Trippin’ Out to Saturn with the Sun Ra Arkestra

The Sun Ra Arkestra made a return to earth this past Wednesday night at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia.  The sound was high-school-gym awful, the seating on the floor uncomfortable, the lighting harsh.  It didn’t matter.  The 21-piece Sun Ra Arkestra, led by alto saxophonist Marshall Allen, raised the spirits in a two hour, non-stop performance that ranged from swing to corn to way the hell beyond.

The concert made me a born-again Arkestra devotee. Between 1972 and his departure from the planet in 1993, I saw the Arkestra every chance I could, some 30 times, including Christmas Eve in Boston.  But I’d resisted the Marshal Allen led band.  I thought it could only be a shell of the cosmic circus that Ra presented.  I was wrong.  Allen, always one of the formidable voices in the band, has kept Ra’s spirit alive with a performance that wasn’t a recreation.  It was another step in the Arkestra’s evolution.

But all the great Sun Ra elements were present.  There were spangled capes and hats, swing numbers and corny tunes, amateurish dancers and riveting horn sections, and of course, free form blowouts like you rarely see anymore.

Farrid Barron did a great job on piano and sending out shards of synthesizer chords, but it was actually Allen who handled all the electronic space age whoops, whorls and wiggles.  He played his antiquated, but effective electronic valve instrument when this wizened wizard wasn’t spitting out oscillating alto solos.  Now 75, and with the Arkestra since 1958, he hasn’t lost anything.

Stalwarts with the Arkestra from the 60s, 70s and 80s included bassist Juini Booth, baritone man Danny Thompson, tenor sax player Charles Davis and trumpeter Michael Ray, who I still think of as the hot new young trumpeter, even though he’s been with the group since the late 1970s.

The Arkestra did their walk through the crowd, Noel Scott did somersaults, they essayed Fletcher Henderson’s “Big John Special,” a staple of Sun Ra’s later years and at the end, most of the horns left the stage and Marshall Allen and the percussionists let loose a joyful cacophony of free jazz blowing.

In the late 90s, I produced a documentary called Sun Ra’s Cosmic Swing for NPR’s Jazz Profiles.  You can still catch it online, here.

Allen has released several albums with the Arkestra and they are currently touring Europe, doing the festival circuit.  You can catch their tour dates on the Arkestra’s website.

The Sun Ra Arkestra will perform  a Halloween show, an Arkestra tradition, on Oct. 31st. Philadelphia, PA, International House Philadelphia, 3701 Chestnut street, PA 19104.  I’ll be the one standing in rapture.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Echo Location: Moby’s Wait for Me-July CD of the Month

Moby releases his best album in a decade, and it’s the July Echoes CD of the Month

It’s been ten years since Moby put out his multi-platinum selling album, Play. it became ubiquitous in films, TV, and commercials.   You’ll hear echoes of Play in Moby’s new album, Wait for Me,   a song cycle of personal reflection and heart-tugging moods.  Like the old field recordings he used on Play , its sound is dusty, scratchy and has an antique techno veneer. But even though he uses little vocal sampling, he writes his lyrics as if he was cutting and pasting vocals off old 78s.

Moby: I listen to a lot of very, very old music, And one of the things that I love about old blues and some old gospel music is how plaintive and repetitive they can be. And I guess because I listen to so much old African-American music, it kind of makes sense that when I would write my own vocals and my own lyrics that they’d be inspired by that.

Singers  Kelli Scarr and Amelia Zirin Brown (who also performs burlesque as Lady Rizzo) are the vocalists on several songs.   They’re little known singers, but they bring a vulnerability and world-weariness beyond their years to Moby’s music on songs like the title track, “Wait For Me.”

Moby: What’s expressed in that idea, “Wait for Me,” is a degree of vulnerability and longing. there is a spiritual connotation to it, which is that idea of like saying to God or to whomever, like I clearly have no idea what’s going on. I don’t know what I’m doing, just have a little patience with me.

Wait for Me,  is a deeply personal album, far removed from Moby’s techno dance origins.

Moby:  Wait for Me is made by me in a very almost monastic way in my studio by myself late at night. And it’s really designed for one listener. It’s not designed for a party, it’s not designed for 20 people in a bar or night club to listen to. It’s for someone lying in bed Sunday morning at 9 o’clock when it’s raining outside.

Moby said he wanted to make a personal album, and he did, but it also speaks to universal yearning.  Wait for Me is out now on Mute Records.  It’s the Echoes July CD of the Month and I’ll have a more extended interview with Moby about it on Monday’s Echoes.

You can read a full review of Moby’s Wait for Me here.
You can hear an audio podcast of this blog, with music, here
You can hear an audio podcast of this past week’s Moby Profile, here.

This has been an Echo Location, Soundings for New Music.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

B00000J6AG

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000J6AG/echoes

NEARFEST 2009 REFLECTIONS & 10 Classic Progressive Rock Albums

Is Progressive rock  progressing?

Another year, another NEARFEST and the 2009 edition was as good as any, and much better than 2008, which, as I wrote then, was overlong and overwrought.   In ‘09 I rarely looked at my watch, there were several acts that excited and you heard nothing but brilliant musicianship.   Van Der Graaf Generator fullfilled a 35 year old dream, Gong made you remember why you love their goofy psychedelia and PFM redeemed themselves.

