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…
3Sep19 Kevin Morby Duo (William Tyler opens) @ Monty Hall, Jersey City, NJ
Over the past few years, Kevin Morby has become one of my absolute favorite musicians, worth crossing two rivers for on a Tuesday night, certainly. I’ve seen Morby like 5 times before and while they all had that same essence that I love about him, they were all very different shows — different bands, different size, different venues, different energy. That trend continued last night which was billed as a “duo” show with Kevin on mostly electric guitar, but also keyboard, and Cochemea Gastelum on sax (and flute). Running through most of the material off his newest album Oh My God as well as plenty of “favorites” from previous releases, it wasn’t so much “stripped down” versions of these excellent, excellent songs, just brought a new feel to them.
The first part of the set was dedicated mostly to the new album, feeling almost like a straight run-through of the record. While it was a “duo” show, it really felt more or less like a solo show, with Cheme just adding some extra sound here and there. It was a nice dynamic and a great contrast to seeing much of the same songs earlier this summer at Newport played with a full band, muscular and rocking. That was a set that got people out of their seats, dancing and rocking out. The energy last night was more song-focused and one of the great things about Kevin Morby is that his stuff is good enough to rock out to, dressed up with bass and drums, guitar solos and more, but also stands up to the scrutiny of bare nakedness. And each time you hear these songs, in all these different formulations and settings, every time they reveal new secrets.
Last night I was really zoned in on Morby’s use of repetition in his songwriting. The way he structures his compositions are so unique and interesting, but his songwriting doesn’t rely on fancy wordplay (quite the contrary) nor does he overelaborate with melodic complexity. Instead he uses repetition to emphasize and build, to create emotional resonance and interesting counterpoints. There are so many echoes in his music. Inside a song, he might repeat a note or a riff or a word or a lyrical phrase or simply a syllable and sometimes these cross between songs, even songs from different albums. Just take the phrase “Oh my God,” the name of his new album which echoes back to the cathartic lyrics from his epic “Beautiful Stranger” and echo throughout his catalog in different ways. Hearing it all in a single set last night really drove it home, but also the expanded idea of these repeated lyrics and themes and even the way he might just bang a note on his guitar once or twice or three times, so often when it feels unexpected. It’s very simple, but he’s so fucking good, it’s very powerful. Even his stage set-up, with these puffy cotton-ball clouds and little electric candles all over the stage and roses… there are repeats all over, the candles even echoed the candles on his custom suit, and they echo the stage set-up from shows past and forward.
The show really built momentum as it moved from the new stuff to older material, “I Have Been to the Mountain” and “1234” and more. Listening intently, you pick up on the repeated themes as well, the words “death” and “dying” coming up so very often. Women’s names. “God.” Cheme played flute on a couple songs and it added something special to it all. “Harlem River” is magic with a full band and just as powerful with just Morby, an excellent player, who saved his lone guitar solo for the end of the show, building things up with those repeats, looping and constructing, throwing in a few lines from “City Music” in there — maybe he does it often, I’ve never seen it, it felt spontaneous and awesome, an expert quick-but-natural mashup of two of his best songs.
Beyond the music, Morby’s energy on the stage was even more magnetic than usual. He seemed genuinely appreciative and happy about the show. If you talk about repeats, the thing he probably said the most was “thank you,” so many thank-yous the whole night. He mentioned the joy and meaningfulness of playing in an intimate space like Monty Hall, how it felt like we were participating in something together and, maybe because he said it, that’s what it felt like.
Opener William Tyler ended his set with similar thoughts, the idea that sharing the experience of music together is important and how he “doesn’t take it for granted.” This wasn’t bullshit banter of jaded touring veterans, but the real feelings of guys who understand. Tyler was brilliant in his opening 45 minute set. There is no way to experience his guitar playing quite like up-close-and-personal. He is a student of classical music and he seems to treat his instrument and fingers, six strings and ten digits, like a small symphony. You can close your eyes and listen to the through-line of each finger or each string or isolate the patterns in the music, or you can just breathe the whole thing in very deeply. It is a relaxing meditation, the soundtrack to driving down a country road with the windows down or kids running through a field of wildflowers. Watching William Tyler play guitar is to understand the perfection of the guitar as a musical instrument. The final tune was played on electric guitar with all the loops and samples and it was a magnificent Frisellian sculpture, utterly transcendent.
