Underground Bee

New concert photos

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:32:00 +0000

I'm catching up today on a backlog of concert photos from the past week. Here you go...

A couple of extra photos of A SUNNY DAY IN GLASGOW March 3 at Schubas are on flickr here and here

My photos of ATOMIC March 5 at the Green Mill are on the Chicago Reader's Photo Pit page, both online and in print.

MUCCA PAZZA March 6 at St. Paul's Cultural Center. (Some of the photos are also posted on flickr.

Also on flickr: Close-up shots of the pipe organ at St. Paul's.

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS March 7 at the Harris Theater. (A couple of shots are on flickr, too.)

EFTERKLANG March 8 at Lincoln Hall. (Some photos are also posted on flickr.)

VETIVER with PLEASE THE TREES and ROBBIE HAMILTON & SOFT DRUGS March 10 at the Empty Bottle. (Some photos are posted on flickr, too.)

Interview Show at the Hideout

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:12:00 +0000

Friday (March 5) was the first time I'd caught "The Interview Show" at the Hideout, which is pretty much what you would expect from the name: a talk show taking place right there on the Hideout stage. Mark Bazer's the host, and on Friday he did a nice job keeping the conversation flowing. The guests on Friday included Alderman Toni Preckwinkle, who's the Democratic nominee for Cook County Board president. It seemed a little surreal seeing one of Chicago's leading political candidates this year getting up onto the Hideout stage, but then, a lot of slightly surreal things happen at the Hideout.

The show on Friday also included a funny intro bit featuring Justin Kaufmann, a couple of shows by the Changes, a monologue by actor James Anthony Zoccoli and interviews with author Josh Karp and actors John Mahoney and Robert Belushi (both are appearing in A Life at Northlight Theatre in Skokie). In all, an interesting selection of people and some good conversations.

Photos from the Interview Show.

Magnetic Fields etc.

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:38:00 +0000

A wonderful performance by the Magnetic Fields on Sunday evening (Feb.7) capped off my musical weekend. Two years ago, when Stephin Merritt and his ensemble played at the Old Town School of Folk Music, they were touring in support of a record called Distortion, which did in fact feature a lot of distortion and guitar feedback. There was no distortion or noise during the concert, however, as the Magnetic Fields played everything in a quiet, staid, chamber-like folk style. I remember thinking that as much as I enjoy some of the Magnetic Fields' more upbeat, pop sort of studio recordings, this unplugged format was really what I preferred to hear, at least in concert.

The Magnetic Fields are back in Chicago for two shows at the Harris Theater (booked in conjunction with the Old Town School), and this time, the group is touring in support of a record, Realism, which actually sounds like that live show from two years ago. Everything's acoustic and folkie. And so it was in concert again, too. Given Merritt's mercurial nature, I half-expected him to show up this time with electric guitars, but no, that didn't happen.

As usual, Merritt sat on a stool at one end of the stage, playing ukulele on some songs, singing lead vocals in his croaky baritone on maybe half of the songs, surveying the rest of the band with a deadpan expression, occasionally offering sarcastic observations. At least, you think they're sarcastic. He's so deadpan, it's hard to tell. Lined up across the stage in chairs, the rest of the band played acoustic guitar, cello (or was that A viola da gamba?), keyboard and autoharp. Claudia Gonson is his main foil, handling much of the song-intro duties and engaging Merritt in odd little dialogues that don't always go anywhere ... all of which is generally pretty amusing.

Merritt's voice is not the most subtle of instruments, so he wisely divvies up the lead vocals, letting Gonson and Shirley Simms sing the tunes that require more range. And they sounded lovely Sunday, signing in a understated style well-suited to Merritt's songs. Rather than play a lot of songs from the new record, the Magnetic Fields cherry-picked stuff from throughout their catalogue, going all the way back to early songs such as "100000 Firelies" and even playing a few songs from side project The 6ths. Of course, Merritt & Co. left out a lot of great songs, but that's always going to be the case with someone who has so many.

The opening act was Laura Barrett, a Canadian folkie who played tinkly tunes on a thumb piano with cute lyrics about subjects such as robot ponies. This is the sort of thing some people will find unbearably precious. I found her charming enough in small doses.

Photos of the Magnetic Fields.

Other shows I saw this past weekend: The Scandinavian jazz group Atomic sounded terrific Friday night at the Green Mill. My photos of Atomic are on the Chicago Reader's Photo Pit page.

And Mucca Pazza stormed Saturday night into St. Paul's Cultural Center (an old church converted into a sort of hipster art venue) for a typically festive, raucous performance. I'll post photos from these shows later in the week. Photos of Mucca Pazza.

Tonight: Efterklang at Lincoln Hall.

A Sunny Day in Glasgow

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:50:00 +0000

There are a lot of bands recently with geographical names, but it seems like most of them are not actually from the places mentioned in their band names. Portugal the Man? They're from Alaska. I'm From Barcelona? They're from Sweden. Illinois? They're from Pennsylvania. Continuing in this vein, there's the band A Sunny Day in Glasgow. In all fairness, one of the band's former members actually used to live in Glasgow, Scotland, but the group is based in Philadelphia, and that guy isn't even in the band anymore (if wikipedia is to be believed). So the band name is more about the mood and style of the music than where the musicians are from.

I won't go on at length about this band, because they're new to me, even though they've been playing for a few years. They came to Schubas on Wednesday (March 3) and played a quite enjoyable set of indie pop music, with a big emphasis on tuneful vocals. The group's gone through some lineup changes, and I don't know how this version of Sunny Day compares with previous ones, but the pair of female singers, Jen Goma and Annie Fredrickson, were fun both to hear and watch. The group finished its show with a Fleetwood Mac cover, "Everywhere." Like the band's name, it all sounded pretty sunny.
asunnydayinglasgow.com
www.myspace.com/sunnydayinglasgow

Photos of A Sunny Day in Glasgow and opening act Acrylics.

