My goal for 2019 is to write at least a little something about every show I see, preferably by the next day, we’ll see how it goes. I will compile weekly and post here as-is.
So, in that spirit, this is the thirty-fourth of hopefully 52 posts…
28Aug19 Dan Iead’s Adult Party @ Union Pool
Yesterday was a tough day to be a music fan. The news of Neal Casal’s suicide was a surprising and stiff punch to the gut, a sharp pain in the morning that lingered into the night. There was much to love about Casal, but a couple things stick out to me beyond his talent on the guitar. First was the fact that he played with so many different musicians across so many different subworlds. I knew this already, to an extent, but it became clear how widespread his influence and collaborations spread by all the shocked and saddened tributes you saw on social media, from musicians all over the spectrum. The major news stories barely even mentioned the things I associated him with most strongly. There are a lot of talented guitar players out there and big name artists would have no trouble looking into the barrel and having their pick of the litter to play on their album or tour with them or whatever they needed. The fact that so very often they picked Neal Casal speaks volumes to me about what he was like to play with, to work with, to be with. The other thing that I think about, and I think it is strongly related, is that there are certain lead guitarists that don’t have that lead guitarist personality. Dudes become lead guitarists because they want to be lead guitarists, which means much more than “guy who takes the solos.” But every once in a while there are players who are talented enough to be that guy and yet are content to not be that guy. I freakin’ love guitarists like that. Neal was definitely one of that breed.
It sucks to lose Neal Casal. It sucks to know he was unhappy enough to end his life. It sucks that that adds despair to a world that’s full of it already. It sucks. I don’t have any answers in how to address that despair, I am not a professional, but as trite as it sounds, as everything-looks-like-a-nail as it is, the place I go to find some inner peace is to see some livemusic and while it won’t heal all, I can’t emphasize enough how head-clearing it can be to lose yourself in a show. It doesn’t have to be a big ordeal. I can’t afford it… I don’t have enough time… get to a show, a free show, a cheap show, it doesn’t have to be a whole evening of preshow/postshow, drinks-during… find something cheap or free, 45 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, someone you know, someone you don’t, alone or with a friend. Just go, do it.
There was no way I wasn’t getting out to see music yesterday and somehow I hit upon the perfect show for my mood. It’s funny the way the universe works. Dan Iead was playing one of his “Adult Party” shows at Union Pool. I had never seen one, but I know Dan from playing with Cass McCombs and Joe Russo and others in that circle. He has a semi-regular gig at Union Pool, with a rotating cast of musicians/friends. I had no idea how they worked or anything, but I saw that Jonathan Goldberger was playing and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything with JG in it that wasn’t great. So I went. It struck me when I got there and the music started how it captured my version of Neal Casal so well. I mean, the things I described about Neal a couple paragraphs ago, that describes Jonathan Goldberger, a guy who everyone seems to want to play with, don’t matter what genre or what band, a guy who’s good enough to stand in the front of the stage and gesticulate his way through a shreddy guitar solo, but is content to blow minds from the back seat. As the music got going, I knew that this show, a legit free show on a Tuesday night, 5 people in the room at the start, no more than 20 at the peak, I knew that this was the right place
I had no idea what to expect musically, I didn’t really care. Lucky for me, the show vastly exceeded my humble expectations. The full band consisted of that’s-an-”i” Iead on pedal steel, Goldberger on guitar, Frank Locrasto on keys (someone I may or may not have seen before, but definitely see the name around, Jay Foote on bass (definitely have seen this guy before), Dave Heumann on guitar and vocals (never seen him), David Christian on drums (mayyybe?). The vibe was very much friends-shooting-the-shit. They played songs, some of them jammed a bit, some didn’t. Iead would call out a song name, they’d all shuffle for the sheet music and they’d just go, who knows if they’d ever rehearsed. The show was about 2/3 instrumental and a few sung by Heumann who had a voice like Jay Farrar, or maybe they just played a Son Volt song or two in there. The music was also very Neal Casal, with a mix of Americana that got the cosmic treatment and then some other sort of groovy instrumental stuff. There was a very folky-Circles-Around-the-Sun feel to the first couple of instrumental songs, a kind of spaced out thing with a lot of this sounds like a song I should know the name of going on. The third or fourth song was an instrumental, seriously groovy, pedal-steel laden cover of “Summer Breeze” which is like, one of the greatest songs ever, particularly if played, you know, in summer. They followed that up with a take on “Paint My Masterpiece” sung by Heumann that was very much a cover of the Dead version of the song. As the set went on, things got more tangled, solos became actually jams with the pedal steel and 2 guitars creating some nice groove-psych space. There were some seriously outerspace takes on what sounded like traditional folk tunes, one kind of Irish-folk sounding thing went very deep, with some out-of-song-structure improvisation. They played for about 90 minutes, right up to 11pm and, surprising to me, never passed a hat or anything. The crowd had a nucleus of 5–10 people who were there to see music and then a rotating audience from the bar and the outside area checking out what was going on for a song or two and then leaving. There were at least two other musicians from bands I like there, but of course there were. The whole thing was incredibly easy and enjoyable and surprisingly-but-why-am-I-surprised musically awesome. And free. Home by midnight, mind cleared, a renewed love for livemusic once again warming my soul. The spirit of Neal Casal lives on in shows like that one and many more. Go see on, friends.