Tyler came out for the encore with Morby. They played two Silver Jews songs, Morby singing them with honesty and emotion, Tyler adding just the right dose of guitar picking. Perfect. The show ended with “Beautiful Strangers,” it had to, of course. I think he’s played this at every show I’ve seen him play. It is his best song, one of the best songs out there, a song he wrote after the massacre at a Paris rock club that seems very specific to that horrific event, but, alas, continues to echo its message and meaning in the years since. Each time he plays it, differently every time, sometimes solo, sometimes with the band, sometimes painfully sad, others powerfully cathartic, every time it gives me the chills in a new way. Cochemea’s flute last night sealed the deal, brought it to the next level. An ending to a show I’d go see again, note for repeated note, again tonight.
4Sep19 Boogarins/Mdou Moctar @ Industry City
What looks like it will be my last trip to the courtyard at Industry City this summer was a truly excellent night of “world music.”
We got there during the first or second song from Brazilian jammers Boogarins who have been high on my list since I first heard them several years back. Since then I’ve seen them 3 or 4 times in different slots, ranging from a strange opening slot for Andrew Bird at Terminal 5 of all places to a free set outside at Union Pool to a headlining rager at Baby’s All Right. No matter what the time or place, they have always blown me away and last night was no different. With a new album out earlier this year, they’ve now got a pretty sizable repertoire to work with and they definitely did a great job sampling the whole thing, at one point playing a song off their 2013 debut and I think featuring something from all their releases along the way. And by doing so, they also featured all the different facets of their sound, from the brainy composition focus of their proggier Brazilian-Yes material to some almost-metal shreddiness, to some guitar-fueled fusion jambandy jamming to straight grooving afrolatin funkpop. Every song was bursting with awesomeness, but each for different reasons, but no matter what style or song they were playing, the music really seemed to flow from the drummer, cause when you twist, somersault and cartwheel like that, you need a damn good drummer to pull it off and, damn, Boogarins has one. And we learned at the end that this guy holding down this amazing set of music was celebrating his birthday yesterday. Cool!
The band is that drummer and two guitarists and a bassist who also did some synth/synth-bass stuff. The drummer held things down, but it was the way they used the two guitars from song to song that really created all that sonic topography. It wasn’t a lead guitar/rhythm guitar arrangement and it wasn’t a double-lead arrangement, either. There were actually very few solos and so it was almost more of a double-rhythm guitar thing, but not really. They don’t really jam, but man, they do jam. All the songs are sung in native Portuguese, and that adds a little extra dreamlike, weirdness to the music, because, like, I don’t speak it and have no idea what they’re singing about. They rocked it for an hour and the whole set was a three-fire-emoji affair, definitely the most complete set I’ve seen from them and that’s saying something. Always nice to see a band get better and better, especially when starting from such a high level… can’t say enough good things about this band and that set. Big love.
The “headliner” was Mdou Moctar, the latest in a long string of West African Tuareg musicians and bands that have broken through enough to make a name for themselves our here in the “west.” Unlike, say, Tinariwen who have a sort of collective spiritual groove aspect to their music or Bombino or Imarhan who feel more like blues-returning-home artists, Moctar is a pure psych-rock shredder. Almost every song he played last night followed the same script: establish a riff, sing a few lines, band settles into groove while Moctar just solos. I think they played 6 songs in an hour, which is to say that everything was in the 8–12 minute range and about 75% of that time was just grand-finale-fireworks guitar soloing. The drummer was just as intense as Mdou and the tempo and energy of each “jam” would quicken and quicken, feeling a little like a train leaving the tracks with chaotic energy. It gave the impression that the band was not very tight, but in fact they were, because the feeling was anarchy, but they were completely in control, which seems like it would be hard to maintain for 10 minutes at a time, 6 times in an hour. But they managed it. On the one hand, the music was awesome, it felt like a Tuareg Chris Forsyth, just pure guitar chug-a-lug. It’s great to see this shit live because when you listen to the records you can imagine some exotic instrumentation and otherworldly presence, but seeing this guy make such out-of-this-world music with a simple old Fender strat somehow made it even more magical. On the other hand, there was a small twinge of repetitiveness to it… like 30 minutes was plenty. Which is fine, it’s not even a criticism. I was ready to bail around the time I realized that they were only going to play an hour or so and that felt right… longer is certainly not always better.
