Again, not together, but I saw them both tonight. Richie played to a packed Highline Ballroom crowd that seemed like a mix of metal heads and strangely “normal” looking people (and of course, I’m sure, a ton of guitarist). Of course he kicks ass when he shreds on his axe, but his songs and lyrics are not the most original I have to stay. Nevertheless he’s a great player and he plays and sings his ass off. Reminded me a bit of Sambora vocally and you can hear echoes of Jimi and others in his playing, it’s just so fast and precise that it’s mindboggling.
Later my buddy Robby Angelucci (on tour with Frankie Valli, coming through the tristate area) walked over to Canal Room where long time Rolling Stones background singer Bernard Fowler and a great supporting band were giving their all to a nostalgic r’n'r crowd. Bernard’s voice is great (there’s something special when a black man signs rock’n'roll… like with the Livig Colour guy…) and his energy is uncompromised and dedicated. Keith Richards was in the crowd and was rumored would sit in but ended up not doing so. Great sound (mixed by the legendary Night Bob) and show nevertheless!

No I didn’t see the two of them live together. I spent the first half of the night at BB King’s to see The Moth’s finalis, where Bridget (whom I blogged about before) kicked ass with her stand-up comedy style storytelling and closed the night with a grand slam story about getting her mom stoned.
Then I ran down the West Village to see the Bitter End’s weekly installment of Oz Noy. I got there early and caught the second half of Lizzy Loeb’s set (if memory serves me right), a talented young singer songwriter who enlisted Shawn Pelton on drums for her record and this one gig tonight. After her Oz was up and was killing it with his riffs, licks, solos, sounds and pedal switching… The Oz Noy Twisted Blues Band tonight featured the great and fun Will Lee on bass, Rocky Bryant on drums & Jerry Z on keys (that was a first for me). Of course they killed it and when they were done it felt too short a set! Great musicianship.

My good (and corageously fasting) friend Kaoru and I went to see Mary Halvorson tonight. She performed with a great band comprised of the great Trevor Dunn on bass, an impressive Tomas Fujiwara (subbing for Chess Smith), Jon Irbagon on sax (rumored to be a world champion at Dr. Mario) and Jonathan Finlayson (whose playing is almost as cool as his vintage Kellog’s fruit loops t-shirt). The quintet played great and it was the first time I got a chance to appreciate her compositions (although I had seen her playing before with Marc Ribot at Le Poisson Rouge). With long horn lines and harmonies punctuated by written free-jazz guitar structures leaning on the solid foundations of such a great rhythm section, the quinted effortlessly spaced from improv to form flirting with moody and delicate atmospheres and bursting flames in full on full out pieces! All the solos were killer! This young and humble composer is definitely one to follow and one whom I hope to work with sooner rather than later.

As Bob Lefsetz might ask: “What kind of a fucked up world do we live in” if former James Brown bass player Fred Thomas has to play a great funk gig to a small crowd of about 15 people in a small venue in Williamsburg with no entrance fee and only a tip bucket? I doubt the venue pays bands since there is no door, which means the seven piece group had to split a tip bucket (which with that crowd was probably $30-$50 at most, depending on generosity).
It’s really getting harder by the day out there for musicians and this makes me sad…
The gig itself was fine and the old thumb-plucking bassist sang and played two sets of funk classics (and some blues) although the young all-white supporting band left me wondering whether there suddenly was a shortage of black musicians in NY. Not that these cats were bad, but we all know that nobody got pocket and swing like a brother! What’s a brother got to do? What’s a music lover got to do?

Thanks to Zorn’s amazing graphic designer Chippy I found out about this balkan vocal quartet called Black Sea Hotel that I went to see with her today at the Delancey. I was impressed by Black Sea Hotel: perfect pitch, great vocal areangments, haunting and beautiful, as long as you like Balkan melodies of course. Check out their latest CD for a taste of that or catch them live on May 21st uptown. This weekly Monday event is called Small Beast and is organized and hosted by Botanica’s Paul Wallfish (another NY musician who sadly is moving to Germany) also featured Paul himself on solo piano and vocals, Edison Woods and legendary producer/engineer Martin Bisi’s band The End Credits.
Also tonight I hooked up with drummer extraordinaire Jojo Mayer (who’s back in town and playing a Nerve gig at Le Poisson Rouge on May 16th; don’t miss that!) an together we went to Nublu to check out a band called Twelve, from Trinidad, who played some sort of stoner reggea-rock. They were ok and ex-Brazilian Girls/Scofield bassist Jesse Murphy sat in but reggea has never really been my thing, I guess you have to be a stoner for that and I’m definitely not at all.
Love NY.

