by Bret Hart...

Free Spirit Suites
CD Zzaj Producions
(available through http://www.cdstreet.com/)
On Whirling Dervish got The Ventures pulling teeth from
the jaw of Stanley Turrentine...falling through flesh tubes and treading
dream-corridors with Dialogue for Drifters...when it's
processed well, the rote percussion programs possess a
robotic grin and mechanical grandeur, which insert moments of
"meet George Jetson!" into the landscapes these boys
conjure. I go pretty far back with both of these jokers and Mark
still wrests some of the most obtuse CHUNKS and skanky
MOANS from his axe. Zzaj (Dick Metcalf) is...well, "Zzaj". I've
had the benefit of hearing scads of his work, and have read
reviews of lots of what I haven't myself heard... Zzaj's
keyboards are attacked with a childlike wonder, punky
confidence, and he is generally operating within knowable
parameters (slo-blooze, lounge-jazz, free-form splatter, etc)
regardless of with whom he collaborates. One listen, and you
go, "There's a whole lotta DICK in there."

Live music reviews by Joshua Peck...

Hi. Not a lot of bands but the show reviews are kind of long because I get a little sidetracked here and there with sidebars and stories. These are the bands whose shows I'll talk about: Blood Oranges, The Schramms, Walter Salas-Humera, Magnetic Fields, Sebastien Tellier & Air. Plan on watching a film or two this weekend plus I have seen 4 plays recently and wrote short reviews of that.

Blood Oranges/The Schramms/Walter Salas-Humera 6-5 Mercury Lounge

This was a show I've been excited about for awhile since the Blood Oranges have reformed after a nearly 7 year break up (I'm not counting the Wooden Leg record they did without Cheri Knight). I arrived around showtime and tried to sell the extra ticket I had. I heard a guy asking if the show was gonna sell out and asked him did he want my extra ticket? "How do I know it's real?" I thought he was kidding, but no. I showed him the tickets and told him to choose one, not good enough. He went over to the bulky doorman and asked him if they were real tickets, "I don't know man, ask inside." This was getting embarrassing to me as the guy was a complete and utter dork! The ticket cost $10, why in the world would a person counterfeit a ten dollar ticket?! Well, in we went. A baffled woman in her early 20s sat and said crossly that they were real, he paid me the 10 bucks and thankfully I was rid of him. I went for an egg cream at Katz's next door and when I entered again the woman said, "Wasn't that the most annoying guy ever?" "I've been waiting for months to use my phony tickets at the Blood Oranges show!" I responded. We had a few laughs making fun of the guy and he deserved it completely. Walter from the Silos was just starting when I entered and he played an acoustic set of passionate singer-songwritery songs. I met the Silos about 8 years ago while working at the BBQ and became a Silos fan after that. He sang my favorite Silo song last, calling it "a universal song for everyone". "Susan Across the Ocean", is a honest, emotional song about love, regret and time that weighs even heavier on the chest of us all as we grow old. I was very happy to hear this painful, sad song. The Schramms took the stage and played their straight ahead rock n roll. Dave Schramm was an original member of Yo La Tengo and frankly I'm glad he left that band so they could explore on their own or they might be more like the Schramms. There is nothing wrong with the Schramms I just prefer the more adventurous Yo Las. Schramm is a good guitar player and a few terrific solos burst from his guitar as they played an enjoyable set. I was eager for the Blood Oranges and their hybrid of bluegrass, country and rock n roll. They have three songwriters and singers in the band: electric mandolinist Jimmy Ryan (also does Beacon Hillbillies), bassist Cheri Knight and guitarist Mark Spencer. All three share the singing duties, by themself or all at once with triple harmonies. I'm fond of Knight. She's a bad-ass onstage with her pointed black boots, red bandanna hanging loose from the pocket of her red pants, exchanging banter with Ryan and telling stories. Blood Oranges played around a 90 minute show with most of it drawn from their underrated and unknown records such as "Corn River" and "The Crying Tree". I heard some of my favorites, such as "Shady Grove", "Hell's Half Acre", "Halfway 'round the World". They also played some stompin' hoedown songs like "Little Maggie" and "Hell Train" and some truck driving song I didn't know but really liked. This was a terrific show because they are a band with great songs, a unique sound with the electric mandolin/guitar/triple harmonies and I never though I'd see them since they split all those years ago. Maybe even have a new record before the end of the year which would be very cool.