Ike Reilly at Schubas

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:29:00 +0000

When you see the enthusiasm of Ike Reilly's fans — the way they recognize his catchiest songs, the way they sing along, the way they shout out, "I love you, Ike!" — it seems clear that this guy could be a star. The reality is, however, that he's more of a hidden treasure. Reilly, who still lives in his hometown of Libertyville up in Lake County, has a pretty good following here in Chicago and some other places, but like most indie-label artists, he doesn't get all the radio airplay that he deserves.

Reilly has a strong album out called Hard Luck Stories, and he wrapped up a string of four Monday-night concerts at Schubas this week. The room filled up pretty well for a Monday evening, and it was obvious that some of Reilly's true believers were in attendance. Although one of Reilly's musicians was absent for the night, his band (the Ike Reilly Assassination) delivered the songs in lean, tight performances. In his gruff voice, Reilly sang his story songs about characters that seem so real. And he hooked his audience with the catchy choruses of shoulda-been hits like "When Irish Eyes are Burning."

My only complaint: I was hoping to hear a song from Reilly's new record that's been caught in my mind lately, "The Ballad of Jack and Haley." Oh, well, I guess I should have requested it online beforehand, which is how some of the fans at Schubas got to hear their Reilly faves.

Photos of the Ike Reilly Assassination.

Tinariwen at Old Town School

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 03:17:00 +0000

A concert experience doesn't get much cooler than this: Taking a guitar workshop in the afternoon with a musician who's visiting from his homeland in the Sahara Desert. And then seeing a mesmerizing concert in the evening by the same musician's band. Now, where in Chicago can you get an experience like that? At the Old Town School of Folk Music, of course.

The band I'm talking about is Tinariwen, a group that has gained an international following in recent years despite coming from one of those unlikely places most people have never even heard of. They're Touareg or Tamashek, a nomadic people with no real country to call their own, living in the sands of Mali. They play amplified guitars. Robert Plant's a fan. They've released four great albums over the past decade, including one that made my top 10 list for 2009, Imidiwan: Companions. And they played three sold-out concerts this past weekend at the Old Town School.

On Sunday afternoon, members of the band took part in workshops with local students: one class for guitarists and one for percussionists. I signed up for the guitar class, which featured Tinariwen member Abdallah Ag Alhoussenyni, assisted by Old Town School instructor Nathaniel Braddock. Around 25 guitarists (all but a few of them male) sat in a big circle while Alhoussenyni demonstrated some of the basic musical elements that go into Tinariwen's music. We were lucky to have a student who was fluent in French, who interpreted what Alhoussenyni was saying.

If you know anything about the pentatonic scales on the guitar, it wouldn't be too hard to start playing along with Tinariwen. Alhoussenyni demonstrated a couple of ways he plays. One was a standard guitar tuning with an E minor pentatonic scale. The low E strong gets plucked by the thumb a lot as a drone note, while there's a lot of hammering and pulling off notes on the second frets on the A, D and G strings. Braddock pointed out that Alhoussenyni was also playing a note you wouldn't normally expect in this scale, a D sharp on the B string, a passing tone that added the feeling of a major seventh chord.

The other tuning Alhoussenyni demonstrated was similar to standard, except that the low E string was tuned up to a G. The same pentatonic scale was played on the other five strings, but now G was the bass drone, and we also played the two G strings in a tick-tock sort of octave rhythm. (Actually, I'm simplifying one thing about all of this. Alhoussenyni normally plays his guitar with all of the strings tuned a half-step lower than what I'm describing, but to make things easy for the students, he put a capo on the first fret.)

Although the full band arrangements of Tinariwen songs do include a guitar playing Barre chords, with occasional chord changes, when Alhoussenyni was playing by himself or leading the class, it became apparent that chords are not really the point of this music. The songs often stay on one "chord," if you can call it that, for a long time, basically vamping on top of the same bass notes. Of course, when the whole band's playing, there are also some really compelling bass lines that flesh out the sound and keep the music moving.

Alhoussenyni was serious and reserved as a teacher, but despite the language barrier he seemed to be intent on checking on each student's playing, trying to impart a little bit of musical wisdom. As he explained to us, it's less important to memorize a Tinariwen song than it is to learn the musical ideas behind the songs. At the end of the workshop, the percussion class joined together with the guitarists, and Alhoussenyni sang above the somewhat clamorus music.

Ninety minutes later, Alhoussenyni was on the stage at the Old Town School of Folk Music, his head now wrapped in desert garb. Unusual for a concert at the Old Town School, this Tinariwen concert had an open space on the floor for dancing, and a number of audience members took advantage of it. It was hard not to dance as Tinariwen played those infectious grooves.

Demonstrating that Tinariwen's pentatonic music isn't that far removed from American blues, local bluesman Billy Branch joined the band for one song, adding some soulful harmonica to the mix.

Tinariwen's front man, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, hasn't played with the band in Chicago during its shows of the last few years. Reportedly, he's been in fragile health, suffering from malaria and exhaustion. But he was with the band this time, coming onto the stage a few songs into Sunday night's concert. With a wild shock of hair and a weathered face, Alhabib looked more subdued than his bandmates, and his singing added a more bittersweet, world-weary edge to the music.

The members of Tinariwen spoke only a few words of English during the performance, including the apt exclamation: "Welcome to the desert!" Their music transcended the need for translation, although it does gain some depth of emotion if you read the English translations of their lyrics.

