Noxagt, Neung Phak, etc.

Noxagt was fantastic last night. Simple, heavy riff rock that reminded me a lot of Sleep, but with the notes transformed into giant walls of noise by long chains of pedals. You could still hear some notes, but their importance was greatly minimized in favor of hard rhythmic intensity. It sounded kind of like it could've been Tralphaz up there rocking out with his pedals. I was glad to see the guitarist beating on his strings with his fretting hand grabbing the neck at arbitrary positions – he clearly has the right idea of what his sound is all about. I'm also glad that they brought a bunch of Orange (and other) amplification along with them to really make this sound work the way it needed to. The hard-hitting drummer was easily heard over the pile of amps with nothing but a kick drum mic. Certain elements seemed influenced by krautrock, in particular their occasional use of odd rhythms in a relatively simple, but effective, way. I remember really liking these guys a few years ago. I just rediscovered that I rated one of their 2003 SF shows (at Club Verdi?!) as my 7th favorite show of that year. I hadn't listened to them for a long time, and I was a little depressed when I found out their violist had been replaced with a guitarist. In fact, I think I entirely skipped playing their latest album on my radio show throughout its run in KUSF's current releases library. I say all this by way of explaining that I wasn't expecting too much, but(/therefore) they really kind of blew me away. They were probably better than when I liked them so damn much back in 2003. They're taking the Black Sabbath-Sleep continuum a step further in the direction I love.

I felt really good about the Ettrick set. Good treatment and respect from a venue and its staff goes a long fucking way. This is what we get at the Hemlock. That's the final puzzle piece in making a ton of preparation pay off. This guy seemed disappointed by the lack minstrelsy. Perhaps he would've enjoyed our rushed trainwreck set at a disrespectful venue two weeks previous.

Acre delivered his usual heavy low end drone. Sounded typically great, even though I had spent about 14 hours listening to my somewhat similar sounding Damion Romero and Waves bootlegs on Monday and Tuesday. Tour mate Marissa Magic sang little pop ditties or something over 808 beats and such played on a laptop. I couldn't understand the connection to Acre other than their shared origin from the Pacific Northwest region.

Neung Phak was so great on Monday night. I had heard their self-titled album a couple years ago, but was never really interested enough to check them out live. I really liked Sublime Frequencies' Cambodian Cassette Archive (and other compilations), and I guess I thought the American cover band couldn't quite match the originals. Maybe enough time has passed that I have a more receptive attitude, but I also think seeing them live really helped. This is party music and it's great to see a seven-piece band throwing it down on stage. Re-listening to the album after the show, I can't quite understand what I didn't like about it at the time, but that's rather beside the point, especially now that my impression has been forever swayed by the great live show. Interspersed between their weird SE Asian pop music were numerous nightmare/bad trip sequences in which band members pulled US flags out of their pants, barked like dogs and generally behaved quite psychedelically. I really enjoyed the freeform ranting with cued musical accompaniments the first time the bassist set down his instrument and grabbed the mic. I appreciated the hits: “Inside the Program”, “Cheer”, “Tui Tui Tui” and one I had never heard before, “Fucking USA”. I appreciated the drummer's MIDI-triggered synth drum sounds. Quite a production these guys put on. Almost everybody had two instruments with them. It must've taken forever to set up, but it was all very cohesive. Before this gets too boring, let me just reiterate that this set fucking rocked.

OOIOO was a different story. There were some interesting parts, but mostly it was hippy drum circle stuff to my ears. The white robes and fake amulets did nothing to dispel this impression, but they did look pretty good. There were two guitars and a bass, but their lines seemed almost entirely devoid of substance. Nothing to latch onto. Minimalist tonality and slightly polyrhythmic, things I associate with Point by Cornelius. I liked that album, but never cared to delve much deeper into the genre. Unlike OOIOO, Cornelius used many simple yet contrasting lines to build up an interesting gestalt. OOIOO's lines weren't that interesting to begin with and weren't combined in any meaningful ways. I was continually ready to walk out, but every fourth song kept my interested just a little bit. Weirder no wavey parts and other more interesting composition would show up occasionally... far too infrequently.

