Downbeast - music blog

If Anyone is Still Out There...

2011-01-17T16:30:50Z

My long-promised new blog STOMPBEAST is now up and running. Actually, it's been up and running for a few months, but I wanted some time "in the dark" to develop some sort of voice and focus. Since THAT wound up being a washout, we're offering up five months of random introverted excavations for your dining and dancing pleasure: a 13-part deep reading of the Brat Pack flick St. Elmo's Fire, coverage of the 2010 Angel City Jazz Festival,a review of Nels Cline's DIRTY BABY, an essay on Errol Morris and my latest interview with pianist/sound sculpturist Motoko Honda.

Adios, Amigos (UPDATED)

2010-06-07T15:09:44Z

Well, pards, it's been three exciting years here at the Beast, but we must be movin' on. We had an awesome time attempting to turn this blog from a de rigueur attempt at self-promotion to something. . .uh, a little bit more than that. Have we succeeded? We have no idea. Oftentimes, it feels like manning a Morse Code substation in the Arctic Circle: ".. ... - .... . .-. . .- -. -.-- -... --- -.. -.-- --- ..- - - .... . .-. . ..--..? .- -. -.-- -... --- -.. -.-- .- - .- .-.. .-.. ..--.. ..--.. ..--..?!?" At any rate, yours truly is now walking out the door into a scary and frightening world of freelance chaos. I am in the process of (natch) starting my own blog which we be a continuation of my obsessions -- musical, medicinal and otherwise -- that have taken shape over my tenure here at Downbeast. Anyhoo, we'll let you know when that starts up. In the meantime, much love, respect, and thanks to Cryptogramophone's Fearless Leader JEFF GAUTHIER for letting me go on (and on and on and on) with this lil' bloggy-wog. By far, he's the best boss I've never drawn obscene caricatures of on the bathroom wall. Another shout-out to all of the great musicians who have rolled through the Crypto Head Office and were quite gracious in answering all of my pestering questions. And thanks to y'all for reading! (POSTSCRIPT: Our friend and L.A. jazz sage Steven L. Isoardi, has just published "The Return of Henry Grimes" his long-awaited account of the remarkable rehabilitation of the former Albert Ayler/Cecil Taylor bassist at the hands of two teeenage jazz enthusiasts. It's a terrific story, and one that has not been told in its entirety -- much less by someone who was actually there to witness it. Congrats, Steve!)

CD REVIEW: The Matt Ritvo Group

2010-06-03T16:26:09Z

We here at the Beast don't usually do CD reviews (we overdosed on them in the Nineties and simply ran out of 10-cent adjectives) but we met guitarist/pianist Matt Ritvo at the old Pasadena Jazz Institute space and Mimi Melnick’s Jazz Salon (which, by the way, was just referenced in Rex Butter’s new AAJ profile of another gee-tar guy). Quite honestly, he was so soft-spoken we never would have guessed the guy had assembled a powerhouse L.A. sextet of elder statesmen for his debut CD: Rahmlee Michael Davis (trumpet), Bobby English (tenor sax), Michael Session (tenor sax), Roberto Miguel Miranda (bass) and Woodrow "Sonship" Theus (drums). The opener, “Dirty Murray,” sets the scene for this understated disc that's ocassionally spiked with spirited intensity. Ritvo's solo piano intro takes its time before unfolding a slo-drag blues shuffle with simple sax harmony. Ritvo’s busy piano runs meld melody and dissonance, spurred by the Coltranisms of Session’s tenor sax -- soon joined by English as their voices intertwine like a pair of morning glory vines. “Blues for Sonship," the CD’s centerpiece, is named after the gloriously eccentric percussionist, who at live shows would often break into possessed and riveting holy pronouncements from his drum seat that could go on for twenty minutes (the Beast actually witnessed this). The tune launches with Ritvo on crystalline guitar -- firmly ensconced in the Joe Pass-Wes Montgomery pantheon -- and features a “snapping” bass solo by Roberto Miranda. Davis’ trumpet recalls muted Miles, although quicker and more acrobatic, like an ornery hornet. There's some furious vamping by Session and English before Mr. Theus himself -- who's been playing deceptive possum throughout the tune -- explodes in a thunderous drum break that enables one to understand why, back in the day, people like Alex Cline argued over who would carry his traps. Matt Ritvo leads studio rehearsal with Roberto Miranda With the exception of "Blues for Sonship," most of these tunes are bite-sized snippets (both "Queensberry Street" and its reprise clock in at barely more than a minute). "The Path" breathes like a funky film-noir soundtrack before ending in a horrified peal of dissonance. “396 Bellevue” carries an off-kilter melody that seems to backs up on itself, creating an aural illusion that almost sounds like you’re listening to it in reverse. Ritvo’s halting barrelhouse-inflected piano interlude brings the song down to concert-hall quiet softness before the tune fades out like smoke from a departing train. The Matt Ritvo Group: "The Path" All in all, a wonderfully under-the-radar release that will prove essential to any salt-worthy L.A. jazz snerd. You can pick up the CD here. Matt Ritvo interviewed by Richard Blackwell REST IN TEMPO Francisco Aguabella Fred Anderson Stuart Cable Roy Carrier Larry Dale Ronnie James Dio Bill Dixon Ernest Fleischmann Paul Gray Dennis Hopper Lena Horne Marvin Isley Hank Jones Jackson Kaujeua Yvonne Loriod Rammellzee Rob McConnell Kazuo Ohno Pete Quaife Rosa Rio Anneliese Rothenberger David Sanger Gary Shider Ali-Ollie Woodson

THE NELS CLINE SINGERS: An Oral History (4 of 4)

