Will the funeral be televised? Gil Scott-Heron RIP

Playing right now: Kirk Knuffke & Jesse Stacken - Orange Was the Color (SteepleChase) Last night as I was brushing my teeth, I had WJAS on in the bathroom and the CNN top-of-the--hour news came on. That's not the place you expect to hear this, but the final story was that Gil Scott-Heron died yesterday. "He was best known for his song 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.'" I wonder how many insomniac WJAS listeners know the piece, which might actually be considered a poem (and the newscaster might've actually said that. I can't remember). Kudos to that white bread news station for mentioning that. And Gil, may you finally find some peace. Thanks for what you created when you were here, too. You were so gifted and articulate from an early age. In high school, my friend Freya lent me a copy of Small Talk at 125th and Lenox Avenue which had the first version of "Revolution," accompanied only by conga drums. He was 20 goddam years old and already extremely deep and moving. Last year the New Yorker ran a great and rather lengthy piece on him. He was either on the mend from a crack addiction or still dealing with it, and his mind was still sharp and focused. Many people have riffed on the "revolution will not be televised" idea since then, saying that of course it will be televised because of the way mass media works these days. There will be extensive coverage and the history will be written before it happens. But the thing to remember is something that I saw Gil say on a PBS special about 20 years ago: What he meant was that the revolution was going to start "up here" [pointing to his head], which I take to mean you have to start with an idea and that the coverage is all secondary to that. Speaking of people who are still pretty sharp, Lee "Scratch" Perry has a new album out and here is my review of it from Blurt. I also reviewed the new album by Helado Negro right here.

Recent articles in other publications

Since my posts have been limited to about one a week lately, here are links to things I've been writing elsewhere. I filed a couple reviews with Blurt recently. Here's a review of the new Let's Wrestle album on Merge. Here's a new one by saxophonist Matana Roberts.

I just went to the JazzTimes website and my review of the Billy Bang/Bill Cole CD was featured on the first page as one of the teasers. If you scroll down to the bottom right of the page, you can see links to other things I've written for them recently. Here's a link to the latest Matthew Shipp album. Check out the rest on the page. Incidentally I saw on the main page that Bob Flanagan, the last surviving original member of the Four Freshman has died. Sigh. Bob, I don't know where my family would be without you. (True story. My folks were Freshman fans and two guys from the group actually showed up at a party at my Mom's house back in the day.)

See I have been writing. Now I should review that Lee "Scratch" Perry CD.

The Beatles take a hack song and make it better

I have this scenario in my mind that from 1963 to sometime in 1965, Brian Epstein or one of his mates that was close to the Beatles (Mal Evans, Derek Taylor) would lock John Lennon and Paul McCartney in a room, maybe with some speed or coffee as well as guitars, and say, "Lads, we need six new songs for the session tomorrow, right? The door will open when you've written them." There was plenty of pressure on them to produce in those early days. A lot of the early songs seem rather tossed off bits of fluff, but even in those throwaways, the Beatles managed to inject some catchy element that helped them rise above the slag heap of assembly line pop music from that era.

Last night I pulled out the UK version of A Hard Day's Night and listened to side two. For those who only know the CD version, this refers to the songs that did not appear in the film, which all follow "Can't Buy Me Love." Most of them are pretty simple fair, and maybe not the strongest in the Beatle catalog, but they're all pretty good.

"Anytime At All" rides on the strength of John's vocals: the passionate delivery in the chorus - not to mention the clever idea of Paul singing the higher second line and nothing else - and the way his voice drops down an octave in the version. Ringo really seems to be drive the band in the verses too. I don't think they ever played this song live but I can only imagine how strong it could have sounded if they really worked it out. This song was going through my head yesterday evening, which inspired me to put the record on in the first place.

"I'll Cry Instead" has very little not working in its favor. George's guitar line provides an excellent foundation, especially with that twangy response to the second line of each verse. Great extra percussion too - good ol' Ringo. The only thing that could be considered dubious is the line, "I've got a chip on my shoulder that's bigger than my feet." After the half-baked lines in "Anytime At All" ("There is nothing Iiiiiii won't do") at least this one has some wacky imagery to go with it.

"Things We Said Today" doesn't really qualify as assembly-line Beatles. This is one of Paul's strongest songs from that period, methinks. For a song played on acoustic guitars, this one's bridge really rocks. That way it descends so smoothly back into the verse after the middle eight reveals one of the reasons these guys could make a simple song so memorable. It's almost like a jazz hook, which they were hip to. They knew all about augmented chords and whether they got it from a Mel Bay book or from jazz records - probably the former - they knew how to incorporate it.

I always disliked "When I Get Home" until I read that John was trying to channel Wilson Pickett with it. Suddenly those "woah-ah woah IIIIIIIIII"s made more sense. The guitars in the verses because they slash hard on those 7th chords, and Paul goes down low on his bass which gives it something of a funk. That doesn't excuse the line "I'm gonna love her 'till the cows come" but it makes the whole song a little more listenable.

The side of the record ends with two songs that really shouldn't be considered in the assembly-line discussion, even if they came together that way. "You Can't Do That," as my wife has said a couple times, is like the Beatles in drag doing their best Shirelles for the accompanying vocals. Ringo again gives it extra punch with the cowbell. Also, I just noticed last night that the bridge doesn't rhyme in the traditional sense. "Green" and "seen" do, but they're in the middle of the line. Brillant, John, positively brilliant.

If you think too hard about how John borrowed Del Shannon's "Runaway" and turned it into "I'll Be Back," it can put a damper on the song. So don't. Besides, he tried to make it a waltz at first, as Anthology One proved, before realizing that he should play it natural. Those three-part harmonies are impeccable and it shows what playing together for - what was it at this point, five years? - can do for an act. The way John phrased the middle eight, not to mention the lyrical punch of it, also shows that he could toss off great ideas like they were nothing. I've always loved the major-to-minor switch that they pluck on the acoustic during the fade.

Several years ago while working at Pulp I got into a discussion with an intern about this very subject with the Beatles. She thought "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You" was written strictly to cash in on the teeny bopper crowd. She was right about it being a dumb song, but it does have a great major-minor chord change as the song moves on. And if they had only written better words for it, it could have been a lot better. As it stands, those "ahhhh oh"s are still pretty catchy.

More recently (well, maybe about two years ago), I ran into Celanie, the former intern, and she remembered having that talk where I explained how the Beatles weren't hacks. I had completely forgotten about it until she brought it up. But it was nice knowing that there was some info in all my hot air.

CD Review: Honey Ear Trio - Steampunk Serenade

Honey Ear Trio
Steampunk Serenade
(Foxhaven) http://www.foxhavenrecords.com/

The trio of Allison Miller (drums), Erik Lawrence (saxophones) and Rene Hart (bass) came together literally through the work of nature. When a volcano in Iceland erupted in April 2010, it prevented Miller (one of the busiest drummer in all music, not just jazz) from getting to a tour in Europe. She stitched some silver lining to those ash covered clouds and got her trio mates together for several weeks of practicing that lead up to these recordings. They have all worked together with trumpeter Steven Bernstein and keyboardist John Medeski. Individually, Miller has played with Marty Ehrlich, Natalie Merchant and Brandi Carlile; Hart has played bass with Branford Marsalis; and Lawrence has worked with everyone from Bob Dylan to Sonny Sharrock.

