Category Archives: live

Here Comes the Weekend: Richard Thompson, “Beeswing”

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As I have been driving around in my car the last week I have been streaming Spotify, so far in a primitive fashion, by just selecting the artist I want to hear, and hitting shuffle.

Though you can scrounge through the Spotify archives and pick up just about anything imaginable (still looking for a copy of Voodoo, by Quicksilver Messenger Service, though) I do find that the shuffle is largely from a handful of albums. Some might be greatest hits, and some re-issues with added stuff, but the spectrum is not always as random as I would imagine.

Still, while streaming Richard Thompson, I got I Wanna See the Bright Lights in 1974 and then the lovely Beeswing from Mock Tudor two decades later.

Thompson is a tremendous wordsmith and song writer, but similarly, he is such a ridiculously imaginative and tasty guitar player that it is often hard to take it all in. Not that he is inaccessible, for Thompson is as fun a stage presence as there is.

So, Beeswing did coarse through my IPhone and into my car stereo and all the words really got me for the first time, and well, whew. So, saying the guitar playing is almost secondary, well, you judge and figure it out.

 

But, just in case you don’t know Thompson that well, here he is like, cranking it out on his Revering, on Elvis Costello’s late TV show with Elvis struggling to play rhythm guitar (maybe they even turned the volume off cos he looked so lost?).

I did search for Thompson doing this with bay area axe-man Henry Kaiser, whom I have twice seem play the song with the songwriter, but nada. So, let’s go with this.  Tell me you have seen a more relaxed or competent guy (let alone confident) jacking with his tuner as part of the solo in the middle of the song?

 

Giorgio Gomelsky is Dead.

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This was a big week for deaths. David Bowie, of course, but also baseball great Monte Irvin, terrific actor Alan Rickman, and scroogie throwing Luis Arroyo, whose best season was the year I totally fell in love with baseball. Which is, I think, why I said, oh no, when he showed up in the obits.

Screenshot 2016-01-16 00.00.41Giorgio Gomelsky was in those same pages today, and you can read William Grimes’ excellent obit for him here. I bring nothing to this except the desire to highlight a few facts and link to a few of the many odd bands that Gomelsky worked with over the years.

The biggest ones were the Rolling Stones. He gave them their first paying gig at the Crawdaddy Club. They each took home almost a buck, which is better than many bands today. Jagger’s School of Economics savvy kicks in for sure.

But he lost the Stones to the droogie Andrew Loog Oldham, so he signed up the Yardbirds. Well done!

One of the cool details from Giorgio’s life is that he was born on a boat going from Odessa, Ukraine, to Genoa, Italy.

Google maps does not offer a boat option for transportation, but this is not an easy trip.

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The most surprising fact in Giorgio’s obit is that he gave Eric Clapton the Slowhand nickname.

I had always assumed that it was because Clapton is so dexterous that he made fast playing look slow. That’s what I thought. But no!

Here’s the real story, from Grimes’ obit:

“Mr. Gomelsky also gave Eric Clapton, the group’s original lead guitarist, his nickname. Mr. Clapton told The Daily Mail in 2013: “I used light-gauge strings, with a very thin first string, which made it easier to bend the notes, and it was not uncommon, during frenetic bits of playing, for me to break at least one string, While I was changing my strings, the audience would often break into a slow hand clap, inspiring Giorgio to dream up the nickname of Slowhand Clapton.””

Incredible, no? To me, yes.

But Giorgio went on to better things. I’m sorry that I had no idea about his Tonka Wonka Mondays at Tramps. Brave mix ups of rock and jazz musicians willing to jam should have been a natural for me, but I missed it. This was the bar/club that gave Buster Poindexter a regular showcase, and where I got to see Big Joe Turner live, huger in some ways than seeing the Stones in ’73 at the Garden.

But I digress. The cool thing about Gomelsky, at least according to his own words in his obit, is that he had no eye on a music career, but merely wanted to make things right. I like that impulse.

Here’s a few clips from folks he worked with. But read the obit. I wish more lives like his were memorialized.

This clip is really great. I’m posting more Magma soon. Wow.

Fred Frith’s band, Henry Cow, covers a Phil Ochs song.

 

 

 

Pierre Kwenders at Lincoln Center

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pierrekwendersatlincolncenterI went with some friends to see Pierre Kwenders at a small room off Broadway called the David Rubenstein Atrium last night. They regularly program free shows in the atrium, and this was the first I’ve gone to.

Kwenders is from Kinshasa, Congo, and now lives in Montreal. His band, three young Quebecois, play guitar and keyboards, various drums, and dj. It’s this last that was a little problematic. Being able to fire samples of strings and horns and chants distorts the small band vibe. Not that this world music wasn’t lush and gorgeous, it was, but when all that recording came to fore things started to sound more like a Peter Gabriel record than a four-piece band on a small stage playing for a couple hundred people. Live became qualified.

The best songs were popping and angular, with a little space between beats. Kwenders is a crooked and crafty dancer, a strong vocal presence in three languages (French, English and, maybe, Lingala–the predominant Kinshasa language), and a charming host. This was his first show ever in the US, and he got the decidedly mixed crowd (all ages, all colors, many nationalities) on their feet and singing and clapping along. The song that got us to the show was Mardi Gras, on record a Francophone hip hop hipster melange, but lacking the rap parts live seemed more a cajun lament.

Another good one was a raucous reggea-ish tribute to the Rumble in the Jungle called Ali Bomaye! This is a much sparer version than what the band played last night, but in a way the spareness is a tonic, an open window into Kwender’s lovely voice and lyrical songwriting.

The Specials, Ghost Town

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I found this Bob Christgau story about seeing Elvis Costello and the Roots a couple of years ago, when their album Wake Up Ghost came out. It’s a fine record, but what made my eyes open was his description of their cover of the Specials Ghost Town.

Here it is.

Sound is crap, but it is sweet. Here’s the original version, which EC produced, and has a lot more air.

 

PiL, Double Trouble

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What century are we in? PiL was on that Stephen Colbert show last night. I forget what it’s called. The Tonight Show? Probably not.

I’ve gotten used to seeing Lydon on TV, chubby and stubby and how he used to be missing teeth, but isn’t anymore.

What I never get used to is how electrifying he is when he’s actually singing. This seems to be a crap song about hiring a plumber or something, which doesn’t go right because, well, who knows. The spouse didn’t do it right?

Or maybe it’s about something else entirely, but what matters is that the performance is pretty electrifying, and the sound is huge and, um, unusual for these times. Not nearly as dub as PiL was back in the day, but not punky at all.

And Lydon’s performance, intense and focused and a real performance (he delivers), brings it all home. I’m not arguing the moment is historic, memorable into the future, but it strikes me as a lovely blow against the empire. I’ll take it.

Rufus, Tell Me Something Good

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Gene’s post of the Brothers Johnson on Facebook led me to this Rufus with Chaka Khan track, which I adored back in the day when it was new. This is all modulation and anticipation, the beat is slowed and crawling, and Chaka revels in the suspense.

I count this as an example of the most serious and amazing sounds released and people got it. Art and the godhead mix.

The Eagles of Death Metal

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When I first heard of today’s terrible events in Paris, I was struck by reports that the terrorists had attacked a death metal concert hall. That seemed strange.

But not as strange, maybe, as the fact that the terrorists attacked a historic concert hall that happened to be hosting the fine and funny band the Eagles of Death Metal. This is something altogether different.

The Eagles of Death Metal are a rock band, but a funny one. They play with the rock. This is different than playing death metal. Alas, today they lived with death metal.