After NEARFEST 2005 I wrote a web piece called There Is No Progress in Progressive Rock.  That was actually a quote from several musicians I talked to.  Four years later that’s still largely true and I could just write what I wrote then:

To listen to the bands at NEARfest, you’d never know that world music has been a phenomena of the last 30 years that has penetrated jazz, classical, avant-garde, new age and even space music genres. And that’s surprising given that one of the icons of Progressive Rock, Peter Gabriel, created the Realworld music label and has been infusing his own music with global elements since the early 1980s.

The Progrockers on stage also seem blithely unaware of trends related to their own genre. Space music, electronica, techno and ambient, all styles created by former prog & art rockers like Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Kraftwerk and others, find little representation in the expansive compositions of mainstream Progressive Rock.

With the striking exception of Cabezas de Cerra, who used Latin touches and home made instruments that evoked sitars, ouds, tablas and more, that all remains true.

What’s perhaps more disconcerting is that the elder bands, PFM, Van Der Graaf Generator, Gong, and the Steve Hillage Band, were by and large content to play their golden oldies.  Yes, VDGG insisted they “weren’t here to be holograms” and played music off 2008’s Trisector and Gong and PFM all played recent or soon to be released compositions, but none of that materiel was as strong as the classics and ultimately were swamped by older materiel.

It’s great to see these bands, who we may have missed in the 1970s, play the songs that we loved in our youth.  But  I know when I was thinking this was the crown of creation in 1974, I never suspected they might become the equivalent of a Golden Oldies Tour with Rick Nelson, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Bobby Rydell. Is this any different than Hippiefest with Three Dog Night, The Rascals, Badfinger, Flo & Eddie, Mountain and Country Joe (Or actually, some fractional semblance of those groups) trotting out their hits?  Is NEARFEST like the “Garden Party” that Rick Nelson sang about 27 years ago?

All those aforementioned Nearfest bands played their butts off, but you don’t see Peter Gabriel just performing his greatest hits.  He tours his new album.  King Crimson is always playing later era music and John McLaughlin rarely revisits Mahavishnu Orchestra material.  Why don’t Nearfest bands do the same (and I don’t mean PFM playing the blues, please)?

I think that’s the conundrum of Nearfest.  Every year, a couple of bands break the mold, but they are the exception.  A few groups, like Univers Zero, Present, Magma, Steve Roach and The Muffins, just live on the edge of the new anyway, so it’s not an issue.  But a lot of the elder statesman seem content to regurgitate the past and their descendants aren’t really interested in breaking form.

Nearfest once again produced a first class plus festival, a festival that is as geared to the musicians as it is to the fans, a real rarity in concert production.  Sound and lights were improved over previous years and the transition from the founders to the new caretakers was smooth and seems to assure more quality Nearfests to come.

In that article I wrote 4 years ago, I cited 10 classics from Progressive Rocks Golden years.  Here they are again.

TEN CLASSICS FROM PROGRESSIVE ROCK’S GOLDEN YEARS

King Crimson-Red
The definitive electric guitar Prog album with Robert Fripp and drummer Bill Bruford locking into a headlong charge towards the abyss

Yes-Tales from Topographic Oceans
Their definitive double album epic has everything from soaring keyboard orchestrations to Jon Anderson’s choirboy vocals.

Genesis-Foxtrot
Watcher of the Skies and Supper’s Ready.  What else needs be said about this symphonic-theatrical epic.

Univers Zero-Heresie
Music from beyond the void.  Glorious in it’s frightening gothic cadences and honking bassoons.

Van Der Graaf Generator – Pawn Hearts
Peter Hammill and crew ably mixing lyrical contemplations on life and epic, but smokey Hammond B-3 instrumental workouts.

Camel-The Snow Goose
One of the prettier prog bands, this is their crowning conceptual work, with arrangements from David Bedford.

Mike Oldfield-Ommadawn
His third album was also his most compositionally integrated, mixing Celtic themes and searing guitar.

Jade Warrior-Way of the Sun
The single most under-rated group of the Prog era and one of the few still timeless enough to be played on Echoes.  They mixed Asian delicacy with blues-rock edges in this epic, instrumental tone poem, the last in a brilliant quartet of albums on Island.

Pink Floyd-Meddle
The band that bridged the gap between psychedelic and Progressive Rock, it contains the serene epic, “Echoes” as well as the propulsive “One of These Days.”

Can -Soon Over Babaluma
The German spacerock bands most melodic and kinetic album of man-machine rhythms, electro-shock guitar and propulsive bass

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

NEARfest 09 Part 4-The Rest

NEARFEST 09-The Rest: Oblivion Sun, DFA, Trettioåriga Kriget, Beardfish

Echoes‘ John Diliberto wraps up his Nearfest 09 Reviews

In what turned out to be a very good Nearfest, I’ve already covered my favorite acts.  You can read about Gong and PFM, Steve Hillage and  Van Der Graaf Generator, and my faves of the festival, Cabeza de Cera and Quantum Fantay.