I also appreciated seeing this music outside. There’s this strange thing where some of these bands like Tinariwen or Bombino are playing utterly inappropriate rooms like Webster Hall or Brooklyn Bowl where there is none of that ethereal magic. Not saying the courtyard at Industry City is some transcendent spot, but being outside, in an almost stifling late-summer air, an occasional breeze blowing through the space, felt right. When I listen to this music, I think of what it must be like to look out into the Saharan desert on a regular basis, to look into vast emptiness devoid even of color and the type of hypnosis it must cause that would give rise to such unique, awesome psychedelic music like the kind Mdou Moctar played last night.
An inspired double bill, kudos to whoever put this tour together. Looking forward to the next Boogarins show in NYC, for sure, they are securely on my don’t-miss list.
Sep19
Gyan Riley @ Barbes
I’ve seen Gyan Riley many times before, but almost all of them were of the solo/duo/maaaybe a trio variety and almost all of them were him playing acoustic/nylon/classical style guitar. Almost. Almost. Last night was an excellent reminder that for all the jaw-dropping he does when playing solo or in duos head-to-head with guys like Julian Lage, Gyan has some serious breadth to his talents. This was the late set at Barbes, probably about 20 people in attendance for a what-you-want-in-the-bucket set of superb music. He was playing with a quartet: David Cossin (drums), Greg Chudzik (bass) and Taylor Levine (guitar); they’ve played together at least once before over the summer at Barbes, perhaps other times.
Pretty much every song was excellent in a different way. They opened with a serious deep fusion song, like “classic” jazzfusion shit, in the vein of Weather Report or Mahavishnu. For much of the night everyone was reading off sheet music, but perhaps none of the songs as much as this first one, which was highly composed with the two guitars matching and then countering each other. In the middle there was this freeform breakdown with Gyan using an ebow and effects to create a heavy noise before bringing back in the breakneck themes of the song’s compositions. At this point I was both thrilled at the music and wondering if I needed to brace myself for a whole night of this kind of music. Not that it was so out there challenging, just that it was dense with notes and changes and complexity. But no, the next song was a soaring thing that had a Middle Eastern/Masada type feel, lovely, high-flying melodies. The next song had Gyan using an effect on his guitar that was reminiscent of what Garcia uses on Estimated Prophet, but the song was a very playful thing, it felt like a combination of retrofuture sound with an old school movie soundtrack vibe. I was struck by how much a guitar effect can change the complexion of a song. I’m doing this all from memory, so maybe I’m getting the precise order of the songs off, but the next tune had Gyan moving to ukulele. We’ve all seen a uke played, and probably seen it played well, but if you’ve never seen Gyan Riley play the instrument, you have no idea how utterly beautiful it can be. He did three songs on the uke in total last night and they were all rather stunning. He plays it almost like he does his classical guitar, finger picked and both hands creating harmonic convergence. Two of the ukulele tunes were brand new and they were rather remarkable, especially the second one. The rest of the set included a song where he played slide, a sort of bluesjazzraga thing, one song that was just pure straight rocking, a slower, ballad-type song that featured a glorious happy-face guitar solo and one towards the end that was more of a freejazz freakout. Just a ridiculous display of talent and range. I think I still prefer to see Riley play solo on the acoustic, but this was a great set. The band was 3 guys I’m not sure I’ve ever seen, but they were great as well, as you might imagine they would have to be to sustain all those styles in an hour. The drummer added a lot of different sounds as well, putting a xylophone on his kit at one point, blowing into a harmonica at another, switching between soft-touch brushwork and hard-hitting sticks without missing a beat (har har). Chudzik played mostly upright bass but switched to electric for a couple and had several moments where he took some melodic lead. Levine on the second guitar was a perfect foil, sometimes doubling up on what Gyan was playing, sometimes laying back and just layering in some eerie drones and so on. All around, very good stuff.