All that name dropping isn't excessive in this case since it reveals how wide the trio's scope of sound can be, and that is clear in the 13 tracks on Steampunk Serenade. It opens with "Matter of Time," a slow, big tenor ballad that evokes Sonny Rollins' trio work, or maybe even his predecessors like Ben Webster, thanks to Lawrence's big tone. Immediately after that, Miller's "Olney 60/30" takes the mood in a more frenetic direction. Hart's electronics in this track give his double-stops more of a distorted attack, while Lawrence - now on alto - seems at the brink of hysteria, prodded to Miller's skittery playing. This close-to-but-never-totally-boiling-over feeling works perfectly.

Miller gets that wild pulse going again in the coda of "Whistle Stop" but the group explores other avenues too. The title track begins with some dub-like loops before it settles into a vamp with Miller playing on the rims and constantly turning the downbeat on its ear. Hart's electronics and loops add strange, fourth member feelings to many tracks, the most unique being their take on "Over the Rainbow," where the melody actually moves in reverse until it comes to the bridge. By switching to baritone sax, Lawrence does his part to make this one of the most warped - and successful - facelifts of a song that gets ravaged too often. One of the tracks written by someone outside the trio comes from saxophonist Lisa Parrott, who has played with Miller and with DIVA. Her "Six Nettes" throws the band into a straight ahead, almost bop bag with a catchy call-and-response line that recalls Thelonious Monk's "Criss Cross." True to their methods, though, this ain't no ordinary bop and the trio pulls and twists the tempo as proof.

Lawrence pays homage to the volcano that made this session possible with "Eyjafjallajokull (Icelandic Volcano Hymn)" which sounds as reverant as its title, with the alto taking on more of a dusty quality. When looking at the consistant quality of this work, it was good to make such a gesture.

Vijay Iyer takes Pittsburgh

Vijay Iyer came to the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild last Friday and after his first show, I felt like I was ready to start a religion around the guy. That sounds a little extreme, but his performance was really that good, especially in light of the fact that, during his second show, he was playing on a piano with a broken string, giving the E-flat a certain buzz like a gamelan.

Traffic was absolutely ridiculous on the way to the North Side and we didn't get there until close to 7:30, half an hour after the first act started playing. (I found out later, all the back-ups were attributed to the NRA convention, a show at Stage AE and the general detours from the 31st Street Bridge closing). That was alright because the first group was fairly lightweight. Not bad musicians by any means but they were all about respect for the canon with little about putting forth an individual voice, except for the tenor player.

Iyer, on the other hand, had one of those magical touches that spoke legions with the way he played the first three notes, all very thoughtful and pensive. (He once wrote an essay for The Wire about a three-note combination that Cecil Taylor often used that sounded perfect in its simplicity. Methinks Iyer must have picked up on that idea.) He opened with "Helix" that begins sounding very wide open. Bassist Stephen Crump sounds very powerful on disc, so it was kind of off-putting at first to see his whole body really shake with every gentle note he played. It was the total opposite of what you expect from that sound. Usually a musician moves like that to make up for the lack of creativity in their playing. Not Crump. This adds to his playing. Marcus Gilmore also began in a unique way, playing with a brush in one hand and a mallet in the other. Throughout the night, he dropped a couple of sticks, but it didn't spoil the quality of his performance. In fact, he played with one stick for about two minutes in "Somewhere."

The second song sounded like a funk tune, and Iyer started playing reggae dub echo effects with the way he hit the notes. Yes, he was recreating a studio trick in real time. Ironically, this slice of funk and dub was a Bud Powell tune, "Coming Up."

One of the most impressive things about the group was how they could take an idea and build on it, even if it was simple progression of just a chord or two, and they developed in ways that didn't seem to rely on typical methods, like simply shifting dynamics or riffing. In fact, as far as riffing goes, they often seemed to get wobbly in terms of where the beats fell - but never in a way that put the music in danger of falling apart. Time was really elastic for them. Then it hit me that this might've been something that Iyer picked up from Steve Coleman, who really has played with ideas and approaches to rhythm.

The second show opened with that buzzing from the broken string and that set things in the direction of adventure. The opening piece began very freely with some wild bowed bass and flowing movement from the trio. Iyer also mixed up the set list a great deal, instead of just repeating what he played in the first show. They played a moving version of "Abundance," which he recorded with another group (guitarist Prasanna and tablaist Nitin Mitta on Tirtha), as well as Michael Jackson's "Human Nature," which he recorded on Solo last year, and which really went all over the place, he later explained, because of the string problem.

I was also happy to hear Andrew Hill's "Smoke Stack" another tune from Historicity because Iyer played the theme so rapidly and because the piano gets a little lost in the original since Hill used two bass players at that session, which made it a little muddled.

The second show didn't wrap up until about midnight, or a little after. I went home exhaused that night. Happy, but beat.

CD Review - Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble - The Prairie Prophet

Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble
The Prairie Prophet
(Delmark) http://www.delmark.com/

One of the best things about musicians associated with the AACM is that they don't limit themselves to one style of music. The Art Ensemble of Chicago might have a corner on the phrase, "Great black music, from the Ancient to the Future," but many of their peers and elders seem to feel the same way. Of course, when Sun Ra lived in Chicago, he had no qualms with jumping from big band swing to outer space free improvisation, and the Art Ensemble could likewise go from space to gutbucket R&B. Saxophonist Ernest Dawkins is the same way, knowing that playing changes over 4/4 isn't passe as long as you're pushing forward with the music instead of merely replicating your heroes. The Prairie Prophet succeeds because it gracefully goes from serious post-bop to the most rollicking of free excursions, and this group knows how to handle both.

The album is dedicated to the late Fred Anderson, who lead by example with his far-ranging music, as well as his humility and the way he supported other musicians in Chicago. (Since he passed last summer, there have been many tributes to him, and expect to see more.) "Hymn for a Hip King" is a nod towards Anderson (and, Dawkins says, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X) and it begins the set with a bright waltz. Marquis Hill plays a flugelhorn solo marked by a serious of staccato figures, while Dawkins - on alto - sounds tough. Drummer Isaiah Spencer gets a little wild for such a straight ahead piece, but he never gets in the way.

The 12-minute "Sketches," follows with a complete about-face. The loose theme recalls both the writing of the Art Ensemble and, in the bridge, Grachan Moncur III. Shaun Johnson (trumpet) and Steve Berry (trombone) solo with spirit, the latter accompanied by Dawkins blowing both alto and tenor simultaneously. Things only get wilder during Jeff Parker's skronking, channel-shifting solo. Dawkins clearly loves to play with dynamics, and he follows this wild track with "Balladesque," a succinct two-minute piece that doesn't need any more than a strong statement that lives up to its name.

The rest of the album keeps the spirit going. "Shades of the Prairie Prophet" starts off free and tumbling, only to switch to a Mingus boogie, five minutes in. "Mal-Lester," despite its questionable title, pays homage to Messrs. Favors and Bowie. "Baghdad Boogie" has a groovy vamp with a repetition of the title that recalls Sun Ra. Towards the end, Dawkins gets on the mike for a well-spoken political testimony about the war and its effect on youth.