Here’s a quick run through the rest.

Oblivion Sun
From the remains fo Happy the Man, rose Oblivion Sun with guitarist/vocalist Stan Whitaker and keyboardist Frank Wyatt.   OS follows in Happy the Man’s symphonic prog tradition, but while Happy the Man seemed a little behind the curve in the 1980s, Oblivion Sun sounds like they’ve fallen off the back.  Very good second generation symphonic progressive with occasional lapses into bad pop tunes and crotch-rock like “The Ride,” which recalled “Foxy Lady.”  Whitaker is a middling vocalist but when they left the instruments to sing, they attained a bit of the dynamic variety that a lot of other bands missed, especially on “Tales of Young Whales”  where a pastoral melody and Genesis-style guitar picking surround a Steve Hackett style epic adventure with wailing sustained guitar lead from Whitaker. Whitaker delivered the best joke of the festival, although not that well:

Why are all the 70 year old mothers happy when Nearfest comes around?
Because they get to clean out the basement where their sons live

DFA
Duty Free Area, or DFA is an Italian quartet that’s predominantly instrumental and should stay that way.  The few vocals made them a mediocre rock group.  This was their second NEARfest appearance.  I missed a good chunk of their set while interviewing Daevid Allen and Steve Hillage, but what I caught were songs that built up in furious streams of energy while negotiating complex rhythms and intricate unison playing.

Beardfish
Beardfish is a Swedish band with the typical guitar/keyboards fronted line-up and a bass player, Robert Hanson, who executed  a modified, one-legged moonwalk back and forth across the stage throughout their set.  Although there are feint allusions to mid-period Frank Zappa, they’re essentially a progressive band in the Genesis-Kansas vein occasionally slipping into pure blues-metal on tunes like “The Gooberville Ballroom Dancer,” making them sound about as prog as Quiet Riot.  Guitarist David Zackrisson was an engaging frontman with one of the better lines at the festival:

Have you ever thought about the infinity of space?” he asked.  “That’s a fucking nutcracker, isn’t it.”

Their music wasn’t quite as cosmic or ironic.

Trettioåriga Kriget (Thirty Years War)
Trettioåriga Kriget is a Swedish band that’s been around since 1970, making them contemporaries of Gong, Van Der Graaf Generator and PFM.  They were the most conventional rock band of the festival, often attaining arena-rock pomposity. Some of their tunes sounded like homages to The Kinks‘ “You Really Got Me” and almost everything seemed to end in mid-stride.  There’s always at least one room-clearing act at NEARfest.  Usually they tend to be on the avant-garde and aggressive side like Present.  This year it was Trettioåriga Kriget who just bored people.

I’ll have a NEARfest summation soon.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

NEARFEST 09-The Rest

Echoes’ John Diliberto wraps up his Nearfest 09 Reviews

Oblivion Sun, DFA,

In what turned out to be a very good Nearfest, I’ve already covered my favorite acts.  You can read about Gong and PFM, Steve hillage and  Van Der Graaf Generator, and my faves of the festival, Cabeza de Cera and Quantum Fantay.

Here’s a quikc run through the rest.

Oblivion Sun
From the remains fo Happy the Main, emerged Oblivion Sun with guitarist/vocalist Stan Whitaker and keyboardist Frank Wyatt.
OS follows in Happy the Man’s symphonic prog tradition, but while Happy the Man seemed a little behind the curve in the 1989s, Oblivion Sun sounds like they’ve fallen off the back.  Very good second generation symphonic progressive with occasional lapses into bad pop tunes and crotch-rock like The Ride, which sounded like “Foxy Lady.”  Whitaker is a middling vocalist but when they left the instruments to sing, they attained a bit of dynamic variety that a lot of other bands missed, especially on “Tales of Young Whales.”  Pastoral melodies and Genesis style guitar picking surround a Steve Hackett style epic adventure with wailing sustained guitar lead from Whitaker. Whitaker delivered the best joke of the festival, though not that well:
Why are all the 70 year old mothers happy when Nearfest comes around?
Because they get to clean out the basement where their sons live.

DFA
Duty Free Area, or DFA is an Italian quartet that’s predominantly instrumental and should stay that way.  I missed a good chunk of their set while interviewing Daevid Allen and Steve Hillage, but what I caught was songs that built up in furious streams of energy while negotiating complex rhythms and intricate unison playing.

Beardfish
Beardfish is a Swedish band with the typical guitar/keyboards fronted line-up and a bass player, Robert Hanson, who would do a modified, one-foot moonwalk back and forth across the stage.  Although there are feint allusions to mid-period Frank Zappa, they’re essentially a progressive band in the Genesis-Kansas vein occassionally slipping into pure blues-metal on tunes like the Gooberville Ballroom Dancer, making them sound about as prog as Quiet Riot.  Guitarist David Zackrisson was an engaging frontman with one of the better lines at the festival: Have you ever thought about the infinity of space?” he asked.  That’s a fucking nutcracker, isn’t it.”
Their music wasn’t quite as cosmic or ironic.