Wayne Krantz, Kevin Scott, Josh Dion @ 55 Bar (late)
It had been 3 weeks since last I saw Wayne play at 55 Bar and I was happy as fuck to be back, I took a rare seat at the front table to get my full-immersion Krantzing. Of course, they did not disappoint. Scott + Dion is about as good as it gets in terms of triomates… I mean, they’re all as good as it gets, but I love those two guys, have to check if I’ve ever seen that exact threesome before. What else can I say? They played all the favorites, they didn’t get too crazy in terms of we-jam-longtime, but these guys know their shit and got to all the sweet spots you hope to get to when you get your $5 back in change from the 20 you handed the dude at the door (they really should just charge $20, would less people come?). After reading that recent interview with WK, I’m interested in trying to follow all the “changes” the trio takes, the 90-degree turns, how they get initiated, what happens the moment they round the corner, how things evolve from there. I realized how much it’s the drummer that steers that turn, decides whether to go left, right or straight and how things percolate into a new steady state after that is dictated by how Wayne and/or the bassist react, how quickly, how easy/resistant they are, etc. That was fun to watch last night, especially with a guy like Dion who is one of the more dynamic of the Krantz drum corps, someone who can go hard or soft just as easily.
He’s back for the foreseeable future and I’ll be at as many of them as I can manage, so expect more of these “I’ve got nothing more to say about this” kind of reviews.
6Sep19 The Racounteurs @ Hammerstein Ballroom
Sometimes you just want a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke… no frills, all flavor, the most simply American meal there is and for good reason. I mean, there is an entire industry trying to make it so vegetarians and vegans can enjoy a burger, that’s how essential that meal is. And I’m not talking fancy $20 burgers either. One of my favorite places to eat on Long Island is called All-American burger and it’s like a place frozen in time in the best way possible, burger, fries and a coke for less than $5 and fucking delicious.
That’s about how I felt about seeing Jack White and the Racounteurs at Hammerstein on Friday night. Just pure, unadulterated, all-American beef, deep fried potato and an ice cold Coca Cola in rock and roll form, no animals killed to make that shit happen, but damn, was it delicious. It’s been a while since I’ve been to the Hammerstein Ballroom and I’m definitely not a huge fan, but Friday night I was in the second balcony and it was just fine, a massive cavern of a ballroom, I forget how high the ceiling goes there, and the band filled the whole damn place with people and guitars and rhythm and lights, a set that flame-grilled blazed from start to finish. To be honest, I was absolutely exhausted and was happy to have a seat up in the balcony, which was about half seated/half standing, I don’t think I could have lasted on the floor Friday night. It gave me a great perspective to take it all in.
Jack White is a fucking national treasure. He somehow has this reputation for a sullen, mysterious persona, but I was struck but how opposite to that he was Friday. He was in full prance-across-stage rockgod mode, but with goofy banter about the key different songs were in and other lovable shit like that. His voice and songs and the goddamn tone of his guitar playing, not to mention his shred-ready talent on the damn thing, it’s all there in the service of rock and roll in the truest sense. The setlist for the show is here, but truly, unless you’re waiting to hear a certain song, it’s all just one continuous whoa-boy! stream of kickassness. I spent half the show wishing it was in an arena, which is not something I would typically wish for, I mean, smaller space the better right? More intimate, special, cool? Nahhh, this band needs a big ass space for that big ass sound and the big ass personality of Jack White. Friday night was Zeppelin-level rock and roll.