2010-04-20T16:59:58Z

PART LAST: “WE WILL ENDEAVOR TO SWING” (2007-Now) February 2007: Nels Cline is voted the #4 “New Guitar God” by Jann Wenner’s struggling indie ‘zine Rolling Stone: THE AVANT-ROMANTIC For many rock-guitar fiends, the oldest guitarist on this list is actually the newest. Before joining Wilco in 2004, in time to tour behind A Ghost is Born, Cline -- born in Los Angeles in 1956 -- was a highly regarded figure in jazz and avant-rock circles, a sonically aggressive guitarist who played with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, the art-country band the Geraldine Fibbers and his own searing instrumental groups. Now Cline agitates the bent-pop designs in Wilco's recent music with strafing feedback, zigzagging distortion and, when you least expect it, a striking, scarred romanticism. (David Fricke, Rolling Stone, 2/22/07) Nels immediately begins concocting self-effacing and embarrassed responses. “The guitar (god) thing…whatever.” (Nels, Cincinatti Citybeat, 6/10/09) [Photo by Beth Herzhaft] …A guitar “demon” is more like it. (Blogcritics.com, 7/16/07)]]> Q: "Was it a surprise when Rolling Stone named you one of 20 'New Guitar Gods'?" NELS: "It was definitely surprising. I don’t think I can take things like that seriously, but it was a fun thing to tell my mom when she was alive then. I don’t think she could really wrap her mind around the whole idea of it, but she knew it was good." (Anne Erickson, Premier Guitar, 5/10) Nels, Scott, Devin and the New Monastery crew assemble for a weeklong stand at The Jazz Standard in New York. By a stroke of fate one can only attribute to the cosmos or something, their Andrew Hill tribute concert is the same day as a free afternoon performance by the real – and ailing – Mr. Hill at Trinity Church, just 3 miles away in Lower Manhattan. Mr. Cline happened to be booked at the Jazz Standard on Thursday night, and his six-piece group sounded fierce…Temperamentally, it was a far cry from what unfolded at Trinity Church. But it was intelligently organized and audaciously played, a testament to Mr. Cline’s sincere feeling for the music. Ending his set, he put it more directly. “The music of Andrew Hill,” he said over the applause. “I hope you heard him this afternoon.” (Nate Chinen, New York Times, 3/31/07) Andrew Hill Trio: Live at Trinity Pt. I JEFF GAUTHIER (producer): “Everybody kind of knew that it was Andrew’s last performance…It’s a trio with bass and drums. He just sounds so strong and amazing, and plays some hymns. And I think within a week or two of that, he was dead.” (MetalJazz, 6/20/08) NELS CLINE: I am sitting here in Sydney, Australia. April 20th would have been my father's 92nd birthday, were he still alive. And Andrew Hill has died…This sextet of mine also played last month in New York, the same week that Mr. Hill played what was probably his last concert…I was way uptown at Columbia University shilling for my band's gigs on the radio, and had no idea until it was too late that he was going to play this concert of what he was calling "ecclesiastical music" with his trio. I learned that Andrew's health had become even worse, that he could barely speak. I missed the concert, but…I suggest you seek it out. I suggest that you seek out all of Andrew Hill's music. It is visionary, unpredictable, wide-ranging in approach, loose-limbed yet articulate, and as I have said before, much like the man: beautiful and free. Love to you, Andrew Hill. Love to your family. The music you made lives on. In loving memory. (nelscline.com, 4/24/07) While on an Australian tour with Wilco and preparing for the release of Sky Blue Sky, his first full-length album of new material with the band, Nels receive more bad news—this time much closer to home. Improvising guitarist Rod Poole, a fixture of Los Angeles’ small but vital free-music scene, was murdered in an altercation in Hollywood, California on May 13, 2007. He was 45 years old. (Jazzhouse.org) NELS: What with my constant road work and divergent personal realm, Rod and I had been in touch less and less frequently, which really felt bad. Rod was a true artist, probably a genius. He had an amazing capacity as both music fan and autodidact musician visionary. He was stubborn, thorny at times, but always because of his intense feelings and ideas concerning creative expression, especially that of the sound world. His death was pointless, and from reports, horribly violent. I feel sick. We are a disaster as a society. I can't stop thinking about him and his wife Lisa. What a nightmare...And it hasn't even really fully sunk in that I will never again see this man, never play music with him again, never hear him play, sit in his Hollywood apartment listening to music, drinking fine beers, thumbing through his recent eBay acquisitions of Sun Ra, Hendrix bootlegs...never again play music with him. (nelscline.com, 5/15/07) Rod Poole & Friends: Live at the Schindler House (June 2000) Rod Poole was killed....I am dedicating part of my life to making sure the pieces of shit who killed him are in jail rotting or are in hell once out of jail. God told me to. (user comment posted on YouTube) DEVIN HOFF: “You can’t be a sensitive musician if you’re not a sensitive human being. We listen to each other and we hang out together and all three of us have been through a lot as human beings since we’ve gotten together as a band. It hasn’t been a stable ten years for any of us: Scott became a father, there’s been divorces, deaths…we’ve all grown through those things and we’ve been there as friends for each other when that stuff happened, irrespective of the music.” (Interview, 3/11/10) Nels Cline & Friends: Rod Poole Tribute at the Schindler House (Sept. 2009) A little more than a month later, the new Nels Cline Singers album is released on June 26, 2007. Title: draw breath. First song: “Caved-in Heart Blues.” From despair to optimism, guitarist Nels Cline, bassist Devin Hoff and drummer-electronicist Scott Amendola tell an emotional story, their immediacy obliterating preconceptions of instruments. Sounds that recall water and animals…remind us we're part of nature; change is constant. It's not comfortable, but art's that way. (Greg Burk, Los Angeles Times, 5/07) On draw breath, they charge through a program of progressive jazz, soulful blues, hard rock passion and soothing soliloquies that characterize the sum of our everyday experience. After all, no one can say his or her day has been completely one-sided from sunup to sundown. (Jim Santella, All About Jazz, 8/06/07) So, really, this album has something for everyone. Except folks who insist on vocals, and there's nothing you can do for or about people like that. (Philip Freeman, Paper Thin Walls, 7/12/07) DEVIN: “I hear Nels’ influence all over my playing, like the physical liberation of feeling like I could use my bow: Nels writing a punk song and saying, ‘OK, play the eighth notes; instead of with a pick, play it with a bow.’ And phrasing too, and thinking of sonic texture as integral to everything. In the punk and jazz worlds, often ‘the note’ matters more, not what you do with that note. But with the Singers, I think about the total experience of the music at all times. I’ve played with Nels so much, I can’t help but emulate some of his harmonic conceptions, too.” (Interview, 3/11/10) As dexterous and admirable as all of this genre hopscotch is, it makes draw breath hard to differentiate from the other Nels Cline Singers records -- mainly because they're all equally schizophrenic. (Aaron Leitko, Pitchfork Media, 10/19/07) There is quite a bit to digest here, maybe even scare the snot out of a few Wilco fans. (Mark Corroto, All About Jazz, 6/29/07) DEVIN: “For my own part, in the last few years I feel like I really hit my stride in my interaction with the band. I was stepping up to the plate with more confidence than I’ve had before. If you’re timid when you’re improvising, that’s the worst. Nothing good will come out of that. I used to have some timidity when I improvised…but with draw breath, I still feel pretty good about it and stand behind the bass playing on that record. That was the first time I think we documented our playing at a really high level in the studio together.” (Interview, 3/11/10) NELS: “Our rapport as a band just keeps getting better and better. That’s sounds completely like a PR statement but it’s true. It’s interesting to me that Scott and Devin – without any influence on my part – are drifting into this kind of thrash-metal area. Devin in particular is in a phase in his life where dark metal is a huge facet of his playing and his fascinations” (Interview, 3/05/10) DEVIN: “I’m obsessed now with black metal, primarily the second wave Swedish and Norwegian bands like Mayhem and Darkthrone and Burzum. I know it’s problematic…but a lot of that music marries the D.I.Y. ethos of punk with that scary, oppressive vibe of metal. There’s an avant-garde aspect to it, like a love of ambience that reminds me of John Cage, the environment-as-music type of thing. The early stuff has so much white noise its almost unlistenable, but then you realize that they’re doing drone tones. It suits me, I think. A lot of what I love about Sabbath or Iron Maiden was the spookiness, the creepy quasi-satanic imagery of the lyrics. One of the things about black metal that is not written about much that some of these musicians are amazing. Gylve Nagell, the drummer in Darkthrone, he’s an incredible musician with a real deep level of understanding about time and feel.” (Interview, 3/11/10) NELS: “We kind of introduced [metal] into the mix on ‘An Evening at Pops’ on draw breath, which is a reference to Scott because I’ve called him ‘Pops’ ever since he became a dad…I bought Devin a couple of fuzzboxes for his bass…Devin and I play these sort of plodding low toned fuzz-riffs and Scott just goes off like Tony Williams. Scott really gets engaged at that point and brings so much blood, sweat and tears to it that it doesn’t just sound like ‘us.’ We’re not trying to be funny at all about it. These a little bit of archness to it because that’s an essential component of our aesthetic collectively.” (Interview, 3/05/10) "Pops" Amendola with wife Ari [Photo by Peak] KONSTRUERET HOFF’S LOMME GUIDE Å SORT METALLISK (“DEVIN HOFF’S POCKET GUIDE TO BLACK METAL”): The 2nd wave Norwegian black metal scene was actually a reaction against the slickness and commercialism of the death metal scene at the time. it was also a reaction against Christianity, which the musicians saw as a colonizing force which had forcibly eradicated much of the indigenous pagan traditions of Norway. so hence Black Metal, as in satanic, though not all of the musicians were satanic...also, whereas musically death metal focuses on being "heavy" and technical, black metal focuses on ambience and darkness (like the night in a forest), with often a kind of punk minimalism (and less traditional song structures) I would recommend these records: -Mayhem: Deathcrush ep; De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas -Darkthrone: Transylvanian Hunger; Panzerfaust -Burzum: Filosofem (my vote for best record of the last 20 years) all these records were made in the late 80's and early 90's by a group of people who knew each other. there is a lot of controversy surrounding them (church burnings, murder, etc)…some of the reporting about stuff is very tabloid-ish and more confusing than illuminating. take care and enjoy! (email, 3/12/10 11:41am) August 2007: After drawing on the dark power of the Norse Gods (and perhaps pissing them off)… We're sorry to report that our good friend and Wilco guitarist extraordinaire Nels Cline has recently contracted a rather nasty case of the CHICKEN POX (not sure that should be in all caps... but judging from the gruesome details in email correspondence we've had with NC, we'll leave it so). He is slowly on the mend but is not quite there yet, necessitating postponment of the Duluth, Minnesota [Wilco] show scheduled for this Tuesday night…Refunds will be available at point of purchase. We will post more details as they become avaialble. We apologize for the inconvenience... but we're really glad Nels seems to be over the hump and hope to see you out there soon. Regretfully, the Wilco HQ staff (8/17/07) DEVIN: “The biggest influence [Nels] has had on my life: No matter what’s going on in the world or in his life, on stage, on the road, close friend passed away, rude sound guy, hangnail, chicken pox, whatever – I’ve never seen him not throw down with 100% of his entire person, musical and otherwise. It’s all focused on that moment. Every gig it’s the same. He’s never not all the way there. He doesn’t play any harder in front of 5000 people with Wilco than playing in front of 30 people at Mr. T’s Bowl [in L.A.] when we were first starting out as a band. That’s really admirable to me. I’ve tried to emulate that. I don’t succeed, but I try.” (Interview, 3/11/10) Nels smears himself in pinkish calamine lotion and recovers in time to be commissioned by producer/poet David Breskin to write 39 pieces of music to accompany Dirty Baby, a book of paintings by L.A. artist Ed Ruscha. For the eight-day recording sessions in January 2008, Nels augments the Singers with an armada of his old friends: Bill Barrett, Jon Brion, Jessica Catron, Alex Cline, Dan Clucas, Jeremy Drake, Brad Dutz, Danny Frankel, Jeff Gauthier, Vinny Golia, Wayne Peet and Glenn Taylor. Unfortunately… NELS (lying flat on his back with an ice pack under his neck): “For years I’ve given myself whiplash. I’ll wake up the morning after a gig and will have lost mobility in my head – like, my head won’t turn – and I thought, ‘Oh, it’ll go away!’—and it usually has. Little did I know I was actually damaging myself…I did two recordings in Los Angeles in January where I could barely hold a chord. I could play, but I couldn’t play what I was hearing…It’s actually really a bummer. I never want to think about my body when I’m playing – I never did before. I just want to levitate.” (from Wilco: Ashes of American Flags DVD) Even listening to the playbacks, Nels paced the booth like a restless skinny tiger. (account of recording sessions for the Jeff Gauthier Goatette’s House of Return, Downbeast, 1/18/08) NELS: “There’s a solo I did on House of Return – one of Jeff’s tunes, I don’t recall the title – where I ended up doing what I call my ‘tribute to G.E. Stinson’ solo. Normally I would play a thousand notes but I couldn’t do it, my hand wouldn’t move that way, I played with the déjà vibe on and played slower vibrato with distortion, just like G.E.” (Interview, 3/05/10) G.E. Stinson & Nels Cline, March 2009 [Photo by Peak] NELS: “Dirty Baby was a pressure cooker because I had lost strength and mobility in my left hand and could barely play the guitar. I was scared. I could barely hold my keys to unlock my front door. I’d have to do everything with my right hand. My doctor said I had degenerating vertebrae in my neck which was causing a nerve problem that created this massive blockage in my left shoulder. I was under a lot of stress: My mom was dying, my friend Dan Morris just had died…I had procrastinated mercilessly on writing the music, so I was out of my head.” (Interview, 3/05/10) Going into this recording session, I knew immediately I was in on a very significant project…It has to be one of my favorite moments of the year. (photographer Peak Ness, Exposed blog, 2/01/08) Nels at the Dirty Baby Sessions, January 2008 [Photo by Peak] NELS: “The music had to be recorded, mixed and mastered in nine days. We totally did it, Saint [engineer Ron Saint Germain] was tireless, and no tempers flared, we were all completely engaged and still having a good time…Carla [Bozulich] came down to hang out in the studio and she told me, ‘This is the dream team for you!’” (Interview, 3/05/10) Ron Saint Germain at the switch (R); behind him, Vinny Golia looks on [Photo by Peak] Devin Hoff at the Dirty Baby Sessions [Photo by Peak] Scott Amendola [Photo by Peak] Jeff Gauthier [Photo by Peak] The Singers (Nels with newly purchased therapeutic Swiss balls, pamphlets of stretch exercises and plenty of magnesium in tow) play a bunch of dates in celebration of Cryptogramophone’s 10th Anniversary in New York and L.A. JEFF GAUTHIER: Thursday night was the Nels Cline Singers and they just totally rocked the place. They played some new tunes, some older tunes from the old Nels Cline Trio: “The Divine Homegirl” from Ground; “Exiled” from Silencer. This was the first time the Nels Cline Singers played some of the tunes from the old trio. (account of the Singers at the Jazz Standard in NYC, Downbeast, 4/25/08) NELS: “There’s this tendency for me to have wistful nostalgia mixed with the desire to refer to something important in my life that creates the looking-back-over-one’s-shoulder-yet-trying-to-look-ahead-at-the- same-time. It’s kind of a balancing act. I’m not really sure it’s all that smart, but I do it anyway.” (Interview, 3/05/10) Nels Cline Singers were celebrating eight years (to the night) of existence and their infamy for never singing in their sets was broken by a new untitled original, where Nels sang a nonsensical "ba-baaaaa-ba-baaa!" over and over again while covering said vocals in pitched guitar groans. This came after a mammoth opening version of "Caved-in Heart Blues," a foreboding funeral march anchored by Cline's Spaghetti-western lead melody. After a squall of white noize came the quiet, loungey environs of "Blues, Too" from 2004's The Giant Pin, where Nels switched to a delicate Joe Pass/Jim Hall vibe that was such a total 180 from the previous song that it nearly made us car sick. This was followed by "Attempted" from 2008's draw breath (where Devin Hoff really shined) and yet-another untitled new song where Cline and Amendola battered each other with their effects boxes and Nels hit his strings while changing the chord each time, creating a dizzying channel-surfing effect. Easily the highlight (for us, at least) was the new song that actually had a title, "King Queen," where [keyboardist] David Witham and [drummer] Alex Cline returned to join for what Nels referred to as a "dance party," a funkified maggot-brainy workout that was so much fun it begged the question: "Where are the Solid Gold dancers when you need them?" (Downbeast review of the Singers at REDCAT in LA, 3/20/09) SCOTT AMENDOLA: “Starting that set with ‘Caved-in Heart Blues,’ that reminds me of something Nels said before we went on, ‘It’s gonna be controversial!’” (Interview, 3/12/10) The set demanded that the audience demand an encore, which they got, Nels-style: another new song with at least three tentative titles ("0 Miles / Vamp / Yer Fuse"), a serrated-edged semi-punk rocker that saw Nels spazzing out like an electrocuted marionette. The man was obviously having the time of his life, and his offhand remark that his late father was "born and raised in tenement housing right here on Bunker Hill" conjured up the image of the old man smiling down at the spectacle of his sons returning to the old 'hood to make such a holy racket. (Downbeast review of the Singers at REDCAT in LA, 3/20/09) Pivotal question for today's multistylistic musician: How do you keep versatility from turning into superficial eclecticism? (John Corbett, Downbeat, 2/1/09) NELS: “I think that one can inherently have a sense of mistrust towards a chameleon.” (Brooklyn Rail, August/September 2003) DEVIN: “Nels is an amazingly prolific composer. People keep thinking of him as the ‘greatest guitar player,’ and he is, but his composing is of equal strength with his guitar playing. When it’s time to write a record, he’ll sit down and in a month write 20 great pieces of music.” (Interview, 3/11/10) Devin & Nels confer at Cafe du Nord, November 2008 [Photo by Peak] NELS: “Conceptually, the new record was like pulling teeth. I was kind of overextended and sick of a lot of aspects of my own records. It seems like in a way I kind of make the same records over and over again, even back to the old trio records. The aesthetic palate is kind of repetitive: the slow ballad, the free ballad, the ‘loud’ song, the post-Ornette freakout – it’s kind of the same, and I got sick of listening to myself solo. I mean, there’s a couple here and there that I enjoyed, and in a way the easiest thing to do would have been to just go in and straight improvise, which we might actually do on the next record although there’s a bit of it on the live disc, because we’re good at that, but I was wrestling with an aesthetic and personal guitar dilemma, so I went to rehearse with the boys up at Scott’s music room.” (Interview, 3/05/10) SCOTT: “When he writes music, I get the impression he hears the entire orchestra in his head when he’s composing. And he’s patient with finding things. The amount of energy he has when he’s playing, of course, is very intense. There’s this deep passion inside there to shape and create music and if you’re paying attention, you can suck it in and it’s really powerful. When you’re working with someone like that, you realize that your voice is going to be used in their concept. Nels and John [Zorn] have taken my voice and shaped my voice and they know how to use it. They really want your instincts to work.” (Interview, 3/12/10) Scott slams it home [Photo via Flickr] DEVIN: “I think the studio album is almost consciously a ‘Scott record.’ This is the first Singers record where we’re really exploring the groove aspect of Scott’s playing for more than a section of a tune. The Singers did a couple of gigs with Charlie Hunter a couple of years ago, and Scott did double duty with Charlie and the Singers—this is soon after draw breath came out. Nels and I were hanging out listening to Scott playing together with Charlie and Nels turned to me and said, ‘Holy shit, we’ve been totally undervaluing this aspect of Scott’s playing.’ Just because we were thinking about punk rock and free jazz and soundscapes and Carla Bley—these things we all love, but Nels was just, ‘Scott’s an amazing groove drummer and we’re cutting off one of his arms by not letting him do that in the band.’ There’s some elements of that on the old records—“Ghost of the Piñata” from Instrumentals comes to mind—but on this record its very explicit. One of Scott’s biggest influences is Tony Allen, Fela’s drummer, and that obviously comes out very quickly. I’m glad we got to explore that on this record. For me, it’s not really my strong suit to do that type of stuff. When I listened to the record but I felt like I sounded like a fish out of water. When I listen to the live CD, I can go, oh that’s me, but when I hear the studio CD, I think, Is that me?” (Interview, 3/11/10) The band’s forthcoming album…will be more of a sustained exploration of groove, with Brazilian and African accents. Cline, who wryly calls it “our worldbeat jam band record” had begun to feel wary of a familiar pattern of eclecticism. The Singers rehearsed the music extensively, fleshing it out altogether before entering the studio. (Nate Chinen, Jazz Times, 10/09) SCOTT: “That’s totally the direction Nels wanted to go in—more of a groove album. I’m known for that, and the thing that record is so much about Devin and the foundations he’s laid in the band. Then again, if the three of us were sitting around a table we’d be, ‘No, it’s about you! No, it’s about you!'" (Interview, 3/12/10) NELS: “Dave Breskin came down to L.A. and I basically had all very few finished pieces, all these scraps and general ideas, except for ‘Mercy’, which is an old piece from the Nels Cline Trio days that I never recorded that I found in a pile in the filing cabinet. I unearthed it out of desperation. I have a lot of music lying around that hasn’t been recorded, sort of charts and squibs written down in this big cabinet, so I started pouring through them to see if there was something I overlooked. My friend Carol Kim had a lump in her breast, and they didn’t know if it was malignant so I wrote this piece just to play once for her at the Alligator Lounge. It was David Breskin’s idea to do two versions of it for the record. So we started grappling with all this very raw material and I was asking Devin and Scott, ‘What if this? What if that?’ and we began collectively writing the piece ‘Red Line to Greenland’ just by jamming around with me playing this open tuning and essentially only about 3-4 of the songs are actually written before we started rehearsing, they were just little things that I had jotted down and kind of nailed together into something that started to take shape. I’ve never done anything that way before.” (Interview, 3/05/10) David Breskin [Photo by Peak] NELS: “The only idea I had specifically in mind for Initiate was that it was going to be more of a droning, groove-oriented record then in the past. I was going to use my voice on the record, because I wanted the record to feel overall warmer and have a real ‘in the body’ kind of feel and I wanted it to reflect what was at that time a somewhat creased fascination with West African and sub-Saharan popular music and an ongoing love of pre-70s fusion like Weather Report and Herbie Hancock and Miles of course and Brazilian music…I just more recently got into Tom Zé, but that influence may come out in another group, because it was Yuka Honda that actually introduced me to his stuff. Now when I’m back home in L.A., I spend my time driving around in my car listening to Tom Zé. Yuka and I have this new band called Fig, which takes a lot of influence from him.” (Interview, 3/05/10) SCOTT: “’King Queen’ is definitely different for us in the sense that it’s our version of an Afrobeat groove. There was a point where Nels wasn’t sure about it, and I was like, ‘Dude, shut up’…It’s always good to be a little nervous about what you’re doing, because it shows you are initiating something different.” (Interview, 3/12/10) NELS: “The first attempt at that was I think ‘Ghost of the Piñata,’ another one in 6/4 on Instrumentals that was kind of this lite version of imitating electronic beats…I knew Scott could do it, from playing in the Scott Amendola Band and witnessing him pulling it off night after night. I wanted to do specifically an Afrobeat song, but I ended up doing an Afrobeat song called ‘King Queen.’ I came up with that beat, it’s a very turned-around beat, not a normal Tony Allen Afrobeat. It's in 6/4 not in 4/4. I wanted David Witham on the record for that. I flew him up to Yoshi’s to do a show; there was a beautiful Fender Rhodes at Fantasy [Studios]. I brought my box Jaguar to play on ‘King Queen.’ And David was down with it, because he loves that Afrobeat stuff. And Scott and Devin and I have spent untold hours driving around in van with 1970s fuzz-funk blaring, talking about how we loved all the tones. I didn’t end up doing it quite as slavishly as I liked to. During the mixing stage, I borrowed a guitar and replayed the solo from ‘King Queen’ because the original one was really bumming me out.” (Interview, 3/05/09) DEVIN: “The music is split between anarchism and fascism. When its anarchy, it’s ‘Whatever you guys want to do at any moment, it’s cool and I’ll tell you when those moments are.’ Then the other time, like 1/3 of the time I the studio, 10% of the time live, its ‘I write the notes and I tell what to play and you play that.’ We trust Nels, so Scott and I up pretty much up for anything. But this new record balances each other out, because the studio is almost entirely composed, even what improvising there is in reaction to something every specific that was write. The other disc is a good document of the band live. Live, unless Nels goes in some specific emotional direction, there’s not a point at that gig or any other when I couldn’t do just anything I wanted. I can play the bass part in the song or I can jettison it and Nels wouldn’t get mad at me. [laughs] And, occasionally, we fall on our faces…” (Interview, 3/11/10) NELS: “We wanted to record the live disc at Café du Nord because we’ve had some great gigs there. The audience is really close up. It catches that ferocity thing that sometimes gets kinda out of control.” (Interview, 3/05/10) Q: "What was the appeal of the cover songs you picked for the live CD?" NELS: "I've been playing pieces by Carla Bley for years because I'm obsessed with Paul Bley and compositions of hers performed by Paul Bley or anybody, for that matter. We just threw in 'And Now the Queen' at the last minute because we wanted something that was free but quiet. 'Boogie Woogie Waltz' kind of started something. When [song composer] Joseph Zawinul died. it sort of threw me in a way that I didn't expect. I wasn't the hugest Weather Report fan, but I love that early stuff. It just represents a certain joy to me that very little other music does. Pieces like 'Jungle Book' are infused with a non-saccharine feeling of joy, and that sort of carried over to the studio CD with that sunny feeling where I didn't have to be angst-ridden all the time." (Tad Hendrickson, Spinner.com, 4/15/10) In what Nels terms a “semi-controversial” decision, the Singers enlist the mad-scientist personalities of David Breskin and Ron Saint Germain to man the board for the Initiate sessions on March 23-25, 2009. It is the first time the Singers: (a) don't make a record with Jeff Gauthier producing and Rich Breen engineering; (b) do not record in L.A., instead heading up to Fantasy Studios in the Bay Area. NELS: “After we worked on Dirty Baby, which David commissioned when we did not know each other, I realized that we were working well together. David basically told me that he’d like to record anything and everything that I’d want to do, period, and he hasn’t said that to anybody since the 80s, when he was working with Ronald Shannon Jackson and Bill Frisell...I think for Jeff it was a little bit of a difficult adjustment to make because I think he was really happy doing those records. It’s different for me because David is more engaged in the producer role, whereas with Jeff and I, we've played together for 30-plus years. If I was producing his record I’d do the same thing: He gets insecure and I say, ‘No, don’t worry about it, that solo is great, whaadday want for lunch?' and when I’m recording a record and having a crisis of confidence or something, he’ll say, ‘That tune was awesome, don’t worry about it, whaddaya want for lunch?’ David is little more involved and in this record is certainly helped because I was really flailing at certain points and Saint is such a huge amazing outsize personality, but one with whom I get along swimmingly.” (Interview, 3/05/10) DEVIN: “Jeff is much more laid back and hands off, more typical of a jazz producer. David feels like he’s making the record along with you, whereas sort of Jeff enables us to make a record. [laughs] In the end, Nels still calls all the producing shots. I definitely never felt like I was having to compromise in a way that musically seemed like a bad idea.” (Interview, 3/11/10) JEFF GAUTHIER: "If you start it well and end it well, it doesn't matter what you do in the middle." (Downbeast, 4/16/08) NELS: “If I were to make up a motto for the Singers right now? It would be: ‘We will endeavor to swing.’ I don’t mean swing literally, but to play with a more buoyant, rhythmic, infectious feel, because with Scott on drums that became much more of a possibility. I feel the freedom now to write things a little ‘groovier.’” (Interview, 3/05/10) DEVIN: “I don’t know what our motto is. Maybe: 'Hot For Teacher.' That’s the official song of the Nels Cline Singers. We’ve played that at almost every single sound check. We’ve done jazz gigs where we played that song, that and 'I Wanna Be Your Dog.' The jazz crowd didn’t really notice, as Nels was playing very quietly sitting down. It was pretty funny. That was at a restaurant in San Francisco that Scott booked for awhile called Bacar that had a jazz space downstairs. There would be at least one person who would come in and realize, ‘Holy shit, is that Nels Cline?’ They’d have their mind blown because he was just sitting there playing ‘Autumn Leaves’ in the background.” (Interview, 3/11/10) SCOTT: “My NCS motto: ‘LOVE, baby!’” (Interview, 3/05/10) SCOTT: “The thing I feel about bands is like nothing really ever dies. It’s always going to be there, if it’s something that needs to happen. I said this to Nels a couple of year ago: ‘Dude, the Nels Cline Singers is a band for life.’ He kind of laughed and said, ‘Yeahhh!’” (Interview, 3/12/10) As for Cline himself -- no other guitarist welds this kind of immediate connection between instrument and emotion. His enormous range, technical facility and mastery of effects stand ready to express every passion, and it's plain he's got many. To meet this easygoing, humorous dude, you'd never think he would be found threshing such extremes of intensity, sensitivity and darkness. We all know those extremes; we just don't show the world. I've said before that Cline's music scares me, and now I know why: It's the same fear I get from looking in the mirror. (Greg Burk, MetalJazz, 4/16/10) NELS: And remember: It's about you, your hands, your imagination, your feelings. What I do doesn't amount to a hill of beans! (session notes for Instrumentals) i had the great pleasure of meeting nels after an all ages show in madison last year, and while discussing my amazement with the band (scott literally drummed the glasses right off his face), and nels asked where i was from – chicago, where they were playing the following night at a 21+ show, i explained how i traveled to madison to see them as i was only 20 at the time. nels said “come on by around 3, we’ll at least get you in for the soundcheck and i’ll see if i can’t get you in for the show” just as i walk up to the bar, nels & crew arrive. help unload their gear (actually holding nels jazzmaster in my hands, even if it was in a case, is a moment i will never forget!), sat and watched soundcheck, and even got to sit ‘backstage’ during an interview nels was giving to a local college radio host. come showtime, i was on the guestlist and made it in. those 2 nights were easily one of the greatest experiences in my life. (“peter,” glidemagazine.com, 7/21/09)

Initial Initiate Intel In!