Too often jazz musicians make CDs that mindlessly bow down to the legacy of this music, and they don't attempt to reveal anything unique about their own identity. (How many tribute albums to the same few popular legends do we need?) Sometimes players who fit the description of free jazz musicians or avant garde get dismissed because they don't appear to have an affinity for the past. It'd be easy to go on a rant here about listeners being afraid of new directions in music, but the point is - Dawkins proves that there isn't a disconnect between any of this music. With the right amount of focus and devotion, you can have it both ways.

It makes me regret missing his Pittsburgh appearance last summer.

CD Review: Kermit Driscoll - Reveille

Kermit Driscoll
Reveille
(19/8) http://www.nineteeneight.com/

A few months ago I got a copy of Miles Davis' Live at the Fillmore East (March 7, 1970) CD. One of the more intriguing aspects of the performance is that Miles was opening a bill that included the Steve Miller Band and Neil Young & Crazy Horse. What did the counterculture cats at the Fillmore think of this band, which was playing some of the most seering music of Davis' whole career? Were they out getting high before their bands came on or were they in their seats getting their minds blown?

I mention this because I wondered, during second half of "Thank You," what would happen if Kermit Driscoll's quartet wound up on a bill ata place like Philadelphia's Theater of Arts, opening for, let's say, Arcade Fire. (I was trying to come up with a popular band that draws open-minded listeners.) The song is fairly subdued, based on a steady riff. Then around 3:30, Bill Frisell kicks on the distortion and tears it up like no one else can. Drummer Vinnie Colaiuta starts to go off as well, and things fall apart beautifully. Instead of going back to restate the head, bassist Driscoll opts to end the tune there. Smart thinking.

I could see the hipsters in the audience being skeptical of these 50-somethings (although pianist Kris Davis is a bit younger) because they're ageist, quite often. But when they find out these guys can shred better than most guys half their age, it can change some minds.

It can also make you wonder if this music can be considered jazz.

Actually I go through this mental process a few times a year, when an album comes out that's really strong and is somehow tied to jazz (the players' past affiliations or a cover tune, usually) but really sounds like it exists in its own universe. Chris Potter, Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa are names to spring to mind at the moment as people who elicit this response. Driscoll, the bassist probably best known for his work in Frisell's band, has done the same thing on Revielle, his first even album as a leader.

Not all of the album falls into the same rocking category as "Thank You," although their reading of Joe Zawinul's Peter-Gunn-with-a-club-foot groove "Great Expectations" (first heard on Miles' Big Fun) ups the ante even further. In fact some of the songs have something of a country feel to them. "Boomstatz" combines that country twang with a little bit of funk, over a harmonic format that takes some great left turns, especially with the vamp in the bridge. "Farm Life," which Driscoll wrote two decades ago, also has an Americana vibe thanks to some crisp guitar work. The pastoral feeling continues with "Martin Sklar," one of the few pieces where the leader gives himself some time in the spotlight.

Take all these tunes together with the traditional "Chicken Reel" (a tune that will be remembered by anyone who knows Warner Brothers cartoons) and much of the album might seem like a balance between Americana and electric jazz. But Driscoll has some tricks up his sleeve, like Davis' use of prepared piano in "Ire" and her liberties with tempo in "Hekete" which concludes with another bright Frisell melody.

So maybe this band isn't exactly equipped to open for the Arcade Fire. I'd still like to see it happen. A crazy billing like that could have some serious reverberations.

Remembering Billy Bang

As I was getting ready to leave the house on Saturday to go to Paul's CDs (see previous post), my friend Toby texted me, telling me that Billy Bang had died. I knew he had been sick for a while, but the timing was especially telling because I had just filed a review to JazzTimes of a new album he released with double-reed maestro Bill Cole. He died on April 11 at age 63. Lung cancer was the cause.

I got to see Billy perform twice. The first time happened in 2000, when he, the late tenor saxophonist Frank Lowe and drummer Abbey Rader played at a lecture hall at Pitt. (Local musician Bob Wagner wrote a great column that ran in the Post-Gazette about this show. It's well worth looking up.) That show was very low key, and even got delayed when Bang broke a string, 10 seconds into the first song, and he had to stop to repair it. Specifics about that show are foggy now, but I do remember thinking how happy Rader looked as he played, swinging hard and free, alternately. Frank Lowe, who seemed a little frail and passed away a few years after that, sounded good, nonetheless. I had one album of his that I didn't think was all that good and that night I realized that while Lowe might not have a whole lot of technique he really knew how to use what he had and it made his performance strong. Bang avoided scrapey, screechy free violin sounds and kept things on the melodic side.

Bang returned to Pittsburgh in 2008 with a group called the Aftermath Band, playing music from his two Viet Nam albums. By that time, his star was shining, based on the fact that he was not only able to come to terms with the effects of service in the Viet Nam war, but also because he channeled that experience into two compelling albums. The group included alto saxophonist James Spaulding (who I've always dug) and trumpeter Ted Daniel, as well as some slightly younger players.

It was a pretty moving show, in part because it fell right around the time of Veteran's Day, which emcee Chris Moore spoke a bit about that at the beginning of the show. Between sets, they screened some rough footage of Bang on a visit back to the forests where he served during the war. There was one particular scene, where Bang - who up until this point has been pretty reserved and strong - tells the crew to shut off the cameras because the experience is getting too intense for him. When someone that proud reaches a level like that, you know they aren't bullshitting you, and it can give you a great amount of empathy for what he went through (several decades of darkness) before he could really cope with those experiences. I only hope he felt a sense of peace and musical fulfillment in his final days.

But that's the background. He'd probably prefer for folks to check out the music too. The JazzTimes obit mentions Don Cherry and David Murray as collaborators. He also recorded with Marilyn Crispell and played with Sun Ra. Check out what you can by him, it's all fascinating.

One final thought from the second Bang show (organized by Kente Arts Alliance and presented at the Kelly-Strayhorn, FYI), when the band brought down the last tune of the evening, there was something magical about the final chord. It jolted me out of my seat and gave me a big sense of energy. Not sure what it was, but I loved it.

Thanks, Billy.

What's up with that?

Everyday, the review of the Bizingas CD that I posted in January gets a spam comment that's written in some language made up of symbols that I can't read. Blogger deletes it for me so I don't have to do it myself or delude myself into thinking I'm getting more hits than I have. But still - what's in that review that generates it?

National Record Store Day - A Recap

I worked all weekend, and yesterday and today are my days to watch the kid alone. (He's on Spring Break this week.) So only now am I finding time to catch up for recent events.

National Record Store Day started in Pittsburgh at 12:01 a.m. Saturday morning (Friday night, in other words). Technically it started in Millvale because that's where the Attic is located, and that store is the one that opened early. I figured there'd be a few vinyl freaks hovering outside the door before the joint opened. Little did I know that a queue would be forming that snaked around the corner by the time the doors swung open. Most of the people in line looked like they were in their 20s, and it wasn't dudes either. There were several dames who had a vested interest in the music. Looks like the love of vinyl skipped a generation and is coming back in full force.