Sunday already seems like the distant past. Hamez (Ross Hammond and Lisa Mezzacappa) opened the Musician's Union Hall show with double bass and guitar/banjo duets. Fairly innocuous tonal improv. My favorite piece explicitly reworked traditional bluegrass. It seemed perhaps more focused on the area of their music that works the best. The Frank Gratkoski/Charity Chan duet was very good. The duo took the music to a lot of different places over the course of their 50 minute set. They opened with a piece based around inside-the-piano dark ambient stuff (something Chan frequently gets into) with bass clarinet accompaniment, Gratkowski straining to stay on the quiet side. Things got livelier as Gratkowski switched to Bb clarinet, then alto sax. I remember a particularly disjointed, jumpy piece as being particularly good. It was a nice end to a streak of seeing both of these improvisers play a bunch. Interesting to see them stretch out a bit in the absence of Fred Frith constantly fucking things up (though he was fucking things up in the best way, and I enjoyed that show even more).

women

Earlier today I returned to Maybeck Studio for the Womantis event. Sarah Cathers and Sarah Bernat of 16 Bitch Pile-Up started out the evening up above the audience in powdered wigs and 18th century garb, tattoos showing through, bowing a shitty electric guitar and bass guitar while a cassette of period music played over the PA. After a long period of nearly-silent bowing, the sounds started building up with delay and distortion. It began to approach a 16BP fury, but it seemed like they were holding back a little bit, perhaps due to the non-noise-friendly appearance of the venue. After the music reached its peak and started to recede, Matt Ingalls, down on the floor, began playing a low clarinet drone (circular breathing) along with the noise until he was the only one playing. He began incorporating a short, rhythmically mechanical-sounding ascending motif. Occasionally he would start cycling through this pattern at a very high speed, as if it were a tape loop and someone just hit “fast forward”. More and more multiphonics and searing altissimo notes worked their way in, creating an intense noise clarinet sound. It seemed like it had peaked, but Matt kept escalating things to an unbelievably intense level. My timpanic membranes were creaking and generally freaking out – of course I was loving it. Toward the end he was rapidly trilling between two notes and the room's natural reverb sufficiently blurred the tones so that it sounded like two lines were being played simultaneously. I could more or less discern what was producing the results, but the auditory effect sounded like so much more than that simple explanation suggests. Really incredible. Post-concert conversations confirmed that pretty much everybody was completely blown away by this performance. Why the fuck isn't there an album of this shit? Theresa Wong and Lisa Mezzacappa started up once it was clear that Matt's piece had run it's course, and he accompanied their cello and bass duo for a little while before dropping out. They sounded good, but it would be hard for anybody to follow the preceding set... For the most part they were playing pitch-based music that was not traditionally tonal. Very nice stuff. Ava Mendoza and MaryClare Brzytwa faded in their electronics as this duo wrapped things up. Pretty different from the other electronic set of the evening – much more digital sounding. Cleaner, fuller and more abstract. One of the more interesting aspects was hearing MaryClare's flute acoustically from one part of the room and filtered through her laptop from the PA in another part of the room. Aside from the flute, it was pretty hard to tell who was responsible for which sounds. The music gave way to Kanoko Nishi and Charity Chan's dual piano set. Things stayed inside the pianos for the most part, with Charity playing the strings with ebows and mallets, while Kanoko kept things a little more percussive with plastic and other preparations rattling atop the strings. They actually both did a little of each, though, as well as playing the keyboards. Good communication. This was my second favorite set of the evening. Very enjoyable show all around. Prior to the show I didn't realize everything was going to flow together. This was an interesting element, but I wished I would've chosen a seat that wasn't right on top of the cello. Oh well, maybe it was for the better. Wine and other snacks were provided. I approve. I suppose it was nice that there was a mostly female improv show. If it hadn't been promoted that way, I don't think I would've noticed. The Bay Area is fully capable of supplying eight totally competent female musicians, so it just seemed like a regular good concert. In the last week, 7 of the shows I attended had a least one female musician (Womantis, Li Alin, TrioMetrik, Chan/Rose, sfSoundGroup, Frith/Gratkoskwi/Chan, Sharkiface, Telepathik Friend) while 3 had none. That's pretty good, I think? What's bad is... did I really go to 10 shows in 7 days? What the fuck... Matt Ingalls really held his own tonight as the “token male”. It made me proud to be a man.

Last night I saw Li Alin perform at RML. Karaoke style vocals over pre-produced backing music with live reverb tweaking by Naut Humon. Dark pop. Some was a little industrial, some was pretty dubby. This sort of stuff isn't really my thing. This set was followed by an instrumental duo of Naut Humon and Scott Arford. Naut continued tweaking things in Live while Scott fed him audio from some analog gear in addition to some digital stuff. The set started out with weird tone loops that reminded me of Coil. They kept building a strange tension that was never relieved. Some heavier industrial stuff came in later. Dark bass line from the analog gear with pounding beats. This stuff was sounding alright, but I actually heard similar stuff done much better in the sound check. Drinks were provided. I'm on a hot streak.