2010-04-19T15:20:03Z

Indubitably... 'INTENSELY FUNKY": All About Jazz "SANDINISTA!": All About Jazz "YIN AND YANG": Audiophile Audition "INHIBITION AT THE DOOR": Boston Globe "WON'T INDUCE SLEEP": The Daily Athenaeum "INTRICATE CONTRAPUNTAL MANEUVERS": Dusted "IN TRUE NELS FASHION": Greenleaf Music "INTERIOR MONOLOGUES AT A FRANTIC PACE": Jambands "UNPREDICTABLE SHIFTS IN VOLUME": JazzTimes "INSISTENT MELODY": L.A. Times Pop & Hiss "WINGIN' IT": MetalJazz "INNOVATING": Music and More "MULTIFARIOUSNESS OF INTERESTS": The National "INSPIRING": NPR’s First Listen "PURE, UNFETTERED INSANITY": Paste "INTUITIVE INTERPLAY": Pitchfork Media "INADVERTENTLY CREATING A BLACK HOLE": Pop Matters "AN INTIMATE GLIMPSE": Prefix "IN ANOTHER UNIVERSE ENTIRELY": Seattle Post-Intelligencer "MORE SUNLIGHT IN IT": Spinner Check back with us tommorrow, when we'll conclude our 4-part oral history of the Nels Cline Singers -- including informative info on the making of Initiate! REST IN TEMPO James Brody Devin Clifford Keith "Guru" Elam Charlie Gillett Franz Kamin Gene Lees Malcolm McLaren Graciela Grillo-Perez Steve Reid Alan Rich Peter Steele Luigi Waites William Walker

THE NELS CLINE SINGERS: An Oral History (3 of 4)

2010-04-13T13:45:38Z

PART III: “INTO IT” (2004-2007) In early 2004, the Singers add a new word to their already-expansive vocabulary: wil•co \ˈwil-(ˌ)kō\ interj [will comply] (ca. 1938) – used especially in radio and signaling to indicate that a message received will be complied with (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Wilco lineup circa 2003. From Left: Leroy Bach, Glenn Kotche, The Tweedman, John Stirratt NELS CLINE: I met Jeff Tweedy in 1996 when The Geraldine Fibbers opened for Golden Smog (a "fun" side project made up of members of The Jayhawks, Soul Asylum, Run Westy Run, et al). The Fibbers really cottoned to Mr. Tweedy, seeming to single him out as "special". I'm rather chagrined to say that I didn't really notice him any more than the other fellows… (nelscline.com) PAT SANSONE (Wilco guitarist/keyboardist): "Ah, Nels. I first met Nels about twelve years ago at South By Southwest when he was playing with the Geraldine Fibbers...We had a long, intense and deep conversation that really touched me -- and he has no recollection of it whatsoever." (from Wilco: Ashes of American Flags DVD) Cline has been making records since Wilco's leader Jeff Tweedy was in grade school. (Bill Moyer, Chicago Tribune, 11/09/04) “I just joined Wilco!” (Nels Cline to this blogger, 3/04) Holy crap, dudes. Nels Cline is going to be playing live with Wilco "for the foreseeable future." Are you excited as me? You should be. (post on Done Waiting bulletin board, 3/04/04) NELS: Carla Bozulich – (Fibbers leader) stayed in touch with Jeff, and when we would play Chicago, Jeff would come to the gigs and/or lend me gear…What a generous and friendly sort he seemed! Little did I realize that he was kind of keeping tabs on me. (nelscline.com)]]> (Avant Music News headline, 4/24/04) NELS: When Carla, with [the Singers] in tow, opened for Wilco a few times in 2003, we all became better acquainted, and I also met the rest of Wilco. It was delightful! [Wilco drummer] Glenn Kotche really grabbed the attention of my comrades…not only because of his noticeable skills, but also because of his predilection for playing WEIRD IMPROVISED MUSIC in his spare time. (nelscline.com) DEVIN HOFF: “Actually, I knew Glenn because we had done a record with this singer/songwriter John Vecchiarelli in San Francisco.” (Interview, 3/11/10) Wilco drum master Glenn Kotche [Photo via Drummerworld] NELS: Too long story shorter, when [guitarist/keyboardist] Leroy Bach left Wilco after recording A Ghost Is Born, it was deemed intriguing to ask me aboard. Jeff called Carla first, sounding her out. He knew that any involvement in Wilco on my part would kind of take me out of any serious Carla touring scenarios. But Carla and I both knew that this was a great opportunity. Right?!?! (nelscline.com) JEFF TWEEDY: “Wilco is a pretty good deal for a lot of people. You can pay the rent. It’s a good place to be. But what I’ve discovered is that when people lose interest in the music, they may not even admit it to themselves, because the environment is very cushy, so they aren’t going to leave until they’re told to.” (from Wilco: Learning How to Die by Greg Kot) NELS: “I was having so much trouble making my nut every month, even though I was working a lot. I thought, ‘I’m crazy, I’m a loser, I’m going to be 50 years old and I’m not even able to make a living. I’m living like a teenager, with roommates and no money.’” (No Depression, Nov/Dec 2007) SCOTT AMENDOLA: “We’ve all been in that position wondering if were gonna survive or not…I’ve known Nels to take gigs that he’s wanted to do and turned down gigs that paid a lot more or could have led to bigger things because he never wanted to bail out. He’s a very honorable person in that way.” (Interview, 3/12/10) NELS: “Carla called me on the cell and said, 'Jeff Tweedy's been calling, and he's going to ask you play with Wilco.' I didn't really have to think about it very long.” (San Francisco Bay Guardian, 11/04/04) SCOTT: “Jeff asked Carla, ‘What about Nels?’ and Carla said, ‘Listen, if you want Nels in your band, you’ve got to hire Nels for Nels, and if you don’t want Nels for Nels in your band, then you’re a fucking idiot.’ I mean, God love Carla, right?” (Interview, 3/12/10) The Divine Homegirl: Carla Bozulich onstage in 2007 [Photo via Flickr] DEVIN: “Then Nels called us: ‘I don’t know, it seems like a big commitment but it feels like I have to do it. Should I do it?’ Scott and I were like, ‘Are you kidding?! There’s no choice here!’” (Interview, 3/11/10) NELS: “My fixation on Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds is paying off. And Humble Pie.” (Downbeat, 6/09) DEVIN: “They weren’t hiring Nels to be Mr. Random Guitar Player. They wanted him in the band.” (Interview, 3/11/10) NELS: If the attraction to Wilco is puzzling (it seems to puzzle a few, though more folks seem to think it an excellent fit, which is equally odd to me), look to their involvement with Jim O'Rourke, to their many and sometimes really out-there side projects [The Autumn Defense, Loose Fur, On Fillmore, Pronto]…These guys are not generic roots rockers. And besides, I personally like Mr. Tweedy's lyric sensibilities very much. I like the upcoming album. Bill Frisell thinks it's a perfect pairing, OK?!!? (nelscline.com, 3/04) SCOTT: “There was a rumor spreading around that time, ‘Didja hear Nels got $200,000 to go with Wilco?’ Which was complete bullshit. This isn’t Whitesnake when Steve Vai joined!” (Interview, 3/12/10) Glenn Kotche & Nels Cline: Live at the Black Orchid [Photo via Flickr] NELS: “There were people who felt I was abandoning my path and essentially abandoning them…But the thing about Wilco is that despite how overtly normal they may seem to many of my fans, it's really obvious that they've become much more popular as they've become more interesting--which is completely unusual. There isn't any plan or strategy behind what they do, except to make the kind of records they want. And that was good enough for me." (Chicago Reader, 6/10/04) Nels is a great guitarist, but what's he done? Really? (post on Harmony Central Musician community forum, 6/09/09) JOHN STIRRATT (Wilco bassist): "[Nels is] such a professional and so committed fully to music, but he's also one of the more...Old World, gentlemanly people that I've ever met." (from Wilco: Ashes of American Flags DVD) JEFF TWEEDY: “Nels is a very, very encouraging and sweet gentleman. There are things that he feels like aren't for him say musically. He thinks that the way I play is kind of what I'm getting at and that I should on some songs. Other songs, thank god, he's free to do what we have him in that band to do, you know?” (Pitchfork Media, 5/07/07) NELS: "The thing about Jeff is that he has this really probing mind and also a thorough knowledge of what it is he does and a grounding in [musical] tradition. He's very conceptual...and also like the rest of us -- certainly like me -- not comfortable all the time. He's alienated. [laughs] He's just trying to make it all work. I think ultimately he'll always do exactly what he wants, but sometimes he makes it seem like he has doubts or he's unsure...I'm not always sure he really is unsure." (from Wilco: Ashes of American Flags DVD) Nels and Jeff [Photo via OC Register] SCOTT: “There are the fucking jazz improv/creative music fascists that are like, ‘I don’t get why he’s in that band.”…If you know Nels, you know the most important listening moments in his life were related to rock and roll. That was the shit he grew up on: The Byrds and Hendrix and Beggar’s Banquet. He is a rock and roll guitar player and that shit is so deeply embedded in him…he’s not compromising anything by being in Wilco. I find myself defending him in those ways sometimes.” (Interview, 3/12/10) Q: “Have you caught any flak from the underground avant-garde cats for playing with Wilco?” NELS: “Well, ya know, I don’t read what’s on the Internet, and I’m sure somebody was upset at first. A lot of people I know were surprisingly supportive. But they’re not people necessarily in the underground, but other musicians like Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, Jenny Scheinman and people like that were really excited about it. They love Wilco. Mr. Frisell thought immediately, “What a great match.” I wasn’t even thinking that at first. I was thinking, “How’s this going to work?” (Denver Westword, 7/09/08) wilco = boring Nels Cline Singers = :O) (post on Harmony Central Musician community forum, 1/30/10) The fact that Nels Cline ended up joining Wilco has got to give you hope. Some things do work out. Some things can be good. (Brian Smith, Portland Mercury, 10/12/06) The charges came, but they were marginalized, and the response to Cline's work on Wilco's A Ghost Is Born tour was overwhelmingly positive. Typically saddled with tossed-off AM radio mentions and the occasional Neil Young nod, Wilco were now drawing comparisons to Sonic Youth and Can and garnering effusive reviews for an increasingly exploratory live show. (Sam Ubl, Pitchfork Media, 11/10/04) The show's biggest surprise was the performance of the band's new "guitar slinger," Nels Cline. Having little to zero knowledge of the man's career and even less of what he sounded like, this reviewer went into the show with a hefty amount of skepticism about others' comments on Cline's guitar prowess. After that night I can safely say that those who sang his praises ahead of time were short-changing the man. Cline is quite possibly the most amazing guitar player in this day and time. He's a man who instinctively knows when to highlight, when to hang back, when to accentuate and when to let go. Everything he did onstage that night was dead on and the band is better for his inclusion. (Brett Hickman, review of Nels’ first show with Wilco (2nd night) at Otto’s in DeKalb, IL, Glorious Noise, 5/2/04) I first saw him live with the band in late 2004, not too long after he joined. I've seen Wilco in concert twice since, and all three times I've seen them Nels has been the obvious focal point on stage. If you're facing the band, he's always off towards the right fiddling with pedals and playing as intensely as he possibly can. The most noticeable aspect of his stage presence is how physically, viscerally expressive he is. His entire body is caught up in the work of playing guitar. (post on Rolling Nels Cline Thread, 8/25/09) NELS: “I thought [Wilco] was going to be one of those rock bands where I'd have to figure out how to work out everything that they'd recorded previously and slavishly reproduce it, because many rock bands do that, and then you end up working the same songs over and over again for hours. It's really not like that in Wilco. There's no stylistic agenda -- pretty much anything goes, which is perfect for me.” (San Francisco Bay Guardian, 11/04/04) JEFF TWEEDY: "[Our] concept of the studio will eventually be to be able to hit 'record' at any time -- whatever's happening in the room -- and leave a certain amount of stuff miked up all the time, so we can just go, 'all right, wow, let's document that.' That, to me, is an ideal way to work." (from The Wilco Book) Q: "How many guitars do you own?" NELS: "You know, I’m actually not sure, because I didn’t used to own a lot of guitars before I joined Wilco. Jeff Tweedy is a terrible influence on me. I might have about 45." (Anne Erickson, Premier Guitar, 5/10) Cline, an L.A. born-and-bred guitarist of infinite variations, proceeded to spew his electric load all over live renditions of Ghost songs, in effect challenging Tweedy to jerk off with his own guitar-playing, which suddenly was possessed by Neil Young circa Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. By accident or by design, Tweedy had, in Cline, installed a permanent challenge to his already ‘A’ game. (Michael Hoinski, Village Voice, 5/08/09) NELS: “I play lap steel some nights more than others, delving into some of their older material, which I like to call the ‘corn-fed rockers,’ and some of the folk-rock material is semiacoustic a lot of the time. I've kind of ramped up the noise factor on some of the older rock songs, like from Summer Teeth, and everybody seems to like it. I thought it might be too extreme, and I have to admit I walked on eggshells for the first couple weeks to see if people thought this was a little too much. But they like what I'm contributing, and it's almost carte blanche at this point." (San Francisco Bay Guardian, 11/04/04) Q: “Have you noticed a change in your fan base since joining Wilco?” NELS: “I didn’t until the Singers toured this year. We sell my CDs at the Wilco merch table, and you know, you sell a few. Certainly playing on the West Coast, it didn’t seem very different because I play on the West Coast a lot…but boy, traveling through the Midwest like the Singers just did? Man, oh man, there would have been no one at those gigs if not for Wilco. I think the Wilco audience is coming out of curiosity, and also support, and they seem to like it OK. I think the people that leave are those that come expecting it to be a jazz group.” (Dave Paulson, Nashville Tennessean, 7/13/08) SCOTT: “Definitely there was a change in the audience almost right off the bat. After Nels established his place in Wilco and the Singers started playing out again, we started seeing a lot of ‘Uncle Wilco’ showing up at our shows, and the cool part was that they stayed. That’s the way with this music in order for it to survive.” (Interview, 3/12/10) DEVIN: “Nowadays we get people coming up to us saying, ‘I thought you’d sound more like Wilco.’ But that’s pretty rare. Usually, it’s people who were tuned on to something they hadn’t expected—and really liked it.” (Interview, 3/11/10) At the end of the performance he thanked the audience for their ears, and a voice in the crowd called out “What’s left of them!” (John Kelman, review of the Singers at International Festival Musique Actuelle Victoriaville, All About Jazz, 5/19/05) [Nels] is a frightening figure to observe from the photo pit. His pinky finger is longer than my sister’s hand. (Ted Scheinman, Washington City Paper, 3/31/10) To be honest, Cline often looks like a character from Shutter Island armed with a 12-string Telecaster Thinline. (Mark Shanahan, Boston Globe, 4/07/10) Random Detail: During Cline’s set, an incredibly inebriated guy behind me yelled out, “I’ve listened to jazz before, but I’ve never heard anything like this!” (Dave Herrera, review of the Singers at the Bluebird Theatre, Denver Westword, 7/14/08) The first night ended with a truly incredible performance by the Nels Cline Singers…Although they began with some soft, spacious improv, they built it up to some rather scary and extremely intense proportions. Nels sculpted an over-the-top noise solo in which he sampled and manipulated layers of feedback. It was breathtaking and a bit overwhelming, yet well focused. Devin Hoff is a newer name for many of us…He took one of the best bass solos on the entire fest, plucking, bending and bowing the strings until they cried out for mercy…Nels took a number of devastating guitar solos that wowed the audience on numerous occasions. Scott Amendola is one the drummers around and played with immense craft throughout. He is also a marvel out sampling, manipulating and looping sounds, adding some strange spice at times. (Bruce Lee Gallanter, review of the Singers at International Festival Musique Actuelle Victoriaville, Downtown Music Gallery, 5/05) "You're all very strange people." that was Nels Cline's introductory statement before the Singers launched into the first of two blistering sets…Not surprisingly, the venue wasn't anywhere close to capacity. Cline joked towards the end of the first set, "We have another set coming up - please don't leave because then this place would really be empty." A number of folks walked out during the first set, even in the middle of songs - I have to wonder if these were folks expecting Wilco minus Jeff Tweedy or something. I try not to judge by looks alone, but the frat-boy looking dudes with disgruntled expressions on their faces as they quietly left in the middle of a song probably didn't get what they came for. (Brandon Wu, review of the Singers at Paramount Theater, Ground and Sky, 6/06/08) SCOTT: “The only before-show Nels Cline Singers ritual is that we eat Thai food a lot.” (Interview, 3/11/10) About three years ago, I went to one of the best shows I've ever seen. A coworker's band was playing at Monkey Mania and he suggested I attend, thinking I might like the headliner, a guitarist named Nels Cline. He was right. Cline and his band, the Singers, played a long set of inspired, bizarre, powerful music that left me in a daze. I had never seen anything like it, and I started buying all the recordings of his music I could find. (Ian Douglas-Moore, UCD Advocate, 11/16/06) Scott Amendola [Photo by Abigail Picache] The crowd at Café du Nord, while loving the many tasty solos, seemed mildly befuddled by the Singers' use of noise and the lack of congealed song forms. For example, there were several "Are we supposed to clap now?" moments of awkward applause, several clusters of people who left early, and even one fan covering her ears. Maybe people were hoping for something closer to Wilco. The jazz covers they played (including 3 Ornette Coleman tunes in a row) were far from the comparatively ordinary rock music Nels Cline is known for making with Jeff Tweedy. Several of the songs they played were written by various legends of the Bay Area's avant-jazz scene, but none of the names Nels Cline mentioned seemed to ring a bell for more than a handful of audience members (I was not among those whose bells were rung). At the end of the second set, Nels Cline emphatically reminded the audience that bassist Devon Hoff and drummer Scott Amendola are Bay Area residents, as if chastising us for not showing greater appreciation for our neighborly musical titans. (Wiretap Music review of the Singers at Café du Nord, San Francisco, 10/25/07) I'm sure there were several musicians in the audience who went straight home to practice after getting leveled by the Nels Cline Singers. (Jeff Bissell, Wiretap Music review of same Singers show, 11/07/07) Devin Hoff [Photo via The Live Music Report] just got back from seeing the nels cline singers in west L.A. in the courtyard of the hamer museum. it sounded wierd hearing the singers in a outdoor venue, and the rack and floor toms weren't mic'd. but all in all it sounded great. the singers played two 50 minuet sets. don't have a set list (some jerk stole it off the stage before i could ask for it). but for those who care here's what i remember. two compositions from the inkling a mug like this (very streched out) square king (face melting!!!!) something about david h. (emotionaly powerful) 2 unamed pieces and a few others i can't remember the names of (Jambase forum review, 8/18/06) Happy Sweaty Nels! [Photo via The Live Music Report] That band name has misled many a fan of vocals, to be sure. Last time Nels Cline Singers came through Toronto my roommate met a fellow at the show who knew nothing of the band & was there for the voices. He left 5 minutes after they started. (posted comments on IckMusic, 7//13/07) Perhaps influenced by his new spot in the Uncle Wilco klieg lights, Nels decides to resurrect an old idea from the Alligator Lounge days: The Conceptual Tribute. NELS: “I never saw Andrew [Hill] play in Los Angeles, I can’t even remember if he did anything beside solo piano there in the 70’s. I just knew the recordings, so the motivation for doing the [new] record was really to play with Devin and Scott from the Singers, plus Ben Goldberg and Andrea [Parkins] and Bobby Bradford in a group wherein the music would not be mine. Something different. And I wanted to pay homage to a living master, somebody I felt who was perhaps overlooked - in a more mainstream sense. Certainly Andrew is well known to the jazz cognoscenti, but he’s not well known, even as we look back with rosy tinted glasses on at the Blue Note era; there’s been a lot of lip service to that.” (IckMusic, 11/22/06) Andrew Hill [Photo by Jos L. Knaepen] In the midst of this latest spate of public acclaim, Hill suffered a heart attack in 2004, which led to the discovery of lung cancer. The illness has done little to diminish Hill’s spirit. In fact, it has had the opposite effect. “It’s opened me up to the beauty of life instead of all the terrible preemptive things,” said Hill in a recent Downbeat profile, a statement that reflects the enduring magic of his music. (San Francisco Jazz Festival Program Notes, 10/06) JEFF GAUTHIER (producer): “When we started recording Nels’ Andrew Hill album and thinking about it, we didn’t even know that Andrew was sick. Once we got a little farther along in the project, we found out that Andrew was sick, at which point we kind of reconsidered: ‘Do we really want to do this? If it comes out after Andrew dies, it might be perceived as something that it’s not.’ We really just wanted to honor Andrew while he was alive. But we decided this is our intention, and this is what it’s gonna be. And luckily we had Andrew’s cooperation all through it.” (MetalJazz, 6/20/08) This expanded version of the Singers release the intriguingly titled New Monastery: A View Into the Music of Andrew Hill, on September 12, 2006. Just over a month later, they land a slot opening for Andrew Hill at the San Francisco Jazz Festival on October 29, 2006…..playing the music of Andrew Hill. NELS: “Yeah, that was daunting. I was definitely setting myself up for…‘Hi everybody, we’re going to play Andrew’s music and then Andrew’s going to come on.’ And of course it’s just one of those things I had to say yes to, even though, as I said, sort of setting myself up for a…potentially negative scenario. Not in terms of Andrew, but in terms of critics or audience. But I think it went okay…I had met Andrew Hill many many years ago, just in passing, at a jazz festival in Macedonia when I was there with Gregg Bendian. He’s just a delightful man, and he’s in very frail health these days, but he was really interested in what we were doing, and he was really kind about it, and then, crucially, his set was fantastic and wonderful and beautiful.” (IckMusic, 11/22/06) Cline's incredibly avant-garde ensemble paid tribute to the compositions penned by the evening's headliner, but the melodies were almost unrecognizable; the chirping horns, billowing accordion, schizophrenic percussion and Cline's own roaring electric guitar created a beast of their own. Hill himself stood watching from the wings, surely touched and dumbfounded in equal measure. (Gabe Melene, Petaluma Bohemian, 12/22/07) Cline's long been something of a an outsider to the jazz world, prone to sabotaging his own work with noise and dissonance, so it makes perfect sense that he should take on the work of the maverick pianist and composer Andrew Hill. Leading a boisterous sextet, leant strange new colours to Andrea Parkins' electric accordion, Cline crams 12 Hill compositions into seven tracks, amalmagating tunes into mini-medleys that deconstruct the originals with crunching guitar skronk and interludes of skewed intensity. At the same time, these unexpected arrangements throw the eccentric poise of the compositions into new light, letting Hill's singular genius shine through. So, while "Compulsion" comes on like a slice of Sonic Youth-like distorto-rock, the classic "The Rumproller" is tackled with an almost tongue-in-cheek, rip-roaring exuberance and Parkins' accordion drone on "Dance with Death" thrillingly accentuates Hill's masterfully funereal chord sequence. This is much more than your average tribute album. (Daniel Spicer, Jazzwise, Dec/Jan 2007) The New Monastery crew in New York. From Left: Bobby Bradford, Ben Goldberg, Nels, Devin [Photo by Richard Termine] A smattering of applause: Village Voice – #4 Best Jazz CD of 2006 (overall). 7 critics put New Monastery on their lists. New York Times – #6 on Nate Chinen’s Top 10 list. Time Out-New York – #9 on Hank Shteamer’s ‘Best Records of 2006.’ San Francisco Gate – One of Derk Richardson’s ‘Best Music of 2006.’ All About Jazz – 6 critics put New Monastery on their Top 10 lists. Pop Matters – Will Layman included New Monastery in his ‘Best Jazz of 2006’ list. Avant Music News – #1 ‘AMN Top Releases of 2006.’ JazzTimes – 5 critics put New Monastery on their Top 10 lists. [Photo by Peak] In the current downtime between collecting critical accolades for last September’s New Monastery: A View into the Music of Andrew Hill, touring with Wilco and playing upcoming gigs with ROVA: OrkestRova, Toshi Makihara, Scott Amendola AND Glenn Kotche, our wandering axeman Nels Cline dropped by Crypto studios in his blue Volvo station wagon for a snow-flurry of recording sessions for the next upcoming Nels Cline Singers CD, tentatively due out on Cryptogramophone sometime in May 2007. As always with Our Man N., there was a healthy does of manic energy, creative sparks, reservoirs of angst, bizarre references to Dick Tracy characters – and of course, cosmically brilliant playing. We realize that we work at the label and all that and OF COURSE WE'D SAY THAT but seriously, dudeman, we're not just blowing smoke! We even phoned our Main Squeeze and held out the receiver towards the recording studio. “Are you standing next to a jet engine?” she inquired. “No,” we said. “That’s Nels.” (Crypto Blog, posted 1/22/07) Recording sessions took place Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (January 7-9) at Castle Oaks Studios in Calabasas, with Crypto engineering extraordinaire Rich Breen and our own Fearless Leader Jeff Gauthier standing over him wearing huge Phil Spector sunglasses and waving a pistol… (No no, just kidding, Jeff doesn’t wear sunglasses.) All told, the sessions were around 30+ hours spread out over the three days. Nels arrived on Monday feeling a bit shagged after just getting over a cold, so he was a bit concerned about his energy level. But as soon as the downbeat started at around 12:30pm, his Fender Jazzmaster lit up like a soldering iron…Tuesday was even better, as the boys got an earlier start and were joined by a trio of top local percussionists: Danny Frankel, Brad Dutz and Louis Conte. “They made a great recording of a tune called ‘Revenge of the Pinata,’ which was a reference to a tune on Instrumentals, the first Nels Cline Singers CD called ‘Ghost of the Pinata’,” says Jeff Gauthier. “They also ran down a Thelonious Monk tune called ‘Jackie-ing’” just before ruining our excitement by adding: “Unfortunately, we probably won’t be able to fit it on the [upcoming] CD.” Jeez-Louise, Fearless Leader, tickle our arse with a feather whydontcha. “We’ll probably release ‘Revenge of the Pinata’ as a MP3, or something like that,” Jeff said. Ahh. That’s better. (Crypto Blog, posted 1/22/07) SCOTT: “Our first three records were all recorded pretty quickly. When we were done with [sessions for the third] – a day early I think – the next morning we went in and tried this new arrangement of an old tune, and then the next morning after that, Nels wanted to record a bunch of improv where he wanted to play his new Howard Roberts guitar [laughs]. It was flowing!” (Interview, 3/12/10) NELS: When I was 18, I went to a series of "Master Guitar Seminars" with some leading guitarists - mostly jazz guys [including Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, Jimmy Stewart, Mundell Lowe]…[The only] positive thing I came away with at the seminar: Howard Roberts, the late, great jazz and session guitarist (I was already a fan of his wacky records like Equinox Express Elevator at the time) had addressed an aspect or two of this very issue weeks earlier. When asked about pick/hand/arm technique, he said (behind his everpresent dark glasses [Roberts’ eyes were hypersensitive to light]): “Suppose you want to write your name REAL SMALL. You'd probably only use the tiniest finger movements.” (He went to the chalkboard and wrote his name as tiny as possible - indeed Mr. Roberts' technique with the pick often really did resemble someone handwriting, so this was no empty doctrine.) “Now, suppose you want to write your name REAL BIG. You might need to use your WHOLE ARM to do it!” (He then, with his arm stiff, wrote his name in letters 3 feet tall, using huge, arcing motions.) “You see?!!? Heheheheheh!!!!” (He had a crazy person laugh). I loved Howard Roberts for this moment. (nelscline.com) The Castle Oak sessions yielded not one but TWO album’s worth of material. The real fun started when Nels found – and subsequently fell head over boots in love with – an old (1977) Howard Roberts model Gibson guitar model at Truetone Music in Santa Monica. “Vintage!” Nels added. “Just like its owner.” He brought it back over the hill and he, Devin and Scott simply turned on the tape and bashed out an entire album’s worth of improvised jazz using the newfound guitar, of course. And here’s the catch: all present played with no overdubs, no effects, no techno-frippery. The 13 (!!) tracks that resulted don’t even have names yet. Fresh-baked art – hot from the oven! (Crypto Blog, posted 1/22/07) NELS: “We had time already paid for, so we went back and took 45-50 minutes out of our day and played a series of slightly directed improvisations where I’d say something to Scott like, ‘Start on brushes and then we’ll go to something with sticks, or ‘a latin groove,’ or ‘think about Howard Roberts’ sunglasses’…anything to get the ball rolling. I didn’t know, maybe I’ll stream it on my website or something. But I also think we can do something even better.” (Interview, 3/05/10) Howard Roberts DEVIN: “Maybe we’ll release that stuff on our reunion tour. But then we’d have to break up.” (Interview, 3/11/10) Exactly one month to the day after these productive sessions, Nels groggily awakes to find himself anointed a God. Will he have to get bigger shoes – if that’s even possible? Will he have to send his guitar to Minneapolis to be restrung? Find out in our NEXT CONCLUDING POST!! Or not. Up to you.

