Projects In the Works, A Different Blog Post, A Couple Shows This Week

Check the blog every day and nothing changes. Walk away from it for a couple weeks and someone posts a comment on a piece from a few years ago, thanking you for your work. Never fails. 

I have been away from here for a while. I'm disappointed that I only came up with two damn posts in the month of July. Now it's almost mid-August. Then again, I have kept myself busy. I don't want to spill the beans yet but I'm working on a fairly lengthy piece for a local publication. It should be good. And it's something that has been in the works (i.e. in my head, germinating) for several months now. 

In the meantime, I wrote another piece for the Gullible Ear blog a few weeks ago. The entries on that site usually pick a quality song, which a lot of people don't know, and sing its praises. I decided to take the opposing track and grouse about the West Coast Pop Art Experimental band's cover of Frank Zappa's "Help, I'm a Rock." Yeah, it sounds convoluted trying to summarize it too. Regardless, check it out here. 

I have been checking out shows too. Last night, I got a little stoked as I was leaving work because I realized, I'm going to a rock show. And it won't be 90% over when I get there. The show took place at the Brillobox and featured Brooklyn's heavy Oneida, who were close friends and regular visitors to Pittsburgh about 20 years ago during the days of Rickety Thursdays at the 31st Street Pub. The show was long and loud, but I held out for the duration, even after three drinks. (They pour them tall there.) I paced myself with the hooch though, lest you wonder if I was irresponsible that way. 

Early this week, I barreled out of work over to Alphabet City to see the Devin Drobka Trio. I don't think I've been to that space at all this year, so I felt that, even though I know I'd be a little late in arriving, I'd still get there for most of the show.  A lot of great events have happened there over the last few months which I've missed mostly due to my work schedule or because of family things coming up. I was really itching to get back there.

Devin Drobka (above) has a few albums out on the label Shifting Paradigm. The first one I heard, Amaranth, came out in 2018 and included now-Pittsburgh resident Patrick Breiner blowing some wild tenor. I wanted to write about that, and a few other SP releases, here but never got around to it. 

In 2021, the label released Resorts, a piano trio album that is quite a change from what preceded it. The music from that album was what the trio played this past Wednesday in town. Matt Blair, who played piano on the album, appeared with Drobka. Jakob Heinemann (below) played bass, taking on the role that Aaron Darrell had on the album.

Listening to the album afterwards, I feel like I have a greater understanding of what the trio is trying to do. Three pieces on the album are called "Box Inventions," Numbers 1-3. All are inspired Johann Sebastian Bach (get it?) and all are pretty minimal and repetitive. In person, the group took one of these motifs and stretched it a little. Blair might play the same thing but Heinemann took liberties on top of it. And then Drobka himself, occasionally playing with one bare hand on the kit while the other tapped a cymbal with a sticks, or he alternated sticks with brushes. On record, it almost seems like the action and improvisation is happening with Drobka, while the others create the setting for him. 

That being said, I've only had one chance to check out the album, but I plan on digging into it further. Along with some other new stuff that I've been randomly pulling on the pile and exploring. 

In closing, the other things that's been keeping me busy is plotting and planning for my band, the Harry Von Zells. I was actually interviewed for a publication today (!), The Second Scene, a locally published but nationally recognized magazine of some repute. The band is also breaking in a new keyboard player. Now if only we can find some gigs.