Gratkowski, complimentary food, Berkeley

I was at three shows tonight. First was TrioMetrik at RML. The show seemed to be free, and it was even catered. But, “Beware of whores who say they don't want money. The hell they don't. What they mean is that they want more money; much more...” (--WSB). This was a fundraiser for TrioMetrik, which presumably had an invocation for financial assistance later in the evening. Enjoyed complimentary hors d'oeuvre and beer. Couldn't hang with the promotional video and following powerpoint, and was compelled to leave before the music began. I actually heard a few violin notes on the way out, but I had enough of that scene by that point. I'm interested in their ideas about having this computer system respond to the live performance with specialized notation and other elements, but there was just too much to wade through to get there. This grand organization seems like so much a part of this trio that I don't feel too bad talking about it in what is ostensibly a music review.

I needed to be part of something on the opposite end of the organizational spectrum, so I biked over to ATA to catch some LA brutal noise. DIY through and through, and almost no money involved. Pedestrian Deposit and Haircut Mountain Transit (I believe) are both harsh noise acts with primal screaming processed through tabletops full of delay and distortion pedals. The sounds were nice, especially through the full wall hodge podge of amps and speakers, but I couldn't help thinking that this stuff all sort of sounds the same. The same, but good. Punk rock intensity, which is a fun and inspiring thing sometimes. HMT played an extra short set (in the vicinity of 2 minutes), which seems to be typical of many of these LA noise dudes. There's something to be said for keeping things tastefully short, but two-minute sets always seem like a bit like a cop out to me. It would be hard to make those two minutes so awesome that stretching it out would be pointless. Working things further and further brings things to an exponentially higher level, and super short sets don't allow this to happen. Better than long and boring though. Maybe prolonged sets with continual development should be left to the “improvisers”, but I've seen “noise” musicians like Tralphaz really work it just as well as anybody with an acoustic bass or whatever. As soon as Pedestrian Deposit's wall of distortion started up, a bunch of guys started bobbing their heads pretty hard to the music as is typical at an intense show. They were all bobbing at a different tempo, and I couldn't figure out what they were synching up with. That sort of thing always seems weird to me. But not long afterward I found myself doing the same thing, unconsciously nodding away to the harsh drone. Different tempo from everyone else. Rhythmic response to intense audio with rhythm ambiguous enough that no two people relate to it in the same way. Someday perhaps I will figure it out.

Moseyed over to the Hemlock in time to catch about half of Lair of the Minotaur's set. Metal from former members of 7000 Dying Rats, including Weasel Walter on drums. Most of this was fairly sludgy metal with rhythmically barked vocals. Surprisingly a little too close to the kind of metal that would have a “-core” somewhere in its name for my tastes. The vocals were influenced a little too much by rap, and not enough by tortured screams of the damned. A few blast beat sections were the most satisfying to me. Low levels of kick drum in the PA watered down the sound to a somewhat disappointing level. Maybe that made all the difference.

Wednesday at 1510 8th Street, Charity Chan and Simon Rose opened things up with a piano and sax duo. Chan kept things inside the piano with the sustain pedal pressed down. Dark ambient style. Rose was frequently repeating the same group of notes in free time while circular breathing... sort of a raga sort of thing to put it really crudely. A fairly droney/static set. I closed my eyes and relaxed. At one point a sax blast excited sympathetic vibrations from undampened piano strings. Rose milked this for a while in a pretty satisfying way. Gratkowski/Nordeson/Looney/Smith played next. This was my third time seeing Gratkowski in four days, so I was starting to get a little worn out, but more relevantly my listening circumstances were slightly compromised, so it's hard to really say what went down. A lot of fairly intense timbral playing, as you would expect from these guys. Gratkowski was playing the best kind of intense energy music on his horns. Looney had his usual pile of junk rattling around on top of the piano strings. Nordeson worked in some subtle rhythmic patterns on his drum set, notably on his collection of bells. These patterns were just another element floating through the chaos, though, not a unifying rhythm. Despite this music being largely “textural” (a term I can't quite endorse), it had a strong soulful element, especially during the last piece. Something really reminded me of “Lonely Woman”.