THE NELS CLINE SINGERS: An Oral History (2 of 4)

2010-04-07T14:30:21Z

PART II: “I CHANGED MY STRINGS IN SHAME” (2001-2004) NELS CLINE: “I knew I wanted an upright bassist in the new trio.” (Interview, 3/05/10) DEVIN HOFF: “I’m an anarchist, so my motto would be: ‘Everything for Everyone.’” (Interview, 3/11/10) SCOTT AMENDOLA: “Actually, I knew Devin before I knew Nels.” (Interview, 3/12/10) Devin! Hoff! [photo via Downtown Music] DEVIN: “I grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, which was a farm town before it became a college town. It’s smack dab between Boulder and Cheyenne [Wyoming], and kind of culturally reflects that geography: A lotta rednecks and a lotta hippies! So as a kid you kind of grow up in that mix. There’s some urban influence and some rural influence, but it’s not quite either. It’s kind of confusing.” (Interview, 3/11/10) DEVIN: “My dad [guitarist Bard Hoff] is a musician and my mom’s father was a farmer and a semi-professional country-western musician. My mom is a rocker, so I probably absorbed Led Zeppelin and the Small Faces in utero…so it was almost a no-brainer what I would end up doing for a living: the family business!...My dad knew a lot of musicians from the Denver scene…like Hugh Regan, who’s worked with Roscoe Mitchell, and David Murray. They would come over to my house a couple times a week when I was little…and play Charlie Parker and Anthony Braxton and Albert Ayler. It fucks with your ears at an early age. I grew up hearing that stuff as normal.” (Interview, 3/11/10)]]> [Photo via Flickr] DEVIN: “When I was just starting bass, my dad and I would play songs for each other back and forth. One time I played him ‘The Passenger’ by Iron Maiden and he played me ‘Teen Town’ by Jaco Pastorius. I felt at the time that I was supposed to like Jaco more because it was more ‘serious’—but I didn’t. Even after all these years, I still think I was right. Steve Harris’ bass playing on ‘The Passenger’ still gets me more excited than Jaco. It’s also interesting that my father would want me to emulate a junkie. He may have been sending me the wrong message there." (Interview, 3/11/10) SCOTT: “ [Devin] has ears the size of Africa." (from liner notes by Derk Richarson, 3/10) “But the goth stuff I listened to -- the Smiths and Bauhaus and The Cure -- that was the stuff my dad couldn’t stand. Drove him up the wall.” (Interview, 3/11/10) DEVIN: “The first album I ever bought with allowance money was Rock & Roll Over by KISS. I always said that cover would be my first tattoo, and when I turned 18 I realized how expensive that would be. The biker dude who was doing my tattoo looked at me and went, ‘Nope. Got anything else?’” (Interview, 3/11/10) DEVIN: “I started ordering metal records from the back of Kerrang! magazine and started playing music because of those records: Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and later, Metallica…When I was 14, I started taking bass lessons for the summer orchestra and started taking music seriously. I played electric bass in this prog-metal trio with my brother and another guy Jay Saylor on drums. Jay was out of high school, my brother was in high school and I was in junior high. We were called ‘CIRKUS’ – with a K! We were terrible, but we had a lot of fun paying these little metal shows around Colorado which were awesome because they were in barns. We called it ‘barn rock.’ We were very ambitious. We’d play Sabbath, Rush, King Crimson covers, then our own stuff, which was awful, but I learned to play pretty hard music right off the bat…Especially when the first songs you play are in 7/4 or 5/8, that stuff becomes easier forever. I was lucky that, as it turned out, because I really didn’t have any raw talent.” (Interview, 3/11/10) DEVIN: “My brother and I moved to San Francisco. By that time, our prog band had morphed into a punk band…called The Gods Hate Kansas. Strangely enough, there was another band in SF with that exact same name, so we changed to Shoeboy because my brother and I had a day job at a Timberland store. We played all over the Bay Area, but we sort of collapsed because of our lack of understanding of how the world worked. Brent’s now a filmmaker and a screenwriter. He edits a DVD magazine called Wholphin.” (Interview, 3/11/10) DEVIN: “When Shoeboy fell apart, I rediscovered all this jazz music that I loved…There was a pretty good jazz scene happening in San Francisco – a lot of it was economic. I started noticing I could make $100 a night, places like Bruno’s and the Up and Down Club had jazz five or six nights a week, which was as close to a living wage as I ever had. I kind of moved from the punk scene into that scene. It was a slow transition, sort of like a cross-fade.” (Interview, 3/11/10) DEVIN: “My first jazz gigs in San Francisco were with a singer named Faye Carroll and her daughter, a pianist named Kito Gamble…I met them through my friend Derrek Phillips, who went on to play with Charlie Hunter and Vijay Iyer. I also started playing in Iyer’s band at that time, so I had this sort of bluesy gig and this complex jazz gig. Through these gigs I started meeting more people on the scene, like Graham Connah, Harold Green, Ben Goldberg, Howard Wiley, Ches Smith and Scott.” (Interview, 3/11/10) Scott (R) and a blurry Devin [Photo by Peak] DEVIN: “I met Scott on a random jazz gig—it might have been the Makeup Room. It was after he was playing with Charlie Hunter. I was excited to meet him because I had admired his playing. We ended up working more and more on gigs. He knew I was into punk rock and jazz and he told me, ‘You gotta meet my friend Nels.’” (Interview, 3/11/10) SCOTT: “There was a band called Crater that I played in with this laptop player named Jhno. Devin would sit in with us occasionally and I loved his playing. First and foremost thing about bass players with me is that they are a bass players, because there’s a lot of bass players who don’t accept that role…They want to be more like a lead instrument. Devin not only loves that role, he embraces it. In terms of knowing how to play, he can lead the band in a sense without leading it. He’s so present and so strong and he can direct the music—yet do it as an ensemble player.” (Interview, 3/12/10) Scott Amendola [Photo via Bay Area Taper] DEVIN: “The first thing I noticed about Scott was how good it felt to play with him groove-wise. Just playing time together on a gig would feel really good. We could get very subtle together very quickly, which is how you know that you have a future playing with another musician: ‘Let’s shave this into a groove’ or ‘Let’s push this section that way.’ The first gig we played, we were already doing that stuff together. Scott’s also a great accompanist with singers—not us, but real singers.” (Interview, 3/11/10) SCOTT: “I was playing this gig at this little restaurant in town called 42 Degrees with Devin. I mentioned Nels, and Devin, for the next 45 minutes, just went off. He talked about Nels, Mike Watt, the Geraldine Fibbers and whatnot. The next day, I called up Nels and told him, ‘Dude, I found the bass player.’ Turns out…Nels had heard Devin play!” (Interview, 3/12/10) Devin Hoff (L) with Mike Watt [Photo via SFGate.com] NELS: “I had actually met Devin when he played at Will Salmon and my brother [Alex]’s concert series in Eagle Rock with Joel Harrison’s band. We had talked about Mike Watt and punk rock…Devin looked like he was about 15 years old, so when I realized he knew my music already and had a certain punk-rock meets jazz background, he was the perfect guy.” (Interview, 3/05/10) DEVIN: “I had discovered Nels from the first Mike Watt album [Ball-hog or Tugboat?]. After that, I went out and got Chest from the Nels Cline Trio and I thought, ‘This guy is doing exactly what I want to do.’ In punk bands, I couldn’t take solos or play diminished chords very much. In the jazz world, I had to pretend I wasn’t excited or angry about everything all the time, which I was.” (Interview, 3/11/10) NELS: “Devin sounded great. He always had a great love of Charlie Haden and Wilbur Ware. I actually think he sounded a lot like Wilbur Ware when I first heard him. He wasn’t working too much with the bow at that time. I just gave him time to grow into it and frankly Devin has gotten so much better year after year after year that he’s starting to scare me.” (Interview, 3/05/10) SCOTT: “There are certain aspects of Nels’ playing that I think Devin is more in touch with because of the music he listened to. Devin’s knowledge [of Nels’ music] was very thorough, because he’s got that punk background, he’s listened to and absorbed all that stuff and played it. I learned a lot from playing with Devin, especially in the way he grounds a band…He has helped define certain ways that I play.” (Interview, 3/12/10) DEVIN: “I got really excited; ‘Nels Cline? Holy shit!’ Scott’s like ‘I play with Nels, he’s a friend of mine. We should all play together sometime.’ I was like, ‘Uhhhh, yeah man, anytime you can make that happen…’” (Interview, 3/11/10) SCOTT: “After Nels and Devin talked on the phone, I booked a gig for us with Phillip Greenlief. I had a rehearsal space in Emoryville and we met there and just plugged in.” (Interview, 3/12/10) DEVIN: “At the first rehearsal, Nels walks in and goes, ‘Okay, this is it. This is my new trio. If you guys wanna be in it, that’s awesome. I want you to bring everything you want to the table, but it’s gonna be my music. If something makes you so uncomfortable that you don’t want to do it, just tell me.’ Before that, Nels and I hadn’t really played together. He was trusting Scott…He knew we shared enough common ground and that we were stoked about doing this, which to Nels’ credit was much more important to him than someone’s [resumé], because I didn’t have much of one at the time.” (Interview, 3/11/10) [Photo via Flickr] SCOTT: “And when we finally sat down to play, from the first note we were all like, wow, this is a band. It was greater than the sum of its parts... like H2O or something! It was beautiful.” (All About Jazz, 2/13/06) DEVIN: “The first rehearsal was basically songs that would be on the first record. A lot of the music was already written before the band got together.” (Interview, 3/11/10) NELS: “When I started my first trio…I decided that after being tortured by the seeming dichotomy between so-called rock, so-called jazz, and electric and acoustic, to endeavor to get past the dichotomy and unite my sensibilities in one combo…That's what the Singers are. It's the only way that my own music can exist, is to embrace whatever impulses I have at the time and whatever impulses I may have from my background.” (Metro Santa Cruz, 4/25/07) NELS: “…and then the Singers hit the stage.” (Interview, 3/05/10) After two punk rock-style (i.e., “hastily assembled”) rehearsals, the newly anointed Nels Cline Singers make their live debut on March 28, 2001. NELS: “It was at a little place right at the Oakland/Berkeley border, run by some yoga guy.” (Interview, 3/05/10) SCOTT: “It was called Tuva at one point but after that it was called the Jazz House. It was this building …next to a police station. There was a old sign still up on top of the building next to it that said ‘ANTIQUES’ but the last few letters were taken off, so when you told people you were playing there, you’d say, ‘Look for the ANT building.’” (Interview, 3/12/10) NELS: “I don’t remember how the audience responded. It must have been, great, huh?” (Interview, 3/05/10) Cline is no huckster. He makes that clear right away, giving comfort to the wary. A couple of weeks ago…he began a set with his new trio, the confoundingly named Nels Cline Singers, with just some...sounds. He plays guitar, usually electric. So he bent his long pipe-cleaner skeleton over his amp and pedals, and for five or 10 minutes picked out little swells, expostulations, runs. This served a number of purposes. To warm up his fingers. To find out whether all those cords and boxes were working. To seek out new life and new civilizations. And to let you know that this wasn‘t gonna be pop music, so if you were not okay with that, you might as well split now. (Greg Burk, L.A. Weekly, 8/16/01) NELS: “We combine absolute spontaneity with a high degree of discipline. That's not just good for the audience; it's good for us.” (The Hook, 6/05/08) [Photo via Denver Westword] Soon the themes started to emerge, and contrabassist Devin Hoff and drummer Scott Amendola got more involved, stationing themselves as corners of a triangle so they could all look at each other. There was a six-note figure that would be repeated at irregular intervals. There was a rich drone. There were delicate arpeggios and blasting chordal assaults. Hoff played a sick, sliding solo. Amendola could be whomping on everything in sight or completely silent: This was music of extreme dynamics. (Greg Burk, L.A. Weekly, 8/16/01) Nels Cline calls his new trio The Nels Cline Singers—a reference to all those easy-listening groups from the 60s. He calls the album, Instrumentals ... well, because there are no singers in the band. He calls his music powerjazzrockfreepsychedelicate instrumental music: a mix of poignant balladry, trashing droneprovs, neo-Ornette freeblow and distorted romanticism. (Cryptogramophone Records Press Release, 2/02) Yeah, singers. Like Cher. Cher sings on this album. And Madonna. And Sting. In fact, everyone who only has one name, they all sing on this album. (Brandon Reid, Pitchfork Media, 11/07/02) NELS: “Singing occurs only if there is an accident.” (NWA News, 7/16/08) Instrumentals: Recorded August 29 & 30, 2001; produced by Jeff Gauthier and engineered by Rich Breen; released March 26, 2002 on Cryptogramophone Records. NELS: Instrumentals was recorded in 15 hours - about a day and a half of work, including setup. As such (and like every record I've ever done), it is full of last-minute decisions, mistakes, and dilemmas both resolved and unresolved. I am of the opinion that many of these things are best left unmentioned - why give you info that colors your experience? After we make the music and you listen to it, it's yours as far as I'm concerned. (session notes for Instrumentals) SCOTT: “I’ve never made a record so quickly that I felt so good about. Outside of the technical glitches, it was really easy. Before I knew it, it was over, and I was like, ‘Yeah man, that was really happening!’ None of us had anticipated that.” (Interview, 3/12/10) NELS: The studio was called The Bakery (North Hollywood, CA), and it had a major problem, which was that the single-coil nature of my guitars hummed extra badly and there was nothing that could be done to minimize it. We recorded the hum so as to reduce it with the appropriate computer program, but it accidentally got deleted when we expunged an undesirable take. OOOPS! Well, let it hum, I said. (session notes for Instrumentals) Though it's hard to tell who's doing what at times, it often seems like Amendola is the most interesting noisemaker of the group, stringing together drum loops on the fly and then letting them decay beyond recognition. (Brandon Reid, Pitchfork Media, 11/07/02) NELS: Reviews of the record have been very positive, but naturally I prefer to dwell on the tidbits of negative criticism. Downbeat reviewed the album rather favorably, but complained that the disc was too long. (nelscline.com) Ironically, the disc’s fundamental fault lies in its abundance. In a set that runs nearly 80 minutes, we’re wasted by the end. Disciplined editing would have brought greater power to the material. (Greg Buium, Downbeat, June 2002) NELS: The nerve!! [Downbeat] also compared us to Triumph, a Canadian band (I'm told) who my friends in-the-know tell me was "like a more metal-ish second-string Rush". Well well! Having never heard them, I trust their take on this. (nelscline.com) Even though Cline incorporates some post-rock tricks and tones into his oeuvre, making his Al DiMeola-with-restraint style accessible to modern ears, it's not enough to save his new trio from resembling Return To Forever's late-period masturbation. (Kevin Hainey, Toronto Eye Weekly, May 2002) NELS: OUCH!!! He then goes on to say a few rather complimentary things, but OUCH!!!!! Hitting me where it hurts! I, a true survivor of 70s prog/jazzrock, am not sure what "late-period" RTF refers to, but I'm sure that it refers to music I always HATED. Sorry! You all know that I prefer to keep things positive, but....sheesh! As you will read, some things I/we do are constructed with a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun in mind - a playfulness, if you will. But sometimes I may indeed err.....as may our critics, I guess. (nelscline.com) Hoff’s earthy bass reminds me a bit of Charlie Haden, particularly in his solo pizzicato playing. “Harbor Child” is a feature for his nervous sounding bowed bass…[Amendola’s] infectiously bouncy playing is an asset to any band, and he’s also brought live effects and real-time electronic processing to