The aisles in the Attic are pretty narrow so it got claustrophobic immediately. I made a beeline back to their jazz section because the store was offering 10% off of their regular inventory, and I figured that section would be easy to maneuver. Eventually I checked out some of the Record Store Day boxes of goodies and when I got up in line, my buddy Stripey (who works with me when he's not working at the Attic) told me about the Velvet Underground single that was available. Even though I have the two songs already ("Foggy Notion" b/w "I Can't Stand It"), I felt like I needed to purchase a couple RSD specials. I decided against the Beach Boys 78 of "Good Vibrations" & "Heroes & Villains," knowing that even if the record was thick enough for my Victrola to play it, it'd still rip right through the vinyl. (I still don't have a good needle for my turntable that has 78.) Oh yeah - it was $15 too.

Total take for the night:
Velvet Underground 45
Television, live double album from San Francisco 1978 (which I knew was worth it 5 minutes into it)
Lee Konitz - Inside Hi-Fi (black label Atlantic, a little scratchy but still great)
Chico Hamilton - Ellington Suite (still there 2 years after I first saw it, so I had too)

The next morning, I stopped at Paul's CDs on the way into work. They too had a line, though it wasn't as long. It was a little easier to move around, but again I wasn't interested in waiting in line at the counter to check out the 45s. I picked up Mates of State's Team Boo (on red vinyl) wondering the whole time if it's the one album of theirs I have on CD (it isn't) and Destroyer's new Kaputt not because it was a RSD item but because it's intrigued me since the day the guys at Paul's played it for me and made fun of it so bad that I decided not to buy it. (I can be easily swayed with these things.) I hope to talk soon about that album in this space.

I have to say it was really encouraged to see how polite the vinyl freaks were through this whole thing. Indie hipsters often tend to me be socially inept, no sooner saying "Excuse me" than buying Hannah Montana CDs, but everyone I encountered seemed nice. At Paul's, one cat even let me cut ahead of him in line after we chatted about our finds. See - vinyl does cure everything!

Watt Makes a Man Start Fires

It’s been a week since City Paper ran my “5 Questions with Mike Watt” piece but when it did, I still thought there was a lot of good comments that stayed on the cutting room floor. Here’s pretty much the whole conversation, which took place as he was driving in his van to the twelfth of 51 gigs on the tour and as I was whacked out on Novocain on half my face. Watt was in a great mood and at the points where “laughs” is indicated, it was typically a hearty guffaw.

What’s up with your knee?

It was at a Stooges gig in France, near Marseilles [in July 2010]. Last note of the first song, “Raw Power.” And I just turned wrong. It’s healing very slow. But I keep pushing. Gig number 12 tonight in Gainesville. 51 in 52 days. So I try to look beyond my middle-aged physical shortcomings. What can I do? I can work my fingers, though. It is difficult in a way, ’cause I want my whole body to express this third opera.

You’ve always kept going despite injuries. I remember a fIREHOSE show where your head was bandaged up because the van caught on fire.

I just try to keep perspective, Michael. For all the lame shit there’s some good shit. So I try to — [laughs] — be occupied with that and not let the other things get me down too much. Everybody has some lame stuff or circumstances. A farmer would tell you, to get a good crop, use a lotta manure!

Do you think you got that ability to keep going from your dad?

Oh yeah. I think so. Coming from working people. I think also [I got it from] the early punk scene, which was not very popular. We built a kind of self-reliant, us guys in our own band and the bands in our scene. Black Flag, the Huskers, Meat Puppets. The guys putting on the gigs. And the fanzines. It was like a parallel universe. I guess I have a huge debt to the movement. And, yeah, going back too before that with my Pop. If you weren’t into it, it wasn’t gonna get done. OK – it’s the reality on the dealio. It is interesting how in a way – there’s no choice but in a way it’s a lot about choice. It’s a weird duality.

Well it’s about making a choice and sticking to it through the thick and thin.

I guess it gets kinda like an existential [thing]. On the other hand, I kind of believe the knowing is in the doing! Instead of just thinking about it, you’re actually working on it. To make it happen, whatever that is! [Laughs]

You’re finding out what will happen instead of wondering.

Or just sitting in the coffee shop just talking about it. I’d rather be in the practice pad with my guys getting a thing ready. I’m all into talking and ideas and all this, but there’s something about acting on stuff. That’s where the whole idea of jam econo comes. You don’t let those material short comings keep it just [in the] spiel stage. Try to make it happen. Like a skater. When you fall down, get back on the board. You can’t really talk your way out of it.

You’ve spent the greater part of the last 30 years on the road, getting in a van and driving across the country. How do you still stand all that driving and squalid existence?

You can say a lot of things about the US and Canada – ‘cuz Canada’s on this tour too. They are big. That means you gotta roll some. At the same time, it’s kind of interesting: People take time off and spend money on vacations to do stuff like this and travel around. We realized this from the early tours. There is the B word burden but there’s also this O word opportunity where all these different paths… I just have this opinion – it’s kind of the bottom line of the third opera: Everybody’s got something to teach you. So it’s neat going to all the towns, all the different regions, all the different ways people cook up their chow. There’s bayou, there’s mountain, there’s river, there’s sand. I guess, again – this perspective idea. Having five starving children and working in a salt mine might be a little more tough. [Laughs] But I know what you mean, Michael, I know what you mean. I just weigh it all out and look at the net thing and think it’s happening. It’s kinda like my Pop – sailor’s life. Isn’t that trippy I almost ended up being like my Pop. Or I am. It’s kinda.. different… That’s the interesting thing about getting into the middle years. Because in the 20s you knew everything! And that’s what this third opera’s about too — things like that which you just mentioned. I never had children so I’m kind of the opinion where maybe these recorded works are like my children. They’ll be here after I’m gone. We never thought about that when we were younger. It was more like they were flyers for the gigs. I look at it as having their own little lives.

I was fascinated to see that the new album was influenced by Hieronymus Bosch. The thing I like about your work is that on one hand you’ve got the working class roots, but then you’ve got Dante and Bosch influencing your work.

Yeah, yeah. And [James] Joyce… The people I met in the ’70s punk scene, they weren’t from Pedro. They were painters and artist people. D Boon was a painter, although we didn’t know much about the culture of it. These people we met really [were] trippy people that knew about art stuff and intellectual stuff and had big influence on us. Which you might not imagine with punk, because it became more of a thing for younger people. But the first punk was actually people from literary, glam and art people. I think people got lost on that because it moved to the suburbs in the early ’80s with hardcore and it’s kind of a lot different. But that’s ok. That’s why I’m kind of a weird mixture.

So about Bosch, every track on the new album represents…

One of his creatures. Little men. I was kind fascinated as boy. In the encyclopedia, I saw him. I was into dinosaurs and astronauts too. [Laughs] It was just so freaky, you know. I actually got to see the real ones in Spain. There’s eight of them in the Museo del Prado in Madrid that was really trippy. Wow. More strong than a picture in an encyclopedia. It just reminded me of ….in the Minutemen we used to use all the little things to make one thing. I think that’s what he did. His pictures are made of lots of little pictures. So that gave me idea for the mechanical part of the third opera. Also [the album has] this thing about the Wizard of Oz. Because the Lion, the Scarecrow and the Tinman are kind of put-together men. The whole thing may seem like Dorothy tripping on what men do to be men. Which I think is a middle-aged kind of pondering a little bit. So that’s all the nature of Hypenated-Man.