These Tamashek sing poetically about life in the desert and their struggle for freedom. Here is the translation of "Kel Tamashek," from Tinariwen's most recent album:

Tamashek people, open your eyes
Tamashek people, wake up
We're in a world that's moving fast
He who doesn't pay heed will be lost
He who isn't careful will be lost
Nothing will come back
Please, Tamashek people, rise up!
Please, listen to one another
Great ignorance
Is the sole cause of suffering and loss
An old woman who doesn't command a turban to be worn,
The young woman understands everything
Here's a hidden meaning that you must appreciate

Photos of Tinariwen.

Laura Veirs at Schubas

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:23:00 +0000

How many women would go on tour and perform concerts if they were eight months pregnant? Laura Veirs did, showing up Saturday night (Feb. 28) at Schubas in Chicago, looking very "with child," as they say. She didn't act the least bit uncomfortable, however, seeming completely at ease as she performed songs from her excellent new record, July Flame, as well as a good number of older tunes. And despite the fact that she's about to become a mother, Veirs vowed to be back soon, baby in tow.

It's been a mystery to me why Veirs hasn't gained more popularity over the years. She's made several albums of wonderful folk-rock songs, writing smart lyrics and singing insinuating melodies in an appealingly open, honest voice. She deserves a spot in the top tier of today's singer-songwriters, but she still doesn't have a lot of name recognition. She used to be on the prestigious Nonesuch label, but now (like a good number of other artists abandoned by the majors) she is releasing her records on her own label, Raven Marching Band. More power to her.

Veirs' songs rang out strong and clear Saturday night. And in case anyone wants to try playing those songs, she was selling a July Flame songbook with lyrics, chords and guitar tabs. That's something I'd like to see more often at merch tables. (I bought one and got Veirs' autograph. You can buy a copy at Veirs' Web site.

Photos of Laura Veirs.

Alec Ounsworth at Schubas

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:04:00 +0000

Five years ago, indie-rockers Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were all the rage, getting lots of hype and seemingly coming out of nowhere. And then, as happens so often whenever there's hype, there was some backlash. In hindsight, the band's self-titled debut holds up well. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah hasn't lived up to expectations since then, however. With the group apparently on hiatus, lead singer Alec Ounsworth came to Chicago Thursday (Feb. 25) for a show at Schubas. It seemed as if a fair number of the fans in attendance showed up for opening act Ezra Furman and the Harpoons. By the end of the night, when Ounsworth finished his set, the attendance was less than you'd expect for a once-hyped indie star.

Ounsworth's voice has always been a little wobbly, with a tendency to veer off-key. That sort of singing — emotionally searing but potentially grating — has been in vogue for several years now in indie rock. (Furman does it, too.) There's a thin line between the good and bad when attempt this sort of barely controlled attack on the notes. On Thursday, Ounsworth landed on the good side of that line. With his hat, eyeglasses and mustache, he looked a bit like a character from sort sort of costume drama. And he had an unusual presence on the stage — barely moving around during the instrumental breaks other than tilting his head this way and that.

Ounsworth played songs from his recent solo debut, Mo Beauty, and another record, Skin and Bones, which he made under the moniker Flashy Python. He also played a bit of his repertoire from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, including "Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood." His backing musicians were a lively bunch, bringing a quirky sense of energy to the tunes.

Photos of Alec Ounsworth and Ezra Furman.

Masters of Persian Music

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:18:00 +0000

Within the vast realms of so-called "world music," some foreign musical traditions get an additional label: "classical." It's often hard to define exactly which music is classical or folk or pop or something else altogether, but if a musical style has centuries of tradition, rigorous training and complex theoretical foundations, it probably deserves to be called "classical" just as much as the music of Bach or Mozart does. Such is the case with Persian classical music. Yet at the same time, Persian classical music involves elements of improvisation. So is it more like jazz? And when vocalists sing Persian poetry, it can sound not all that far-removed from folk music. And is easy to imagine this music channeled into something more like Western rock music. Ah, such is the futility of obsessing too much about labels.

In any case, Persian music received the sort of reverence and respect it deserves on Tuesday night (Feb. 23) with a concert at Chicago's Symphony Center by the aptly named ensemble Masters of Persian Music. One of the stars of this year's tour is Kayhan Kalhor, who plays a violin-like instrument called the kamancheh (and who recorded a terrific 2008 album called Silent City with the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, who performed a local concert last week.)

The first half of Tuesday's concert was a 45-minute improvised duet between Kalhor and Hossen Alizadeh, who was playing the shour angiz, an instrument similar to a lute or bouzouki. At times, Kalhor and Alizadeh were simultaneously playing distinct melodies, while staying in perfect harmony with one another. It seemed as if they were coming up with a sophisticated counterpoint right on the spot. At other times, their duet became a call and response, with the airy tone of the five-string kamancheh repeating the trilled notes of the shour angiz (or vice versa). The music rose and fell several times, moving from meditation to frenzy, from a feeling of stasis to a sensation of galloping.

After an intermission, Kalhor and Alizadeh were joined by singer Hamid Reza Nourbakhsh and four other musicians. Siamak Jahangiry played the ney, a kind of flute; Hamidreza Maleki played the santur, a percussive string instrument similar to the cimbalom or zither; Pezham Akhavass played the tombak drum; and Fariborz Azizi played the bass tar (a variation of guitar). Alizadeh switched to playing tar during this set.

The ensemble performed a series of songs based on old Persian Sufi poems. The songs ran together into one seamless set, about an hour long, sometimes delicate and tinkly, sometimes fierce and rhythmic. Some of the other musicians chanted in unison with Nourbakhsh at times. Nourbaksh's singing sometimes brought to mind the Pakistani Sufi singer Nusrah Fateh Ali Khan. In quieter moment, he sang with a placid, peaceful sense, but then he would let loose with some strong, piercing notes. The overall effect conjured up images in my mind of musicians and singers sitting in a royal court in ancient Persia, performing for a king.