throw into the mix. I had a chance to catch these guys in a club before I heard the album, and the CD is a pretty accurate documentation of the way the band sounds on stage: ultra dynamic and seriously smokin’. (Stuart Kremsky, Cadence, 7/02) NELS: I just felt that [“Harbor Child”] would be a nice showcase for Devin's bow, and a much-needed break from thrashing, bashing, building up and breaking down. It was Devin's idea to double track the bass after he heard playback. I left in every note. (session notes for Instrumentals) NELS: [“Lowered Boom”] was inspired by Buddy Guy's Sweet Tea album, and John Lee Hooker had recently died - I was feeling some blues, but I wanted the piece to be appropriately post-blues, or maybe one could say, authentically white dude West L.A. Scott set up the loop with care…The fuzz and other electronic effects are done 'live' as only Scott can: with a lot of radical whimsy and impact (Rich later ran the whole drum track through an amp modeler plug-in to mess it up even more). Devin came up with the bass line, and surprised me when he decided to bow it. As with a few other pieces I've done, this one is not to be taken too seriously as a composition, despite the crunch factor. As with old Trio pieces like ‘Beer Bottle Collection’, it will probably be given more weight than it deserves. (session notes for Instrumentals) “It sounds like an elephant stomping on drums and squishing guitars.” (review of “Lowered Boom” by 9-year-old music critic Lily Belle Burk, L.A. Weekly, 3/02) NELS: Devin and Scott's amazingly controlled feel on [“Slipped Away”] - especially after their blowout on the previous piece - continues to fill me with a warm glow, and I'm just damn lucky they like playing this stuff with me. (session notes for Instrumentals) DEVIN: “‘Slipped Away,’ the last track on Instrumentals that’s my favorite Singers track. Nels’ baritone playing on that is just gorgeous.” (Interview, 3/11/10) Cline seems like about four or five different guitarists throughout the course of the album, his only consistent tendency at some points seems to be his ability to do that which is least expected. (Bruce Wallace, Dusted, 2002) In fact, Cline showcases so many different moods and styles that the initial effect can be a little disorienting. You have him pegged as one thing, and then he comes at you from a new direction. (Bill Tilland, BBCi, 4/02) A week after the release of Instrumentals, the Singers go on their first – and to this day, longest – tour of the U.S. and Canada. Date: Tue., 2 Apr 2002 Carla Bozulich (Geraldine Fibbers, Scarnella) is playing Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger album, backed by the Nels Cline Singers. The Nels Cline Singers open the show with their extreme 21st Century guitar-powered acid jazz/rock. All forms of taping are allowed. There shouldn't be any problems with the venues, but you should find Carla or Nels if there are any problems passing equipment. Mic stands higher than the venue's ceilings will be prohibited. If anyone gets any good tapes, please let us know! --thank you, Gary Nels & Carla CARLA BOZULICH & FRIENDS / THE NELS CLINE SINGERS US/CANADA TOUR 04/02 Visalia, CA @ The Don 04/05 Portland, OR @ Dante's 04/06 Seattle, WA @ I-Spy 04/09 Minneapolis, MN @ 400 Bar 04/10 Chicago, IL @ Shubas Tavern (2 shows) 04/11 Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom 04/12 Toronto, ON @ El Macombo at Tequila Lounge 04/13 Ottawa, ON @ Dominion Tavern 04/14 Montreal, Quebec @ La Sala Rosa 04/16 Portland, ME @ The Skinny 04/17 Boston, MA @ Middle East 04/18 Brooklyn, NY @ North Six (*w/ Scarnella) 04/19 NYC @ Tonic (2 shows) 04/20 Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar 04/21 Chapel Hill, NC @ University of North Carolina (Gerrard Hall) 04/22 Athens, GA @ Caledonia Lounge 04/23 Atlanta, GA @ Echo Lounge 04/24 New Orleans, LA @ TBA 04/26 Austin, TX @ Emo's 04/27 Tucson, AZ @ Solar Culture SCOTT: “When you’re touring with that music, it’s hard, but we always have a great time hanging out…There were some rough patches for sure, because it was long and it was our first time out. It’s a little odd, but I tell people, most of the bands are toured with are men and that can get very tired fast – men that are very male – and the thing about the Singers is there is so much femininity in that band that it’s almost like it’s ‘girls’ night out.’ [laughs] I know that sounds a bit extreme, but it’s not your usual ‘guys on tour’ experience.” (Interview, 3/12/10) DEVIN: “We had done a handful of shows up and down the west coast with the Singers before we did that first tour. We played punk-rock spaces mostly. Carla booked most of that, I think. We were her backing band for her Red Headed Stranger record…It was kinda chaotic! It was the first tour Carla had done in awhile and it was our first-ever national tour. The hardest thing about it, which is a typical one for the Singers, was not knowing what venues to be in, or how to approach it. We’d play punk places and there would be a few people scratching their heads, or we’d play jazz places…[where] it’s really hard to throw-down volume-wise. You feel like a jerk for doing it! Some people are just there because that’s where they go on a Friday night. They aren’t expecting to need earplugs, and I feel bad putting them in a situation where they wish they had…So it’s a hard band to book because of that and with that first tour we didn’t know where we fit. When things are marketed based on style, it gets kind of complicated. It was two bands people hadn’t heard. A lot of Geraldine Fibbers fans came out, and a bunch of Willie Nelson fans came out. If you’re playing Red Headed Stranger in the South, you’d better fucking deliver! It was cool because we always got over with those people. They knew we were coming to the material very sincerely. Carla and I always listened to that type of music. And Nels always had this obsession with those obscure Nashville session musicians from the 60s: ‘Check out this pedal steel player!’ He’s fuckin’ insane!’” (Interview, 3/11/10) Nels Cline & Carla Bozulich: Live at the Smell NELS: “We played a gig at The Smell, the Singers a double bill with [Carla Bozulich] and Andrea Parkins as a guest. Prior to that night, I had had my wham pedal fixed and I was trying do ‘Blood Drawing’ from [Instrumentals] and it was at this crucial moment where things have to kick in in exactly the right way and the pedal broke and I had no sound. I completely lost my shit and threw my guitar on top of my amp and then drop-kicked it about five feet into the wall. Fenders are pretty indestructible, but I broke four strings. Of course, I was instantly mortified, so I turned to Devin and Scott and said, ‘Duet!’ and they went right into a Thelonious Monk tune while I changed my strings in shame.” (Interview, 3/05/10) SCOTT: "We were playing a gig, with another guitar player who shall remain nameless, and this guy was conducting the gig. And for the whole night, anytime we started anything, he would just kill it. Just as it started getting good, this guy would cut it off! It was really weird, and everybody started to get frustrated. So it's getting towards the end of the gig, and Nels and I start getting into it; it's just going. And then this guys moves to cut it off, but Nels turns on him and goes, 'F--- YOU! KEEP PLAYING! F--- YOU!' And we kept playing! The man's a genius." (All About Jazz, 2/13/06) DEVIN: “I think it’s always good to tour, however sporadically. You can’t learn as much about the music unless you’re playing it night after night after night. At that point, Instrumentals were the only tunes we knew. We were playing the same five tunes every night! But it was also improvised music, so the tunes changed every night and grew.” (Interview, 3/11/10) NELS: “And so between Carla Bozulich and my old roommate Bob Bruno, that was how I heard some Wilco, but even then I didn’t really hear very much until Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, to be perfectly honest.” (nelscline.com) DEVIN: “I think it was Scott that bought Yankee Hotel Foxtot when the Singers were on that first tour. I was familiar with that record because my brother was big fan…Then we toured with Carla opening for Wilco [in Fall 2003] and that helped. They got to hear Nels every night and he got to hear them every night. Carla and [Wilco frontman] Jeff Tweedy had known each other since the Uncle Tupelo days. We got to hang out with them and they were supercool. Actually, I knew [Wilco drummer] Glenn [Kotche] because we had done a record with this singer/songwriter John Vecchiarelli in San Francisco.” (Interview, 3/11/10) NELS: “I had met Jeff [Tweedy] in 1996 when Carla and I were touring with the Geraldine Fibbers.” (Interview, 3/05/10) L'Fibbers NELS: “I kind of had this attitude I think at that point…I told Carla one day, I remember it was a Sunday, and I’d heard Yankee Hotel a lot in the van, but I just said, ‘Okay this is it, I’m actually going to really pay attention to this now from beginning to end,’ and I listened to the whole record in the bedroom. I think I might have had a cold or something, so that’s why I wasn’t moving around that day. And I remember, by the time ‘Reservations’ was almost over, yelling to her in the next room: ‘OK I GET IT!.” (IckMusic, 11/22/06) The Giant Pin: recorded in 18 hours at August 24-25, 2003 at Castle Oaks Studios in Calabasas, CA; released October 26, 2004 on Cryptogramophone Records. NELS: “I’ve never made a record of my own music that was done - that took more than two and a half days…. You gotta play - you gotta jam ‘econo.’ (laughs) And actually I feel like - with Cryptogramophone I feel like Mr. Fancy Pants, because we’re actually going into real studios with a really good engineer, Rich Breen, and you know, trying to make it sound really good, that’s what [producer] Jeff Gauthier wants.” (IckMusic, 11/22/06) There is a distinct difference between Cline's approach in the studio and the trio's experience onstage. He notes, "I encourage the members of the group, once we know a piece well, to disregard all directives in favor of spontaneity. That only works on those pieces that are less structured, that are designed for free-blowing as we call it." (Metro Santa Cruz, 4/25/07) SCOTT: “Nels is a great bandleader, and he knows what he wants…but he always wants us to do our own thing.” (Jazz Times, 10/09) NELS: “The arrangements are all primarily mine. Scott receives a fair amount of direction for the electronics, even if it's on ‘A Boy Needs A Door’ where I asked him to sonically stage a rebellion against the written material. But I try to always listen to suggestions, as on ‘He Still Carries A Torch For Her,’ where Devin suggested that the opening phrases might be hipper as arcs of three repeats instead of the square four...So I did it!” (Junkmedia, 1/26/05) SCOTT: “There are always new elements brought in when we record. The electronics thing…has evolved a lot since we first started. And Nels wrote things for The Giant Pin where it had a certain presence and certain focus on the electronics and really increased my role with that. He’s the one who really kicked my butt and got me to get that stuff out of my basement…I’d seen Nels and [koto player] Miya Masaoka play with samples and loops and I was in this rehearsal with her and I said, ‘Man I want to do that with drums.’ She said, ‘Be careful because you’re going to spend a lot of money and it’s going to be really frustrating.’ She was right about that! But I showed Nels my gear and he was like, ‘Dude you gotta bring that shit out. You gotta make this a part of what you do.” (Interview, 3/12/10) NELS: “It wasn’t hard! He already had all the equipment, he just didn’t bring them to the gigs. I said, ‘Bring everything!’ I enabled him. He enabled me by playing his ass off.” (Interview, 3/05/10) SCOTT: “On The Giant Pin, there’s the song ‘He Still Carries A Torch for Her” especially, because how that was done live; there’s a way that that worked on that one middle section that I’ve never done before. There’s was never any overdubbing on that track to my recollection. The Giant Pin was transitional in me feeling confident with using electronics. Every single pedal had a voice, and within that voice is a very large vocabulary that you had to get used to. In the beginning I had this huge board and a rack and now it’s down to a much smaller rig, but it feels like I can do a lot more with it. It’s more a extension of me now than something I can do little tricks with.” (Interview, 3/12/10) The Singers perform "He Still Carries A Torch for Her" at the Orange Peel (Asheville, NC, 7/19/08) As good as those tracks are, the Nels Cline Singers do their best work when they're freaking out. "Square King" has an incredible guitar-based hook, but Cline lets himself run free, only to return to this root to remind you that this jazzy, technically proficient group can just plain rock. The whole time, Amendola sounds as if he's playing in a different time signature, yet he never loses the groove. Hoff holds his bandmates together with steady playing (in fact, the only thing keeping this song from being a perfect recording might be that Hoff's a little buried in the mix). It's on tracks like this one that the band shows its fullest range of skill and energy, playing well enough to almost make you forget about that gig that Cline has on the side. (Justin Cober-Lake, Stylus, 11/04) Anthemic, yes. Affected, no. (Nils Jacobson, All About Jazz, 10/04) “The Ballad of Devin Hoff” is a breathtaking and lovely feature for Devin's superb acoustic bass with Nels playing sublimely behind him, they rock out that delightful melody in the second half just right and had me humming along. (Downtown Music Gallery newsletter, 10/22/04) [Photo via Flickr] NELS: “Ironically, there’s no bowing on ‘The Ballad of Devin Hoff.’ That was written to say, ‘Hey, everybody look at Devin!’ Of course it’s supposed to be a little bit wry of a title, a little bit funny. The song isn’t supposed to be funny.” (Interview, 3/05/10) SCOTT: “There is a humorous side to the Singers. How can I describe it? There is humor in the music in sense, but it’s a small part of the music. We don’t take ourselves that seriously…We don’t finish a show and then go back to the hotel room with an armed guard in front of the door. Nels always wants to interact with the audience. He like, ‘Hey man, these people came to see us play, I want to talk to them.’ We want to know our fans. Usually after the set, well sell CDs and talk to people. That’s where the humor side is most effective, in grounding us.” (Interview, 3/12/10) Nels confers with a fan The Singers muster themselves for another tour on rave reviews for The Giant Pin, where they look forward to conquering hither meadows and dales of the U.S. and Europe. Unfortunately, the tour almost destroys the band and the relationships that surround it. NELS: “Yeah, that was a very troubled tour, which we won’t talk about. The one in Europe was a nightmare.” (Interview, 3/05/10) Los Hombres DEVIN: “The worst thing that’s happened to us on gigs is not enough people showing up in out-of-the-way markets. In Italy, were we the warm-up band for a rave. [laughs] A bunch of white kids with dreadlocks standing with their arms folded, waiting for us to finish so they could party. We were miscast at that one!” (Interview, 3/11/10) NELS: “The Giant Pin tour was terrible because I didn’t have any flair for organization or business and I basically did the tour blind. I fucked it up. The fact is I had completely given up on the idea of touring much with the Singers anyway…because I was completely broke and I couldn’t lose any more money after The Giant Pin tour. I literally could not pay Devin and Scott anymore…and the way I decided to resolve it was simply not tour and fuck anybody over by having no business acumen.” (Interview, 3/05/10) Early this year, Cline found himself driving down the I-5, that long stretch of Central Valley asphalt he has traveled so many times between gigs in the San Francisco Bay Area and his home in Los Angeles. He had just polished off a round of Northern California gigs with Amendola's band, saxophonist Jessica Lurie's ensemble, the avant-electronic group Crater and his own Nels Cline Singers. "It was about two in the morning, and I was marveling at how busy I'd been," he recounted. "I had actually made my rent and a few hundred dollars. But I was thinking, 'I don't know how much longer I can do this -- this is really going to wear me out.'” (Derk Richardson, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 11/04/04) And then, during that same quintessentially melancholy California drive… “…Nels Cline got a cell phone call from destiny.” (Ryan McLendon, Cincinnati Citybeat, 6/10/09) COMING UP IN PART III: Uncle Tupelo/improvised music fans say, "WTF?!" Loose Fur/Geraldine Fibbers fans shout, “Awesome!” From now on, every review of the NCS will feature the word ‘Wilco’ in it.