The Magnetic Fields 6-17 The Bottom Line

First time at the caberet hall Bottom Line and hopefully the last. Ushered to a seat a few feet from the stage you'd think I would like being up front and center but that wasn't the case. In a small club show I like to stand, not sit, cramped and encircled by strangers. Plus, sitting below the stage I realized I would be craning my neck upward to watch the show. There wasn't a warm up group but a warm up reading from comic book/novelist Neil Gaimen (sp?) that was excruciatingly painful to sit through. I am not familiar with his writing but the audience sure was as it seemed over half the place was there to see him. I've been to quite a few readings for all kinds of writers but never have I sit through a more pretentious, more full of himself guy than Gaimen. Unfortunately, the audience ate this crap about demons, displaced gods on earth, poems about his wild hair right up. Awful writing by a guy so in love with his voice he should have been reading to his reflection. The Magnetic Fields came out and sat down in chairs to play, which only added to the lack of atmosphere at this venue and show. Stephin Merritt on guitar and ukelele, Claudia Gonson on piano and synth, John Woo on guitar and banjo and Sam Davol on cello and bass was the linuep. A last complaint about the show: not loud enough! I guess the instrumentation wasn't conducive to loud music but it's always best to be too loud rather than too soft. Anyway, the band played about 90 minutes with the vast majority of songs coming from their triple (that's right, I said "triple") album "69 Love Songs" and included some of my favorites such as "Epitaph for My Heart", "Acoustic Guitar", "Papa was a Rodeo", "Asleep and Dreaming" and "When My Boy Walks Down the Street". I was kind of hoping for a few more older tunes, especially "All the Umprellas in London" or "100,000 Fireflies" (that one was a wish) but it didn't happen. The older songs are synth heavy when "69 Love Songs" for the most part isn't. Merritt is a quiet guy on stage (he looked very ragged and in need of sleep) and Gonson made most of the talking from stage with Woo and Davol absolutely wordless. Gonson was funny and charming as well as being a better pianist than I thought she was. She sang a few songs but mostly it was Merritt's deep voice of melancholy. If you know the MF music you know they have some funny songs ("Fido Your Leash is too Long") and the audience lauged a lot during their set which makes me think that a chunk of the crowd was there for that bore of a writer. The guys around me were there for him and didn't know the songs and practically wet their pants when Gaimen came out to start that drivel. This show had its ups and downs, but I'm glad to see Magnetic Fields finally, just wish it was somewhere else and with someone else.

Air/Sebastien Tellier 6-21 Hammerstein Ballroom

Mindblowingly good show by one of the best bands on the planet as Air fills the majestic and beautiful Hammerstein Ballroom. I arrived to the booming sound of some New Order circa '83 blasting out of the great sound system that bounced off walls and back to my ears. This place was huge. I sat in the middle, close to the front, reading, soaking in New Order and the ballroom as it quickly filled. Tellier took the stage with a woman named pamela. He sat and played guitar, she played a theremin, he sung in what I'm guessing was French as I didn't understand a word of it with all the heavy vocoder and effects use. I love the vocoder or voice manipulation and this night offered a lot of that because Air use it in almost all their songs w/ vocals. Pamela played her theremin as both otherworldly melodic outer space symphonic and as a bass, often so heavy and loud my spine vibrated deep in my carraige (a good thing!). It was great. At one point she even broke out a little human beat box action. Air took the stage and kicked it off with the howlingly wonderful robotic anthem "Electronic Performers" from their latest "10,000 Hz Legend". The songs from the new record sounded so damn good that I was almost down when they went into a slower, more subdued older one. I was really hoping to hear two songs in particular from "Moon Safari" but "Remember" and "Kelly Watch the Stars" did not show up. They did play a few of the quiet, atmospheric instrumentals from Moon and did a great version of "Le Soleil Est Pres de Moi" with a mutated vocal so sweet and tender and alive that I felt in love despite being utterly alone. This show belonged to the new songs with tracks such as "Playground Love" (from the Virgin Suicides soundtrack and dedicated to the teenagers in the crowd), "Don't Be Light", "How Does it Make You Feel?", "Radio #1" (to say this song is catchy is an understatement like saying Death Valley is just a tad on the warm side!) and a song about NY city called "People in the City" that I've been humming for days. I kept my eyes closed about half the time, just getting into Air's songs, and near the end of the show, while my eyes were shut with the strobes beaming into my lids, I felt a couple of people bump into me, but with everyone packed so tight, I didn't think much of it. When I opened my eyes a space had cleared in front of me and to the right. Some guy had puked on the people in front of him and on the floor but it didn't stop the show. I checked my pants, nothing, some girl had puke on her shoulder but stayed for the encore anyway, that's dedication. The last song was a rocked out, lean and mean "Sexy Boy" and sadly the show was over. I've been listening to electronic and synth music since 1984 and am thinking long and hard about proclaiming Air the best electronic band since Kraftwerk and that is hard to face because of all the bands I loved and embraced in the '80s (not to mention the fact that Air are French for God's sake!) but after seeing this show, I'm starting to think that is the case. I walked out into the vibrant street, full of noise and energy, humming "People in the City", feeling like I belong in NY City, wanting to turn to someone and share this kind of joy and excitement but was alone, too bad. All bow to Air.