Trettioåriga Kriget (Thirty Years War)
Trettioåriga Kriget is a Swedish band that’s been around since 1970, making them contemporaries of Gong, Van Der Graaf Generator and PFM.  They were the most conventional rock band of the festival, often attaining arena-rock pomposity. Some fo their tunes sound like homages to The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and almost everything seemed to end in mid-stride.  There’s always at least one room-clearing act at NEARfest.  This year it was Trettioåriga Kriget.

Nearfest ‘09 Pt.3-The New Wave: Cabezas de Cera & Quantum Fantay

Quantum Fantay & Cabezas de Cera welcome Prog to the 21st Century at Nearfest 2009

For some reason, the opening acts on Saturday & Sunday’s Nearfest always provide the most exciting, unexpected moments – think Morglbl, Indukti, KBB and Guapo from recent years – and that was certainly the case with Quantum Fantay and Cabezas de Cera.  Hailing from Belgium and Mexico respectively, each group proved the universal appeal of prog, while bringing something decidedly new to the table.

Of all the bands at Nearfest this year, Cabezas de Cera was the one that actually seemed like a 21st century ensemble.  They certainly had the most unique instrumental line-up at the festival.  In fact, guitarist Mauricio Sotelo alone had more unusual instruments than the last 5 Nearfest’s combined.  He played the charrofono, which sounded like an Indian sitar and had a huge gourd at one end, the armatoste, which looked like a space-lute with it’s half-moon body and sounded like a Turkish saz or oud, Jarana Prisma, which looked like a 12-string guitar from the back of the hall but was actually a 12-string harp, and then normal instruments like the Chapman Stick.  Mauricio’s brother, Francisco Sotelo played a hybrid drum set with acoustic drums, kalimba and electronic pads.  Ramsés Luna besides playing saxophones also employed an electronic wind controller, and played it better than anyone I’ve heard.   He used it for decidely non-saxophone sounds, but got the kind of of squeels and overblowing that you’d expect form a free jazz player.
Collectively the band navigated tightly constructed compositions that unfolded into free improvisations and back.  A power trio track might lead into a sweet soprano saxophone interlude. Mauricio dialed up loops to create modal cycles and the band blew through them in metal-edged interplay.  On “Pretexto  a un TextoFragmentado,” Ramsés did a Mexican speed rap like a crazed megaphone toting street politician meeting a whacked out DJ.  At any minute I expected him to break out in English: Sunday, SUNDAY, at New England Dragway, Johnny Taylor and his hemi-overdive funny car, Sunday, SUNDAY.”  (You have to be a certain age to get that reference).

Some of their free-flowing soundscapes recalled the spontaneous interplay of Weather Report in their Body Electric days, but with a distinctive, Latin edge, especially when Mauricio played the 12-string harp. And like Weather Report back then, they weren’t afraid to engage in pure sound exploration.  Mauricio Sotelo picked up an instrument that looked like a small bent I-Beam with strings suspended in the middle, like an industrial berimbau.  He bowed it and beat it into a dissonant wail while Francisco created a storm of percussion behind him.

Quantum Fantay led off Sundays round and established a standard that wasn’t quite met until  PFM’s headlining performance.  Coming out of Belgium, this quintet found a meeting ground between Ozric Tentacles style space rock and fusion, although the Ozric connection might be a bit overstated.  They use synthesizer sequencers to underpin some of their music, but their sound leans more towards fusion in its rhythms and structural shifts, but without the improvisation.

Their use of flute, often harmonized, gave their hard-driving sound a bit of airiness that other bands lack.  From the opening piece, “The Spirit” off their Kaleidothrope album, they established a different sound from the guitar-keyboards driven approach of every other Nearfest band but Cabeza de Cera.  Karel Slabbaert’s harmonized flutes were like a search light arcing  across a furious groove and his interplay with Glenn (Dario Frodo) Ployaert’s heroic guitar leads always took things to a higher level.  Like Cabeza De Cera, though not as extreme, the group had a few other timbral differences from other Nearfest bands.  Tablas emerged on one track and on “Cube” they used tuned (sampled) percussion and a reggae interlude (where were the Prog Police).   Quantum Fantay never let up and every song was like a charge for the heavens.  The name, by the way, is an unintentional typo on “fantasy” that they decided to embrace.  Or as Brian Eno might say, “Honor thy error as a hidden intention.”

I’ll wrap up the rest of the festival, finally, and belatedly, soon.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

NEARFEST 09 Pt.2: Gong & PFM

Someone is dancing in pajama robes and a wizards hat.  It must be Daevid Allen and Gong.

In this second part of the Echoes Nearfest 2009 review it’s the Old Guard Part Two.

Gong @ Nearfest 09 Photo Gino WOng

Gong is the rock mirror image of the Sun Ra Arkestra.  Like Sun Ra, Gong is  a free-wheeling eclectic band that wraps itself in its on myth and mystery, namely,  that we came from the Planet Gong and were spawned by aliens.  It’s never quite clear whether Allen and his closest disciples treat this as fact or metaphor.  Like Sun Ra, they seem to live the life and speak the jargon, whether on-stage or off. Nevertheless, for 40 years, Gong has made some riotous music with dada lyrics and the definition of “space guitar.”