In “Pinned-to-the-Table-Man,” where you’re saying, “Be brave, Watt,” is that you talking to yourself or is that supposed to be another character?

That was going to be the only instrumental. I was in Russia with the Stooges and I thought I should use words with every one of these parts. What had happened was, that was one change I came up with — that spiel and hooked it on to there. But I had to make it the middle of the record, ’cause I had taken the middle song, “Wheel-Bound-Man,” and put it on the end. I was going to end the thing with “Man-Shitting-Man,” but it was too down.

Yeah, that one’s heavy.

I kind of got caught up in the Bosch big picture, which I didn’t want to do. I only wanted him to help me with the little stuff. I didn’t like that last judgment, [laughs] but I got caught up in it. So I was in the studio with Tony [Maimone, ex-Pere Ubu bassist who recorded and mixed the album] just ready to finish and I said, Man, Tony, this is wrong. Let’s put the middle one on the end. So those were the two changes I made from how I wrote it. That’s trippy you picked up on that. I never used the word “I” until the very end. There’s one place in the beginning where I use “I” in quotes but the whole thing is supposed to be me thinking out loud and confronting myself. Without being too much of a drama queen. [Laughs] No, it’s existential. It’s getting back to that again. Yeah, yeah. I think it’s ok to ask these kinds of questions. There’s some shit I can’t reconcile like “Man-Shitting-Man.” Humans can be very fucked up with each other. Another thing …there comes — a peace, a weird harmony. You can figure out and not be co-opted or be deluded. I think that’s part of the journey of a life. The middle years are trippy. That’s why I wanted to write about it. I never really thought about them when I was a youngin’.

Was it a challenge going back to writing short songs after not doing it for awhile?

Yeah, yeah, it was. I did it on D. Boon’s Telecaster. I was a little afraid. I normally write the bass second. You know…sometimes you just don’t want to do it easy. Like most times! It’s a hard fucker to play in front of people there’s a lot of stuff to remember. It’s like one big baby with all these things. But it’s okay. I can look in the mirror and say, “Yeah, Watt, you’re still learning how to be a bass player.”

You put Hyphenated-Man out yourself, right? [It’s on the Clenchedwrench label.]

That’s right.

First time since the New Alliance days? [The label that he created during the Minutemen, which also released Husker Du’s Land Speed Record.]

Exactly. You know it, Mike. I got a lot of projects in the pipeline and I figure they’re going to come every couple of months. I won’t have to do any kind of dance. It’ll happen ’cause I want it to happen like in the old days. The more things change the more they stay the same sometimes.

You mean with record labels?

Yeah and the internet. Big labels don’t really mean that much really. They don’t mean anything.

So was your deal with Columbia up?

Yeah, after the second opera. You can’t do 12 or 13 things in the pipeline. You’ve gotta do one thing every couple of years. And…I might not have enough time. [Laughs] That’s another thing about the middle years – a little more earnest.

Weekend of Rock

Just wrapped up a weekend in rock, with three very different definitions therein. Friday night, the Harlan Twins played at the Thunderbird Cafe. A few other bands played too but I just barely made it to see these guys, due to an ill, slightly shaken up child.

The Harlans are in a transition period, having lost original bassist Jules several months ago, and keyboardist Paul more recently. Both of those guys have big personalities and chops to match so it's safe to say they have big shows to fill. Rob, the new bass player, is clearly a really good musician. (Plus I think he was noodling on a section of "It's About That Time" from In a Silent Way as they were starting.) Greg, the new keyboardist also seems like he's a really good player, and he sings back-up a good deal too. But at the same time, this lineup is still coming together, and will change again once Neal the drummer flies the coop in a few months. What it all means is that the Harlan Twins put on a really, really good show. I've seen them and had my faith in music and life restored on a couple of occasions. Friday night wasn't one of those nights, but they were still great. Plus, I got to play tambourine on a song.

The next night was the hotly anticipated (by me at least) Question Mark & the Mysterians show at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater. Once again, child duty made me fashionably late, and I completely missed the screening of The TAMI Show. I saw it once during high school, at the good old Pittsburgh Filmmakers screening room on Oakland Avenue. (Let me tell ya kid, those were the days.... But that's another story.) So I wasn't too heartbroken about that.

At about 9:20, the curtain opened and Terry Lee was there to introduce the band. It's always interesting to see what a '60s band looks like all these years later. Do they try to maintain their old look? Do they just stop grooming themselves? Do they just look like old guys who just happen to play music? The answer for the Mysterians was a little bit of all of that. Bobby Baldarrama looked the sharpest - in a suit with his ? t-shirt on under his jacket. He was an amazing guitarist too, playing through a little 12-inch speaker and pulling out strong blues licks like they were nothing. Little Frankie Rodriguez looked kind of like a grandpa, plopped down behind a rack with two keyboards, neither of them a Vox Continental or Farfisa. (One was a Korg.) Frank Lugo (bass) looked older, with a buzz cut, but he had a John Entwistle thing going, barely moving but holding up the sound with his instrument. Drummer Robert Martinez had a banner draped over the front of his drum kit so you couldn't see it. After about four songs, I realized you couldn't see the outline of a kick drum underneath it. Add to that the fact that the drums sounded really ... uh, produced, and I gathered that he was probably being electronic drums, aside from his cymbals and snare.

Then, out came Q. Cowboy hat? Check. Shades? Check - Need you ask? Black shiny slacks? Check. Fringed top, opened all the way down the middle, with gold spangles all over it? Sounds crazy, but yep. That was him. On a lesser person, it'd look like some sort of Vegas get-up, but Q made it work.

And work he did. He worked the crowd up. He got the band working, turning out pretty solid grooves. And he danced. Every song ended with him at the front of the stage, arms aloft.

The thing that messed up the show for a lot of people wasn't the shaky ground in covers like "Be My Baby," where the band wasn't sure which vamp to play. It was the damn strobe light at the back of the stage, which the band's manager was regularly walking backstage to program. That's right, walking back there in plain site, and turning the four-panel light on for some dizzying effect. Maybe fans had better constitutions in the '60s, but everyone I talked to hated that. No wonder Q always wears shades.

The Mysterians took it down a notch with a version of "That's How Strong My Love Is" and it proved that Q knows his way around a ballad. This one was going to be on their third album, which was never released (and included backing vocals by the Raylettes). By and large the best moments of the set came during songs from their original albums. Along with "Be My Baby," "Stand By Me" didn't come off too well, mainly because the drum fills were more hard rock than soul.

When it came time for "96 Tears," everyone in the audience stood. And during a slight reprise as an encore, it could've been a new song, since it sounded so tight.

********************************

Sunday night, Mike Watt sold out the Brillobox. In a way, that shouldn't be too surprising since he's been at it for so long, and there are tons of guys who will walk up to him and gush, before and after the show.

He played his new rock opera in its entirety, Hyphenated Man, all 30 songs of it. And it does indeed have the feel of a Minutemen set, all taut and kind of funky, with a little bit of scratchy guitar and divebombing bass. But it's not a throwback. It's just digging into the same thought process.

I'm thinking of posting the entire interview I did with Watt for City Paper since only 250 words of it got into the article. (I need to post a link to the Question Mark article as well.) The bass man had some pretty illuminating thoughts on his career as a musician and his ability to keep it going now.