The previous night at CNMAT, I saw Gratkowski perform with two different sets of musicians. First was the FPR Trio with Phillip Greenlief and Jon Raskin. I've enjoyed the latter two's playing together at their 2+2 series for the last year or so. I also saw this same trio perform the last time Gratkowski was in town (last September). The two locals are great, and this trio really showcases Gratkowski at his best. Almost all of the pieces they performed tonight (as at their previous show) were compositions by the members, which I think was one of the things that really pushed Gratkowski. As great as his improv is, he's into playing notes and seems to work best working with compositions. Greenlief's two contributions were my favorites of the evening. “No Name” (for György Ligeti) had a lot of Ligeti-like trilly tone clusters as well as some staccato Braxton-style angular attacks. The general idea of the piece seemed to be to play something like one of these ideas, then move on to another specified strategy, etc. “Florence” had some notated tonal material with a lot of room for improv suggested by the mostly graphic score. Whatever the scores specified, they worked really well and brought out the best playing of the evening. The other really memorable composition was an older one by Gratkowski, “Three Vegetables for Double Happiness”. This had a lot of notated material very much in the vein of Braxton's quirky, happy and angular mid-Seventies stuff like Comp. No. 40 O and the like. Proggy and energetic. A repeating motive was a short phrase at the end of a tonal phrase in which a note was repeated with increasing speed, moving through the cycle of eight note, eight note triplet, sixteenth note, sixteenth note quintuplet, etc. (or something like that). This idea played a larger role in the other composition by Gratkowski, which had just been written the previous day. Some great solos in this set. I think it was in Gratkowski's own piece where he played his first solo way up in the altissimo range and a later solo way down in the low notes only he can get out of an alto sax (this shit is really kind of mind boggling and also sounds really great). Anyway, this trio is great -- Gratkowski at his best. Rumor has it there is a CD in the works, which I am excited to hear and remember the live shows. Next Gratkowski played with David Wessel. Wessel made tasteful use of CNMAT's 8-channel sound system – not overdoing it at all, but shifting things around in a subtle and interesting manner rather than the hyperactive approach I frequently hear less experienced people employ. The sounds themselves were a bit corny to me -- a little too much reverb and delay, and the samples were also strange. The jazz band samples used frequently in the first piece sort of indicated a mistaken idea that Gratkowski had something to do with jazz. Doesn't seem like the case to me, and to whatever extent he does have something to do with jazz, it is not helped by chopped up hot jazz samples. Gratkowski was working hard, but seemed to have trouble fully blending in with the electronics. The second and final piece with Wessel was significantly better. They operated in more of a dark ambient realm, which made Wessel's corny reverb sounds entirely forgivable, even appropriate. Dark sustained sounds from Wessel encouraged more subdued timbral playing from Gratkowski rather than the more intense stuff I usually hear him play. It was nice hearing him pulled into this weird sound area. They were also joined by a violist from UC Berkeley who contributed a lot of great creaking sounds, and reinforced Gratkowski enough that the acoustic sounds were able to hold their own and blend in more evenly with the electronics. Both pieces were kept quite short, which was probably for the better.

Monday night was sfSoundGroup at ODC. Similar program to their 3/11 show, which I previously reviewed. Things opened up with an improvisation. Good stuff, as usual -- one of the highlights of the night, actually. They were working in the musical language they have established for themselves, which seems to be rooted in the 20th century compositions they play. The group also showed appropriate restraint for a quintet, with players frequently laying out and letting trios and other grouping run their course. Not as fierce or on point as the great previous show, but no real complaints. Well, my one complaint is that the pianist did a lot of playing with his forearms, but it didn't end up sounding nearly as brutal as it seemed he wanted it to. Maybe he was overthinking it. The improv stretched out pretty long as new ideas kept emerging. It seemed like it was probably longer than they had intended, but each new development made the piece that much more interesting. Matthew Goodheart's “Study No. 6b”, written specifically for this group, was next. The basic idea was that the component tones of a clarinet multiphonic were spread out among the whole ensemble so that the other instruments reinforced these tones while fighting their timbre and such with their own sound. This idea worked really well in a few places, but I felt like the piece didn't have much going for it beyond this harmonic aspect. More interesting rhythm or melody sections might have made it seem more complete to me. Grand Duett by Galina Ustvolskaya closed the first set. Fierce piano and cello duet with intense, incessantly repeated phrases. I found myself wanting much more intensity and thought it would probably work a lot better for me if performed by a rock band like Zs or the Flying Luttenbachers – more volume and thicker, heavier sounds. This really was in the same vein as the stuff those bands normally do anyway. Iannis Xenakis' “Akanthos” opened the second set. It was nice, but seemed to lack the intensity I expected from a Xenakis piece. That seemed to be my complaint about the whole evening, actually. Was it actually the group, or just my mood, or did Fred Frith, Frank Gratkowski and Randy Yau set the intensity bar too high in the preceding days? Two Wadada Leo Smith pieces, the same one performed 3/11, closed the program. Great stuff, but again not quite up to the experience of the previous week. If I seem a little down on this show, it's mostly because the 3/11 show was so fucking good. It would be hard to match that, especially when repeating most of that program. The pieces still sounded very good. “Tawhid”, the first of the two, was my other favorite piece of the evening. After hearing Smith talk about his graphic scores the week before, I really don't understand how or why the group structured these pieces so much. There were definitely recognizable and pre-determined sections happening, and the pieces were easily recognizable as the ones I had previously heard. I'll need to investigate.

