LIC Notes

 

Somewhere where Skeptical and Surly meet, you can find my December “seasonal spirit”. Cold winds, dark days, and the tinsel-deep repetition of glazed tradition hammer me into a brittle brassy hrmphingness. Yes, I realize that the return of all this cheers many people, and I realize that I want to coax, then celebrate, the sun’s return – we all do, and that underlies (without implying that it covers much of the meaning of) Christmas/Chanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/Solstice… which I’ll call, as a convenient metonomy based on my background rather than a form of exclusion, Christmas.

 

Well, some good news. On December 8, after I wrote this but before you read it, the sun will set a few seconds later in New York, rather than earlier, as it has for six months. So that’s the first sign of spring, something I always celebrate as the beginning of Christmas. And the definition of cold comfort, mutters Surly.

 

To deal with that dude, I turn to music. Lily Sparks is a bluesy, rocking local band I’ve heard play a couple of times. They’re well-suited for a Sunday BBQ at LIC Bar, accompanied by beer, burgers, sunshine, and humidity. Knowing that they’re working on a new disc, I wanted to check out a recent show - indoors, pasta, chill gusts through the door, but still bluesy and rockin. Afterward, their lead singer Niamh Hyland handed me what could have been a credit card (she didn’t have to fight any line forming to do that these days), but in reality provided access to download their new single, “Bright Christmas”. Skeptical and Surly sauntered over.

 

And promptly got their asses kicked. The tune is refreshingly different from any Christmas song I’ve heard. It deals directly with holiday malaise, noticing that connecting our childhood joy with the joy of people in the city allows us to draw what we want and need from Christmas. There’s nothing preachy or sanctimonious about this mid-tempo blues shouter, fringed with a swinging horn section; it’s fun.

 

The musicality of its rhythm, melody, lyrics and harmony have a single rival in the genre, Ralph Blane’s original “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. Yes, it’s a thin field, but that’s no damnation via faint praise. If you’re skeptical (or Skeptical), our tech folks have provided a nearby, convenient link so you can download it. No, I’m not going to hand out credit cards – I’m always a bit surly anyway.

 

 

Listen to "Bright Christmas" on ReverbNation or download it on Lily Sparks' iTunes!

 

Lily Sparks' latest, Cooper Cobra, is also available on iTunes.

 

The Silver Shark is always moving, just under the surface of the LIC scene. He comes up suddenly to snap up some wine and music, and perhaps bare his teeth at nearby lovely mermaids – though he generally doesn't bite. You can catch an occasional glimpse of him at your favorite LIC venue, and regularly here at his blog.

I don’t think I’m down with the global warming thing. This new autumn weather – sultry/cold rain/humid/chill breeze – sucks. So New York is the new Austin; I almost turned on the a/c today, and it’s time to write the November rent check. But if this were really Austin, the rent would be lower.

 

In a spasm of quasi-political action, I refrained from flipping the switch and went food shopping using canvas bags. Having ditched my ’89 Honda Accord LX for a purple Fuji Absolute 12-speed, I’m now feeling virtuous but, well, a bit bland.

 

You know the temporary yet effective solution to that: I turned to sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll. I’ve hoisted more than my fair share of Radeberger* this past month, and even got to meet the Radeberger Girls. One of them bought me a beer – I think she fancies me a bit!

 

Oh right, you’re here for the music. October’s de-blanding has mixed Brazilian surf riffs, sax-playing around Japanese swing, and Croatian dance-party rock. On one LIC Bar evening, João Erbetta and his band spin out high-energy surf tunes with a Portuguese accent. My usual problem with much Brazilian music comes from its being too pastel and languid (yes, it’s my problem); I’m happy to listen to surf music anytime, and believe I hear complications under the fun. Erbetta neatly reverses those tropes. His playing is fluid, exciting, precisely shaped, and quite engaging, so much so that I don’t really want to look under the hood to see how it all runs. I’ve heard him play in other contexts, and know he’s not just technically a savvy guitarist, but a musician who blends his personality with many genrés. Sadly, the bar was not so crowded when Erbetta played. He deserves a wider audience; while pretty well known on the scene, that and $104 will get you to your day job on the 7 train next month.