THE NELS CLINE SINGERS: An Oral History (1 of 4)

2010-04-01T14:57:59Z

Having just celebrated our 10th anniversary here at the Crypto Nerve Center, we have another milestone upon us: The Nels Cline Singers are also reaching their first decade (and four albums’ worth) of delicate lyricism, groove-laden fuzz-funk workouts and face-melting sonic deviance – all without any discernible singing. Since joining the critically lauded rock group Wilco in 2004, Nels Cline has emerged in recent years as one of the most respected, argued-over and unclassifiable musicians active today – memorably described by Jazz Times as “the world’s most dangerous guitarist” and by bestselling author David Carr (Night of the Gun) as "one of the best in any genre.” Ironically, Cline formed the Singers in 2001 not entirely on his own accord but at the urging of versatile percussionist Scott Amendola, a New Jersey-born Black Sabbath and Ornette Coleman acolyte who had gained prominence in San Francisco's heady, dot com-era music scene of the early 90s though his collaborations with guitarist Charlie Hunter and saxophonist Phillip Greenlief. Buy these...you will buuuuuy these... It was Greenlief who introduced Cline to Amendola, who then brought in Colorado native Devin Hoff, a young contrabassist equally at ease with Norwegian Black Metal as he was with improvised skronkitude. What emerged was a impeccably pedigreed and potently eclectic band of three successive generations of vanguard virtuosos whose buzz has only grown with each subsequent release – Instrumentals (2002), The Giant Pin (2004), Draw Breath (2007) and their new world music-influenced double-CD Initiate (2010), which Tim Niland of Music and More recently called “a fascinating and thrilling journey.” With the release of Initiate on APRIL 13, we at the Beast thought we’d forgo the usual promo interviews (although don’t get us wrong -- we did those, too) and instead pay homage to all the dogged and loyal scribes -- famous, infamous and anonymous – who have provided us with ten years of solid and devoted journalism, opinions, rants, interviews, whining and live reviews on the NCS. Coupled with brand spankin’ new interviews with Nels, Scott and Devin, we have fashioned a musical journey of three accomplished and twisted April fools using the “found voices” of the past decade. Enjoy!]]> [Photo by Peak] The story you are about to read is true. Out of respect for the survivors, no names or events have been changed -- especially the ‘OFF THE RECORD’ stuff, which is juicy indeed. PART I: “POWERJAZZROCKFREEPSYCHEDELICATEMUZIK" (1965-2000) Every trio has a taproot. This one’s sprouted in a drowsy middle-class corner of West Los Angeles. NELS CLINE: “I was fixated on rock ‘n’ roll from 1965 onward. The moment at which our friend Pat Pile, in elementary school, took [my twin brother Alex and I] over to his house after school and showed us his snare drum, and played us the drum exercises he was working on…I felt my face was going to crack in half. I could not stop smiling.” (Downbeat, 6/09) [Drawing by Michael Arthur] NELS: “I’m sixties-damaged…because I think that there were certain tenets of music in the pop world of the sixties that were maybe unspoken but are still kind of rules to live by for me. One is variety, especially with rock bands…If you bought an album from 1966, when things were starting to get a little psychedelic, there was a great variety in the records. Bands just didn’t do one kind of song, so it was kind of a given that there would be an acoustic number, then a long jamming number, and a spacey number, a mind-bending number, and an upper pop-rock number.” (Oral History Interview, 1999) NELS: “Obviously, there were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and I was super into the Byrds. I liked Love. Then there was Jimi Hendrix, who was an epiphany. One Saturday afternoon, I was in the back room at our folks’ house listening to KHJ. They played 'Manic Depression,' which was odd, because it wasn’t the single. We were jumping up and down, yelling and freaking out. It was like being zapped for three-and-a-half minutes by pure electricity.” (Downbeat, 6/09) At age 11, the brothers formed their first trio—Homogenized Goo. “We were both totally rock and roll obsessed—” begins Alex, who exudes a Zen-like calm, “—but we beyond sucked,” adds the intense, stovepipe-thin Nels. “Eventually we gave up and started improvising.” (Glue Magazine, July/August 1999) NELS: “This was before Traffic had that song ‘Medicated Goo’ even. We were listening to rock-and-roll and psychedelic music, and looking at pop art and surrealist and dada art, and just getting into that, getting into absurdity…The whole vibe of the day was kind of all about fun, mind-expanding stuff. It was a great time to be entering puberty. A little confusing maybe, but great, really exciting. In my music, I think the electricity and the freedom and the curiosity of that era still resonates with me.” (Village Voice, 5/08/09) NELS: “We would play all original material and we would dress up. Alex played drums, Pat played his uncle’s bass through my blue chip-stamp amplifier – we collected blue stamps. I got a Melody amplifier. My dad bought a Melody electric guitar from one of his students for $20. It had one pickup. It was all about the guitar.” (Oral History Interview, 1999) [Photo by Brandon Wu] NELS: “I had a weird primitive naïve idea about playing guitar. I used to play with just two fingers for years. I didn’t know anything! I’m a primitive, baby!” (L.A. Record, 2/23/07) We played all original material (3 songs) at our elementary school graduation. Set list: 1. Flying Frogs (“attempt at pop song”) 2. Chewing Gum Minds (“dark science-fiction number”) 3. Non-Stop Chicken Flight (“an instrumental”). Those poor kids... (nelscline.com) By high school, the brothers were haunting all-ages shows at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach and discovering dissonance and multiphonics via John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis. (Glue Magazine, July/August 1999) NELS: “A weird desire to play a combination of King Crimson, The Allman Brothers and Weather Report—that’s what we were trying to do in high school. I joke that our music hasn’t changed at all since high school, except that we play better. The parameters are constant.” (Downbeat, 6/09) I saw Nels and his brother play in the University High School jazz band - he had a brown 335 [Gibson] and was good in 1975! He still is. His dad taught English at Emerson Jr. High and we were all terrified of him. (post on The Gear Page, 10/26/06) The nerdy band names change: Liquid Blue, Toe Queen Love, Android Funnel, Frog Prints, Glirendree. In 1989, Nels forms another band (“innovatively called the Nels Cline Trio” ) with "the ultimate bedroom drummmer" Michael Preussner and bassist Mark London Sims (later replaced by Bob Mair), becoming a bandleader for the first time at age 33. NELS: “Michael Preussner is somebody I've played on and off with since high school. So naturally, I felt very comfortable in that trio. And I think that’s when it all started for me. I always played in democratic bands before that...[but] I wasn’t really the leader-leader like I was in the trio, where I basically told the guys, ‘Look, we're gonna play my tunes and I’m gonna design the album covers and it's my universe and let's have a good time...I'll give you as much space as you need to play and express yourselves and I'll write my tunes with you guys in mind so you can really have a blast. But I am the leader.’ That was a first for me.” (Guitar.com, July/August 2001) The trio began by canting heavily toward its leader’s jazz concerns – that is, collective improvisation and group dialogue – with elements of blues and noise thrown in for texture. (Kevin McAlester, New Times L.A., 11/97) NELS: “We had our little mottos: ‘We Suck’ or ‘The Scum Also Rises.’ We were thinking, ‘We’ll get good, we’ll just work, and we’ll try to master this music and become more fluent.’ We weren’t thinking of it as a finished-product thing to go out and record yet.” (Oral History Interview, 1999) NELS: “I pretty much for the first time felt free to do anything. I wrote tunes that swung or tunes that were jazz ballads or were completely Ornette [Coleman] inspired...Or I felt free to write drone pieces. And I could start using different sounds that were to me more about emotion than about novelty. I think I just wanted the guitar to shriek more or have more dense overtones, more clustery sounds. So I think in terms of my desire to get more texture for sensation -- a physical feeling and an emotional kind of tautness rather than for any kind of novelty or intellectual furthering of the music sort of feeling -- I think that it started with the trio.” (Guitar.com, July/August 2001) Over in Santa Monica, guitarist Nels Cline teamed with booker Milt Wilson of the Alligator Lounge…to present improvisational music of all stripes on what was considered an ‘off’ night, coming up with New Music Mondays. (Michael Davis, New Times L.A., 11/99) NELS: “[The Alligator Lounge] was an invaluable experience because not only did we as players develop quite an empathy and a way of playing spontaneously that became pretty much joined at the hip, but also I felt very free in my own playing…I guess I'm a late bloomer. I had to learn to relax enough to do anything that came in my head.” (Guitar.com, July/August 2001) NELS: “My own music…most often forms itself around the identities of the players I’m working with….Much of what the trio did was oriented to Bob and Michael’s individual styles, or to what latent or lurking forces or traits I felt the music could freely call upon. In light of this, Michael became a much better ‘free’ drummer and Bob became a master of distortion and extended (and rad) techniques, to my mind.” (Six-String.com, 4/01) Nels Cline is a musical whore who will do any gig for a hundred dollars. (early 90’s ‘zine review of the Nels Cline Trio’s 7” “Lady Speed Stick”, a tribute to Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, which cost $100 to make and took seven simultaneous labels to release) Not coincidentally, playing every week, the core Nels Cline Trio…became one of the most formidable electric bands in the land, combining jazzy chord progressions with punk-rock energy, and modal drones with feedback forays that recalled the masters of psychedelia. (Michael Davis, New Times L.A., 11/99) “I’m better than that Nels Cline guy.” (guitarist Andy Summers of The Police, overheard at Alligator Lounge show) NELS: “The tribute thing at New Music Mondays was a really great idea, because even I don’t want to play my music every week. We did a series of tributes to Wayne Shorter, Annette Peacock, Carla Bley, Charlotte Rampling, Kim Gordon and Paul Motian. Sometimes they were just conceptual tributes. I wrote a piece to be performed just once called “Never Knew Tina Chow,” dedicated to the socialite artist who had died of AIDS… People who had no idea who she was were in tears by the end of the piece…That was one of the first times in my life that I ever felt like maybe I was onto something, like I’d done something right for a change.” (Oral History Interview, 1999) Tina Chow, 1988 [Photo by David Seidner] NELS: “People like Robert Dick or Phillip Greenlief, when they needed a place to play, everybody would tell them, ‘[New Music Mondays] is the only place to play in LA.’ Word got around and I myself booking out-of-town bands almost immediately after the series started. This is how Scott Amendola came down to L.A.” (Oral History Interview, 1999) “If Scott Amendola didn’t exist, the San Francisco music scene would have to invent him.” (Derk Richardson, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 8/16/00) “Scott archives everything. He’s the official historian of the Nels Cline Singers.” (Devin Hoff, Interview, 3/11/10) NELS: "The first time I heard Scott I was really blown away…There aren't too many drummers on the West Coast who have his wide-ranging ability. Scott's got some funk in him-a looser, sexy thing going on-and the flexibility to play free and different styles." (Jazz Times, 11/05) SCOTT AMENDOLA: "I used to bang on things as a kid…I'd just sit around banging on pots and pans and coffee cans. When I was nine, we had to pick an instrument in school, and I started studying drums. I always loved music and I was really driven by drums and music in general." (San Jose Mercury News, 7/05/02) SCOTT: "My grandfather, Tony Gottuso, played guitar -- he started in the 30's, in the Bronx. He played with everybody from Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Nat King Cole. He's on the original 'Hello Dolly' with Louis Armstrong. And he played on The Tonight Show from '52 to '57, toured with Sinatra, recorded with Joe Venuti. He was a great guitar player -- we used to play together…He is somebody who really taught me about song, because he loved playing with singers. He also used to arrange a lot of big band music, and did a lot of jingles -- he was known as the jingle king in New York for awhile. He's on Pioneers of Jazz Guitar, this classic record on the Yazoo label. But he just would always play the song.” (Jazz West, 9/01) SCOTT: "One record that really changed my life was the Chick Corea record Live In Europe, with Roy Haynes and Miroslav Vitous. Now, my teacher was very much big band & swing, Buddy Rich, four on the floor, two and four on the hi-hat, ride pattern straight. So then I heard this record, and listened to Roy Haynes just dancing around, with a deep pocket, but the hi-hat was kind of all over the place, and the bass drum was just playing accents here and there. The next time I went in for a lesson, and I was playing along to this music, I just did that, and Sonny was like ‘What are you doing?’ And I said ‘Roy Haynes - check him out.’ As if this guy hadn't heard of Roy Haynes before. But he just kept saying 'Listen to Buddy Rich.'” (Jazz West, 9/01) [Photo by Alan Phillips] SCOTT: "I grew up listening to AC/DC and Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane...Jazz is in there, but jazz doesn't define who I am.” (Jazz West, 9/01) SCOTT: "I was also into Pat Metheny, and whenever he was playing in New York, my high school friend and I would go in. So in 1986 we went to the Song X show at Town Hall, with Charlie Haden, and Ornette and Pat, and Jack DeJohnette and Denardo Coleman -- the show that changed my life. DeJohnette just completely blew me away -- the whole concept of time, and expression within improvisation, which I didn't really understand at the time, but was just stunned by the music I heard. Coleman did this free solo on an electronic drum set for about ten or fifteen minutes, and it just really hit me hard. Just the idea of sort of melody within melody, there was just this way of ideas just flowing. I liked the freeness, especially how Jack just seemed so free in his playing.” (Jazz West, 9/01) When some of Amendola's more modern timekeeping influences -- Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, Billy Higgins -- began to creep into the family jam sessions, Amendola says his grandfather told him, “’You play all this crazy shit, but it's great.’ He loved it, he loved where I was taking the drums." (David Cook, San Francisco Weekly, 8/28/02) SCOTT: "When I was about 20, I auditioned for this mainstream band. I was in the basement getting ready and listening to their records, but by the second day I was thinking, 'Man, I don't want to play this music this way. I don't want to play this at all.' So I decided to just learn the songs and then figure out how to play them so they felt right to me. And when I went in to play with these guys, I started scraping cymbals and stopping the beat and doing all this stuff they weren't used to. I didn't get the gig, but I had a great time. I went back to Boston, and that's when I made up my mind. I decided that I was gonna learn who I was, and that I was gonna do what I was gonna do, with no second-guessing." (All About Jazz, 2/13/06) Upon arrival in the Bay Area in 1992, Amendola gained visibility through association with guitar phenom Charlie Hunter (with whom he drummed from 1993 to 1997), and gained entrée to the L.A. crowd via the constantly traveling NoCal saxist Phillip Greenlief. (Greg Burk, L.A. Weekly, 2/28/03) Phil Greenlief SCOTT: “Phillip said, ‘Hey check this out’ and he played me Chest by the Nels Cline Trio. I thought it was really cool shit. We went down to L.A. and played at the Alligator Lounge, and when I saw him play there I was like, ‘Holy shit, who’s that guy?’ And Nels was like, ‘Holy shit, who’s that guy?’" (Interview, 3/12/10) NELS: “I hadn’t met Scott before he came down to the Alligator Lounge in a trio with Phillip Greenlief and Trevor Dunn. At the end of the night we did a double trio with Trevor, Phillip, Scott and Bob, Michael and me, and it was fuckin’ great. I loved his playing right away." (Interview, 3/05/10) SCOTT: "Not too long after that, I saw him live again and was totally blown away by Nels’ playing, his personality. It totalIy turned shit around for me. After that, Nels had a date booked and G.E. Stinson, who had taken over booking for New Music Mondays, was like, ‘What do you want to do?’ and Nels told him, ‘I want to play with Scott.’ And we started L. Stinkbug, which was a really fun band...I was on the road in 2000 in Europe on a real awful tour and I was really down. I was thinking, ‘Who do I really want play with in this world, if I could play with anybody?’" (Interview, 3/12/10) NELS: “Stinkbug was where Scott and I really learned to play together. It was my idea for G.E. Stinson to invite Scott into that band. G.E. was hesitant because Scott lived so far away; he didn’t know if he’d come! I said, ‘He’s back from tour, ask him, all he can say is ‘no’ and he said ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ We did tour first gig at The Gig in West L.A. Then we started playing at Rocco. Pretty soon I was playing in Scott’s band all the time.” (Interview, 3/05/10) Phillip Greenlief & Scott Amendola Given his extensive involvement with Amendola, Cline offers some insight into why Amendola seems to be at the center of so many of the most interesting bands. Stipulating his brilliance as a player and his musical flexibility, Cline notes that Amendola is remarkably self-possessed. "He totally has his [stuff] together. He takes care of business, and tends to be a lot of peoples dad. He has all these responsibilities, because he's able to handle things, so people rely on him." (Andrew Gilbert, San Jose Mercury News, 7/05/02) NELS: "Scott was on my case from between the demise of the old trio and doing Scarnella with [singer/guitarist] Carla [Bozulich], but Carla was having some serious health problems and I was kind of waiting for her to do another band, so basically couldn’t wait anymore and decided to start another trio." (Interview, 3/05/10) NELS: “The only difference I saw between the L.A. scene and the Bay Area scene was that the Bay Area scene was so camped-out and suspicious of each other’s musical tendencies, and L.A. was just this one big blob of camaraderie. Like the free improvisers up there don’t like to play jazz gigs, there’s just a whole lot of sniping…I don’t know, I don’t like it. In L.A., we’re all just basically in the same boat, which is ‘screwed’—and I think we all kinda know it.” (Interview, 3/05/10) Scott & Nels hoofing it to a radio interview at KALX in Berkeley, 2008 [Photo by Peak] NELS: “And also at a time when I was getting work that paid nothing, before the dot-com bubble burst up in the Bay Area, [Scott] started hiring me for gigs. At that time I didn’t even have a car I could drive up there, so I rented one. There were a lot of gigs that paid really well in restaurants, and I would just drive up there and play and come back with $100 bucks in my pocket, which was miraculous for me at that stage. Basically, Scott was my primary employer there for awhile.” (Interview, 3/05/10) NELS: "I did the Singers for two reasons: one was economical and the other was to do these sort of slow, floating ballads where there was nobody in my way other than bass and drums, so I can refer to the classic Paul Bley trio recordings of the 60s, which was something I’ve always been obsessed with, but Scott was really on my case to play more, ‘C’mon, let’s play! Let’s play!’…He was writing me emails when he was on tour in Europe and I finally wrote back and asked him, ‘If I started up another trio would you be interested in playing drums’ and the response came back ‘YES” with a massive amount of exclamation points. So I threw caution to the wind.” SCOTT: “At that time, I think, Nels didn’t have a website or a cell phone. [laughs] All I had was an email address. I wrote him: ‘Hey man, I’ve been thinking about you, I really love to play music with you’ and he wrote back: ‘I was thinking the same thing!’ After I got home, we talked on the phone, and he really didn’t want to start a trio. His last trio had broken up a little roughly in the end. He also felt like he didn’t want to be a lead voice in a band. The funny thing was, whenever I saw his trio, I never got the impression that he was the leader per se. Nels is such an amazing composer and player that I always thought he was more about the band sound than anything. We talked about different people and configurations, and then we got to bass players and I started scratching my head. I mentioned a couple of names but I wasn’t sure who was the right person.” (Interview, 3/12/10) NELS: "So I said, 'I want upright bass this time...who should we get?' and Scott said, 'Devin Hoff.'” (Denver Westword, 7/09/08) COMING UP IN PART II: Will this "Devin Hoff" character be as cool as his name? How does one exactly drop-kick a Fender Jazzmaster into a wall? Who is the mysterious “Shoeboy”? Such questions may or may not have a right to be answered…