Sunday night was the first Gratkowski show in the Bay Area. Here he performed at Maybeck Studio with Fred Frith and Charity Chan. This was my first time at this venue and I kind of alternated between enjoying the very nice setting and being slightly repulsed by it. Overall, it seemed like a pretty cozy and comfortable place to enjoy some music. And the music was sublime. Chan and Gratkowski set up a smooth flow on their piano and sax, while Frith continually disrupted things. Banging and scraping on his electric guitar with an anarchic, haphazard attitude, and seemingly rather detached from, and oblivious to, the other musical stream happening. And turned up a little too loud. This is not a complaint in any way – it worked really well and sounded really great. Fred Frith can make detached offensive noise sound really good, and all the better that the good music was resulting from such a strange approach. Gratkowski was meanwhile fighting to make his contribution and Chan seemed to know enough to lay low and let these two masters steer the ship. Not like Gratkowski ever really fully got that chance. This set was at least as good as the FPR Trio set, but I can't say it was Gratkowski at his best, since he was really just struggling to be present. A pretty interesting thing to witness.

Earlier in the day was noise pancakes at CCA. Sharkiface started things out with Nord tones and other nice sounds. It resonated with me a little better than her 21 Grand set from about two weeks previous, though it was pretty similar. Late Severa Wires played a more abstract set than at their show with Ettrick a week before. For a little while they had an Open City vibe going with minimal free rock on their drums, guitar and bass (augmented by turntables). Later, things heated up a little and Sun Ra records went on the record player. Ended up with a free spazz blowout. Telepathik Friend... I really couldn't get over how intensely influenced by Caroliner these kids are. Similar neon tapestries, amp covers and full-body costumes. Similar falsetto echo vocals and crowd-abusing antics. Music was much more formless, and largely based on feedback and other sounds through delay pedals. But I was scratching my head to much to really pay attention. Mini amp got thrown around a lot by the singer. The most amusing part was when an abused audience took charge by unplugging the amp and kicking it across the room. I would've liked to see that line carried a bit further. RHY Yau closed things out with a typically excellent set. Really fantastic, even though it had its shaky moments. Test oscillator tones, feedback, mangled voices and brutal screams. A really full and intense sound. The sound elements were kept pretty simple, which lent a lot of clarity to the music – same sort of reduced approach as Romero, Wiese, etc. The oscillator was a nice variation on the set I've seen him perform numerous times. Similar set-up and ideas, but implemented/improvised differently each time. Great stuff, as usual.

The two Berkeley venues, Maybeck and CNMAT, were new to me and really improved my impression of that city. I guess there are hidden gems in that place if you can avoid the punks and college students, and cut through to something more unique and intelligent. Also, nearly every show I attended provided food. Pancakes at CCA. Wine, cheese, etc. at Maybeck. Cheese and wine at CNMAT. A whole spread of hors d'oeuvres at 1510, and catered treats at RML. Nice supplement to my diet of rolled oats and rice. Let's keep this going.

Unmusical Postscript Eye Eye

Nice collection of noise vids. I can remember being at about half these shows, but I kind of like the ones I wasn't at a little better. Unfortunate mistakes in my past concert going choices or do the videos pale in comparison to the real experience? Probably both.

RHY Yau's set was a good one. Screaming into his little talk back buddy fed through an array of speakers, as he's prone to do. The video is a good reminder, but it doesn't quite capture the brutality I heard at the time. Most of the weird feedback tones, which were one of the more interesting elements, got swallowed up somewhere before the camera's mic. Man, the audience looks bored. Maybe they collectively ate one too many pancakes, though these were the days when the pancakes made you say mmmmmm instead of uhhhhhhhnnnnnn. (I'm glad to say either.)

Crank Sturgeon's screwball tabletop set is probably my favorite of the bunch. How did I miss that? Some hooligan wearing nothing but a mutant fish head on his own head and a long ribbed tube on his dick, screaming like a fool, ranting about his tube and working the pedals. Nice combination of silly brutality and other parts that are sort of eerie, sort of mellow and possibly more musical. Goofy video effects only add to this already goofy performance. Poor Shannon caught in the vortex between two sturgeons! Goofy, but the music is good enough that his shtick works.

I remember liking the Cotton Museum set a lot at the time, but the recording doesn't do much for me. As Cardew said, “Documents such as tape recordings of improvisation are essentially empty, as they preserve chiefly the form that something took and give at best an indistinct hint as to the feeling and cannot convey any sense of time and place.” Or, more humorously, “News has to travel somehow and tape is probably in the last analysis just as adequate a vehicle as hearsay, and certainly just as inaccurate.” [http://www.ubu.com/papers/cardew_ethics.html] Actually, this set is growing on me after listening to it again while taking the time to look up the exact wording of that quotation... Very nice.

Ettrick at noise pancakes Oct 30, 2005 (same show as the RHYY set). Ah... This was our 7th show, and now we've got around 54 under our belt. How much, and how little, has changed. I've lost 30-40 pounds, for one thing. Hidden in the menus is some secret footage of Ettrick with Weasel Walter about 4.5 months after this show. So much better, in my opinion.