 

We’ve chatted about DB Rielly before, but that’s not going to stop me here. DB’s band followed Erbetta’s, and the party mood continued. For me, this show pivoted around the playing of the estimable Hiro Suzuki, lead guitar player in the group. Suzuki favored swing-era tunes which, by virtue of his actually being able to swing, set up a great dance mood. DB added counterpoint via his bluesy sax playing. Even some folks who’ve followed him for years realized he even played sax – turns out it was his first instrument, who knew? – and the contrast in sound lent depth to what can be a surface-y genrè. The two also collaborated beautifully on some covers of singer/songwriter tunes, like John Hiatt’s "Feels Like Rain," managing the transitions in mood gracefully without damping the party spirit.

 

By time The Dynasty took the stage, the party mood had swung to raucous. Don’t look for The Dynasty on iTunes; this was a one-off group, essentially Chris and Diana from Bad Buka, playing as part of Diana’s sister Carla’s birthday celebration (not saying which one, but “Lather” would know). And celebrate is what Bad Buka do best. I can’t say I remember much particularly that went on, other than someone shouting to the crowd, “Shut up and sing!” Everyone sang, everyone danced, it didn’t matter if you knew Croatian songs or dances; soon everyone felt like part of Carla’s family and the celebration. As the full band is playing a Hallowe’en party, I’ll try to get a more fair assessment then. Like, it’ll be easier on Hallowe’en?

 

The evening closed with Julie Kathryn, a local singer/songwriter. That transition, closing after a rowdy crowd-pleaser, is less than easy, as I’ve noted previously. It does help the neighbors get some sleep, but the previous music had opened me up so much that I found it hard to calibrate Kathryn’s stuff. Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy her; I did. And when she said, “I’ve never played my guitar this hard, it’s out of tune!” I though, God on ya, lass! I’ll bring positive expectations to her next gig.

 

In a final twitch of political activism, I’ll be voting before filing that next report. You know that we middle-aged, upper-middle-class white guys ALWAYS vote. (That’s why they call us The Man, right?) Not saying I won’t vote the straight The Rent Is Too Damn High party ticket, of course. Especially if I’m tempted to turn on the a/c again.

 

*Bloggers are enjoined by some federal rule to reveal every product bought for them in the course of covering their beat. I’m compiling a disclosure document that will enumerate the Pilsner, Coteaux de Languedoc, small-batch bourbon, single-malt Scotch, self-produced cd’s, brownies, Hawai’ian skunkweed spliffs, and mutual avowals of sexual desire involved; it will be available for you right around the time I complete my 2008 NYS corporate tax return.

 

The Silver Shark is always moving, just under the surface of the LIC scene. He comes up suddenly to snap up some wine and music, and perhaps bare his teeth at nearby lovely mermaids – though he generally doesn't bite. You can catch an occasional glimpse of him at your favorite LIC venue, and regularly here at his blog.

The month of not understanding, Part II

 

I’ll continue this whining session by adding some blatant self-promotion (ah, the glories of the blog!)

 

There’s another LIC musical phenomenon I can’t grasp, and with even less excuse than for the SWM [see: The month of not understanding, Part I], as it’s ECB – El Chico Blanco. Well Shark, you may say (if you allow me to feed you your lines), How can that be?? You are after all helping produce the ECB Live at Domaine disc/download thingie that you talk about constantly, and you’ve spent many hours inebriated on Robert’s finer bottles while listening to the band. And even some sober ones listening the rough mixes for whatever album will see the light of day. If you don’t get this group (you might say if I wrote longwinded scripts for you), how the hell can you presume to tell us out here on the Greater Interwebs just what goes down at the wine bar?

 

You make a lot of sense for a kid from Queens.

 

What manner of creature is the ECB? Metal electronica? Acid improv alt-soul? Distorto-trip free hop? It’d be easier to come up with a marketing-friendly cheeseball label if the sound didn’t seem to change every two weeks. I had hoped that the short respite provided by an interlude in Prague (yes, great name for a French espionage/relationship film) for Steve Blanco, who fronts the group, would allow me to get ahold of it.

 

Well, it did allow me to realize I didn’t need to get ahold of anything. This past Tuesday, I met D., a friend – not sure why we’re friends, as he’s into wine, knows finance, noodles around on keyboards, and is a decent tennis player – at Domaine. Now D. was already a Steve Blanco fan, but had only heard the Trio, and had only been to Domaine, once, some time back. This was a perfect test for my theories of how to label, and then maybe corner and capture, this sound.

