many new experiences

Many new experiences in the last few days. Many new venues and musicians from slightly outside my normal sphere. I started Friday night seeing two solo piano pieces by Frederic Rzewski performed at UC Berkeley's Hertz Hall. The first piece was "The People United Will Never Be Defeated!" performed by Ursula Oppens, a set of 36 variations. The main theme called to mind Western bar room piano, 1970s cocktail lounge piano and the melodrama of Moondog (more or less in that succession). My favorite of the variations were the 10 or so that were totally raucous, with something like a Cecil Taylor or Venetian Snares take on the theme. Stated fairly straightforwardly, but with explosive wrong notes and angular rhythms thrown in. The second piece, "Four Pieces for Piano," was performed by the composer. A lot more textural atonal harmony in this one. Quickly repeated polyrhythmic notes formed shifting chords. This one is a bit harder for me to talk about and I liked it a little bit more.

Afterwards I headed down to the Humboldt House in East Oakland for a birthday/farewell show/party. Opening was Eggs on Legs, the birthday girl's band. Three young ladies playing punk with a lot of dancey no wavey elements. All three sang. A bit sloppy, but it's punk rock and I think it was even their first show. Not the sort of thing I listen to at all, but it sounded pretty good. Party band. The three-part vocals were probably the most impressive element. Pretty intense and a lot better than I expected from a group of this sort. KIT was next. Crazy noisy punk. A bit crazier and noisier, and thus more enjoyable to me, than XBXRX, with whom they share a couple key members. A living room crammed with 50 people is probably the best place to see this band. Cool stuff. Leaving for a UK tour in a few days. There was also a male stripper and some really good-smelling food which I did not eat.

Thursday night I went to the Starry Plough in Berkeley. I walked in as the Jon Raskin Quartet was getting started. A jazzier night for this group -- I've usually seen them perform a lot more abstract music. This time Gino Robair left his analog synth and a lot of his percussion junk at home and primarily focused on more traditional ("actual") drum set playing. One piece even reminded me of a Braxton sort of thing, with Raskin and Allbee playing lines over a pulse track by Cremaschi and Robair. My favorite part of the set was when Cremaschi set down his bass and opened a piece with a noisy electronics solo, soon joined by Robair banging cymbals on the floor of the stage. Dear Liza was next. Trumpet/guitar/bass trio which played very melodically-oriented free jazz. They even played Ayler's "Ghosts", parts of which reminded me, because of the prominent role of the guitar, of Crazy Backwards Alphabet's rendition or even a certain Sonny Sharrock track that always reminded me of that CBA piece. Toward the end of their set guitarist Ava Mendoza opened a piece with a heavily processed guitar solo -- a lot more electronics than guitar. One of the highlights of the set, I guess further revealing my tastes. Go-Go Fightmaster played last. Pretty great high-energy free jazz. Some parts featured the guitar, bass and drums playing something like a less heavy version of doom metal while saxophonist Aaron Bennett blew a wild sax solo over the top. The highlights for me were Vijay Anderson's killer drum solos. Real tight and energetic. The bands became increasingly jazzy as the night progressed, which is the sort of thing I usually stay away from. I'm really glad I heard this stuff though. Pretty amazing playing.

Wednesday was my last night in familiar territory before checking out the three new venues I just mentioned (and Jon Raskin Quartet was the only group I had seen before). I got to G3 pretty late and heard almost nobody except the headliners, Deathroes. Self-described Oakland black noise, fresh back from a month-long US tour. The music was the same sort of harsh white noise stuff I've come to expect from them. The music would've benefited from a lot more volume, but I think they were told to keep it down due to increasing tensions with the neighboring bar. Still sounded good. Their light show was two fairly slow strobes, blinking at a constant rate throughout the performance. Seemed pretty effective compared to some of the other lighting situations I've seen them set up. I'd like to see these guys play in a more suitable venue sometime soon, but this show was pretty good.

Sunday night at the Hemlock I arrived just in time to see Evil Hippie, from Mexico. During their soundcheck/introduction they had a laptop playing pretty harsh noise while a guy talked somewhat unintelligibly in broken English through a Space Echo. It sounded really good, but unfortunately the vocalist sat down at the drum set and a guitarist got onstage. Pretty boring rock after that. Oh well. Sergio Iglesias & the Latin Love Machine didn't make the same mistake of trying to play music.

Earlier that day I saw Jurrassic Park 4, a live musical, performed at ATA. Dancing dinosaurs and co-starring KIT's George Chen as Dr. Ian Malcolm. Pretty funny. Malcolm also later made an appearance buttoning and unbuttoning his jacket as part of the Latin Love Machine.