Gong played their first concert in 1969, so their Nearfest date was something of an anniversary.  Daevid Allen and singer Gilli Smythe are the only remaining charter members, but longtime associates from the golden era of Gong were there, namely guitarist Steve Hillage and bassist Mike Howlett (who also produced several great 1980s new wave bands like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Gang of Four and Flock of Seagulls).  This was essentially Steve Hillage’s band with Howlett, Miquette Giraudy on synths and Chris Taylor on drums, with the addition of Allen, Smythe and Theo Travis on reeds.

Gong proved that you can go home again, as long as home is the Planet Gong.  The band essayed music from their Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy, but like Van Der Graaf Generator, they wanted to play new music as well, so we got tracks from their forthcoming album, which, essentially sounded like vintage Gong.

Whether wearing his pajamas or his pure white Pot Head Pixie suit with boa feather fringe, Daevid Allen brought a berserk energy to the proceedings, singing out his tales of pothead pixies, octave doctors and alternative consciousness.  He’s in his 70s, but bobbed around stage like David Lee Roth in his prime.  “Geriatric Acid Trip Prog!” as AyRon enthusiastically proclaimed on the NEARfest Board.  Gilli Smythe is a bit older and sadly showed every second of her age. Wearing Alice in Wonderland-style queens raiment, it seemed like she  was wheeled on and off the stage, where she stood motionless and silent, occasionally letting out a shriek or space whisper, but usually looking and sounding lost.  She’s not the winsome wood nymph she once was.

The band rocked for the first half and once they hit the materiel from the trilogy, launched into space with some key jams.  Theo Travis was a more than adequate substitute for longtime Gong reedman, Didier Malherbe.  He squonked and squealed dueling with Hillage one moment and laying down the plaintive sounds of “Flute Salad” the next.  The instrumental passages were vintage psychedelic excursions with shimmering glissando guitar from Allen, free-jazz solos from Travis, and Hillage’s careening, distortion-drenched and delayed solos.  It was all accomplished over the driving ostinato basslines and grooves from Howlett and Taylor respectively.  If you’re a follower, you had to love their performance even if it was stuck in 1974.

The Italian band, PFM, (Premiata Forneria Marconi), only one year younger than Gong, made their second NEARFEST appearance.  They opened the 2005 show and their set was an ungainly mixed of  epic symphonic prog and showboating, naive blues jams.  They must have gotten the memo this time and stuck with their expansive compositions from albums like Photos of Ghosts and The World Became the World and some nice tracks from their 2006 release, Stati di immaginazione.  It wasn’t until more than 90 minutes into their set that they pulled out some cloying pop tunes and a smooth-jazz vamp with a Kenny G sax line played on synthesizer.

The classical roots are immediately evident in this band which boasted three original members and two versatile replacements.  Vivaldi echoes through much of their music. Of all the NEARfest bands this year, PFM explored the widest dynamic range, from ripping, guitar-stoked symphonic grandeur, to quiet and extended pastoral themes.  Guitarist Franco Mussida had a distinctly different sound from other players at the festival. His solos built in melodic development instead of shards of flashy licks.  Patrick Djivas knows how to plow through the undertow, holding it together on bass, although his lone solo sounded arthritic.  Franz Di Cioccio is a powerhouse on drums, and I wish he’d spent more time behind them instead of acting like progs version of Italian actor Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful) all outsized Italian joy, manic frontman antics and way to much hand-clapping.  In fact, PFM had more clap-alongs than the rest of the festival combined.  This is prog.  We sit and watch sternly.  We don’t clap.

I found the several films they played behind some tunes an occasional distraction.  At times I thought, great music and a PBS lesson too boot.  I learned more about Archimedes than I ever knew before.  But it often put the music in the background.

Based on their 2005 set, I had told my friends that if they wanted to leave at any time, I was okay with that.  But this year PFM came to play and stake their claim on their legacy.

Next up: NEARFEST surprises: Mexico’s Cabezas de Cera and Belgium’s Quantum Fantay.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Someones dancing in pajama robes and a wizards hat.  It must be Daevid Allen and Gong.

In this second part of the Echoes Nearfest 2009 review it’s the Old Guard Part Two.