 

Phfft. D. heard the music as primarily rock-based, and mentioned that Jon Schaefer – yes, the same WNYC guy who cameoed in part 1 – has classified a good deal of current music as ‘post-rock’: it uses the language of rock, eschews vocals, and is structured in ways closer to jazz or classical. Schaefer intends the label to be a non-genre, not a limitation but simply a ”not that, but something (though not quite anything) else”. Well look, ‘new wave’ was a useful term for a few years in the 70’s. “Post-rock’ is true as a referent for ECB as far as it goes; it just doesn’t go very far. I’m going to let myself stay confused, and enjoy ECB as the music evolves.

 

The Silver Shark is always moving, just under the surface of the LIC scene. He comes up suddenly to snap up some wine and music, and perhaps bare his teeth at nearby lovely mermaids – though he generally doesn't bite. You can catch an occasional glimpse of him at your favorite LIC venue, and regularly here at his blog.

 

* Photo by Ferny Chung, from ECB Facebook

The month of not understanding, Part I

 

This has been the month of not understanding.

 

There’s music going on that I can’t get a grip on, so I figured I’d grumble about it to you. Sometimes that helps, right?

 

Monday night at LIC Bar, I heard the final installment of Anthony Cekay’s Spectacular War Museum. After catching fragments of it over the first few weeks of his residency there, and interviewing Anthony for a Conversations at Cranky’s [Coming Soon to LICNotes! -Ed.] vlog session, I had a decent feel for what the SWM is, where it comes from, what he’s trying to get to. I hadn’t felt I’d heard enough of the music itself for the project to cohere; this week’s segment featured, among several other pieces, the world premier of a string quartet. Now I’m really confused.

 

Not that I didn’t love the music, though. The quartet, while at times a touch naïve and foursquare, is close to the quality of much I hear on the Manhattan contemporary classical scene. That’s astounding, since Anthony is self-taught in composition! I can hear Jon Schaefer now: “So there’s this guy in Queens who listens to a ton of music, including jazz, pop, older and newer classical, and then proceeds with no instruction to write an extended piece like a string quartet that’s about as good as 90% of what those folks who’ve spent their lives focused on this can do.” But don’t take that 7 train, Gothamites; Queens is as remote as Idaho and as barren as the exurbs.

 

{Bonus capsule mini-review of the quartet… voice more husky and a half-octave lower: While generally less spiky or angular than what many composers are turning out, Mr. Cekay’s quartet provided a number of charming facets, featuring an especially lively, compelling main theme in the first movement. Lovely voice-leading propelled by a constant rhythmic drive produced harmonic sophistication that you’d expect from a jazz composer, and held your ear attuned through all those changes. And in particular, the third movement began with a gorgeous pizzicato cello solo that prefigured some of the quartet’s most lovely melodic sections. The players, veterans of both the rock and classical scenes, were lead by first violinist Amanda Lo, who fiddled with verve and precision. All in all, a quite promising debut from a new, young composer.}

 

Amazingly, the LIC Bar crew hung on it all, whooping and cheering as if this were a dirty blues band at a humid Sunday afternoon BBQ. Strangely, folks coming inside from the courtyard winced as if intruding on a “serious music” concert, as if breaching the etiquette of solemn listening that obtains at Alice Tully Hall. But the atmosphere was nothing like that inside, or most likely for the equal-sized audience listening via livestream.

 

The show closed with a Billy Strayhorn tune arranged by Anthony for jazz trio and string quartet. To reinforce that what’s difficult for many is fun for some, the writing and playing seamlessly integrated the two genres, with Anthony wailing on tenor sax while maintaining interplay with and space for the strings. Christian Coleman on drums and the ever-melodic Leon Boykin on bass provided the bones tying them all together.

 

So now I’ve rambled on, and I think that’s what my problem could be. The Spectacular War Museum has grown in several directions at once; instead of having a grasp of it, I’m lost in all that space it’s created. I know there’s plenty of wonderful, engaging music around that space, I just can’t cat-herd it. Almost eight hours of music is tough to summarize after one incomplete listening, sure. As worthy as this project has been, I’m left wondering if there isn’t some more compact way to present it. I know Anthony is working on a few ideas, one or two of which I hope work out. Both the work and its potential audience deserve that.