The set was an avalanche that gathered quite a bit of momentum as it went on eventually stretching out with some extended guitar solos and full-band rock outs and it was all frickin’ perfect. I went into this one thinking “yeah, sure, I’d love to see the Racounteurs,” but I left thinking there is no way I’d miss this band if/when they came back to play NYC. This was the second “no phone” show I saw, both being Jack White shows and while it’s not that big of a deal, I think it’s not some magic bullet that’s going to make the shows better… I mean, I can understand it being distracting if people up front are constantly taking pictures or checking their phones, but what am I supposed to do between sets at a show by myself in the second balcony? Take a nap? Good idea, actually…
The opener was Olivia Jean who has a new album out on White’s Third Man records. I thought she/they were pretty good as well. It’s not easy for an opening act to fill a space that big and engage the audience, but they had a pretty great female-fronted-rock-band-circa-1980’s thing going on that worked pretty well. Would go see again.
7Sep19
Live From Here @ Town Hall
Chris Thile’s Live From Here returned for its fall season yesterday, kicking off in its now-permanent home at Town Hall, which means many, many opportunities to catch this magical, magical show, and if you’re waiting to go see one particular guest or another, you’re kind of doing it wrong, but you do you…
Each of the last couple seasons have seen some small tweaks to the format and yesterday was no different, most notably removing the comedy sketches that popped up here and there. In some ways, this was a welcome change, those were funny about 25% of the time and often seemed out of place in a show that often feels like it’s transported you to some faraway musical utopia where these little skits would be a jostling wake-up from your dream. On the other hand, the removal of these skits made the show feel like it was moving at a very fast pace to me, although it all came off without a hitch. With so many options to see LFH now, I don’t know that I could do every one and so overwhelmed, I’m not sure exactly which ones I will hit… I actually wasn’t sure I’d go yesterday until very cheap tickets came my way and so I somehow was thinking “well, maybe it won’t be that great….” Dear reader, let me just say that it was. It was that great. So absolutely phenomenally great. So great. It always is. Always.
Yesterday’s guests included Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend who played several VW songs, more or less utilizing Thile, Sarah Jarosz and the house band as an ad hoc version of Vampire Weekend, and, no surprise, they were awesome. I adored their version of the Dead-inspired “Sunflower” with Thile doing all the little cool melody stuff on mandolin and Sarah harmonizing with Koenig. It was all great. The other guest was Natalia Lafourcade, a Mexican musician I had never heard of before and, in classic Live From Here fashion, was amazing as well. It’s rather remarkable how every single person I’ve ever seen on this show has been bowl-you-over good, not only despite me being unfamiliar with them, but often, strangely, because I don’t know them at all. There is often this string of religion threading through a Live From Here show, subtly, it came up multiple times yesterday as well — the show is decidedly not religious, but it’s somehow, accidentally, often there in the background. Anyway, religion is built on the concept of faith and in as much a religious sense of the concept of faith as I have, personally, it’s a faith in this show, in Thile and Mike Elizondo the musical director, faith in Live From Here to have nothing but fantastic music.
So, sure, the guests were great. Jake Gyllenhal also came out and did a fantastic monologue from the Broadway play he’s currently starring in… came out in between a matinee and a nighttime performance, which is awesomely nuts. And former cast member, one of the ones who did those skits, Holly Laurent, did a few humorous/touching essays which I’d seen her do in the past and is definitely one of her strengths. I’m all for more of dramatic readings and thoughtful essays vs. goofy skits. The guests were all great, yes, but the point I want to make is that it don’t fucking matter who they have on as guests, not because they’ll be great no matter what, and they will be, but because the strength of the show is in the core musicians. Chris Thile, yes, of course. He’s the star of the show. He deserves all your attention and accolades. He did a 14-minute Bach piece yesterday, in three parts throughout the show, beginning, middle and end (actually after the broadcast ended) and it was so off-the-charts good, so tear-duct-draining, goosebump-forming, holy-shit-saying, worth-the-price-of-admission awe-inspiring. Oooof. And the audience while he was playing this piece, I mean, so quiet, so edge-of-the-seat attentive. I could hear seats creaking down on the other side of the theater down in the orchestra from my spot up in the balcony. Like a butterfly flapping its wings on the other side of the globe or something, but this was being connected with each and every audience member listening to the same thing, something so pure, so beautiful. So good.