Happy Birthday, Shrimper

2010-03-29T19:44:01Z

Be it Fabian or Pat Boone serving as a clean cut kid’s introduction to the real rock & roll music of Little Richard & Charlie Feathers, or ‘The Boss’ inadvertently turning young kids onto the fury of Suicide & Albert Ayler, it doesn’t really matter as long as the road winds though the same valleys & vistas and offers an exit to the less-trampled venues. Dennis Callaci, The Village Idiot (1999) We at Crypto were elated/amazed when we hit the ten-year mark as an indie alt-jazz concern, but we must pause to give props to the abovequoted Mr. Callaci, who since 1990 has headed the mystically resilient lo-fi mail-order label Shrimper Records. Callaci founded Shrimper (unrelated to the slang term for "toe-sucking," as well as another fetish so disgusting that decorum forbids mentioning it here) with his wife Catherine Guffey in the sleepy bedroom-community of Upland, California. Shrimper is a truly indie operation, from its home office (Jazz-Age, red-brick bungalow behind white picket fence) and recording "techniques" (Shrimper helped make tape hiss hip), mom 'n' pop distribution (starting with $3 cassette tapes dubbed one-by-one and mailed from a P.O. Box in San Berdoo), slackerish promotional attitude (press kit: Ralph's grocery sack stuffed with cassettes, CDs and vinyl--often with a handwritten note in Callaci's apologetic scrawl). Although the Shrimper came to encompass acts from Boston and The Netherlands, Shrimper’s specialty was freakish folk, mellow hip hop, noisy experimentation and bash-pop from the tract-home anomie of SoCal's "Inland Empire." No doubt this aesthetic influenced L.A. junkyard-music hermits like Beck and Ariel Pink. Dennis Callaci punches out Matt Damon]]> Thomas G. Waites (the guy who played "Fox" in The Warriors), is a musician. He records solo (under the moniker Paste) and and with his bespectacled librarian brother Allen in a trio called Refigerator, who despite the titles of albums like Glitter Jazz, actually aped Bruce Springsteen way before the Killers or the Arcade Fire. In fact, it was Nebraska, Da Boss's four-tracked 1982 solo collection of ghostly folk songs, that influenced Callaci’s stripped-down, anonymous-American aesthetic. (Refrigerator often covered “State Trooper” at their live shows.) Shrimper evolved out of Callaci's practice of dubbing cassettes of local bands like Nothing Painted Blue (a power-pop outfit led L.A. writer/scenester Franklin Bruno) and punksters WCKR SPGT for his friends. He was already hosting his own cable access show (anyone remember Nubalicious Cabaret? anyone?) putting out a 'zine called Crump to spotlight local I.E. bands who, in Callaci's words, "lived in the shadow of L.A." Shrimper was also way ahead of the music-snob elite’s rediscovery of those ticky-tacky little audio cassettes. Apparently, the Inland Empire had/has a robust cassette culture -- so much so that someone's actually written a book about it. Shrimper quickly became, in one admirer's words, "cassette label of all cassette labels " Callaci had (and apparently, still has) a day job at Rhino Records in Claremont and became fascinated by the mass-marketed super-budget super-cheesy cassette quickie compilations that piled up in the store's bargain bins."I still like the cassette form better than CD or vinyl," Callaci told a writer in 1999. "It has a throwaway feel--not like a CD, which feels like it's etched in stone." One of Shrimper's first raggedy $3 tape compilations was titled, fittingly, "Pawnshop Reverb." The early Shrimper comps confirmed at least one thing: there was an Inland Empire "scene" and it was a potent promoridal soup. Callaci introduced the unintroduced to such memorable-yet-mysterious bands as Ah Bus, Amps For Christ, Bugskull, Buzzsaw, Diskothi-q, The Extra Glens, Fishstick, Furniture Huschle, Goosewind, Herman Dune, Shoeface and Soul Junk. Shrimper eventually started making CDs and vinyl LPs and expanded its roster with some enviable indie-rock names, often in purposefully faceless guises: Dump (actually James McNew of Yo La Tengo), Sentridoh (actually Lou Barlow of Dinosaur, Jr. and Sebadoh) and the Folk Implosion (Barlow with Shrimper artist John Davis) being the most famous examples. But Shrimper also introduced into the atmosphere some strikingly original originals who later got poached by bigger hunters: The Mountain Goats (actually punk-folk busker John Darnielle), who moved on to the worshipped U.K. label 4AD; Creeper Lagoon, who went on to sign with Ideal, the label of Claremont-bred vets the Dust Brothers; hip-hoppers Sukpatch, who graduated to the Beastie Boys' Grand Royal label. Quite predictably, Callaci has gained a rep of being a cranky outsider with a penchant for tweaking the hipster pretensions of That City To the West. He had a radio show on Clarmeont College's KSPC titled Morning Becomes Defective, a jibe at KCRW's former Morning Becomes Eclectic host Chris Douridas. (There's a memorable story about Callaci at a concert responding to a stage mention of the word "ugly" by yelling out "Not as ugly as Chris Douridas!" Turns out, the mortified blonde DJ was standing right next to him.) When Callaci takes Refrigerator out on the road, they have the temerity to bypass Los Angeles. When L.A. lo-fi darling Beck approached Callaci to record post-"Loser" material that eventually became One Foot in the Grave, Callaci turned him down because he didn't like the guy's music that much. The nerve!! Then again, he turned down the initial recordings of Lou Barlow and John Davis’ Folk Implosion. Yet, Callaci seems willfully to admit his own mistakes -- in fact, "mistakes" are woven right into the label's very fibers. On April 10, Shrimper will celebrate its 20th anniversary in typically cheeky fashion with the 36-track >Smooth Sounds: Various Artists Play the Future Hits of Wckr Spgt. The title says it all: Shrimper stars like Amps for Christ, Jad Fair, Mountain Goats and Sentridoh will cover brand new songs from one of their longest running artists. (Note: not to be confused with the band Wyckyd Sceptyre and its notorious lo-fi sex tape.) Shrimper's 1993 meta-comp Abridged Perversion: A Shrimper Compilation if Shrimper Compilations is also worth seeking out for a good back-in-the-day overview of the label's roster. "Music is always better when the powers that be are out of touch," the 29-year-old Callaci told New Times LA ten years ago. "And with the internet, the major labels are going to lose control." Boy, was he right. Toesuckers, holla! OH YES, BUT BACK TO US... We're hunkering down for the April 13 release of the new Nels Cline Singers double CD Initiate. Starting in a few days, the Beast will celebrate this momentous occasion in typically overblown fashion: a 4-part series entitled "The Nels Cline Singers: A Oral History." Stay tuned!

Tribeology

2010-03-19T16:19:46Z

Ah, those pholkes at Soul Jazz Records have done it again. Mere months after their fascinating (and long overdue) study of indie jazz cover art of the 1970s, they've re-released 2004's A Message from the Tribe, a lovingly restored anthology of the underground Detroit jazz-funk label Tribe Records. The specially-packaged box set contains early performances by trombone madman Phil Ranelin [pictured below] before he moved out to LA-LA Land and became an integral part of our local "scene" -- if one can call it that. We recommend seeking out Ranelin's Nixon-era lost classics like The Time is Now (1974) and Vibes from the Tribe (1976). Check out this review of the comp from Pitchfork Media's Mark Richardson below:]]> People play music for many reasons: to express something personal, act cool, meet people, have fun-- maybe even to make money. Sometimes, people play music because they want to belong to a community. And once in a while, community-driven sounds intersect with a historic and political moment, and music takes on special significance. Such was the case with the Tribe, a creative collective founded in Detroit in 1972 by trombonist Phil Ranelin and reed player Wendell Harrison and whose media arm included a label and quarterly magazine. The Tribe was born out of the African-American consciousness of the Civil Rights era, and its mission was to further the cause of black empowerment. Its magazine featured news and editorials on the issues of the day-- busing, government corruption, the dimming economic climate-- alongside discussion of music. The label issued the work of area musicians, some of whom made a living as session players for Motown (the company left Detroit for L.A. the year Tribe was founded) while simultaneously pursuing jazz. Everything about the Tribe was local, intent on reflecting and documenting the surrounding community. There was a lot of uncertainty in Detroit in the early 1970s-- the auto industry was declining, parts of the city had been destroyed during riots in the late 60s, and population was in the early stages of a long, dramatic decline. The Tribe was a group of people banding together, trying so sort through it all as it happened. Message From the Tribe, originally issued in 1996 and now re-issued by Soul Jazz's Universal Sound imprint with new packaging, gives an overview of Tribe's output during its five-year run. The music is most striking for its eclectic, without-borders approach: though "jazz" is an appropriate catchall term and the music feels of a piece, the individual tracks defy easy categorization. In the notes, comparisons are drawn between the Tribe's mission and that of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, but the music here is comparatively accessible, with a steady, danceable pulse, and it never veers into avant-garde abstraction. Ranelin, represented as a leader on three of the comp's 12 tracks, plays jazz, but he was ultimately re-discovered by the rare groove set, which gives an idea of his dedication to hypnotic rhythm. While his "Vibes From the Tribe" combines the ethereal harmonic drift of Miles Davis circa Nefertiti with the bass-driven grooves concurrently being explored by Herbie Hancock, "For the Children", though certainly still jazz, finds him singing as well as soloing on trombone. The music billed to the Tribe-- basically an all-star band drawn from members of the collective, including Ranelin and Harrison-- ranges from the nimble funk blowing session "Beneficent" to the politicized message of hope "What We Need", with vocals by Jeamel Lee. Another vocal cut, Doug Hammond's "Moves", is a strange and haunting ballad featuring Hammond's earthy voice trading melodic lines with violin, Fender Rhodes, and Moog. The music from Message From the Tribe is strong, a great set of open-minded and accessible jazz from an exciting time in the music's history. But the full impact of the package, which includes a 60-page booklet featuring reprints from the magazine along with postcards containing additional covers from the publication, provides depth. Looking through the essays and news alongside the advertisements for black-owned businesses, the music's context as the center of a community becomes clear. There's an article by a student from Wayne State University on Watergate, a piece outlining the basics of the then-current recession, and a feature on Jesse Jackson's burgeoning Operation PUSH. There are also music reviews and interviews. In Tribe-- "Detroit's First Magazine for Black Awareness" was the subtitle-- the lines between politics, activism, art, and entertainment are not just unclear: No one seemed to see any reason to draw them in the first place. When you spend so much time enjoying the easy benefits of commitment-free consumption, it's easy to forget about such possibilities. Greg Burk's Live Picks of the Week (March 19-25) Don Heckman's Live Picks of the Week (March 15-21) Los Angeles New Music Events (March 27-June 3) Brick Wahl's Live Picks of the Week (March 18-24) REST IN TEMPO Ron Banks John Bunch John Ciambotti Cherie DeCastro Alex Chilton [ARTISTS REACT] Herb Ellis Bobby Espinosa Johnny Maestro Jim Marshall Blanche Thebom Lolly Vegas Wolfgang Wagner Marva Wright Mike Zwerin

Jazz Bakery to Return?