 

The Silver Shark is always moving, just under the surface of the LIC scene. He comes up suddenly to snap up some wine and music, and perhaps bare his teeth at nearby lovely mermaids – though he generally doesn't bite. You can catch an occasional glimpse of him at your favorite LIC venue, and regularly here at his blog.

 

 

 

More:

Spectacular War Museum on UStream
Anthony Cekay on Twitter
Spectacular War Museum RocketHub
Article: Bringing Jazz Into The 21st Century With Crowdfunding

DB Rielly & Michele Riganese at LIC Bar, June 23, 2010 – Any time I heard DB Rielly, that's my highlight for the week. "We're all goin' straight to hell," indeed. And Hiro Suzuki, his geetar player, blazes dirty smoke around every tune. It was a perfect night for rollicking alt country under the weeping willows at LIC Bar, the wet soft soaking air laden with the grill's burnt-cow tang.

 

My definition of "designed to fail": being a singer-songwriter following DB Rielly's band outdoors late on a school night when everyone's into their third (fifth...we are going straight to hell) drink. You wanna talk about relationships NOW? Michele Riganese proved my doubts hollow. Everyone notices her voice: full, strong, and textured. But it's her songwriting that held us there, as her stories are just quirky enough, her chord changes fresh and angular; her solid strumming holds everything together without intruding on her story-telling.

 

Yes, it was hot and late, and she'd wrung everything out of herself, but the only disappointment of Riganese's set was that she didn't play an encore. Usually those are formulaic - for once it would have been well-deserved.

 

More:

DB Rielly

Michele Riganese

LIC Bar

 

The Silver Shark is always moving, just under the surface of the LIC scene. He comes up suddenly to snap up some wine and music, and perhaps bare his teeth at nearby lovely mermaids – though he generally doesn't bite. You can catch an occasional glimpse of him at your favorite LIC venue, and regularly here at his blog.

 

Welcome to Shark Bites, an LICNotes blog penned exclusively by a local writer and concert-goer dubbed The Silver Shark. The Vernon Rock Festival was a recent multi-band concert staged in a Long Island City garage on Vernon Blvd. Read on for the skinny, and check his previous posts for flashbacks from last Summer's LIC music.

Maybe what we like best about summer is nothing external – not the weather or the comfortable, discomforting clothing or the flowers and greenery – but the change in our attitude. I don’t mean some general positive approach to life. I mean a rock ‘n’ roll attitude, energetic, edgy, aggressive.

In New York, this yearly change layers joyfulness on top of the necessary energy it takes to deal with the overhead (i.e. bullshit) of living in a crowded, jangly hypertropolis. We feel delight that the early spring of grey and rain has yielded, finally, to sunshine and long evenings. (Which is one reason I’m always a touch shocked that great bands can come out of LA, with its ten- to twelve-month-long summer.)

In 2010, in Long Island City, summer signaled its arrival via the Vernon Rockfest. No, X wasn’t on the bill, no LA bands were. But what we saw and heard were an array of local groups, in a slick, almost Hollywood setup that contrasted with the grit we expect from and love about the place. An actual stage! Theatrical lighting, with swivel spots! A fog machine – how much more r’n’r can you get than a fog machine! Video projection! A sound board AND a lighting/video board! Banks of PA’s! The entire rig was set up in less than a day in the showroom of a restoration shop for ultimately high-end autos (think Lamborghini roadsters), many of which were pushed to the edges of the room (with more outside the doors), providing an addition ooh-and-ahh factor. Whattaya tryina do, make us look professional?!

As the early acts played – I’d arrived fashionably rather than unconscionably late only because I hitched a ride with my roommate, the bass player in a later group – I took in the implications of the scene. First, I’d gotten there by car instead of taking the 7 train a few stops – how LA. Then I noticed and indulged in the $3 drafts, charmingly served by an actual, professional bartender (Debba Villa) and an actual, professional artist (Kristy Schopper). That’s very LIC, but the price – that screams sponsors. Heavyset dudes in sports coats – visible but not obtrusive security for the priceless autos (surely no one was expecting brawling drunken rockers?) Finally, and this is the delight of evenings like this, seeing people from different sets of friends and different social circles mixing. I had a couple of “where the hell have you been the last coupla months” moments, which may have had more to do with the opening up of the weather than the mix of bands, but at that point I wasn’t asking hard questions.