Gong is the rock mirror image of the Sun Ra Arkestra, a free-wheeling eclectic band that wraps itself in its on myth and mystery, namely,  that we came from the Planet Gong and were spawned by aliens.  It’s never quite clear whether Allen and his closest disciples treat this as fact or metaphor.  Like Sun Ra, they seem to live the life and speak the jargon, whether on-stage or off. Nevertheless, for 40 years, Gong has made some riotous music with dada lyrics and the definition of “space guitar.”  Gong played their first concert in 1969, so their Nearfest date was something of an anniversary.  Daevid Allen and singer Gilli Smythe are the only remaining charter members, but longtime associates from the golden era of Gong were there, namely guitarist Steve Hillage and bassist Mike Howlett (who also produced several great 1980s new wave bands like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Gang of Four and Flock of Seagulls).  This was essentially Steve Hillage’s band with Howlett, Miquette Giraudy on synths, Chris Taylor on drums, with the addition of Allen, Smythe and Theo Travis on reeds.
Gong proved that you can go home again, as long as home is the Planet Gong.  The band essayed music from their Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy, but like Van Der Graaf Generator, they wanted to play new music as well, so we got tracks from their forthcoming album, which, essentially sounded like vintage Gong.
Whether wearing his pajamas or his pure white Pot Head Pixie suit with boa feather fringe, Daevid Allen brought a berserk energy to the proceedings, singing out his tales of pothead pixies, octave doctors and alternative consciousness.  He’s in his 70s, but bobbed around stage like David Lee Roth in his prime.  “Geriatric Acid Trip Prog!” as AyRon enthusiastically proclaimed on the NEARfest Board.  Gilli Smythe is a bit older and sadly showed every second of her age. Wearing Alice in Wonderland-style queens raiments, she seemed to be almost literally wheeled on stage, where she stood motionless and silent, occasionally letting out a shriek or space whisper, but usually looking and sounding lost.  She’s not the winsome wood nymph she once was.
The band rocked for the first half and once they hit the materiel from the trilogy, launched into space with some key jams.  Theo Travis was a more than adequate substitute for longtime Gong reedman, Didier Malherbe.  He squonked and squealed dueling with Hillage one moment and laying down the plaintive sounds of “Flute Salad” the next
The instrumental passages were vintage psychedelic excursions with shimmering glissando guitar from Allen, free-jazz solos from Travis, and Hillage’s careening, distortion-drenched and delays solos.  It was all accomplished over the driving ostinato basslines and grooves from Howlett and Taylor respectively.  If you’re a follower, you had to love their performance even if it was stuck in 1972.
PFM, (Premiata Forneria Marconi), only one year younger than Gong, made their second NEARFEST appearance.  They opened the 2005 show and their set was an ungainly mixed of their epic symphonic prog and showboating, naive blues jams.  They must have gotten the memo this time and stuck with their expansive compositions from albums like Photos of Ghosts and The World Became the World and some nice tracks from their 2006 release, Stati di immaginazione.  It wasn’t until more than 90 minutes into their set that they pulled out some cloying pop tunes and a smooth-jazz vamp with a Kenny G sax line played on synthesizer.
The classical roots are immediately evident in this band which boasted three original members and two versatile replacements.  Vivaldi echoes through much of their music. Of all the NEARfest bands this year, PFM explored the widest dynamic range, from ripping, guitar-stoked symphonic grandeur, to quiet and extended pastoral themes.  Guitarist Franco Mussida had a distinctly different sound from other players at the festival. His solos built in melodic development instead of shards of flashy licks.  Franz Di Cioccio is a powerhouse on drums, and I wish he’d spent more time behind them instead of acting like progs version of Italian actor Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful) all outsized Italian joy, manic frontman antics and way to much hand-clapping.  In fact, PFM had more clap-alongs than the rest of the festival combined.  This is prog.  We sit and watch sternly.  We don’t clap.  Patrick Djivas knows how to plow through the undertow, holding it together on bass, although his lone solo sounded arthritic.
I found the several films they played behind some tunes an occasional distraction.  At times I thought, great music and A PBS lesson, as well.  I learned more about Archimedes than I ever knew before.  But it often put the music in the background.
Based on their 2005 set, I had told my friends that if they wanted to leave at any time, I was okay with that.  But PFM came to play and stake their claim on their legacy.

Next up: NEARFEST surprises: Mexico’s Cabezas de Cera and Belgium’s Quantum Fantay.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

NEARFEST ‘09 Pt.1: Van Der Graaf Generator & Steve Hillage

NEARFEST 2009

Part One: Progressing into Yesterday, Steve Hillage and Van Der Graaf Generator

NEARFEST, the North East Art Rock Festival, took place this past weekend and as is the custom of this 11-year-old institution, it was a mix of progressive rockers old and new.
Today, Pt 1 of The Old Guard

There is a tendency for progressive rock fans to want their heroes to remain locked in the past.  Most audience members at NEARfest had never seen these acts and wanted to hear live versions of the music they grew up with.  Two of the old guard complied and two of them didn’t to varying degrees.

Early on in Van Der Graaf Generator’s set Friday night set, founder, singer and composer Peter Hammill declared.  “We didn’t come here just to be holograms.”  Which meant that as much as fans wanted to hear “A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers,” VDGG wasn’t just going to dish up hits and they played several tracks from their 2008 album, Trisector.

This is a leaner, more focused  VDGG without saxophonist David Jackson. But with Hammill on keyboards and guitar, Guy Evans on drums and Hugh Banton on organ and keyboards, they created a big sound.  Banton in particular was a whirlwind, sprawling out across his keyboards and beating out bass-lines on his pedals, he created an orchestra of sound centered by his churning Hammond B3 organ (or a digital variation thereof).  Although he doesn’t quote anything directly, you can hear the  classical roots in everything he does, especially his left-handed comping.  While most of the festival’s keyboardists come from right-hand-riffing/left-hand-modulation-wheel school of soloing, Banton creates full orchestrations, connecting the intricate chord changes and rhythms of the band.