Mr. Foetus is back as Mr. Manorexia with his ensemble of four strings, piano, percussion and laptop. The new CD just came out on Zorn’s Tzadik label and tonight I had the pleasure to see him perform this material live for the first time (my first time that is). Although I have recorded the CD myself and knew all the pieces (except one that hasn’t been officially recorded/released yet) it was great to see it all come together as one cohesive performance. Check out the record, it’s great!

Greek avatgarde composer and visionary architect was amogst the pioneers of stochastic electro-acoustic music. His unique approach hinged on applying the science and mathematics of his engineering and architectural background to his musical endeavours. His scores were often written on architects’ design paper rather than sheet music and he employed shapes and vectors to identify instruments, sounds and clusters.
I found out about this fascinating exchibit (which features drawings and audio) just in time through amazing bassist Trevor Dunn. It closes April 8th so I recommend you check it out soon. It was especially interesting to me because of all the music I record, listen to and check out live, it’s basically a look back on some of the origins of it all. Highly recommended.

Have been wanting to see Pharaoh’s Daughter for a long time and finally got a chance tonight at Joe’s Pub. The female-fronted octet features Basya Schecter on multi-lingual lyrics from the scriptures, the song of songs and other jewish-related sources. I had worked with her on Zorn’s vocal masada recorded Mycale (an accappella quartet also feat Ayelet Rose, Sophia Rei and Malika Zarra -the four of them just toured Israel until two days ago) and so I knew she had a very characteristic and beautiful vocal style. Supported by a killer band including Shanir Blumenkranz on bass, Yuval Lion on drums, Mathias Kunzli on percussions, Meg Okura on violin, a flute player, a guitar player and a keyboard player (had seen some of them with Roberto Rodriguez before but never met them before so don’t remember their names by heart like I do remember the names ofthe others, because I worked with all of them in the studio).
They all played beautifully and presented a vast material drawing including originals and non. The band was great and Basya sang and played well, in spite of the fact she was probably super jetlegged.
I’d recommend this group highly to anyone who wants to take an authentic and gorgeous musical trip through time and space, transcending political and religious beliefs, in search of the greater good through beautiful music (and tasty macaroons offered by the band in occasion of Passover). Sababa, shalom to ya’all!

I’ve been wanting to see Ken Butler play live forever but never had a chance and I just learned that he was batteling cancer and hence was absent from the scenes. Luckily he said that he survived it and he seemed in good health.
For those who are not familiar with him pick up his CD on Zorn’s Tzadik records or check out kenbutler.com
Ken is an amazingly creative individual who builds his own instruments out of tennis rackets, walking canes, kitchen and home utensils and a ton of other parts. He basically will put a contact microphone on anything that makes a sound and make music with it.

On this show at the Williamsburg gallery Sideshow he was accompanied by a trio of great percussion players (including Mathias Kunzli), an oud player and his artist/loft-mate on upright. All these instruments definitely gave the show a very groovy orientation and often times the tribal excitment offered by the two djambé’s made the crowd shake it a bit too (pretty unheard of for an experimental music concert, if you know what I mean).
Ken performed about a half a dozen pieces, usually a pedal on a chord with somewhat of a structured theme and a lot of improvisation. Every piece was based around an instrument and the crowd roared every time he picked up a new one. From guitar-like objects with one or two necks made from tennis rackets, canes and hockey sticks to banjo-looking objects made from pots, canes and other materials to umbrellas, knifes, paint brushes, swords, cloth hangers. Everything pretty much was either plucked or picked as if it was a guitar or bowed with an arco as if it was a violin. He even played a bow with another bow and then finished by playing his pants’ zipper and knocking on his head while teething a mic.
It was definitely an impressive and interesting array of sound-making devices from one of the most interesting artists around.

I won’t hide the fact that I think John Zorn is one of the most amazing composers out there so for me it was a real treat to be able to not only see him perform but work with him. On Wed the 17th and Thu the 18th the Lower EastSide theather Henry Street Settlement, also known as Abrons Art Center, hosted an incredible two nights of Zorn music performed by 10 different ensembles. The two evenigs were curated by Zorn who chose the music and the musicians. Every night five 20 minute sets entertained the crowds for 2 hours and showcased some of Zorn’s mighty vast and versatile body of work. Although for me as a live sound engineer it is obviously much harder and more work (10 stage changes, 20 if you consider the rehearsals) I still feel enormously priviledged to be a part of this incredible experience. Those who were present know what I am talking about and those who don’t should try to go to Montreal July 1st or Milan on Nov 8th for thr next two Zorn festivals of this kind. It’s truly the best way to experience his versatility and the vast array of differing moods, nuances, genres of his material.