JUNE 21, 2005
Philip Glass
at Ravinia

This performance of Glass' new suite "Orion" was a great chance to hear some world-music virtuosos, including three of my favorite "ethnic" instruments, the Chinese lute known as the pipa, the Gambian harp-like instrument called the kora, and the sitar. As on the Orion CD, most of the music was excellent, although the section of Celtic fiddling was a little jarring. And as my brother said, the big finale was a little like "Yanni at the Acropolis."

We were sitting in front of a chatty older woman who kept asking, "Which of them is Philp Glass? It can't be that guy" — it was! — "because his hair's not curly enough." And when the digeridoo player were performing, she felt it was necessary to comment, "He's making that noise with his mouth."

I had the honor of interviewing Glass for a concert preview story in Pioneer Press. Check out his reaction to an essay by Miles Hoffman in The Wilson Quarterly on the harmonic system developed in Europe in the 1600s and 1700s.

SPEAKING OF WORLD MUSIC, I've been enjoying the Internet radio station www.radiodarvish.com, which I discovered through the radio channels on iTunes. The station plays some excellent traditional Persian music.

JUNE 18, 2005
My Morning Jacket
at the Randolph Street Festival

They're better groomed... not quite as much hair, not quite as much reverb... but man, they still rock with incredible intensity. Tonight's show was a reminder of why I have called these guys the world's best live rock 'n' roll band. And I'm not the only one to give them that title.

I first saw them in 2002, at South By Southwest. I'd already heard reports about their live shows in Chicago, and I'd picked up their album At Dawn. The disc seemed pretty good to me, but it did not prepare me for the phenomenal concert performance I was about to see. One of the papers in Austin recommended the show that day, saying it would be a nice quiet end to the evening. The writer apparently had given only a cursory listen to some of MMJ's quieter recordings, and hadn't heard about their incendiary live shows.

This was one of the first times I'd ever used my video camera to film a musical performance and I couldn't believe what I was seeing through the lens. After opening with "At Dawn," the band launched into a hard-rocking song I'd never heard before (it turned out to be "One Big Holiday," released later on the It Still Moves CD).Seeing these hairy guys thrashing around on the stage as they played their songs and amped up the intensity of what I'd heard on CD was simply amazing.

Lead singer and songwriter Jim James barely showed his face the entire concert, singing through a mass of hair that hang down over his face. As if that "Cousin It" routine weren't enough, he also had a stuffed-toy buffalo head stuck on the microphone in front of him.Was he a little stage shy... or just weird? And did he have an animal fetish?

Later, at another concert, James played with a toy parrot perched on one shoulder. And then came the cover of It Still Moves, showing bears (stuffed bears? people in bear costumes?) instead of the band members.

But little by little, James has come out from behind the mask. I've seen the band in concert six times now, plus a show by Jim James with Bright Eyes and M. Ward, and My Morning Jacket has yet to disappoint. The band has gone through some personnel changes since that concert I saw in 2002 — the only members left from that lineup are James and bassist Two-Tone Tommy. The current lineup is pretty damn solid, though.

At the Randolph Street Festival show, James was wearing a tan sport jacket, his hair still long but neatly pulled back from his face. His voice was just as powerful and as beautiful as ever, as he sustained many long notes. He was more talktative than usual, bragging that My Morning Jacket had performed the best sound check by any band ever. He also noted that they had felt surrounded by cuteness at the festival, after visiting a tent with puppies and seeing someone walking around with a kitten.

MMJ played several new songs, which sounded promising, plus favorites like "Golden," "One Big Holiday," "Lowdown," "Mahgeetah" and "Run Thru," and a cover of Dylan's "Tonight I'll Be Staying With You."

The great moments came when the band stretched out the songs — there was more than one false ending, followed by more jamming. MMJ's detractors have pointed out that the band's jams are nothing all that complicated, musically speaking. It's true that they repeat many riffs over and over, but that misses the point of what's so brilliant about MMJ. They take a seemingly simple pattern of notes, and play it harder and harder, flailing it until it sounds like something new. It's so cathartic.

SEE PHOTOS OF MY MORNING JACKET.

JUNE 17, 2005
Comets on Fire
at the Abbey Pub

I groaned when I walked up at 9 p.m. and saw a schedule posted on the wall with three opening bands. Three! Oh, well, it's not as if I had any other place to go, but still...

It turned out to be a smorgasbord of various forms of noisy rock music. First, Plastic Crimewave Sound. I'd seen them once before, and they impressed me a bit more this time, though I'm still not sure they have songs I really want to hear again on CD. The noise style for these guys was to create a Sonic Youth-style wall of noise over rock-pop song structures... I think.

Next was Atomic Bitchwax, which for lack of a better term, plays stoner rock. Or tuneful hard rock. Whatever you want to call it. I'd never heard a note of their music before, but I enjoyed it, and they had a contingent of enthusiastic fans in the Abbey tonight. The drummer was particularly good.

As I was waiting for the next group, a guy standing near the front of the stage asked me, "So, you're the digital camera guy?"

"Uh, I guess so," I responded. (More on this guy later.)

Next came Growing. I had a feeling what we were in for when the band members lined up about six or seven large amps across the middle of the stage without any drum kit, and then packed lots of pedals and wires from toolboxes. Growing turned out to be a guitarist and bassist playing one long wall of noise — think Metal Machine Music meets that long, drony electronic thing on the last Wilco record. Luckily, this lasted only about 30 minutes, and I didn't actually mind it as a sort of third course before the main entree of Comets on Fire, but I don't imagine that I'll be especially anxious to hear more music by Growing.

As soon as Comets on Fire began playing, that guy who'd asked me about the camera before bashed his way through the crowd and started aggressively swaying against the stage, pushing the monitors and even grabbing one of the cords plugged into the monitors. When he saw me, he stuck out his hand to block one of the photos I was trying to take. Then he got into a shouting match with a photographer standing nearby... A couple of minutes later, security showed up and ejected this clown.

Like Atomic Bitchwax, Comets on Fire were dominated by some gonzo drumming. In fact, the drummer was positioned front and center on the stage. Also unusual was the guy off on the right side of the stage, who was basically twiddling knobs on a pile of electronic gear to make the psychedelic sound effects that permeate Comets on Fire's music.

As on their fine CD from last year, Blue Cathedral, Comets on Fire played loud and chaotic rock, like a demented version of mid-1970s hard rock. Is it stoner rock? Space rock? I'm not sure. And I'm not sure if I can identify a single word from the shouted lyrics. But I do know I liked it. Comets on Fire rock with unrestrained fury.

SEE PHOTOS OF COMETS ON FIRE.

JUNE 16, 2005
Sleater-Kinney
at the Riveria

One of the best shows of the year, from a band with one of the best albums of the year. They rocked with abandon, and Corin Tucker let loose some unbelievable banshee shrieks (all on-key... I think). "Jumpers," that fabulous song from the new record, was a highlight, building like a multi-part epic without a regular verse-chorus structure. Janet Weiss' drumming was superb, and Carrie Brownstein has really come into her own as a guitarist. Nice surprise of the night: A cover of Richard and Linda Thompson's "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight," with the three of them trading off on vocals. (Click here to go to a recording of Sleater-Kinney doing the song elsewhere on this tour.)

The openers were Dead Meadow, who did fine with their drony, wall-of-guitar music. But the boys couldn't hold a candle to the grrls at tonight's concert.