I can't watch Power Circus without thinking that maybe, when I wasn't paying attention, Marilyn Manson started making really good music. Or maybe I'm in an alternate world where he took a left turn sometime before making Antichrist Superstar. The world would be a better place. Harsh noise, terrified screams, ironically cute melodies.

The T-113 set is another I wish I would've caught based on this video. I get the impression that there was a big rocking sound that isn't quite cutting through on the video. Gives me the same sort of feeling as the great Hisseaters set I saw at noise pancakes a few months ago. Best part is the finger countdown to signal the end of the set, and the resulting triumphant celebration.

The Tarpita Fleisch set is the same sort of thing she has done at most of the shows I've heard, but done particularly well on this occasion. Is the video cut into the show recording the thing to which she was performing a live score?

Mummers... Buried beneath the Jawa costumes and yucking it up is some good music. Mournful delay pedal sax lamentation floating under skittery minimal drums. Takes a turn toward dark ambiance. Ends with some sloppy hard bop I could kinda do without. But man, another set I should've seen.

from Wadada Leo Smith to SIXES

MONDAY

Saw Wadada Leo Smith give a little talk earlier tonight as part of the Improv:21 series. He explained how his graphic scores were to be interpreted -- each performer is to independently prepare an extensive amount of material based on the nearly limitless number of associations able to be derived from the score (this seemed impossibly daunting to me as he described it, and he went on to point out that most musicians are lazy when it comes to preparing for a piece like this). He explained how his music places great importance on non-development and the independence of the musicians so that an idea can be presented as it is without being obscured by elaborations or responses. Musicians are to perform their material independently of the other musicians playing, only listening to them peripherally. He said the primary concern of his music is to make people (musicians and listeners) forget the world for a while and fully concentrate on the musical universe being created at that moment. Funny remarks about west African artists throwing ceremonial stools in the bushes to let ants eat them (so they had an excuse to make new ones), etc. as well as a few (too) short solo trumpet performances demonstrating how he improvises on a single idea, how he plays his graphic scores, etc. Interesting talk, nice music and presented in a great intimate setting. Wish I would've been to some of the earlier talks. I'll definitely return in the future (Ostertag, Winant, etc.).

SUNDAY

Last night I heard Le Quan Ninh and Frederic Blondy at the Community Music Center. Two new venues for me in two days. I'm glad that there actually are a few places for improvised music in SF (in addition to the LSG and Musician's Union). Too bad they don't get much use. sfSoundGroup opened with a few great pieces. An improvisation started things off. A “half-baked” graphic score by Matt Ingalls turned out really well. Then two Wadada Leo Smith pieces. The scored pieces allowed for a lot of improvisation, so the all of them were strongly stamped with the group's sound. Lots of fast skittering around and playing the I somehow associate more with composed new music. Forceful bass playing from George Cremaschi sounded really good, especially the opening explosion to the first improvisation. Later in that piece, he broke his A string with a violent blow. John Ingle always impresses me with his ability to play extremely quietly on the alto sax with no breath noise. I think it stands out because it's always applied very well. Really quiet tones on the threshold of perception, rising up at the right times. The first Smith piece was really great, and the second featured a smokin energy free jazz trio section with tenor sax, drums and piano. It was really funny to be seeing sfSound treading this territory, but it sounded great. I wish I would see more of these musicians playing in different settings, especially the cellist, who does really interesting things and whom I've never seen outside of sfSound. Blondy and Ninh took the stage next, Blondy on prepared grand piano and Ninh on a sideways-turned bass drum which primarily served as a surface to scrape with cymbals and such. Really “abstract” sound-based music played with great intensity. Even though I had a pretty good idea of what Ninh was doing, it was hard to believe some of the incredible sounds he was getting out of his simple set-up. It often sounded like noisy buzzing electronics and it was pretty loud too. Pine cones were rubbed on the drum to great screeching effect, etc. The techniques really aren't that important. It sounded great.

SATURDAY

Saturday at the Stork Club. Slow Children opened at the usual Stork Club start time of 10-10:30. I was expecting to hear more pop elements based on their published description, but it was mostly free improv. Koto, drums and electronics (processed guitar, vocals, etc.). It sounded pretty good for the most part, especially the koto. I would've liked to have heard them in a more intimate setting, without the PA. The sound turned out a bit weird for the music they were making.

Late Severa Wires played, but I didn't hear much of them.

Mute Socialite was really good. Instrumental math rock sort of stuff with guitar, bass and two drum sets. Hard rockin and interestingly complex in a way that still flowed very well. The Ex definitely comes to mind.

Ettrick went on to a much-diminished crowd and an increasingly anxious bartender at about 1:30am. The furious set was condensed to the bartender-ordered 10 minutes.