Peter Hammill  thrives in this context.  I was  underwhelmed by his overwrought performance at Nearfest 2008.  A solo piano arrangement isn’t enough to contain a voice that is by turns melodramatic and whispering, mannered and manic.   But corralled in the frame of Van Der Graaf Generator, Hammill’s voice is given depth and context and it’s just not so uninhibitedly naked.

VDGG enlivened tracks from Trisector, and breathed new life into old favorites like “Man-Erg” “Lemmings” and “Sleepwalkers.”   It was their first US appearance since 1976 and it was worth the wait.

The Steve Hillage Band closed out Friday night’s show.  Like VDGG, they’re considered progressive rock, but they couldn’t be more different.  Guitarist Steve Hillage, who has been pushing the electronica envelope with his System 7 and Mirror System projects for nearly two decades, instead went back to his classic 1970s work.   Hillage had been a member of Gong and his own band took those aesthetics and extended them into a more technological brand of rock. On Friday, he revisited that work, playing in a quartet that included Chris Taylor on drums, old Gong bassist Mike Howlett and Hillage’s wife and longtime partner, Miquette Giraudy on synthesizers.  They whipped out tunes from Hillage’s Fish Rising, L and Green albums, with Hillage deploying his delayed guitar solos across the slamming riffs of  “Salmon Song,” and raving it up on “Octave Doctors” with a nice jam of rampant, distorted guitar.  Hillage’s set was marred a bit by technical problems with his guitar, which caused him to repeat his cover of The Beatles “It’s All Too Much” in his encore.  But what really hurt was Hillage’s singing.  You don’t listen to Steve Hillage for the vocals, but on this night, he was grievously off-key, warbling blindly around the tonal center.   When the band zoomed off into space jams with storming the heavens guitar solos, they harkened back to their glory days, but as soon as Hillage  opened his mouth the music stumbled like a tripped gyroscope.

Ironically, seeing Ozric Tentacles, a band heavily influenced by Gong and Hillage, a few nights later, I realized they had found their way out of the pop conundrum by eschewing lyrics and song form.  Hillage does that with System 7 and maybe he should do it with the Hillage Band.  Or at least get a singer who can stay on pitch and hold up to the bands aggressive onslaught.

Next Up Two more Old Proggers: Gong says you can go home again, as long as home is Planet Gong, and Italy’s  PFM redeems their middling performance from NEARfest 2005.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Echo Location: Matthew Schoening’s Looped Cellos

Echoes finds a  lapsed classical cellist who is looped.

You can hear an audio version of this blog with Matthew Schoening’s music here.

Just like Nathaniel Ayres, the homeless cellist at the center of the film, The Soloist,  Matthew Schoening was a cellist, in Los Angeles, without a home.

Matthew Schoening:  Well, I lived in L.A. for a while and recorded my first solo cello album there and ran out of money [laughs], so I had to break my lease and not live there anymore, and not pay rent. So I ended up being in my truck most of the time, so I actually built a little bed that went in the back, and had drawer space, so I could sleep back there if I needed to. but.. yeah, I didn’t have my own space for about a year and a half.

That album is called, Solo Electric Cello and although it sounds like there’s a guitarist, rhythm section and string orchestra, it’s all Matthew Schoening, overdubbing himself in real time with a looping device.  Don’t feel too bad for Matthew Schoening’s homeless plight.  He’s not schizophrenic like Ayres and he had a pretty good safety net.  He comes from a musical family in San Francisco.

Matthew Schoening: My father is in the San Francisco symphony and my mother is a professional flautist in San Francisco.  I grew up with my dad practicing and my mom teaching flute lessons, listening to Stravinsky and Mozart, Beethoven and I used to sneak backstage at Davis Hall and listen to music. So, I grew up around it.

He played cello as a teenager, abandoned it for ten years, then picked it up again.  He performed with various singer-songwriters before discovering a looping pedal at the music store where he worked.

Matthew Schoening: Well, right about the time that I essentially got fired from all the bands I was playing with, I was still working at the store, so I took home this looping pedal just to try it out, and the first thing I did was write ‘desert dreams’, which is from my first cello album. And then I was hooked.

Nouveau Flamenco guitarist Ottmar Liebert was hooked as well when he heard Schoening playing.

Ottmar Liebert: Basically imagine that Mtt can start playing a riff, then lock it in, then put a second thing over that.  So he can get percussive on the cello, do basslines on the cello and then play more high register melodies.  So it’s pretty impressive when you see it all come together.

Matthew and Ottmar wound up playing on each other’s most recent albums and Matthew recently got to combine his looping orchestra with the Northwest Symphony Orchestra. His  latest album is called The Art of Live Looping.  I’ll have a longer interview with Matthew tonight 06-24-09 on Echoes.  This has been an Echo Location.

You can hear an audio version of this blog with Matthew Schoening’s music here.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Ali Akbar Khan Plucks His Last String

Echoes remembers Ali Akbar Khan (April 14,1922-June 19, 2009)

Ali Akbar Khan is one of the only Indian musicians whose name is spoken in the same breathe as Ravi Shankar.  He plays the Indian stringed instrument called the sarod and since his American debut in 1955 playing duets with classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin, he’s been a leading proponent of Indian classical music in the west.  If you were on the west coast and beat a tabla or plucked a sitar, you probably passed through the Ali Akbar College of Music.