The CSO program for this concert included English translations of the beautiful poems being sung. I was especially struck by a poem by Shaf'i Kadkani, which includes this couplet:

Alas for this hypocrite people who in this two-faced city
Are, all of them, by day sheriff and by night wine-sellers.

Patti Smith at the library

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:00:00 +0000

I count myself lucky to have seen three concerts by Patti Smith and, now, two other public appearances by this rightfully legendary singer, poet and artist. I missed her sold-out concert Saturday at Park West, but I made sure to show up for her book signing and reading Sunday afternoon (Feb. 21) at the Harold Washington Library.

Smith's new memoir, Just Kids, has been getting great reviews, including the cover of the New York Times Book Review. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but the passages Smith read aloud on Sunday were powerful, with crystal-clear prose. The book focuses on Smith's relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe during their early days as youngsters in New York, before they became famous (Smith for her music, Mapplethorpe for his photos).

After reading from the book, Smith played two songs solo acoustic ("Beneath the Southern Cross" and "My Blakean Year") and took questions from the audience, before singing a few hundred copies of her book, plus whatever Smith memorabilia fans brought with them, including old LPs.

During the Q&A, she explained that she wrote her memoir using old journals and diaries as reference points. "There's nothing in the book that isn't so," she said.

Someone asked if she's surprised that she's been famous for more than 15 minutes. She replied that being famous was never her goal. "What I really wanted to do was something great ... Write something as good as Pinocchio," she said.

She reminisced about meeting Jeff Buckley for the first time, the way he was standing on the side of the stage when she felt nervous during a Lollapalooza performance in the 1990s, how the very presence of an unknown stranger off to the side somehow gave her confidence. "I felt an energy to the left of me," she said. Later, "I walked over to thank him, and it turned out to be Jeff Buckley."

Asked for advice to aspiring musicians, artists and writers, Smith said: "Work hard. ... The goal to me is always to do good work." She spoke of artists who were not recognized during their lifetimes. "William Blake was almost totally ignored in his time," she said. "Yet he never let go of his visionary power. He never stopped working."

To hear Smith's appearance at the Harold Washington Library, visit Chicago Public Radio's Chicago Amplified site.

Photos of Patti Smith.

Retribution Gospel Choir

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:28:00 +0000

Alan Sparhawk is best known as the singer and guitarist for Low, a band that plays most of its songs at a slow tempo and hushed volume level, to strangely mesmerizing effect. Low turns up the sound once in a while, but Sparhawk plays just about everything loud with his other band, Retribution Gospel Choir. The "choir" has a new album out on the Sub Pop label, its second record, aptly if not so imaginatively titled 2. And Retribution Gospel Choir came to Chicago Friday night (Feb. 19) for a sold-out show at the Hideout.

This was quite different from a Low concert. Instead of that chilled-out meditative mood, the feeling was all-out rock show. Sparhawk grimaced and flung his hair around as he played one hard-rocking riff and guitar solo after another — and yet, that appealing voice of his still sounded familiar from those old Low records. Bassist Steve Garrington and drummer (plus backup singer) Eric Pollard kept the music moving forward all night.

Retribution Gospel Choir played a lot of the songs off its new album, which is a solid collection of catchy, dare we say, almost mainstream-sounding rock songs. There's a bit of classic rock in the choir's formula, but it's played with such conviction that it never feels like cliché.
www.retributiongospelchoir.com
www.myspace.com/retributiongospelchoir

Photos of Retribution Gospel Choir.

Joe Pug's 'Messenger'

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:43:00 +0000

The first time I saw Chicago singer-songwriter Joe Pug, I thought: Boy, this guy is really doing the traditional Bob Dylan folk singer-songwriter thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that. As a style of music, it isn't anything new or original, but it's a format (singing + acoustic guitar + interesting lyrics) with pretty much infinite possibilities, and Pug was doing a good job with it.

I saw him again, last summer at a Lollapalooza "after" concert at the Hideout, and boy, he had a following of fervent fans this time. And a full band playing with him. It was clear by now that the guy has a lot of charisma and a solid collection of songs. That night, I thought Pug might very well become a star — or at least, someone with a national following.

Pug gave away some of his previous recordings, posting free mp3s on his Web site. Now, he has a full album, Messenger, out this week on the Thirty Tigers label. The Dylan influence is still there, but Pug often sings in a throaty tone with just a touch of vibrato, giving the music more of a country flair. He's playing with a band on most of these tracks, but the backing is subtle and the focus is on his acoustic guitar.

There are songs about romance and that eternal theme, searching for one's self. "Disguised as Someone Else" is a particularly smart and emotional song about a romantic relationship. But it's the most Dylanesque song that really gets me, the anti-war protest tune "Bury Me Far (From My Uniform)." It sounds almost exactly like something a folk-rocker would have sung during the Vietnam War, but it also resonates today because the ongoing wars in the Middle East. Pug's song is told from the point of view of a soldier killed in battle, and it stings to hear his words from the grave.
www.joepugmusic.com

Pug plays Feb. 27 at Lincoln Hall opening for Justin Townes Earle (a good fit). And I'll be talking about Pug's record and playing "Bury Me Far (From My Uniform)" around 2:40 p.m. today (Feb. 18) on the public radio station Vocalo.