Having missed Crisis Center, listed as the opening act (and now I’ll have to track them down, listen, and give them their due), I finally turned to the stage as Imposter Syndrome picked up momentum. Stylistically tough to pin down, they have the virtues of great vocals, and rhythmic energy. They veered around the edges of loungy, trippy rock while maintaining that energy, and explored BST-like straight-ahead grooves, all well-matched with the video clips they’d chosen, reinforcing the party atmosphere.

Ironically, as Crisis Center left, we experienced the evening’s crisis. The downside of a complex tech rig is that stuff goes wrong, crashes happen, chaos ensues. Murmurs of ‘system crash’ and ‘hard drive wiped out’ fluttered around; the responsible folks were too busy being responsible for me to wring out an explanation. Which wouldn’t have mattered anyway. They restored order soon, and the rest of us just had a chance to gab and slurp more beer. No damage done, and in fact quite the opposite.

Next up was the Big Daddy Project. Considering that Drew DiCamillo, their bass player, had plenty on his mind, having organized the Rockfest and having had to deal with the tech outage along with a myriad of other issues, they showed their r’n’r attitude and immediately launched into a set that showcased the value of the ‘fest, playing two (two!) two sets in one: the first comprised their blues-based rock, which they play precisely and powerfully. The second amplified these virtues, as they brought on the Rocket Science horn section to augment their sound. Now, I loves me my swingin’ horns – gotta have ‘em, whether you’re Rueben Gonzalez or Ani Difranco. These cats swung it out, and moved the groove into funk territory, particularly in the BDP’s multiple covers of Sly (and the Family Stone). Mark me down somewhere between enamored and enthralled.

The evening ended, as if often does, with the Queens Denim Rockers. If this were journalism, I’d have to disclose that these three are drinking buddies from a local watering hoel. (In LIC, though, I’d have to write a disclosure about just about every show I see.) Which is to say, I may be a wee bit biased. I’m assuming I don’t have to cover the basics: slashing punkish hard-core rock, unpretentious and unpretty; great songwriting, and enough energy to run the neighborhood’s air conditioners through a long hot summer. And then it happened: one perhaps slightly inebriated local guitarist started to mosh; three distractingly lovely Irish lasses began to pogo – and people were dancing! Yes, it’s not Williamsburg, we’re not hipsters, and we actually react to the music. So, despite some technical problems, the Rockfest ended as a celebration of rock; summer is here, and the time is right. Welcome to Queens!

The Silver Shark is always moving, just under the surface of the LIC scene. He comes up suddenly to snap up some wine and music, and perhaps bare his teeth at nearby lovely mermaids – though he generally doesn't bite. You can catch an occasional glimpse of him at your favorite LIC venue, and regularly here at his blog.

 

Flashback to last Summer's LIC music – Madame Robot & the Lust Brigade and Whooping Crane at LIC Bar on July 19, 2009: What if punk had never been?

In some quarters, the fat sounds, garish colors, and wide ties of 1974 have held their ground. Despite neopunk, 60’s nostalgia, and 80’s revivals, a few folks have nursed that particular muse.

Madame Robot and the Lust Brigade could be their avatars. Fronting the band, Oweinama sings and plays a mini-Korg decked out with bellbottoms, a grey two-tone vest, purple shirt, silver bracelets and shades – on a dark day he glows. His fluid, mysterioso lines underpinned or accented the thick, driving lines, riffs, and fills from Matt Sanders’ guitar. Styling one of the few redfros in these parts these days, Sanders explored the gamut of bluesy rock influences – a Jefferson Airplane lead, a vigorous Grateful Dead romp, a few noise breaks. Brooks Hefner’s deadly snaking bass added propulsive and searing slides to melodies alternately flowing and angular, changes signaled by Kathleen Chaluka’s incisive kitwork. Her sharp, clean drumming opened space for the others to play while defining the borders for them to stay within. The band completed the 70’s scene by selling vinyl of their latest release. Without punk, would there have been no CDs?