2010-03-11T18:00:01Z

Reportage from All About Jazz: After nearly 20 years of bringing world class jazz to the Los Angeles area, the non-profit jewel of a music venue, the Jazz Bakery, had to close its doors at the end of May 2009. The inexorable forces of the real estate market had determined that another furniture store would displace this vital cultural institution. Ruth Price [photo via Peak] But have no fear jazz lovers. The irrepressible, indomitable and indefatigable director of the Jazz Bakery, Ruth Price, has committed her considerable energy and skills to the Bakery's rebirth somewhere on L.A.'s Westside. In pursuit of this lofty goal, Ms. Price, over the last few months has held several successful fundraisers at different locations in the city. These events, part of the Bakery's Movable Feast series, have recently featured flute legend Hubert Laws and vocalist extraordinaire, Tierney Sutton, piano playin' wit and wordsmith, Mose Allison, and the inimitable saxophone master, Pharoah Sanders. This month's benefit performances include Japan's dynamic piano virtuoso, Hiromi, at the Japan America Theater this Thursday March 11th at 8pm. On Sunday March 14th, at Largo at the Coronet Theater, electric guitar wizard, Larry Coryell, will perform two shows, a matinee at 4pm and an 8pm evening performance. Finally, on March 27th, the Antonio Sanchez Quartet will perform 8pm and 9:30pm shows at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. Jazz lovers, come out and support the non-profit Jazz Bakery and help bring back affordable, world class jazz to Los Angeles. Greg Burk's Live Picks of the Week (March 12-18) Don Heckman's Live Picks of the Week (March 8-14) Brick Wahl's Live Picks of the Week (March 11-17) Los Angeles New Music Schedule (March 11-June 3)

REST IN TEMPO: Requiem for a Happy Man

2010-03-08T16:34:45Z

Another grey, shitty day in Los Angeles, and The Beast is mourning the just-reported death of composer/bandleader Mark Linkous, who led the lo-fi surrealist rock band Sparklehorse from 1995 to, uh, Saturday, when he took his own life at age 47. If anyone still refers to Downbeast as strictly a “jazz blog” then they haven’t been paying attention. Quoth the sage Greg Burk: “There are no styles anymore, only music.” Linkous himself was a musical omnivore who joined a distinguished line of hermetic, depressive indie “outsiders” (Jeff Magnum, Jeff Lytle, Vic Chestnut) who retreated Big Pink-style to the woods of rural America – in Linkous’ case, a farmhouse in Bremo Bluff, Virgnia – to make strange and decayed sounds with moss-dripped gothic lyrics. One can arguably draw a line of influence from Sparklehorse’s kreep-in-the-kudzu debut Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot to Radiohead’s Amnesiac and Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Lately, isolation has been rather hep. Think Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon in his father’s hunting lodge in the musical mecca of Northern Wisconsin, or Owl City’s Adam Young in the basement of a 113-year-old farmhouse in Owatonna, Minnesota. Linkous’ own music reflected this glorious (and somewhat claustrophobic) solitude, conjuring up images of a yard full of paint-chipped hobby-horses, weathered farm machinery and mice-filled refrigerators overgrown with crabgrass, electrical cables running across a chicken-feathered dirt floor to a jerryrigged recording studio amongst rusted tools, ancient spiderwebs and the scent of wood rot. Linkous’ music sounded like blurry ham radio dispatches from such a place, especially on Sparklehorse’s 1998 masterpiece Good Morning Spider: “Pig” is a terrifying blast of Pixies-ish fury; “Painbirds” grows in intensity like a tumor (reflecting Linkous’ quasi-accidental death in 1996); “Sick of Goodbyes” is pure fun; “Happy Man,” especially the live version off the Distorted Ghost EP, is a jacked-up wonder of positivity (“all I want is to be your happy man!”) that made me cry when I listened to it – even though it’s an intense, upbeat rocker. And talk about that live EP: “Gasoline Horseys,” a duet with Sofie Michalitsianos recorded in Bristol, England, is so quiet and delicate it risks being blown away by a stiff breeze. Linkous sang (and spoke) in kind of a strangled, tremulous creak – like Bobby Goldsboro trapped under a combine. I recall an awkward NPR interview with Linkous that was more silence than speaking: far from being a petulant hipster who was too cool for the room, the man seemed physically unable to even speak of his own music or what it meant. No matter. Good Morning Spider got this Humble Blogger out of one of the darkest and doom-laden periods of my life, when I became a virtual self-medicated, bathrobed hermit in my own apartment, afraid to leave and afraid to write, the floor threatening to open up beneath my feet. Even Linkous’ interesting fashion sense – he toured with the ‘horse wearing a glittering Vegas suit, welding goggles, and a ten-gallon cowboy hat – helped me in some strange way. (It inspired me to write a story, dedicated to Linkous, entitled “Big Neon Cowboy,” about a dustblown primitive awash in the digitized city.) I heard a testimonial at a funeral last summer where the speaker was recalling being depressed, and how having the deceased comfort her was both a blessing and a curse: “What do you do when the one who told you ‘everything will be okay’ is now gone?” Indeed. What really sucks, of course, is the announcement on March 3 that Linkous’ most famous project, Dark Night of the Soul, the troubled group project with filmmaker David Lynch and pathological collaborator DJ Danger Mouse, was finally slated to be released sometime this summer. Bummer. One of the best descriptions of Linkous’ unique effect on the ears came from my friend R.J. Smith, “His songs sound like a secret transmission from the 1930s that bounced around the heaven’s for years before it was picked up by satellite. The songs sound remote, but they communicate as warmly and as richly as a natural-born artist sitting on his front porch, strumming and rocking.” Mr. Linkous, cross the river and rest under the shade of the trees. Hope to meet you there someday. Blood suckers hide beneath my bed And black fumes of skin so gently bled I slept with a cat on my breast Slowing my heart stealing my breath At sunrise the monkeys will fly And leave me with pennies in my eyes. -Sparklehorse, “Eyepennies” (2001)]]> Artists Respond to the Death of Mark Linkous Mark Linkous Interview on Atomic Ned (1999) Mark Linkous Interview on The Portable Infinite (2002) Mark Linkous Interview on The Hook (2/28/02) Mark Linkous Interview on Junkmedia (8/21/06) Mark Linkous Interview at the A.V. Club (1/16/07) Mark Linkous Interview on LiveWire (3/16/07) Mark Linkous Interview on Left Lion (2006) Mark Linkous Interview on Pitchfork Media (11/21/06) Mark Linkous Interview on Pitchfork Media (2/13/08) NPR’s Christian Hoard reviews Sparklehorse’s Dreamt For Light Years in the Belly of the Mountain Sparklehorse “Someday I Will Treat You Good" video: Sparklehorse performs “Sad and Beautiful World” live in Milano: Sparklehorse performs “It’s A Wonderful Life” live in Richmond, VA (7/15/01): Sparklehorse performs “Rainmaker” live on French TV (1996): Sparklehorse: Interview and performance of “London” on BBC:

Crypto Artists: Oot & Aboot in March

2010-03-04T18:11:59Z

Decompressing from Vancouver 2010 overload (a.k.a. "Vancouverload" ), our artists are tirelessly engaging in Olympic-sized roadwork. ]]> SCOTT AMENDOLA 3/06 Other Minds Festival w/ Gyan Riley Trio (San Francisco, CA) 3/10 Cleveland Museum of Art w/ Tanya Tagac & G.E. Stinson (Cleveland, OH) 3/12 National Geographic Live w/ Tanya Tagaq & G.E. Stinson (Washington D.C.) 3/16 Fresh Sound Music Series w/ Wil Blades (San Diego, CA) 3/17 Vitello's w/ Wil Blades (Los Angeles, CA) 3/21 The Stone w/ Kihnoua (New York, NY) 3/22 Cafe Barbes w/ Erik Deutsch & Alexis Cuadrado (Brooklyn, NY) 3/23 The Stone w/ The Steve Adams Trio (New York, NY) 3/23 The Stone w/ Charlie Hunter (New York, NY) 3/26 The Plaza Bistro w/ Wil Blades (Sonoma, CA) 3/31 Coda with Wil Blades (San Francisco, CA) ALEX CLINE 3/07 Eagle Rock Center for the Arts w/ the George McMullen Trio (Los Angeles, CA) NELS CLINE 3/19 The Stone w/ Yuka Honda (New York, NY) 3/22 The Fillmore w/ Wilco (Miami Beach, FL) 3/23 Ruth Eckerd Hall w/ Wilco (Clearwater, FL) 3/25 Johnny Mercer Theatre w/ Wilco (Savannah, GA) 3/26 Fox Theatre w/ Wilco (Atlanta, GA) 3/27 Durham Performing Arts Center w/ Wilco (Durham, NC) 3/29 The National w/ Wilco (Richmond, VA) 3/30 The Music Center at Strathmore w/ Wilco (North Bethesda, MD) 3/31 Scranton Cultural Center w/ Wilco (Scranton, PA) ERIK FRIEDLANDER 3/13 Painted Bride Art Center w/ Ned Rothenberg's Inner Diaspora (Philadelphia, PA) 3/15 The Stone Modern American Musicianship: A Workshop (New York, NY) MOTOKO HONDA 3/05 Museum of Neon Art w/ Steuart Liebig & Joe Berardi (Los Angeles, CA) 3/20 Concept Cafe w/ Yukari Black (Los Angeles, CA) 3/26 Highways Performance Space, performing Randy Gibson’s work (Santa Monica, CA) 3/27 Highways Performance Space, performing Randy Gibson’s work (Santa Monica, CA) MYRA MELFORD 3/04 Club Fasching w/ Be Bread Trio (Stockholm, Sweden) 3/05 Dubendorf w/ Be Bread Trio 3/06 St. Gallen w/ Be Bread Trio 3/07 St. Johann w/ Be Bread Trio 3/09 Mannheim w/ Be Bread Trio 3/21 Bossa w/ Be Bread Trio (Washington DC) 3/22 Bryn Mawr College w/ Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (Bryn Mawr, PA) 3/23 Club Cafe Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (Pittsburgh, PA) 3/24 West Virginia University Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (Morgantown, WV) 3/25 Cornelia Street Cafe w/ Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (New York, NY) 3/26 Ars Nova w/ Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (Philadelphia, PA) 3/27 An Die Musik w/ Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (Baltimore, MD) TODD SICKAFOOSE 3/05 Cannery Ballroom w/ Ani DiFranco (Nashville, TN) 3/06 Rhythm & Brews w/ Ani DiFranco (Chattanooga, TN) 3/07 Variety Playhouse w/ Ani DiFranco (Atlanta, GA) 3/09 Buster’s w/ Ani DiFranco (Lexington, KY) 3/10 Bijou Theatre w/ Ani DiFranco (Knoxville, TN) 3/12 Neighborhood Theatre w/ Ani DiFranco (Charlotte, NC) 3/13 Orange Peel w/ Ani DiFranco (Asheville, NC) 3/14 Orange Peel w/ Ani DiFranco (Asheville, NC) 3/22 Bryn Mawr College w/ Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (Bryn Mawr, PA) 3/23 Club Cafe w/ Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (Pittsburgh, PA) 3/24 West Virginia University w/ Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (Morgantown, WV) 3/25 Cornelia Street Cafe w/ Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (New York, NY) 3/26 Ars Nova w/ Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (Philadelphia, PA) 3/27 An Die Musik w/ Allison Miller’s Boom tic Boom (Baltimore, MD) 3/31 The Jazz Standard w/ Tiny Resistors (New York, NY) Oh yeah, and there's other people playing, too: Don Heckman's Live Picks of the Week (March 2-7) Brick Wahl's Live Picks of the Week (March 4-10)

Accordion Crimes

2010-02-24T15:54:22Z

Mark your March calendar, peeps: Famed new music accordionist Guy Klucevsek will perform a solo concert of his own compositions in his first L.A. appearance in 7 years. Guy has created a unique repertoire for accordion through his own composing and by commissioning over 50 works from composers including John Zorn, Fred Frith, Lois V. Vierk, Alvin Lucier and many others. Solo performances include Serious Fun! at Lincoln Center, Bang on a Can, Spoleto Festival/USA, and children's TV show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Guy Klucevsek & Alan Bern: Live in Philadelphia, PA (2/22/08) He has performed at festivals throughout Europe, and has worked with such artists as Laurie Anderson, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, Robin Holcomb, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Pauline Oliveros, Present Music, Bobby Previte, Relâche, Jubilant Sykes and John Zorn. He was an original member of Dave Douglas’s band, Charms of the Night Sky, with whom he recorded three albums and toured throughout North America and Europe. You can also hear him on John Williams's scores for the Steven Spielberg films The Terminal, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Munich. He has performed on Broadway in Fiddler on the Roof, Victor/Victoria and Piaf. Guy Klucevsek & Carl Finch: Live in Fort Worth, TX (11/08/08) The concert will take place at 8pm (doors open at 7:30pm) on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at the Royal T Cafe in Culver City. Admission is $12 at the door ($8 for students). For more info call (310) 559-6300. Greg Burk's Live Picks of the Week (Feb. 26-28) Don Heckman's Live Picks of the Week (Feb. 23-28) Los Angeles New Music Live Events (Feb. 26-June 3) Brick Wahl's Live Picks of the Week (Feb. 25-Mar. 3)

Hunters, Gatherers, Warriors All

2010-02-16T14:52:39Z

Jesse Sharps (center, on soprano sax) leads The Gathering at the Angel City Jazz Festival (9/05/09) Anyone who has been reading Da Beast for the past couple of years is familiar with our friend Jesse Sharps, Horace Tapscott's former right-hand and current shaman in charge of The Gathering ensemble who released the critically acclaimed CD Leimert Park: The Roots and Branches of L.A. Jazz back in 2008. In honor of President Barack Obama and Black History Month, Jesse and Gathering producer Tom Paige contacted me recently to let me know they are digitally releasing two new Gathering songs: a version of Abdu Salim's "Justice" recorded live at the old Jazz Bakery space back in November '08 and featuring a spoken-word intro by J.J. Kabasa and vocals by Dwight Trible. The other song, "Warriors All," is a shout-out of sorts to Haiti. it was the final tune recorded at the original Gathering sessions back in 2005 but never released till now. Originally titled “Funeral,” it's from a musical based on the play La Tragédie du Roi Christophe by poet Aimé Césare about the life of Haitian revolutionary Henri Christophe and, according to Mimi Melnick's liner notes, "Horace [Tapscott] composed with Linda Hill and dedicated to all members of the community who struggle for civil rights and fight oppression." All proceeds from the sale of this song will go to UGMAA (Union of God's Musicians and Artists Ascension) and the Tapscott Family. The Gathering blows the roof off the mutha at the Jazz Bakery (2 parts) According to Tom, "The correct mixes are up and the best link to the music is actually www.cdbaby.com/Artist/TheGathering1 where all of the singles and albums can be viewed. We have the original Leimert Park album up there for digital download now too!" Mimi! In fact, Ms. Melnick's next installment of her gold-standard Double M Jazz Salon is this Sunday, February 21 and will be a tribute to Horace Tapscott with Jesse Sharps (woodwinds), Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (viola), Kenneth Crouch (piano), Nick Rosen (bass) and Zach Harmon (drums). Admission is $20 for two sets, and 100% of the door goes to the musicians -- now THAT'S justice! Greg Burk’s Live Picks of the Week (Feb. 12-18) Don Heckman’s Live Picks of the Week (Feb 16-21) Brick Wahl’s Live Picks of the Week (Feb. 18-24) Los Angeles New Music Schedule REST IN TEMPO Ian Burgess Larry Cassidy Gene Chenault Robert "Chilly B" Crafton Sir John Dankworth Richard Delvy Bobby Espinosa Doug Fieger Lee Freeman Jake Hanna Dale Hawkins John Mayer’s career Territory BBQ + Records Tom "T-Bone" Wolk Yabby You