FRIDAY

Marana Jocund opened the 21 Grand show. A guitar a drum duo featuring Rob of the Flying Luttenbachers on drums (he plays guitar in the FLs) and his Mirthkon bandmate, Wally, on guitar. High energy improvisations. I saw them play a somewhat lackluster show in December and this set was a great improvement (Rob said he had mono back then!). They certainly have the instrumental ability and this set was played with enough intensity and taste that it came together very well. Cellular Chaos was next, featuring Weasel Walter on guitar with Damon Smith on ergo bass and Willy Winant and Mark Smith both on drum sets. Free no wave... really noisy guitar work like the Flying Luttenbachers freed from rhythm and notes, and strangely combined with rock and roll jumping around antics. The dual drumming was probably the best part. Both guys were going at it with significant fury. Mark was holding down more of a shifting rock beat while Willy played primarily free rhythms and timbral stuff to accompany that. The group as a whole seemed to understand what to do significantly better than at their first show a couple months ago. It really sounded great. Flaming Horse played last.

THURSDAY

Lindsay/Looney/Smith opened the show at 1510 with a Jimmy Giuffre tribute (more or less in instrumentation only). A solid set. Highlights included Lindsay's furious Ab clarinet playing on one piece, and a well-timed motorcycle revving up right as a contrabass clarinet piece wrapped up. Greenlief/Kaiser/Walter were next. Kaiser played really relaxed, stretched-out guitar lines over Walter's fast-moving and frantic percussion. Greenlief found his place by mimicking Kaiser's playing with his sax, and engaging it in a fairly matched dialog. One of the more extreme instances was some spit gurgling while sustaining a note, mimicking a distorted guitar chord. This approach worked quite well and really brought the trio together.

I headed over to G3 next, where the noise show was postponed until midnight due to a double booking. Tullan Velte started out the noise portion with some great cathode ray based noise. Crunchy drone. First time hearing him, and it was great. The final rock band from the previous show went on next, introducing themselves by saying, “You look like you're all here to see techno! Well, we're a ROCK band,” then launching into some Sublime-style white man reggae with heavy wah pedal (ab)use. They wrapped up the set with a pretty solid version of “Red House” (dead-on guitar intro). They were actually pretty impressive for a bunch of kids, especially the apparently 12-year-old drummer. Crazy freak show next door at Ireland 32. Easy listening with close disharmonious backing vocals, congas, tenor sax solos, etc. The most godawful of all noise heard that evening. Cornucopia took back the night for the noise crew. This sounded good too, but I don't remember much. A lot like Tully, I think. Scott Arford played some bass heavy laptop stuff which often didn't sound too good through G3's PA. Certain bass tones just turned to slime. Later in the set he hit on a two-note bass alternation that reminded me of a great industrial bassline. Then some more really interesting sounds and it was all over. Sixes played a great set to a much reduced audience. I was sick and on the way out the door when he started, and I had to turn around to hear the rest of it. More diversity of sounds than I'm used to from someone who is usually more into heavy drone/wall of noise stuff. Again, the set was marred slightly by weird sound at the venue, but it was definitely an interesting one. Nice to hear him branching out a little, and worth sticking around for.

A bunch of memories of a week's worth of shows

Stopped by the Knockout last night and caught the last 10 minutes of the Weasel Walter Trio. Sounded just like them. Gruntfest on alto sax playing a lot wailing altissimo shit, as usual. I think he's my favorite of the rotating saxophonists that play with the group, but even he has a strong tendency to play notes (listen to Ettrick to hear my preferred alternate approach). I came in pretty late and these guys were pretty much soaked in sweat. Some shit had gone down. They told me the end was the best part, but I would have appreciated it more had I seen the build-up. Damon showed me his oozing poison oak welts but said they didn't affect his playing. Check them out Friday night when Weasel Walter's Cellular Chaos plays with Flaming Horse at 21 Grand.

Tuesday at 21 Grand I saw the Gowns. Their new album, Red State, is pretty fucking great. I think it's probably my most listened-to album of 2007. Pushed Willie Nelson right off the charts. Anyway, it was really cool to see those songs performed live. I enjoyed the addition of live drums spanning the range from scraping and rattling to awkward polyrhythms to hard rocking. One or two songs weren't as dense as the album, but I think that was due to equipment/PA trouble. I'm trying to think of a highlight and all that comes to mind is the intro of one of the songs where Erika played a guitar line, then her looping pedal played it backwards, in which form it fit even better with the rest of the music. They're about to go on tour, so go hear them if you live somewhere other than the Bay Area, and buy their album wherever you may be.