Brooklyn Rider at Dominican

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:07:00 +0000

Brooklyn Rider sounds more like the name of a rock band than a string quartet, and these four musicians also perform a bit like rock musicians. Sunday afternoon, they strode up the aisle in a chapel at Dominican University in River Forest and took up their positions in front of the attentive audience. Cellist Eric Jacobsen sat down, but the other three played standing up, sometimes swaying or exchanging smiles as they performed modern classical music with precision and power.

I first heard of Brooklyn Rider when the group backed up Persian kamancheh virtuso Kayhan Kalhor on the album called Silent City, a bracing and beautiful combination of Middle Eastern music with string quartet, which made my top 10 list for 2008. Brooklyn Rider has just released a CD titled Dominant Curve, and the quartet was in town this weekend to perform some of the compositions on that collection, as well as a few others.

The centerpiece of the CD is Claude Debussy's String Quartet in G minor (Opus 10), and it was the climax of the concert, too. Brooklyn Rider captured the full range of the piece, from delicate pizzicato passages and soft, lyrical melodies to a vibrant section that almost made you feel like getting up to dance. Two of the other pieces in the concert (also on the CD) drew inspiration from Debussy: Uzbek composer Dimitri Yanov-Yanovskly's "..al niente" and Brooklyn Rider violinist Colin Jacobsen's own composition, "Achille's Heel."

The first half of Jacobsen's suite was actually a trio, since the other violinist, Johnny Gandelsman, was just standing there watching as Jacobsen and violist Nicholas Cords played with bold, decisive strokes. But then Gandelsman joined in, helping the quartet to conclude "Achille's Heel" on a lovely note, with a touch of Persian influence.

The concert also included Giovanni Sollima's "Frederico II" from "Viaggio in Italia" and Philip Glass' String Quartet #4 ("Buczak"). According to the concert program, Brooklyn Rider is learning all of Glass' music for string quartets. The second movement of this piece was especially strong, with a swooning sense of motion -- romantic, delirious and slightly ominous.
www.brooklynrider.com

The studio is part of the art

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:31:00 +0000

The new exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, explores how artists use their studios and how the studio environment influences their art. It's called "Production Site: The Artist's Studio Inside-Out," and it's up through May 30.

At the press event that kicked off the show, I recorded comments by a few of the artists and curator Dominic Molon. Here's a video with a few of those sound bites, along with photos of the exhibit. (This video is a little experiment. I'm playing around with different ways of documenting stories and events.)

... One thing you won't hear about in my video is the wonderful piece of paranoid narrative art by Deb Sokolow, "You Tell People You're Working Really Hard On Things These Days," which she plans to change as the exhibit goes on. It's in the front lobby of the MCA.

Oboe Overload

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:25:00 +0000

The oboe is one of those instruments rarely heard outside the context of orchestral music. But this expressive instrument got a moment in the spotlight Friday night (Feb. 12). The International Contemporary Ensemble held a concert called "Oboe Overload" at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Photography, featuring ICE's two oboists, Nick Masterson and James Austin Smith.

ICE specializes in performing new and avant-garde music, and Friday's concert was no exception. Masterson and Smith opened with Christian Wolff's 1964 composition "for 1, 2, or 3 people," which included foot stomping and scraping noises made with music stands in addition to frantic bursts of oboe melody. I was wondering what the sheet music looked like, and after the performance, Smith showed the audience a page — covered with a variety of graphic symbols, like some sort of coded puzzle.

The concert also included Luciano Berio's "Sequenza VIIa," Bradley Balliett's "Slow-Burning Sarabande" (a world premiere, with the composer in attendance), Jonathan Harvey's "Ricercare una melodia" and Michael Finnissy's "Yso." Named after a form of dance, Balliett's "Slow-Burning Sarabande" was too abstract to provoke any actual dancing, but it colorfully captured the sense of two voices flirting with and seducing each other. Harvey's composition, meanwhile, used electronic delay to play around with the idea of memory. The oboists seemed to be chasing after their own notes, trying to grasp melodies as they flitted away.

Throughout all of these challenging pieces, Masterson and Smith played with a sense of spontaneity and fierce intensity. www.iceorg.org

A non-operatic 'Ring Cycle'

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:30:00 +0000

It's audacious and almost insanely ambitious. A six-hour stage adaptation of Wagner's The Ring Cycle, without all the opera music? Who would attempt such a thing? Blake Montgomery and The Building Stage, that's who. Montgomery's been running this unusually creative theatrical company on Chicago's near West Side, for four and a half years now, and this production is his biggest project yet.

Don't be scared off by that humongous running time. Truth be told, the show is six hours long if you include a couple of 10-minute intermission and a 45-minute dinner break. So, that's what? A little less than five hours of actual theater. And at Saturday's press opening, that time almost seemed to fly by. This is not a flawless production, but it certainly holds your attention.

Co-directed by Montgomery and Joanie Schultz, The Ring Cycle tells the same stories from German and Norse mythology that inspired Richard Wagner's even longer cycle of operas, as well as the lesser-known but excellent silent films by Fritz Lang, Die Nibelungen. There are a couple of songs in this stage version, but no arias. Some of Wagner's themes surface in the pulsing rock chords played by Kevin O'Donnell and his band.

This Ring Cycle takes place on a stage that's mostly bare. Shadows, marionette-like props and circus arts are used to create a world of dwarves, dragons, Valkyries and magic helmets. This is the sort of thing Mary Zimmerman has often done in her myth-inspired plays. The Ring Cycle achieves some magic moments with these simple elements, but it has trouble sustaining the magic for all six hours. Some of the costumes are jarringly contemporary, and the plain set is too dull of a backdrop for the fantastic plot that's unfolding ... and unfolding and unfolding.

