two nights and three shows in Oakland

I went to 21 Grand last night for Gebbia/Raskin/Powell/Nordesen/Perkins/Robair, but as soon as I parked I discovered I hadn't arrived in Oakland too late to catch Ann Joy Ann at Mama Buzz. AJA is Core of the Coalman in singer/songwriter mode. I walked in during story time about scratching an image of a butt into some glass, perhaps while watering plants at some office building. I didn't really hear enough to piece it together. Then there was a guitar and voice song, Core Ogg's “Snow Lights” performed on viola and voice, and then a guitar and voice hootenanny stomp to close the set. Good stuff. I especially liked hearing the song I recognized, which I had coincidentally played on my radio show about 19 hours earlier to promote the show. I stuck around for the Dead Hippies and missed the 21 Grand show altogether. Dead Hippies opened with some hippy jam stuff – recorders playing through delay pedals, etc. Moved into a trumpet trio. A slow 4/4 drum machine beat found its way in there and all of a sudden the three guys were all singing a pop song. Another song about the MTSU Raiders and they descended back into the delay pedal jam world. I feel like there's a certain sound unifying all of the weirdo bands I've heard from Nashville and vicinity. You can throw Taiwan Deth and Tap Tap Taparoo into that pile with the Dead Hippies, though they're both a little further out. The sound somehow reminds me of Appleton, Wisconsin. I guess it has something to do with delay pedals, concert band instruments and acoustic guitars.

After Mama Buzz I went down the road to the Uptown and arrived well before any music started. Low lighting conditions made me turn even more attention to the operation of my broken camera, and I'm realizing my appreciation of the music suffered. First up was Lemon Bear with Corey Fogel on drums. The main guy played solos on a mini snare drum, an alto sax and a trombone. Corey didn't make many sounds until the end, then he played some heavy broken polyrhythms. Bulbs' set sounded pretty heavy and clear, which is not what I'm used to from them. Sightings was more in a psychedelic vein than I expected from hearing so many of their gritty noise rock albums. Maybe if they would've run the master mix through a distortion pedal it would've sounded more like them. Guitar, bass and drum set (which seemed to have some electronic drums incorporated). I felt like I could never hear the drums even when it looked like he was playing. I'm sure that didn't help my impression of them.

Photos of both of these shows are here.

Tuesday night I checked out the Josephson/Gebbia/Looney/Smith/Winant quintet at 1510 8th St. Winant was busy cooking pasta when I got there, so the group opened up with a quartet piece. Really nice minimal stuff with Gebbia on crackle box and the other musicians matching and playing off the high pitched square waves on their respective instruments. The quartet played a louder piece in a bit more of a free jazz style, then were joined by Winant for a brief and brutal quintet piece before the pasta was served up. Two long quintet pieces after dinner. Great stuff. Winant's percussion was really the best part for me. Timpani, bass drum and cymbals. A lot Le Quan Ninh style fricative playing – cymbals pulled across the rosined bass drum head, rubber mallets rubbed on the doors and walls of the venue, etc. Noisy timbral stuff. Gebbia does some great multiphonic sax stuff, and gets even harsher when he sticks a duck call on his horn instead of the normal sax mouthpiece. Ridiculous distorted square waves blasting out of that thing as if Tralphaz was hiding inside his bell or something. I don't know what kind of duck would come to that summons, but I wouldn't want to meet it unless I was heavily armored. Fantastic night of music. Photos here.