diva of the evening unleashes a soul-stroking sound.

The set continues to evolve: he is now emoting from within a green-hued palace of ice. Rarely has a talent been better served by a setting of such contextual sympathy. Antony is a talent from the margins, a freak from the fringe. A large man, tall and wide, who sings like an angel, his influences are revealed by his choice of cover star. The late, alluring Candy Darling, the Andy Warhol Superstar who died tragically young. His subject for a song, the comedy gross-fest that was Divine, the fat female impersonator who gained fame from eating dog crap on film. The wayward soul that was the tragically prematurely dead singer Donny Hathaway. Antony's icons are tarnished outsiders, brazen but beautiful, maligned and reviled, dysfunctional functionaries. His latest album, The Crying Light, reveals an elderly Japanese actor in full drag, and all his rickety grandeur.

As the lights turn red, he is supplanted into a briefly flickering suggestion of hell. Tonight he is not just a singer, the evening is a cross between a concert performance and a Soho art installation. At times the brevity is unbearably moving, and the occasional uneasy twisting of his hands can be unsettling, betraying an artist of grace, vulnerability, and underlying issues. The majesty of the lights, the lack of physical punctuation or distraction occasionally reveals the limits of intrinsic beauty. But as events teeter on the verge of implosion, he then pulls it back from the brink with a soaring melody, and a refined inflection of emotion.

He is an amalgam of ghosts -- Maria Callas meets Klaus Nomi. The only other performer who can harness a seemingly un-commercial talent into a concert hall setting is the thrilling but provocative Diamanda Galas, the extreme female counterpoint to Antony's quiet androgyny. That "I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy" has a mainstream appeal, or that his analogies of starfish and of being a beautiful woman, resonate with people beyond the confines of the experiences which bore them, is a fitting testament to the strength and artistry of Antony.

When the backdrop rises to reveal the Manchester Camerata, the source of his bed of strings, the illusion and artifice dissolves into something more spontaneous. A spell breaks and Antony becomes more of a flesh-and-blood person than the distant, disembodied entity of the previous hour. His playfulness is revealed and he seems more at home, relaxed and spontaneous, even sparing a thought for the loss of Mrs. Slocombe, the recently departed U.K. actress Mollie Sugden, dead in the same week as Michael Jackson.

Manchester International Festival is to be applauded for allowing such a unique moment to blossom. Mostly, such events merely re-package something you could have witnessed elsewhere. This was a unique evening, memorable and haunting, not least because of Paul Normandale's stupendously subtle lighting, a perfect visual accompaniment to the rarefied proceedings. Antony bowed out to a standing ovation, and the audience left with a profound sense of connection to a world that was not as theirs.

As the auditorium dwindled, a bearded man with an opera to sell, another unique event from this year's proceedings, Rufus Wainwright could be glimpsed slipping through the stage door. A touchingly perfect vignette to close a fabulous evening.