Certainly, The Ring Cycle could be condensed to a shorter length, but to be fair, a hell of a lot happens over the course of those six hours. This is epic stuff: love, betrayal, treachery, the battle for power. In its best passages, The Ring Cycle bursts with poetic beauty and deep emotions. There's a Shakespearean quality to the romance and the tragedy. The words, adapted from the librettos of Wagner's operas, can be truly beautiful.

And yet, other scenes are filled with clunky exposition. The attempts at comedy feel labored. Some cast members spout their lines in an amateurish style, lacking any sense of nuance. Thankfully, a few of the leading actors give good performances, conveying more genuine emotions. Nick Vidal is particularly good as the naïve hero Siegfried, and Darci Nalepa gives the saga its emotional center as the fierce Brünnhilde.

The creative team at The Building Stage has been working for months to bring together this epic production. As it stands right now, it feels like it needs further work. As uneven as it is, however, it still makes for a fairly enjoyable immersion in a fantastic world.
www.buildingstage.com
(Photo by Michael Brosilow.)

The brilliance of 'Brother/Sister'

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:28:00 +0000

There are at least two levels in just about every great piece of theater. On one level, we should believe the characters we're seeing onstage are real. On another level, we're fully aware of the fact that we're watching a performance. Of course those people talking and walking onstage aren't actually the characters they're pretending to be.

Some theatrical productions even call attention to the fact that they're theatrical productions. They put some distance between the audience and the world that the playwright has created. What's truly wonderful is when a play succeeds on both levels. The actors seem to be saying, "You're just watching a play," but at the same time, they bring such honesty to their performances that we can't help feeling like we're slipping into their fictional sphere.

Tarell Alvin McCraney's trilogy, The Brother/Sister Plays, now at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, is a superb example of this. It's so stylized that it occasionally feels more like performance art than a traditional play. The actors say many of their stage directions aloud. Before they smile or cry, they often announce that they're going to smile or cry. What could be more artificial than that? In many scenes, some actors stand off to the side of the action, waiting to make their entrances. They stand immobile, like marionettes awaiting a pull of the strings.

And yet, McCraney's multigenerational saga features realistic characters (realistic but colorful), made all the more believable by director Tina Landau and her excellent cast. Despite all that artifice involving stage directions, you connect with these people and feel their emotions. And there's also some magic in the air, a sense of ancient myths intertwining with the lives of these African-American characters in New Orleans.

The stage is almost bare, but it has a beautiful sort of starkness, the walls and floor painted like the interior of a vast cargo ship or maybe an artist's paint-streaked loft space. (Kudos to set and costume designer James Schuette.) Just about the only props are buckets and barrels. When a set is this minimal, it allows a play to move swiftly from one imaginary place to another, but it also requires audience members to use more of their imagination. And this is one set of plays that really does engage our imagination.

The Brother/Sister Plays is a trilogy of three plays featuring many of the same characters. We're told that we can see these plays in any order, but I recommend seeing them in chronological sequence. At Steppenwolf, the three plays are packaged in two programs. First comes the very good In the Red and Brown Water. Then comes a pair of somewhat shorter (and even better) plays: The Brothers Size and Marcus; Or the Secret of Sweet. Together, they tell several tangled stories about an extended New Orleans clan, laced with sharp insights about the experiences of African-Americans in recent times. Sex, violence, brotherly love, sibling rivalry, prejudice, fate and dreams all play important parts in the stories.

After viewing the three plays in one marathon day, I felt their cumulative power as Marcus reached its final scene with the spoken stage directions "End of play." The entire ensemble cast is great, and when audience members rose for a standing ovation at the end of the trilogy, it truly felt as if the actors, playwright and director had earned it.

(Steppenwolf photo by Callie Lipkin.)

Robbie Fulks at the Hideout

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:19:00 +0000

Robbie Fulks, one of Chicago's most talented and most entertaining musicians, is playing at the Hideout every Monday night in February. After missing week one of Fulks' residency, I caught his performance last night, an evening of lovely duets with another terrific Chicago singer, Nora O'Connor. The two sat on chairs and played acoustic guitars, with Fulks' fingers plucking fast runs of bluegrass notes while O'Connor played rhythm chords. O'Connor's no slouch on guitar, as evidenced by her playing in the Blacks, but she was modest about her abilities Monday. At one point, when Fulks said, "Take it, Nora!" she responded with a sarcastic, "Please!"

Fulks and O'Connor played some old-timey bluegrass and gospel tunes, such as "The Lost Indian" and Flatt and Scrugg's "Take Me in Your Lifeboat." Of course, they played some of their own songs as well — a couple of recent Fulks songs and a couple of oldies, plus some of the best tracks off O'Connor's excellent (and thus far only) solo record, 2004's Til the Dawn. And some cool covers: Fulks taking the lead on George Jones' "The Flame In My Heart," and O'Connor singing M. Ward's "Helicopter," Fleetwood Mac's "That's Alright" and Ketty Lester's "Love Letters." In between songs, Fulks was as funny as ever with his stage banter.

As Fulks remarked, how can you go wrong with two people playing acoustic guitars and singing? Well, actually, that sort of thing can go wrong, but that's not likely to happen with these two. Each of them made the other's songs feel more complete.

Fulks continues his Hideout residency on Feb. 15 with a string trio. On Feb. 22, he'll have his full band playing with him. The shows start at 7 p.m., and the suggested donation for admission is $10. www.hideoutchicago.com www.robbiefulks.com

Photos of Robbie Fulks and Nora O'Connor.

Ebony Bones at Green Dolphin

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:23:00 +0000

The British singer who calls herself Ebony Bones put on quite a show Saturday night (Feb. 6) at Green Dolphin Street ... after a seemingly interminable series of DJ sets and opening bands. I'm not much into the dance club scene, so that last hour of barely distinguishable electronic beats pounding into my head wore a little thin, but then Ebony Bones and her band finally take the stage around 2:15 a.m. She turned out to be worth the wait.