A less successful revivalist approach came from the straightahead blues-rock trio Whooping Crane. Burning incense at the foot of the stage may have helped them set their mood, but it took some time before they found their best work. They performed songs, that, while fun and even drivingly fluid, didn’t establish enough character to distinguish them from a highly competent bar band doing covers. A guest spot of vocals by Madame Robot drummer Chaluka added spice early in the set, and Keith Abenew’s fuzz-bass provided a distinctive sound, but when your guitar player wears a tie over a T-shirt, the esthetic is more frat-boy than funky. Whooping Crane flashed more promise in their final two tunes, one with sharply angled changed, and the final with a long, jazzy jam around a loose and rambling story. Keeping a past genre vital involves more than running through its typical gestures; it takes a strong personality while avoiding the self-indulgence that, in the end, made punk necessary.

More:

Madame Robot and the Lust Brigade

Whooping Crane

LIC Bar

The Silver Shark is always moving, just under the surface of the LIC scene. He comes up suddenly to snap up some wine and music, and perhaps bare his teeth at nearby lovely mermaids – though he generally doesn't bite. You can catch an occasional glimpse of him at your favorite LIC venue, and regularly here at his blog.

  

Flashback to last Summer's LIC music – B-11 Trio at Dominie’s Hoek on July 4, 2009: Usually it’s best not to have high expectations. I certainly didn’t, given that the Grucci fireworks barges were anchored in the Hudson rather than East River this year, bypassing LIC’s annual brief moment in center ring of the must-do NYC circus. So, a normal quiet holiday evening at the local hostelry of choice loomed...

My choice, as some followers might guess, was Dominie’s Hoek. The weathered chalkboard outside announced something called the “B-11 3” as a musical diversion from the increasing effects of that crude protoplasmic poison we call alcohol. B-11 3? Is that a variant of vitamin B-12… some tricked-out version of a Hammond B-3… the start of a good bingo card?

I must – no, I’m eager to – admit my prejudices here. I’m in this for the buzz of the new. I don’t want to hear another (or the same) version of tunes I’ve heard 500 times since I was 19. Some cat with screwed down hairdo, instead of a covers band.

That’s where those lowered expectations come into play. The trio setting up ‘under the longhorn’ at the Hoek seemed promising only to play all our favorite tunes from the 80’s and before. Pass the Knob Creek, Jen.

Then, as it sometimes does, the plot complexified. The B-11 Trio proved to be a blues/funk outfit fronted by a fluid Bulgarian (“There aren’t many of us left,” he claimed, somewhat enigmatically) guitarist, with a repertoire as wide as any wedding trio and five times the chops. Opening one set with an instrumental riff on the Stones’ “Street Fightin’ Man” that, through spaced-out tempo, took several minutes to reveal itself, they immediately transitioned into a Howlin’ Wolf tune – as the Stones may well have done in their early days. So, big points for authentic authenticity.

While at times the set lists devolved to straight-up rock standards, with, say, “Play That Funky Music (White Boy)” functioning as self-reflection as much as a change of pace, B-11 still pushed to open the proceedings up. They enlivened a Jason Mraz tune, don’t ask me which, with a reggae approach that built into a slow-cooking groove by using echo-delay effects, affecting a gangafied rock vibe. Stevie’s “Sir Duke” then came right at the elbowing crowd at the bar, but by retooling the instrumental break at the end to half-tempo, B-11 showed that playing slowly can both take more talent and produce a more intoxicating pull than proving you have quick fingers. They patrolled over to the funky end of the spectrum through a transition from a slick version of “Waiting For the World to Change” into the classic “People Get Ready” – nicely conceived and executed no matter what the genres. The final set closed with a couple of blues standards, and Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, that staple of covers bands, freshened with hard-rock breaks between the verses. Before B-11 finished breaking down their amps, the crowd, sated with more than booze, cashed in its winning hand and dissolved.

While I didn’t necessarily get what I wanted – you can’t, always – in the corporate locution that typifies a good performance review, the night “exceeded my expectations”.

More:
 
Dominie's Hoek
 
The Silver Shark is always moving, just under the surface of the LIC scene. He comes up suddenly to snap up some wine and music, and perhaps bare his teeth at nearby lovely mermaids – though he generally doesn't bite. You can catch an occasional glimpse of him at your favorite LIC venue, and regularly here at his blog.