29Aug19 King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (ORB, Stonefield open) @ Summerstage
What a thrill it is to see a band grow for all the right reasons in all the right ways. How fun it is to see what changes and what doesn’t. How fucking great it is to see King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard play live, there are few better these days and few bands that somehow capture the angst and despair of our current age and balance it with a cathartic, awe-inspiring, and yes, joyous and jubilant full brain-and-body experience. The real deal, the whole package.
Last night was my 7th time seeing The Lizard Wizard and like the previous 6 times, I loved every damn thing about this show. They started off with a heavy metal one-two bang with “Self-Immolate” and “Perihelion” off of their ridiculous new hair-raiser Infest the Rats Nest and then proceeded to bounce around their catalog. Bouncing around the KGLW catalog means bouncing around in styles, but the genres they cover are not isolated in a vacuum. I imagine the King Gizzard sound like an equalizer, but instead of spanning the low end to the highest frequencies, there are knobs for metal, blues, psych, prog, folk, etc. and those knobs are never set to zero. So even at their most headbanging shreddiness, there’s still a little bit of the other flavors and even at their (relative) quietest most introspective moments, there’s still a little bit of metal. The show was a slammer of visceral energy, but these guys are fucking good, and so their musicianship, the compositions, the layering of all those guitars and boot-kick double-drummer, it all came through. I was struck by what was different from the first few times I saw them. The main thing to me is the flow of the show is much different than it used to be. Their shows used to be one unending stream of music, hard to discern one song from the next, a wave of kick drum and guitar, making your way through one was like a crazy you’re-in-the-Marines-now obstacle course, one minute your scaling a wall, the next crawling through mud, the next a pure sprint, but never stop to catch your breath. Last night’s show was much different than that, they stopped after songs, there were peaks and valleys, they emphasized their two newest releases — a whiplash-inducing pair to say the least, multiple songs with the word “boogie” featured prominently, the other from a record with the words “infest” and “rat’s nest” in it — but also folded in older songs, showing off the depth and breadth of their catalog, perhaps sacrificing some of that can’t-stop/won’t-stop energy. I couldn’t say that one way is better than the other, because both are awesome. That being said, I loved that so much has stayed the same, the visuals merely a slightly-bigger version of what they had behind them the first time I saw them, their sound so distinctly them, the proggy 12-string-guitar weirdness mixing with the brain-destroyer deep synth stuff.
I thought the second half of the set was where they hit their stride, particularly from “Evil Death Roll” on. That song was one of my highlights, so psyched to hear some Nonagon Infinity material, so great. From there things started to flow nicely and the packed-house crowd was finally settled into a “this is where I’m standing, this is how much room I have to dance, these are the people I’m next to” comfort level that can make all the difference when it’s a full dance floor. That second half of the show was just Lizard Wizard perfection, a glorious mash-up of Rats Nest and Fishing for Fishies and Murder of the Universe, not a thought about genre or style entering my mind, just pure dance-my-ass-off, shoulders/neck/knees/feet-don’t fail me now Gizzardgasm. They did the “one more song” thing, finishing with “Am I in Heaven” which was maybe the oldest song they played(?) and then stretched it out, teasing and jamming out all sorts of songs, some they played previously, some they hadn’t, inside, one more mini-tour through their now-extensive catalog. It was a very Phish thing to do, playing all these snippets of other songs, creating a collage of their sound, not sure if it’s a regular thing that they do, or if they planned it — it kind of felt ad hoc/improvised — but it was super cool and they pulled it off in excellent fashion.
I think I’ve said this after another show of theirs or two in the past, but if I was a 19-year-old kid right now, this is the band I would be following around, traveling to see. There’s no one combining the talent, creativity and sheer, unstoppable energy that King Gizzard is right now. See you at multiple nights at the Beacon or Radio City or wherever they end up next…
Ah, forgot about the openers, who were both awesome. This was my 3rd time seeing ORB, the first time opening for KGLW and the second a killer headliner show at Baby’s All Right and they hit me right in the sweet spot every time. Their sound is maybe a mash of Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd with a little flavor of Yes, particularly in the bass players tone. Which is to say they’re awesome psychedelic prog metal. They made the most of their 30 minutes (some of which we heard on the way in/waiting in line).
The middle band was Stonefield which is four sisters (!?) playing some killer jamming almost-metal shit. I feel like it’s both noteworthy that they’re all sisters/female and also very who gives a shit, their music stands on its own without any qualifiers, or the fact that they all were dressed in somewhat coordinated business attire for some reason.
Both ORB and Stonefield are on the King Gizzard Flightless label which has a pretty stellar record still in its formative years. Gotta love a band doing its best to promote the killer heavy shit from their home. On one hand, a little self-serving to bring two bands from your label out on tour with you, on the other hand… kick ass.
31Aug19 Umphrey’s McGee @ The Paramount, Huntington, LI
In the interest of completeness I saw Umphrey’s McGee on Saturday, had a great time… not much more I can say about this one, though.