In an Ebony Bones press release, she describes herself as follows: "I am Cleopatra reincarnated, in search of KFC." I'm not even sure what the means, but that conveys something of the spirit of how she dresses and her goofy, bouncy stage presence. Her whole band was decked out in quasi-African or kitschy ancient Egyptian style outfits. And for the first half of the show, Ebony Bones was in a dress with the world's biggest shoulder pads... or collars... or something jutting out, anyway. Her backup singers wore face makeup that seemed like a satire of the way "savages" used to be portrayed, and they clinked spoons against whiskey bottles for percussive effect.

Ebony Bones is one of those musical dynamos who barely ever stops moving during the course of a concert, and she was a wonder to behold. Her songs sounded good, too, the sort of electronic dance music with just enough quirks and smart touches to stand out above most mainstream pop. The set included cool covers of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" and the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog." And then, around 3 a.m., a long night of music at Green Dolphin Street came to an end at last.
www.myspace.com/ebonybones

The only opening act that won me over was the R&B duo He Say She Say. Their soulful songs sounded like they have some good potential. Now they just need to put out a record. (They mentioned during their set that they don't have any record out, due to "technical difficulties." Whatever those difficulties, He Say She Say should overcome them.)

Photos of Ebony Bones and He Say She Say.

Explode Into Colors

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:44:00 +0000

I was looking for something new and different to see Friday night, and I found it — an exciting all-female trio from Portland, Ore., called Explode Into Colors. This group doesn't even have a proper album out yet, just a cassette and some singles, but it's already making very lively, percussion-heavy rock. When I heard that they were an all-girl trio from the Pacific Northwest, I immediately thought of Sleater-Kinney. Explode Into Color's music is more out there, more experimental than S-K, though there's a similar sense of energy.

The Explode ladies put on a really good show Friday (Feb. 5) at Subterranean. Although the songs sound like they're anchored by bass lines, that's actually lead singer Claudia Meza's baritone guitar. And no wonder the recordings sound like they have a lot of drums — Lisa Schonberg drums while Heather Treadway is a triple threat on drums, keyboards and vocals. The three of them were lined up across the front of the Subt stage. When a band doesn't hide the drum kit in back, that's always a sign that you're going to hear some music with interesting percussion, and that turned out to be the case Friday night. Explode Into Colors does not apparently have a lot of songs yet, and the trio played a fairly short set during this show, which was their first appearance in Chicago. Hope they're back soon.
www.myspace.com/explodeintocolors

Alas, the bracing set by Explode Into Colors was a sharp contrast with the cheesy opening sets by two Chicago groups. I hate to tear down any aspiring local musical act with harsh criticism, and I'll note that both of the opening bands did draw a decent number of fans. But it's a shame Subterranean didn't find more appropriate openers to go with Explode Into Colors.

Photos of Explode Into Colors.

Chicago Underground Duo

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:30:00 +0000

Technically speaking, the Chicago Underground Duo isn't exactly based in Chicago anymore. These two jazz musicians, Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor, spend most of their time now living elsewhere. But they've kept Chicago in their band name, and they still record for that fine Chicago label, Thrill Jockey. And they were back on their old home turf Wednesday night (Feb. 3) for a free show at the Chicago Cultural Center.

It was a superb set, filled with really nice moments from both players. Mazurek was a master at getting different tones out of his cornet, using various mutes and aiming his horn at various angles to the microphone. When Mazurek got quiet, it was like his cornet was whispering or crying out at a great distance away. Meanwhile, Taylor's drumming was far more than mere time keeping. He squeezed expressive sounds out of those drums, playing quirky patterns and making the rhythms seem almost melodic. He also played the vibraphone (sometimes simultaneously with the drums), including some hypnotically repeating series of notes that laid the groundwork for Mazurek's solos.

The fact that these guys call themselves "underground" might lead you to think they're experimental or, well, "difficult." And yes, there is an experimental spirit to their collaborations, including the excellent new record Boca Negra. But what was striking about Wednesday's performance was just how accessible this music is to anyone listening with open ears. You'll get another chance to see the Chicago Underground Duo soon, when they play a CD-release party Feb. 20 at the Hideout.

Photos of the Chicago Underground Duo.

Nouvelle Vague at Lincoln Hall

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:59:00 +0000

The idea behind the band Nouvelle Vague is to play songs from the new wave and early punk era like bossa nova or Brazilian lounge music, with sexy French ladies handling the vocals. Nouvelle Vague (the brainchild of French producers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux) has recorded some lovely, quirky covers on its three albums, although the whole concept is pretty gimmicky. The shtick wears thin after a while, but it's enjoyable for a song or two or three.

The touring version of Nouvelle Vague came to Chicago Friday night for a show at Lincoln Hall. And how can you go wrong when you've got a couple of sexy French ladies singing cool old songs that we all like? (Well, a lot of like those songs, anyway.) It was fun hearing songs like XTC's "Making Plans for Nigel," the Clash's "Guns of Brixton" and Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love?" done up in this style.

The group records in the studio with a revolving cast of singers, but it had just two on tour. I don't believe they ever got introduced during the show, which seems like a weird oversight. Or maybe they were supposed to be sort of anonymous? I'm told these two were Helena Noguerra and Karina Zeviani. Whoever they were, they did a fine job singing these songs, shaking their hair and striking poses, while the band played light versions of these tunes that used to rock hard. It was quite entertaining for a while, although it was still, in the end, a bit of a gimmick.