Back to the show. There's something to be said for playing the same set, night after night. It makes your band incredibly tight. You get comfortable with the music, comfortable with each other, so when you're in a new room, you can just plow ahead and know that everyone's in it together. And Watt and the Missing Men did that on Sunday. Rarely can a guy keep a whole room of people quiet, and he did that during the spoken intro to "Pinned to the Table Man." We all stood there in rapt attention. There wasn't even some loudmouth joker who felt the need to chime in.

Encores: Red Krayola's "The Conspirators," the Pop Group's "Amnesty Report" (they were a big influence on Watt, who covered "We Are Time" on a previous tour), both sung by guitarist Tom Watson (once a member of Slovenly). Plus a slew of Minutemen tunes, done right. "Toadies," "Black Sheep," "The Glory of Man" (with Tom dancing like D. Boon during the drum break) and "Anxious Mo-Fo" with Watt taking vocals back from Tom, who did the others. The last one had a great dynamics drop for the guitar solo. Quiet as a mouse.

After all that, I had to stay home last night.

Charlie Parker Never Gets Old

Last week I lucked into a used copy of the Charlie Parker 8-disc set that combines everything he recorded for Savoy and Dial, along with a few stray other records (like one non-Dean Benedetti amatuer performance at a party). I own some of these sides on vinyl already - the double-album Savoy masters and a double set overview of the Dial sessions. I've always been on the lookout for the set of alternates of Savoy, which I think is called Encores. But really, I needed to have this set.

In this format.

Oddly enough, I feel like I know the Verve stuff better than I know these ones.Some of those later Verve sessions have career-defining tracks, like "Confirmation," "Kim" and "Au Privave." But he was really in his prime from 1944-48, the scope of this box set. Bebop was really starting to congeal at that point, and by presenting the sessions in chronological order - where the catalogs of both labels overlap - you get a good feel for how it happened.

And the booklet - surprise! - offers some really good insight into that. First, there's the whole existential angle: Part of the reason that Bird wrote these songs over the changes of popular songs had as much to do with his creativity as it had to do with the label guys not wanting to pay royalties to Gershwin and Jerome Kern for their songs. It also points out how his quintet with Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter and Max Roach sounded so solid because they actually spent a lot of time playing together, mostly on the road. Not to downplay the greatness of the "Relaxin' at Camarillo" session which features Dodo Mamarosa, but the quintet session feels like they are on a similar, if not the same, wavelength.

I still have about one and a half CDs to get through of the set and I'm still not tired of hearing Parker blow over blues changes or "I Got Rhythm" changes. I'm even digging all the alternate takes. He always has something new to say each time. I realize I'm not saying something that hasn't been said before umpteen times. But I think his unique creative sense, coupled with the format in which he recorded all of these songs - which was limited to about three minutes so it'd fit on a 78 - makes it easier to get into four takes of "Constellation," while four takes of Wynton Kelly playing a six-minute song on a Mosaic set feels excessive.

While reading the booklet I had to wonder if it's possible to trace Bird's life - at least down to a weekly level - between all of the professional recordings he made, coupled with all the non-legitimate ones too. There are so many albums of him playing with pick-up bands in different cities too. So it'd be interesting to try. I'm not ready to invest in the Benedetti set, though.

Unless it turns up used.

Formatting is Everything

Jiminy crap, I've just spent the last 30 minutes re-formatting the last two CD reviews. I can't tell if I learned something or if I'm just frustrated with it all. I'm listening to the Charlie Parker Savoy/Dial set right now. I kind of don't like hearing it all float by as I listen with half an ear.

CD Review - Endangered Blood

Endangered Blood

(Skirl)

Little did this writer know that Skirl, the label whose CDs come in an oversized, 5"X8" soft-cover sleeves with designs by Karlssonwilkner, is run by saxophonist Chris Speed. The label has released several impressive albums, including Ches Smith's These Arches (see my 11/24/10 entry), Mary Halvorson & Jessica Pavone and drummer Ben Perowsky. Endangered Blood features the horn and compositions of the label boss in the company of drummer Jim Black (his co-hort from different projects including Tim Berne's Bloodcount), bassist Trevor Dunn (John Zorn, Mr. Bungle) and alto saxophonist/bass clarinetist Oscar Noriega (Berne's new Los Totopos, Lee Konitz).

It's the kind of album that sounds infectious from the start, even as it uses the sense of adventure that these guys always display. Speed and Noriega play in unison in "Plunge," and the melody sounds something that wouldn't have been out of place on a '50s West Coast session, or something by Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh. Underneath them, Dunn plays the 7/4 rhythm, which nevertheless turns into a funky, double-stop groove. In a clever move between sax solos, Dunn takes a solo and Speed comps behind him, which twists the sound perspective.

The horns-in-rhythm-section thought continues in "Rare," with Noriega's bass clarinet playing the rhythmic arpeggios of the changes in the theme. After that is established, most of the song consists of a thick low-end long tone groove by both horns, that becomes a springboard for a Speed solo which builds with the dynamics without the need to boil over into wails. His sense of economy - not to mention all the writing with the group - makes me feel like I need to keep better track of Speed's activities.

There must be something about Monk's "Epistrophy" that inspires people to play it in 7/8. Ravi Coltrane and Vijay Iyer both did it in the past couple years and Endangered Blood does it here too. This isn't a criticism though, because they take it at a slinky, Monk-like pace with Noriega again on bass clarinet. Plus it gives Black a chance stretch out and swing wildly.

It's tempting to continue going through the album track by track, as each one has plenty of things worth endorsing. But that would make this review too heavy-handed. So an overview is in order. A few songs have unison horn lineslike "Rare," but that never makes things seem pedestrian. The way Speed and Noriega play them seems like that was their plan. The riff of "Elvin Lisbon" sounds like an exercise brought to life by some great Black cracks on the snare. "K" shows they can pull of ballad approach. "Iris" could be a Tin Pan Alley melody, complete with slinky bowed bass. Finally, "Tacos at Oscar's" offers a delicious taste of freedom with Black leading the way.

Endangered Blood - which came together in 2008 as the Benefit Band, to play a benefit for a friend's cancer treatment, which probably accounts for the name - has produced one of the first albums of 2011 that deserves to be remembered on Year End lists. Hopefully I'm not alone in that belief.

But Chris, I know I've said this before but please do something about the point size of the credits.

CD Review: Weasel Walter/Mary Halvorson/Peter Evans - Electric Fruit

Weasel Walter/ Mary Halvorson/ Peter Evans

Electric Fruit

(Thirsty Ear) www.thirstyear.com

Talk about a meeting of the minds. Drummer Weasel Walter has riled up listeners by playing strong, wild jazz and abrasive metal, sometimes under the same band name. The best known of his units is likely the Flying Luttenbachers. Guitarist Mary Halvorson hasn't been playing as long as Walter but over the past eight or nine years she's developed a stellar reputation for the work of her trio and quintet, in addition to appearances with Anthony Braxton and other reputable collaborators. Peter Evans' trumpet plays a crucial role in the sound of Mostly Other People Do the Killing and he's on his way towards amassing a resume as long and as solid as his co-horts here.