We talked with Khansab in 1994 when he’d just released an album of Westernized raga melodies called Journey.

I remember Khansab seated in the music room of his tiny Marin County bungalow. The walls were covered with Indian murals, tanpuras and icons.  A stack of shelves held several of his sarods, a stringed Indian instrument that sounds like a sitar without the resonant strings.  On one wall hung his first miniature sarod, which his father made from an old violin. He was a short, portly man, whose speech was barely intelligible beneath his gruff, rumbling tone and Indian accent.  He said he learned many of his ragas from his father.

“There are 25,000 ragas, melodies,” grumbled Khansab.  “You have to listen to learn in each other, you must learn at least 500 for your completion.  And by practicing, by thinking this, then you know it, you can feel it and it’s like a love.  When a child talks to its mother, mother talks to her child.  This comes out from their heart.  They never compose beforehand.  So that kind of attitude you need for real music.”

Whether playing with classical violinists or cross-over music, Ali Akbar Khan insisted that he never sacrificed the depth and meaning of Indian music.

“That meaning is very difficult to explain,” he revealed.  “I only know that through music you can reach to God.  And it’s such a wonderful thing which can bring peace to all of the place.  The people listen, the people they perform and it’s a very, very wonderful things.  But I am telling you each note can explain many things you can’t speak or write.”

Ali Akbar Khan passed today, June 19, 2009 at the age of 87.  With Ali Akbar Khan joining tabla master Alla Rahka, that leaves Ravi Shankar as the last of the triumvarate that brought Indian music to the west.  From Morgan Doctor to Jai Uttal, Matthew Montfort to Ravi Shankar, there is rarely a musician I’ve spoken to who hasn’t been touched by his music.

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Echoes recommends: Philadelphia Concerts

Coming up: Balmorhea, California Guitar Trio, and my strongest reccomendation: Jóhann Jóhannsson

I’ve been sending out concert recommendations to Philadelphia music heads I know lately, but I figured I might as well blog it out there.  These are under-the-radar shows that I think you don’t want to miss if you’re in the Philly area.

THIS WEEKEND IN PHILADELPHIA
Friday June 19-Sunday June 21
NEARFEST
If you don’t already have tickets to this sold out event, you really don’t want to know that you’re missing Van Der Graaf Generator, Steve Hillage and Gong.  Go to www.nearfest.com to find out how you can get tickets next year for a show that sells out in 30 minutes.

Saturday, June 20
THE CALIFORNIA GUITAR TRIO W/CARYN LIN
@ Sellersville Theatre
For those who can’t get their Prog thing on at Nearfest, check out this Echoes Presents show with the California Guitar Trio.  These Robert Fripp disciples are sure to be playing music from their album, Echoes, including their cover of the Pink Floyd tune of the same name as well as Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells and their own intricate originals.  Electric looping violinist Caryn Lin will open.  Jeff Towne from Echoes is hosting.  Say hello.  http://st94.com/

Tue June 23rd
BALMOHERA,  GOODNIGHT SIR, GOODNIGHT AIR, TINY VIPERS
@ The Chapel of The First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
Balmorhea is one of our favorite bands.  Hailing from Texas they’re creating a delicate chamber rock sound with two guitars, violin and cello and rhythm section.  It’s a bit like Penguin Café Orchestra, but with a Paris, Texas twang. They really pull off this sound live. If they’ve escaped your attention, then you haven’t been listening to Echoes for the last two years. Rectify that with this podcast.
Opening for them are Tiny Vipers, a charming folk-rock group from Seattle and Goodnight Sir, Goodnight Air, who I know nothing about. This is in a small room that only seats about 50 and tix are only $10. Highly recommended
http://www.r5productions.com

Weds, June 23rd

ALASNOAXIS Philadelphia Art Alliance
251 S. 18th Street
$12 General Admission

This one might slip you by.  A band headed up by drummer Jim Black playing a very edgy fusion with a bit of King Crimson energy and lots of chops.  The bass player is Skúli Sverrisson who has played with Mo Boma, Jamshied Sharifi,  Laurie Anderson and just about everybody on the New York edges.  I don’t know saxophonist Chris Speed or guitarist Hilmar Jensson, but judging from their playing on their myspace page, this could be the surprise find of the summer.  It also looks like the last show from Ars Nova Workshop for the season. http://www.arsnovaworkshop.com/

My strongest recommendation comes for this show next weekend.

Saturday, June 27th
JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON W/LICHENS
The Gatherings
St. Mary’s Hamilton Village
3916 Locust Walk in Philadelphia, PA
Jóhann Jóhannsson is an Icelandic musician sharing a lineage with fellow Island mates Sigur Ros.  Jóhannsson creates a deep ambient chamber music with quirky keyboards and strings.  This is a rare US appearance for this acclaimed composer and he’ll be performing with the strings of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME).  If you like the Stars of the Lid show at the Gatherings a while back, this should provide an even more enveloping experience.  You can hear a very cool interview with him in this podcast
I don’t know much about Lichens, which is one guy playing cortical-twisting solo electric guitar.
www.thegatherings.org

John Diliberto ((( echoes )))