Nouvelle Vague was nicely paired with an opening act that sings some songs in French, Clare and the Reasons. As in previous Chicago gigs, this delightful trio delivered cool, jazzy pop music with some funny stage banter and a lot of personality in between the songs. It was too bad to hear that their vehicle was broken into during this visit to Chicago. Hope they don't get scared off from visiting again soon.

Photos of Nouvelle Vauge and Clare and the Reasons.

UPDATE/CORRECTION: I'm informed that one of the two singers I referred to above as French ladies (Karina Zeviani) is actually Brazilian.

Tape and Mountains

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:36:00 +0000

Thursday (Jan. 28) was a night of instrumental and mostly mellow music at the Empty Bottle. All three acts on the bill played slow-moving, ambient music, the sort of stuff that makes you meditate more than it makes you dance. It was a fairly cool evening of chilling out (with frigid temperatures outside).

The headliners were Sweden's Tape — four musicians playing a laptop, guitar, drums and keyboards, with a bit of harmonica thrown in. Despite the electronic elements, the music sounded almost organic, with some bits that were almost like folk music mashed together with washes of electronic texture.

The show also featured the Brooklyn ambient duo Mountains. Playing without any pause during their set, Mountains played acoustic instruments like guitars, harmoniums and melodicas, processing them through a mound of electronic equipment until they were virtually unrecognizable, making waves of echoing, reverb-heavy chords.

Appropriately enough, the first act of the night was the Chicago duo David Daniell and Douglas McCombs, whom I've seen numerous times and written about here previously. This time, they played without any percussion, but they still created beautiful, glacial sounds with their two guitars.

Photos of Tape, Mountains and David Daniell & Douglas McCombs.

Best films of 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:56:00 +0000

A SERIOUS MAN (Joel Coen) — In this brilliant black comedy, the Coen Brothers pose philosophical questions as they drag their poor protagonist through one humiliation after another, ending it all with a beautifully enigmatic shot.

THE WHITE RIBBON (Michael Haneke) — A haunting portrait of a small town in Germany on the eve of World War I, where mysterious cruel acts go unexplained and unpunished.

LORNA'S SILENCE (Luc and Jean-Paul Dardenne) — Yet another compelling movie from the Dardenne brothers about people living on the margins of society in Belgium, filmed and acted so realistically it looks like a documentary. A horrifying story that builds to an oddly rapturous climax.

IN THE LOOP (Armando Ianucci) — The year's funniest movie, this sharp political satire from Britain features hilarious streams of bile flowing from the mouth of Peter Capaldi.

THE HURT LOCKER (Kathryn Bigelow) — Tense, realistic and sharply focused, this is what action movies should be.

POLICE, ADJECTIVE (Corneliu Porumboiu) — This Romanian film is a sort of deconstruction of cop movies: A stakeout where not much of anything happens. The climax, if you can call it that, is a cop looking up words in a dictionary. Slow-paced but absorbing, it's a thoughtful exploration of exactly what we mean by law and order.

REVANCHE (Götz Spielmann) — This Austrian film has some of the elements of a crime caper or thriller, but it's also a moral and philosophical drama, with superb acting and filmmaking.

SÉRAPHINE (Martin Provost) — Yolande Moreau gives one of the year's best performances in this lovely film, starring as the French naïve painter Séraphine de Senlis.

ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL (Sacha Gervasi) — A great documentary about what it's like to be in a rock band year after year without making it big. Funny and surprisingly heartwarming.

ADVENTURELAND (Greg Mottola) — A cool coming-of-age story that captures all the frustrations and awkwardness of being a young person groping toward romance and adulthood. (Awesome soundtrack, too.)

11. The Baader-Meinhof Complex (Uli Edel)
12. Bright Star (Jane Campion)
13. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh)
14. Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze)
15. Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy)
16. Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodovar)
17. Eastern Plays (Kamen Kalev)
18. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Terry Gilliam)
19. The Beaches of Agnes (Agnes Varda)
20. Goodbye Solo (Ramin Bahrani)
21. The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)
22. Julia (Erick Zoncka)
23. 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
24. Sita Sings the Blues (Nina Paley)
25. Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Nymph (Pen-ek Rantanarung)
Face (Tsai Ming-Liang)
Avatar (James Cameron)
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (Ruxandra Medrea Annonier and Serge Bromberg)
The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel)
Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone)
An Education (Lone Scherfig)
Apres Lui (Gäel Morel)
Cropsey (Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (David Yates)
In Search of Beethoven (Phil Grabsky)
O'Horten (Bent Hamer)
Patti Smith: Dream of Life (Steven Sebring)
The Eclipse (Conor McPherson)
The Girl on the Train (Andre Techine)
Up (Pete Docter)

Happy Birthday, Pravda

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Loerzel) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:51:00 +0000

Chicago's Pravda Records has been in business for 25 years now, which is reason enough to celebrate. Not many independent labels stay in business that long. Pravda's musicians and fans partied Friday night at the Abbey Pub to mark the occasion.

Three of the label's early groups got back together for this special show: Boom Hank, the Slugs and the Service. Boom Hank started off the night with some country-tinged rock. And The Service — the band that really started the whole Pravda label — finished off the night with tuneful alternative rock and power pop songs, including a cameo appearance by soul singer Andre Williams.

Playing on the middle of the bill, the Slugs were the highlight of the show for me. I saw the Slugs a number of times back when the band was still together, and those shows were always a fun time. The fun feeling was back on Friday night, with some highly catchy rock songs, funny stage banter from lead singer Dag Juhlin and, of course, a lively rendition of "Hooked On a Feeling," complete with those silly "ooga-chuckas."

Photos of Boom Hank, the Slugs and the Service.