Electric Fruit begins in a way that proves this music won't be a gentle ride or one that's lacking in forward movement. All of these pieces sound spontaneous, with only a few discernible melodies bubbling to the surface. Most of the time they throw ideas at each other that either embellished or stomped on. Evans begins "Mangosteen 3000 A.D." with some squeaks that might send you to the credits to double-check that no reeds were used on the album. Walter joins him with some percussive clatter and splats. Halvorson begins playing it clean and thoughtful, as if she'll play the straight member of the trio, in contrast to these two hams. Four minutes later though, she's kicked on the distortion and starts using the wobbly effect that's become her calling card. It might be a whammy bar, but the sound envelopes the whole guitar so clearly that it's more likely some sort of pedal that bends the pitches. The effect is similar to a wah-wah pedal in that it can make everything start to sound the same before long, and after her last album, it's started to come off like a parlor trick. But for some reason Electric Fruit helped it to start growing on me. Maybe context is everything.

Walter can be one of the most spastic drummers on the planet, and the 15-minute tour de force "Yantok Salak Kapok" includes a skittery drum solo that proves that point. As much as it seems like he enjoys being abrasive and unsettling (see various pieces of the Luttenbachers' catalog) these frenetic performances are more likely to inspire wails of approval. His technique and sense of how to respond to Evans and Halvorson show how open his ears are.

Evans seems to draw on the whole history of jazz trumpet, even if some chapters only last a few phrases. "The Pseudo Carp Walks Among Us" (yes, all five tracks have goofy titles, which says a lot about these three) begins with an unaccompanied solo that purees bebop and '60 freedom with rapid lines and half-valve bends. It doesn't last more than a minute but it gives a greater appreciation for Evans' depth. In "Yantok" he sticks in the mute for some mutant Miles lines that sound delightful amongst the percussion and guitar skronk.

To put it another way, Walter, Halvorson and Evans sound like they're having a blast, and the feeling should be contagious to anyone with open ears.

Responsibility

Playing right now: The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls In America
(Not sure how I feel about this one. I keep imagining a sea of baseball caps.)

While standing around at work today, I was thinking it'd be a nice night to go out to get a drink. Yesterday, I filed my Question Mark & the Mysterians article for City Paper which was a tremendous relief, after all the planning of interviews and transcribing that followed. (Have I mentioned here that Question Mark was on the phone with me for two hours?)

But around 10:30 after finally finishing the second cup of after-dinner-coffee (I had baby duty, which post-poned it) I told Jennie, "Naw, I don't need to go out. There's too much music to listen to here at home."

I spent a good amount of time deleted emails from my address that gets all the music p.r. info, trimming it down from over 2000 to about 1600. Still a lot, but a nice dent. But old knuckleheaded me didn't realize until now, post 1 a.m. that if I had gone to Gooski's, I wouldn't stumbled into Mi Ami's performance. And that Papercuts was at Brillobox tonight, not tomorrow. I don't have any major stake in seeing them, but had I known, I'd've been into either.

On the other hand, I did listen to two albums I need to review, and stayed awake for most of them.

More talk about bands and lives

Since I wrote about Trotsky Icepick last week, a few things happened. I played Carpetbomb the Riff, which sounded three times as vicious as I remembered it. What a great album, and a great parting statement. It definitely should've gotten more attention. I think it's probably hard to find and that it was under-promoted. My copy came from a used store and I don't think I've ever seen a sealed one.

Listening to that turned bittersweet after hearing from Vitus. In the midst of his updates on his personal and musical life, he said that the drummer on Carpetbomb, John "Skippy" Glogovac, died of brain cancer a few years ago. Skippy was in the band when they came to Pittsburgh and he stayed at my place. I never knew him deeply, or as well as I knew Vitus or John T-J, but it kind of hurt to hear that he's gone. He was a good egg.

It feels like the last week has been non-stop writing, or hunting down interview subjects and being completely wrapped up in them. The big news is Question Mark & the Mysterians are coming to Pittsburgh for a rare performance. And that means "rare" in this city and anywhere. City Paper is giving me a fairly sizable word-count to write about them, so I talked to Mr ? (Question Mark himself, that is,) for the article. We were on the phone for two hours. You know what it's like when it comes to transcribing a two-hour interview?

Funny, listening back to it, most of what he said made fairly good sense. In some ways, he's a musical character the likes of which you rarely see anymore. In other words, a guy who's as wild offstage as he is onstage. And he seems well aware of his penchant to go on and on when giving the opportunity. I also talked to Mysterians' guitarist Bobby Balderrama over the weekend. That was another hour-long talk too. But with much less rapid-fire discussions. He helped fill in the cracks with background info on the band, which helped.

As I was transcribing the ? interview yesterday, the land line rang. If I'm home during the day and the phone rings, I rarely pick it up. The people who really want to talk to me will call my cellphone first and the calls on the land line are usually telemarketers. When the machine picked up, I heard a gruff, muffled voice: "MICHAEL! It's Mike Watt. I'm calling from the road." I figured I ought to pick up.

Watt was supposed to call the night before for another article I'm writing. He's in town April 10 - which happens to be the night after ? and the Mysterians - and I'm doing a 5 Questions piece on him. He was in a good mood, and we talked about perseverance in the case of adversity, reflecting on middle age (the big point of his new album) and what it's like putting out a record on your own label. Good guy. I felt pretty lucky that I was off of work and that I came right home after my dentist appointment yesterday. Otherwise I probably would've need to roll the dice and hope to talk to him some other time. The article is fairly brief, so I plan to post some good quotes from the cutting room floor on this blog. Stay tuned.

Then while we were talking, the guy who's bringing ? called my cell phone, so I had to call him back. He proved to be the final source for the article, so I was glad to get that done too. The day was starting to feel like "all music writer all the time." It was almost like the old days, except without all the other distractions like phone calls I don't want, and questions from co-workers.

Tonight the Question Mark piece will get finished and we can all rest. Or at least I can. For a minute. Then I have to start compiling all the stuff I need to take to the tax accountant. And then I should start writing JazzTimes reviews. Wish I had today off.

Trotsky Icepick Remembered or Our Life Could Be Your Band

Playing right now: Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble - The Prairie Prophet (Delmark)

(Love his this album has gone from consonant, nice melody stuff to wild AACM blowing in the space of the first two tracks.)

About a week ago, I pulled out Trotsky Icepick's El Kabong album and I liked it so much that I listened to it over and over again. That album in particular came out at a very telling time of my life: the summer of 1989, which I think I've gone on about ad nauseum. But just in case any readers have forgotten or don't know, that was when Bone of Contention began record our first album and I moved into what was probably the best apartment of my college life, in terms of roommates and the adventures we had. I also looked up and found Vitus Matare, guitarist and founding member of the band, on Facebook.

Come to think of it, pretty much every Trotsky Icepick album is connected to some big period of my life. So here's my personal discography on an overlooked, very good band.

Back in 1986, a friend had dubbed me 100 Flowers' album and I was listening to it constantly. I could hear the minimal, arty approach that had inspired the Minutemen but it also had a little bit of a poppy jangle to it that was a nice break from SST power chords that was part and parcel of my other musical tastes. When I heard about Trotsky Icepick, which included 100 Flowers guitarist Kjehl Johansen, I had to get it. Around that time it seemed like all of the bands that I really really liked weren't together anymore (Mission of Burma, Patti Smith and just a few months prior the Minutemen), so any new stuff had to be found by previous members of those bands (i.e. Volcano Suns).