Marnie Stern sounded like a poorly mixed indie rock CD being played too loudly. In fact, that's what it was. Barr was indie rock too... I can't get into that stuff, but evidently a lot of people can. 21 Grand was packed, and it was a damn Tuesday night. Had to leave before Old Time Relijun started, but I heard a second or two of good throat singing in their sound check.

Sergio Iglesias & the 69 Beers, Sunday at the Knockout, was complete stupidity, as usual. I can't say objectively whether it was funny or not. My bootleg recording sounds like a big mess, which I think we can be certain it was. Lots of booing.

Noise Pancakes, earlier that day. All of the sets were pretty middle-of-the-road. Pretty palatable brunch music, but nothing mind-blowing. Horseflesh had a nice drone guitar thing going. Hora Flora had a bunch of speakers laying on objects with vibrations controlled by a sampler. The best sound was a sheet of paper on a little subwoofer. It seemed a little half-baked, but it was already miles ahead ahead of his G3 performance from a month or so ago. Interesting ideas with shaky realization. I'm thinking that this shit might really gel in about 6 months as sampler button pushing because less frantic and more controlled, and knowledge of acoustic properties of resonating objects is solidified. Co(sine) was harsh table pedal noise. Reminded me of some other guy I saw play at ArtSF, but I think that was a night noise. Lots of twisted faces and weird postures. I guess a lot of guys do this, though. I think someone shouted out “Will Ferrell!” at the end of his set. Brizbomb had a weird mad scientist set-up. 6-foot tall rack of gear – space echoes and such. White lab coat, smoke machine, flashing DJ lights. A little corny, but maybe it would have looked less screwy in a darkened room rather than broad daylight. Elise Baldwin laptop stuff. I don't really remember what she did, but I kind of liked it. Maybe my favorite set of the day, but then why don't I remember anything other than the caricature of her that adorned her name tag?

Compound Saturday night. Wow. Big bass tones from Damion Romero shook the fuck out of that room. Speakers were literally falling over and the poor sound guy had to quick draft people to hold the room together. If the “predicted” earthquake really did try to strike, Damion counteracted it, and sent it right back to the earth's core. About half the sounds (probably every sound above 200 Hz) were generated by parts of the room shaking. I'm not sure if I would've liked the clean version better, but the Compound is a pretty nice-sounding building to shake if you're gonna be shaking a building. It might have even sounded better outside. I caught a little bit of the sound check from out there. John Wiese had a brutal white noise attack. Kept me interested for 20 minutes, or whatever it was, but I have trouble describing it. Man, my ears didn't want to hear any more after that set. There was a suitably (probably overly) long intermission and the two played duo as Waves. They pretty much did the same thing as their respective solo sets, Damion covering the low end, and John on the high end white noise. Maybe it was the power of suggestion, but John really seemed to be going for more of a new age ocean sound this time – white noise wave swells. Really great. He dropped out for the last 6 minutes or so while Damion rode out some really fantastic bass tones. I think this was the sound he was trying to discover all night.

16 Bitch Pile-Up on Friday was good. Kind of like a reunion, but it really hasn't been all that long since their last show. They took it a lot of different places, from quiet solo trumpet to full-on walls of noise. That was a long time ago at this point, so don't expect any more talk. They too have a new album which you should listen to. Or just buy the poster and hang it up over your bed.

One more show brings me all the way back to last Thursday. My first time seeing Costes. It seemed really stupid at first. Some French people doing mildly transgressive things while shouting unintelligibly in French to a pre-recorded sound track with lots of dancey tracks. Somehow it maintained my interest for the whole show. Perhaps the escalation of transgressions was perfectly paced. Can't really say I liked it, but I kept an eye on the freak show the whole time. Had to take cover when the fake poo started flying. A nice blob ended up high up on 21 Grand's wall. Before that was Mr. Natural with that SAXOPHONIST WHO PLAYED ON FUN HOUSE guy. Harsh noise with weird sax, I think. I don't think I was into it too much. Omnivorous Sinsillium had their dual analog modular weeding out session. This was the first time it ever made any sense to me, but still I think those guys are on a different wavelength. I liked some of it, then I couldn't figure it out. That almost seems like a good thing – like maybe I'll learn to love it in 3 years. That's optimism, though. Ill hits from Count Loach all night long. Any DJ who wears a cape is okay by me. The outstanding set of the night was Core of the Coalman. Different approach than usual. The majority of the set was a massive viola drone – brutal and melancholy, sentimental and cathartic. Just what I wanted to be hearing. Echoed two days later by the massive walls erected the Compound. Ended up in something like a pedal noise fury. I was still riding high from the drone, so I don't really know much about that part.

The merciless schedule of shows I want to hear and am obligated to play at continues this week. Never had this problem in Wisconsin. It's a bit like how the Amish kids always end up hooked on crack during Rumspringa (see Devil's Playground [2002]... actually, I just told you the only thing worth gleaning from that movie).