DENIM SILOS

http://dimpeaks.bandcamp.com

[denimsilos]

Peter Brötzmann / William Parker / Hamid Drake Trio, Mississippi Studios, 5/12/15

Found this review that I must have written when I got home from this concert a few months ago:

Though I had a bit of a post-birthday hangover, I went out to see the Peter Brötzmann / William Parker / Hamid Drake Trio at Mississippi Studios on a Tuesday night. Local trio Not Bitter opened with a pretty cool, pretty out-there set. I liked them best near the end, when they played a droney slow jam, but I guess that’s how I feel about every band.

Brötzmann & co. wasted no time, taking the stage a bit before 9pm. They seemed too large for the stage - in fact, Brötzmann’s legendary mustache seemed to take up much of his corner. It’s good to know some people can still pull off that kind of facial hair without looking like a redneck. Being German helps, I guess.

The set started off fairly mellow, though Brötzmann’s horn cut through with intensity befitting a player whose breakout album was called “Machine Gun.”[1] Drake and Parker played like a two-headed beast, at times settling into a West African-ish groove, then switching to a Krautrock-meets-doo-wop kinda thing (for example), while the German’s shrieks and wails intensified.

Four songs in, our hero brought out a soprano sax, but the sounds it issued were guttural and low, flapping and fluttering like an accordion that had just been run over. He coaxed some sweet clarinet/oboe tones out of it, then skipped all familiar octaves and went straight to plus-or-minus-20khz whistles and squeaks.

Around the hour mark, Drake sat down center stage with a hand drum of some sort (tall heads obscured my view) and took a chanting vocal turn with Parker playing lovely tone-drones on bass. Brötzmann joined in eventually and they brought the thing to a crescendo before leaving the stage. They popped back out for a fairly melodic and brief encore, then called it a night right around the ninety-minute mark. Brötzmann spoke not a word the entire time, and I for one am glad to see a performer who resists stage banter altogether. Now, if we can just get him off of Twitter …

[1] While contemporary observers may find weaponry metaphor to be corny, tedious or offensive, I wasn’t around in 1968 and will let that title stand without judgment.

[denimsilos]

[afrovisionary]

musicians : Sonny Sharrock – Pharoah Sanders – Gunter Hampel – Evan Parker – Han Bennink  Photo: Paul Gerhard Deker (1968)

Sonny Sharrock – Pharoah Sanders – Gunter Hampel – Evan Parker – Han Bennink  Photo: Paul Gerhard Deker (1968)

[davidenos]

Summer is officially here and that means it’s tourist season.  A few of the must-see quintessential spots.

J. Villeneuve’s Famous Monterey Jack Shack, 224 Bay St.

It may not be the best flavor of cheese but it’s all about the atmosphere here.  One of Mr.Villenueve’s descendants still supervises the cheese-making process.  Be sure to check out all the old black-and-white photos on the wall.  There was barely a road here when the shack was first built.  The Monterey Jack is crumbled up from larger blocks called megablocks. Then it is allowed to age inside the pockets of donated wool blazers maintained in a damp sub-basement area.  If your cheese comes from The Jacket itself, you might even see pieces of the original Mr.Villeneuve’s tobacco pieces on your Monterey Jack.  

Thom. Robt. & Sons Oyster Shack, 33321 Polk St.

You’d better arrive early, because a line often forms all the way around the block.  (1.5 hour wait) Word got out long ago (about a century) about this next famous shack on our list.  The oysters may not be fresh from the bay anymore, but they are still served in newspaper, just how they liked them in the old days.  And as they say, they are still “new to you”.  Make sure to ask if you can be seated at one of the Thom. Robt. & Sons TV Seats, where the small TV attached to your table will loop a documentary on the Oyster Shack’s history.  You may or may not have already known that KGO-TV’s Terilyn Joe once enjoyed a salmon filet at Thom. Robt. & Sons.  Her dining companion? None other than former “Shark”, Doug Wilson.

Tappe’s Original Harmonica Shack, 45 Fitch St.

This shack is off the beaten path but well worth the extra effort.  To find Tappe’s you must take the T-Third train until the very last stop, then walk until you get past any paved streets.  The streetlights vanish.  What is that sound in your ears? You’ll realize it’s your own heartbeat! Soon enough though it is replaced by the distant sweet sound of harmonica blues, for each night a cover band sets up in Tappe’s.  Ten o’clock sharp, the harps come out.  At Tappe’s every drink comes with a free Halloween-sized Charleston Chew, wrappers advertising such films as “Small Soldiers” and “Beethoven’s Third”.  When you finally leave, the melodies of the harmonica will circle your dreams and your pockets will be filled with Charlestons.

Kay’s Kitchen Shack, 1100 Columbus

At Kay’s, you can leave your pretensions at the door.  This is a hole-in-the-wall breakfast spot right out of the 1950′s.  The line is usually around the block most mornings, because everybody likes to eat breakfast at the Shack.   Don’t lose your place in line - they run out of the good stuff fast.  At Kay’s, you’ll want to order the Kay’s Favorite Hash Browns.  If you look around the restaurant, you’ll see that the other tables are also having one of the hash browns.  Dennis Franz has been to Kay’s.  You’ll see a photo of Franz on the wall, signed with the message “Thanks For The Breakfast Julia and Don - Dennis Franz”.  If you gotta go, cram through all the people to the register and ask for the bathroom key.  Kay’s Kitchen Shack bathroom key is attached to a giant metal spoon.  It has been set down on the floor, right next to the toilet, too many times to count.