Trotsky's Poison Summer album, in retrospect, turned a corner in my musical tastes. The guitars were very clean, with no distortion and a lot of chorus. The songs weren't tense like 100 Flowers, but they were great examples of what makes pop music good. "Ivory Tour" has some great chord changes, and a great melody from Vitus, where the phrasing of a line from the verse stretches out and almost spills into the chorus. It's a great hook. I could've done without the '80s synths, but I could also overlook them.

I wrote a letter to the band's label, which was the same as writing to the band, and Vitus sent me a copy of the Danny and the Doorknobs' Poison Summer album that came out initially. What the band started out doing was planning on changing the band's name with every album and keep the title the same. (It lasted for just two albums, as I'd find out.) This album was even better. A little more stark, it was just Kjehl, Vitus and drummer John Frank turning ideas into songs - little more jangle, a little more edge, some screamed backing vocals, good times.

The story might've ended there but I noticed a phone number etched into the clear vinyl's inner groove and called it. Turns out it was John Frank, who called back to let confirm my suspicion about his answering machine. Now that's something you'd never find these days - a band putting their phone number anywhere on a release. Unless they were looking for gigs, in which case they'd probably never get a call.

I was doing a fanzine at the time and thought Trotsky Icepick would be a great subject. Because I liked them. Never mind the lack of timeliness. I wanted to talk to them. Vitus and Kjehl were a great interview, with great stories about their anti-marketing campaign/name game and their previous bands (Vitus had played in the Last). Thus also began an ongoing correspondence between me and Vitus - I hope I wasn't too much of a pest - where I sent him updates on Bone of Contention, along with our cassette release and he sent me a tape of all those hard to find singles by the Urinals (100 Flowers' previous incarnation, who wrote "Ack Ack Ack," which the Minutemen immortalized). He also sent me a tape of the band's three videos, along with a t-shirt for their upcoming album. I still own the shirt and keep trying to retire it but I can't. It's held up (much better than my Bongwater shirt) and even if I won't wear it out, it's fine for bedtime purposes.

In the fall of '88, SST released their third album Baby (the one with the shirt). Vitus had sent me a cassette dub of it earlier in the year, which I had played incessantly for anyone who didn't run fast enough. I felt they were on the fast track to underground rock success since SST was still a pretty credible label, and maybe it meant my band's mutant pop sound would find success on that level. Ha.

Baby is the only Trotsky album I don't currently own in any form other than the advance tape. I just checked the band's Happy Squid catalog and saw it's still available in vinyl form so I'll have to order it if I can't find it locally. I can still hear it in my head - a really solid hard pop album, with even more grit and some depth in the lyric department.

By the time Baby came out, John Talley-Jones of 100 Flowers had joined the band as singer. That was really cool to me because John was a big influence on me. Even more than I realized: upon playing 100 Flowers for some bandmates they said, "He sounds like you." If Mike Watt was who I aspired to be, John T-J was someone who I could be.

Some entries on Trotsky consider Baby the band's shining hour, but I really think El Kabong is their best. There isn't a dud track on that album. Listening to it again, Talley-Jones kind of chews up the scenery on their cover of Magazine's "The Light Pours Out of Me" but even that is still pretty strong.

In the fall of 1991, I got a call asking if Bone of Contention would open for Trotsky Icepick. It was a dream come true. Five years in the making. Barb our drummer was getting married that weekend but somehow I convinced her that the show would be worth our while. While that was shaping up I was going through a bad break-up and The Ultraviolet Catastrophe came out with something of a thud. It has some great writing on it, but the production really cut of the low end and played up that chorused out guitar. A cover of Television's "Venus de Milo" didn't sound like the guys I knew. "Barbara Steele" is a really beautiful song once you peel away the Gilmour-esque guitar solo and the Chapman stick (whaaaaa?????????).

At the Upstage Lounge, I think I was so overwhelmed at seeing these guys that I took me awhile to really get into the set. They added at least one 100 Flowers to the set and a few oldies, and brought more kick to some Ultraviolet songs. Then they crashed at my place. I still remember making them coffee on our two coffee pots - the one that brewed, and the one that had a good heating element.

That lineup released Carpetbomb the Riff a couple years later, which was probably the edgiest album in the whole catalog. (It occurs to me I haven't pulled that one out yet as part of my renewed Trotsky phase.) Mike Patton - not the Faith No More guy but the guy from Middle Class - was a strong bass player and drummer John "Skippy" Glogovac gave the band an extra kick. They didn't make it back to Pittsburgh on that tour, only getting as close as Cleveland. And I was too bogged down with my final semester at Pitt to make the journey. I had a vested interest too: John T-J wanted to release a 7" by my band the Pundits, which had been recorded at Kramer's Noise New Jersey studio.

Vitus had left the band before that tour, which seemed like a sad turn of events. Then I think the band broke up not too long after that. John mentioned something about he and Kjehl doing that every few years.

SST released Hot Pop Hello about a year later, a set of unreleased songs spanning the life of the band, going all the way back to the Doorknobs days. Some of the songs sound quite a bit like some of the released songs but I'm with Jack Rabid in his review on allmusic.com: This is a really strong album on its own, not a mere hodgepodge of leftovers. Vitus' songwriting skills really come through as there are a lot of his tunes here. Some of those songs have been in my head for the past week.

EPILOGUE:
I posted some youtube videos of the band on Facebook and Barb from BOC and I were talking about them. I commented that for many years I got Christmas cards from John T-J and it was hard to imagine reading a "this is what we did this year" note from the same guy who inspired D. Boon to cover "Ack Ack Ack" (FYI, an additional "Ack" got lost on the way to the Minutemen's cover). You don't imagine your heroes being regular folks like us.

She replied that maybe guys like that were normal folks just like us, too, who happened to play in punk bands too. (A few years earlier my naive sensibilities were shocked to hear Kjehl Johansen was a lawyer!) Their life could be my band.

Work?

The music editor of Pittsburgh City Paper wrapped up his tenure with the paper this week and it just so happens that a day or two earlier, I sent him a detailed list of pitches for about the next month and a half. And I got most of them as assignments. YIPE! Gotta start rolling on them.
But not tonight.
I need a couple nights off from trying to write. I finally finished the Kid Congo Powers article for Blurt a couple nights ago, only to find out the next morning that his new album isn't out until May. I could've waiting a little bit to finish it, but I know if I had, it still would've taken me all the free time I had to finish it. For once I'm ahead of the game.
Last night I crammed into the Brillobox to see Nik & the Central Plains, the Harlan Twins and Low Water. I met up with my long lost high school friend Marta and we got there early in order to catch up before going to see the bands upstairs. We caught some of the Central Plains, most of Low Water (who weren't doing it for me that night) and none of the Harlan Twins because the crowd and the amount of hooch in me made me want to move onto the next establishment, which is this case was Ritter's. Marta and I had been having a pretty involved conversation and I felt like continuing that at that moment. Today at work I kind of regretted missing my favorite local band, but last night it seemed like a good idea.