5 posts tagged “performance”
I am at Barefoot Coffee Roasters and an Austin, TX man in a sharp suit and skinny tie plays a double bass, a cheap guitar, and sings. His name is Chris Black, and he ain'ttoo shabby. Apparently he is touring coffeehouses and dive joints across America.
The idiot dancing brigade aside, the woman has an immaculate set of pipes,that do not seem to have diminished in power or control in three decades. She is the only person who I think can rationally compete with Aretha for both technique and musical ability across genres.
Let's keep it simple. Omar. Victor Duplaix. Together on one stage. You really cannot go wrong with that kind of lineup.
New Order
316
A band that I really did not recognize by name until the utterly ubiquitous surreal video for True Faith was released, New Order nonetheless left a lasting impression during the 80s. I really did not appreciate the early material until seeing it live on this DVD (partially due to my lack of interest in their precursor band with the late Ian Curtis).
This DVD is divided into two main concert sections, with one from 1981 (originally the VHS only Taras Sevchenko released on the now classic and defunct Factory Records) and the other from their big 1998 Reading Festival "comeback" performance. A 25 minute interview section follows to close out the goodies.
The 1981 concert shows a band not yet too far removed from its parent, Joy Division, with an anemic cast and the kind of downward facing bandmates that make shoegazers look downright perky. But the sound quality is quite good, and it gives you a clear window into the period. It is certainly moody, and the highlight for me was (as it really always has been) Peter Hook and his rather unique approach to bass, using essentially cross-voicing with the synths to play atypical registers.
The Reading show is another animal alltogether. Gillian Gilbert and Peter Hook have taken on some weight, and the once perpetually stupored Bernard Sumner vacillates between being somewhat stoic and bursts of almost comedic posturing; he actually tells the crowd at Reading that they are there to "rock" with upraised fist, and during True Faith and Bizarre Love Triangle Sumners inept dancing, which is not as entertaining as Ian Curtis's seizure-like moves, makes you wonder what middle age has done to the lad. Hook still sounds excellent, bass slung low and often getting down into various planting poses as his lines chug and clunk about (his style is still jerky, but always obscured by his heavy use of chorus pedals and sliding around the neck). Stephen Morris is still the guy who looks like his playing is inspired by petit-mal convulsions, but someone has to actually move around a bit, so it may as well be him. They run through a stack of the hits, from Regret to Blue Monday, with the best of the JD cuts being possibly Isolation.
Reading runs through all the hits, but also gives the bonus that for the first time since their inauguration as New Order, they play three Joy Division songs, which Sumner explains as being due to the fact that they finally felt that they had established themselves enough that they would not be seen as using Joy Division material as a crutch for any inadequacies of their own. They do the material justice.
Bernard is quite humorous, especially when he does not mean to be, as when he states laconically "I'm not really an extrovert" , which for most people familiar with JD or NO, the resounding reply would be a giant "DUH". There is also some odd interview footage referencing some of their videos, which in some cases were quite amusing (anyone remember their hair metal spoof? Not in the US, because the video couldn't get played). Gilbert and Morris are practically mutes with Sumner and Hook taking the bulk of the interview duties, and thats ok, as when they do speak there is not much animation or substantive point to their short contributions.
This is all and all a good buy or rental for whomever wants to wax nostalgic or wants to get familiar with one of the stalwart outfits of the 80s andearly 90s.
So I spent the past few days in Los Angeles on the impetus that some of my illustrations were to be used in a pre-concert show at the House of Blues, Anaheim stop of the BT/Thomas Dolby tour (I also ended up being shown in San Diego too). I wrote a long, wandering screed about it here, but this will focus on the show proper, as well as travel music.
I have to say the HoB in Anaheim is the most poorly managed and unfriendly in the chain that I have experienced. I blame the fact that it falls inside the Disney orbit. Thankfully, Disney did not sterilize the talent.
The opener was some acoustic/folkie type who did not sound bad at all, but I did not find compelling; there is a plethora of John Mayer clones waiting for their "Wonderland" moment. I however, am not.
The basic reason I came was my own vanity; seeing my own work projected on the stage at HoB was just too tantalizing to miss, but the chance to see Thomas Dolby was also something I did not want to miss. He played as a one man band, utilizing stacks of key/outboard gear (including an M-Audio Triggerfinger unit identical to the one I use) and covered a good cross-section of his catalog, including Hyperactive, Europa, and of course She Blinded Me with Science. He also played a heretofore unheard and unreleased cut called Your Karma Ran Over My Dogma, which was dated to 1991 and was a decent little curveball. And while I missed the first few cuts of the Dolby set due to finishing dinner a bit slow, I do not think he played either of the songs I really would have wanted to hear, I Love You Goodbye and the very rarely remembered collaboration with Ryuchi Sakamoto, Field Work. But he did play both Airhead and Windpower, also both high on my wishlist of cuts. He has aged incredibly well, with a relaxed and otherwise very upbeat and whimsied stage presence His stage banter was funny and an execise in how to properly engage with your audience (his recollection of dealing with K-Fed's pilfering of some of his work and the subsequent legal fallout was especially hilarious) without falling into self-congratulatory twaddle. The only negative I can think of is that it was clear since this was the start of the tour, that he had not gotten his vocal muscles flexing 100%, and he would sound pitch perfect on something more demanding like Science but had a few hiccups on Karma.
BT's performance was augmented by three additional musicians, and while their overall sound was extremely good, and the visual backdrops occasionally achieving an almost sublime quality, their actual stage presence as a quartet was far more inert than Dolby solo, which was somewhat surprising. His newest album, This Binary Universe, is his most fully realized statement, and it actually sounds better live than on cd, which is unusual for an electronica artist. To that end, the sound and projected visuals more than compensated for the lack of kinetic activity on the stage itself.
Generally a good show all the way around, even if HoB cuts of at midnight.
As for what I listened to on the long drives to and from LA, it was petty basic:
1. A mix of tracks from Saga, leaning heavily on the trio years.
2. Marley Marl (with guests like biz Amrkie, Heavy D, Rozanne Shante and Big Daddy Kane, you just cannot go wrong)
3. A mix of tracks from Level 42, leaning heavily on the years with the Gould brothers in tow.
4. Marillion - Brave
5. Eberhard Weber - Works (sometimes you just need to chill)