[denimsilos]

Laraaji / Eternal Tapestry, S1, 4/26/15

The venue known as S1 is located in the basement of a Rite Aid. It took me a couple slow cruises ‘round the block before I spotted a crowd of smokers outside what looked to be a garage entrance and figured it out. I sadly missed the opening act but got there in time to spend 30 or 40 minutes waiting for Eternal Tapestry to start. One person or another would go up and ominously fiddle with an instrument, but in general a light drone kept on from the DJ table and nothing much went down onstage. Then, mystery solved: a slight young fella came rushing into the venue and began tuning a bass. The late bassist - of course. I took a seat on the floor and put earplugs in before ET started, but they fooled me and came out slow and atmospheric-like, with a soft-spoken introduction. Last time I saw them their entire set comprised two heavy longform jams, but tonight they played a series of relatively standard-length songs, with vocals even. Gotta say I like them better in extended instrumental mode although I did appreciate the more subtle dynamics on display tonight - perhaps a nod to the ambient/new agey programming of the evening. Very shortly thereafter, Laraaji took the stage, or lack thereof. He stood behind a long table draped in orange. Two yellow lamps faced away from him and shone on the audience, making him almost impossible to see. This bummed me out ‘cause I thought I was going to get at least a taste of his serene smile. He bowed, plucked, and banged on the zither, massaged blue-lit processed drones out of some kinda touchscreen device, and played a mean thumb piano, all with copious amounts of resonant reverb/delay. Midway through the set he got into some heavy unmic’d bellowing that carried nicely through the concrete-and-plaster environs. The highlights for me and the moments that came closest to living up to the “celestial music” tag were the intense unaccompanied zither pieces. The tones he coaxed out of the instrument with his mallets and hands were much more transcendent when allowed to resonate on their own, without the somewhat over-processed and cloying electronic accompaniment. The songs ran seamlessly one into the next and before ya knew it it was over. Laraaji stepped out from the table and addressed the crowd verbally for the first time: “Om shanti om,” etcetera. I was a little distracted near the end by a wasted rocker bro in a kitten sweatshirt who started eating what smelled like chips and cheap salsa out of a rustling plastic bag. A few minutes later he inexplicably moved on to Indian or Pakistani food. His crew seemed embarrassed but also tacitly in approval of the disrespect he was showing toward the performer, who must have been a little out of their comfort zone. I didn’t expect to see bleached-hair tiny-denim-jacket types at this gig, but I guess no place is safe these days.

[denimsilos]

http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2014/06/Tribal_Nations_Map_NA.pdf

[denimsilos]

V. PARTY CHITCHAT

B) Tone is another power signifier in language. Women and men are expected to speak to one another in particular tones, which intimate submission or domination. Policemen speak with studied condescension to their subjects, and if one wants to get away from an encounter with an officer of the law, one must affect a tone of deference and exaggerated respect.

Try to speak to everyone using the strange dialect of the police officer and see if you can attain the same result (e.g., instead of "area," say "vicinity"; instead of "person," say "individual"; instead of "car," say "vehicle"; and so on).

— Ian Svenonius, Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group

[denimsilos]

"In the United States, middle-class has been stripped of its old meaning (owners of capital, wealthy, propertied non-aristocrats) and come to mean someone who is positioned in the middle, between the very richest person and the very poorest person. All but two people in America are middle-class."

— Ian Svenonius, Against Tipping

[denimsilos]

"The mud tracks of workers' cars left in the lot during the week, one or two forlorn Sundayworker cars parked there now, the clouds passing in the pools of brown puddlewater, the sticks and cans and rags of debris, the commute local passing by with pale blank faces of Sunday Travelers—presaging the ghostly day when industrial America shall be abandoned and left to rust in one long Sunday Afternoon of oblivion."

— Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels

[denimsilos]

The Space Lady - Major Tom

[denimsilos]

[awesomepeoplehangingouttogether]

Dennis Hopper, John Ford and John Huston

[denimsilos]

wow the geto boys totally ripped this off. had no idea.

[fyodors]

And in fact I’m now asking an idle question of my own: which is better — cheap happiness, or lofty suffering? Well, which is better?

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground (via fyodors)

[permanentsmile-blog]

Bill Callahan Sings ‘Small Plane’ In A Serene City

When we first approached Bill Callahan to do a Field Recording in New York City, we asked him if he had any special place in mind. His reply surprised me: “A community garden.” I guess I’d stereotyped him in my head, because after all those years of dark, thoughtful songwriting — first as Smog and then on the pensive records he’s made under his own name — I’d imagined a library, someplace quiet and dark.

As it turned out, the brightly lit 6th & B Community Garden, with its lush greenery and mellow wildlife, provided just the right setting. The noise of cabs, buses, trucks and the occasional siren wound up punctuating Callahan’s calm, deep baritone, but he makes it easy to ignore. Here in Manhattan, he sings “Small Plane” from his new album Dream River, one of the best works of his fine career. It comes out Sept. 17, but in the meantime, this sun-drenched Field Recording provides a perfect introduction.

[denimsilos]

the king

[literaryartifacts]

Damn if Justin Taylor didn’t beat me to writing about this book… in a 2007 issue of The Believer. The Codex Seriphanianus.

[deaths-and-entrances]

Suppose, gentlemen, that man is not stupid. (Really, it is quite impossible to say he is, for the sole reason that if he is stupid, who then is intelligent?) But even if he isn’t stupid, all the same he’s monstrously ungrateful! Phenomenally ungrateful. I even think the best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (via deaths-and-entrances)

[spellboundspacecadet]

The world says: “You have needs - satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom.

The Elder Zosima, The Brothers Karamazov (via prufrocksobservatory)