Thile is a marvel, through and through but yesterday the star that shined brightest to me was Sarah Jarosz who had so much room to throughout the show it almost felt like she was a top-billing co-star. From playing her original “My Muse” early on (beautiful) to trading mandolin chops with Thile on a couple different bluegrass breakdowns to singing backup/duets with Koenig, she was just remarkable. The highlight of the show was during the birthday section of the show, which is always a highlight, Thile and the band hopping genres like you wouldn’t believe, playing covers all over the spectrum from jazz (Elvin Jones) to bluegrass (Bill Monroe) to indie to country (Patsy Cline). They crush it all. The band is awesome. You’ve heard of some of these guys maybe (Eric Doob plays with Julian Lage, Alex Hargreaves was with Michael Daves a couple weeks back), probably you haven’t. But they kill it all. Anyway, the final song of this section yesterday was Fiona Apples “Extraordinary Machine” and hooooolly shit this was so good. I love that damn song/album and Jarosz nailed it and then some. DAMN. So good. So good.
Impossible to highlight every moment from the show, but it was another special one, they all are. It’s uncannily consistent, but somehow the reason(s) it’s so awesome and special are different every single week, which is even more impressive. Who knows what will drop the jaws next Saturday, but I guarantee they will be dropping, No doubt. So good.
Kaleta & Super Yamba Band @ Knitting Factory
We went from Town Hall to the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg, from a soulsweetener to superfunk. Super Yamba never disappoints, but it was extra special and extra fun to see them a) in a regular old club of regulation size and b) playing to a nice big crowd of people in that space, everyone having a blast. It was the release party for their just-out record, which you should absolutely listen to right away. They played all the favorites and general groove-o-rama that you get in the so-packed Barbes when they play there, but in a bigger space. It wasn’t uncomfortably packed, but it was definitely full with plenty of room for dancing, which was the ideal situation.
The band was in top form and the crowd was in deep boogie, all you can ask for. These guys play different flavors of afrobeat/afrofunk/afroawesome. They actually explained their origin a bit at the end, explaining they play all original music from Nigeria and Ghana and Benin exclusively, each giving a different twist or variation on the general Yamba thing of drums and percussion and horns and guitar and bass, ooh, that bass. And damn, do they bring the funk. One of the best things about these guys is that there is no qualifications to their sound, no ands or buts, nothing more than meets the eye; they exist merely to make you happy, to make you dance, to soundtrack whatever party you want them to provide the music for.
That’s what the show felt like Saturday, a big freakin’ party. I was so happy to see so many people I knew there, many, I know, there because they saw them at the Freaks Ball, everyone getting down, the band included. Kaleta was as good as I’ve seen him, taking advantage of all that space on the stage. He actually went off and changed his shirt like 4 or 5 different times during the show, like he had all these amazing, sparkly, funk-yourself shirts and he couldn’t decide which one to wear to the big gig so he wore them all. And why not? They were all awesome and I would have felt cheated if he hadn’t worn them all (and am wondering if he had even more that didn’t make the cut). I am getting to the point where between the album and seeing them a bunch that I know the material now and that just makes it even more fun. Mr Diva is such a killer tune, an Afrobeat Meters tune with a delicious hook.
I was struck at how these guys have never played a bad show that I’ve been at, never not had the entire room dancing, never not put a smile on an entire audience’s collective face. Struck by how this was especially true in the bigger room last night. And so I wonder if they had the wherewithal and, of course, the luck, if they could ever make something of themselves outside of just Brooklyn and NYC. Seems if they got the right opening slot for a well-matched band on a short tour… I can’t imagine they’d not sell some records and make some fans. There are lots of afrobeat and funk bands out there, but as far as pure, stripped down dark-and-dirty, for-the-party only groovemeisters, Super Yamba is as good as there is out there. They don’t try to be something else, don’t try to add wrinkles that don’t feel right and their original music fucking kills. Who knows… I’ll definitely be at their next area gig, whenever and wherever that is. It’s a guaranteed good time.
