White Plains’ 4th Best Personal Blog

In the interest of keeping things relatively in the present, as I promised, I figured I should give a quick (or perhaps not-so-quick) update of what I’ve been up to in recent weeks…

About a month ago, I hit the road for a week in the South. A certain band I like did a short southern series of shows, of which I caught the ones in Athens, Ga., Asheville, N.C., Birmingham, Ala., Oxford, Miss., and finally New Orleans. I think my favorite venue easily was Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham. It’s an old ironworks turned into a National Historic Landmark where they now hold the occasional concert. I had pretty low expectations for this show, but the memorable setting seemed to energize the band. And when a member of their road crew surprised the band by coming out shirtless to play cowbell on the last song, well, it just seemed to put an exclamation point on the evening.

After the final show of the tour at Jazz Fest in New Orleans, I made my way up to Madison, Wis., via Chicago (haha) to see Flight of the Conchords with Brianne. I had seen both of their shows in New York, but it was nice to be able to focus on some specific aspects of the show since I sort of knew what to expect overall. And any show with “Albi, the Racist Dragon” is a winner for me. Brianne was gracious enough to have me over at her house for a few days and so I stuck around for Robbie Fulks’ 50-Vc. All-Stars show (with Jenny Scheinman and Nora O’Connor, among others) at the end of that week. I also went to Miller Park in Milwaukee for the first time to take in a Brewers game with some friends; visited the New Glarus Brewing Company and had a nice meal in that Swiss-tinged small town; and scored a nice vinyl haul at Strictly Discs, a very cool record store in Madison.

A brief weekend stopover in Chicago followed, where I attended my first Cubs game of the season (a win over the Florida Marlins on an absolutely gorgeous afternoon when the team retired the No. 31 jersey of Ferguson Jenkins and Greg Maddux). That night, I also caught the Old 97’s show at the Cubby Bear. It was one of two shows they did that weekend as the headliners of WXRT’s Cinco de Mayo celebration and I didn’t have very lofty expectations, but they dusted off some old gems such as 504 and W-I-F-E, so it was better than I thought.

Back home, I found out about St. Vincent’s free in-store at the Virgin Megastore Union Square in time to attend and get my pre-ordered copy of her new album Actor signed. It’s hard to believe that by the end of May, there will no longer be a Virgin Megastore in New York. The following night, I made it to three different shows — Tim Easton at Mercury Lounge, John Doe with the Sadies at City Winery and the last hour or so of Martin Rivas and Craig Meyer’s Wednesday Night Campfire at Prohibition. All were pretty stellar. A couple of days later it was off to Washington, D.C., for a couple of days to go to two shows by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings at the 9:30 Club with Heidi. We both love SJ and the DKs, so I had a lot of fun dancing (not onstage, of course) and hanging out with her. But it was a quick trip because I wanted to get back home in time for a rare solo set by Nels Cline at the Stone. Nels says he’s terrified of playing by himself, but I thought it was a strong effort even with some of his gear breaking down mid-set. It was Mother’s Day and he closed with “Cymbidium” from his latest record Coward, a piece dedicated to his late mother. It was really touching.

Shortly thereafter, I headed to Los Angeles for about five days. I hadn’t planned all that far in advance on making this trip, but things seemed to align on the Largo at the Coronet calendar with some shows I had wanted to check out. And thanks to the graciousness of Andrew and Evonne, who lent their couches, I was able to swing it. So I got to see Theresa Andersson, a New Orleans-by-way-of-Sweden singer-songwriter whose most recent album Hummingbird, Go! was a favorite recent discovery; Sara Watkins, whose new self-titled record is really solid; and, of course, Jon Brion. I’m really glad I got to see all three shows. Seeing Andersson live is quite fascinating because of all the looping she does to construct her songs. Watkins’ return to Largo for the first time since her record came out was, of course, a special occasion and she had a terrific band for this gig that included Benmont Tench and her brother, Sean, as well as Sebastian Steinberg and Greg Leisz. And Brion is trying some different things out lately, using some multimedia elements with film loops playing behind him on a screen while he puts music to them, for instance, and focusing on playing strictly by himself without his usual cadre of special guests.

Another reason why I decided to make this LA trip was an opportunity to catch a show by Scarnella (Nels Cline and Carla Bozulich) and Pronto (Mikael Jorgensen’s side project). They played at the Mint, a small throwback of a club in Hollywood. The Scarnella set instead became a Stained Radiance gig, as it turned out, because Carla couldn’t make it that night. Stained Radiance is a duo Nels plays in with the painter Norton Wisdom, who paints on a big, illuminated screen while Nels adds his unique brand of improvised sound. Pronto, which I had seen a few times back on the East Coast, continues to become more cohesive as a working band each time I see them. So it was a good night, all in all. During my stay I also got to see a free in-store by Steve Earle at Amoeba Records, where he was promoting his latest release, Townes. My only regret was not being able to stay in town longer to see a few of the other shows I wanted to, including a performance by Scarnella — playing along to the Lon Chaney silent film “Laugh Clown Laugh” — with an opening set by Bobb Bruno.

But I couldn’t stay because I had a (really expensive) ticket to see Leonard Cohen at Radio City Music Hall the following night. I could write a lengthy post just about that show, but suffice it to say, I’m glad I saw him at least once. He is a charismatic, elegant performer and even though I wasn’t tremendously familiar with his repertoire beyond the big “hits,” I found myself captivated for much of the show. He played for close to three hours and although I think the show was stretched out a bit more than it needed to be with some questionable arrangements — some lengthy horn solos were reminiscent of bad smooth jazz at times — how many times to you get to see a legend?

And finally, on one of my last nights in town before leaving for Europe, I got a chance to see two terrific shows: a semi-secret gig by Bill Frisell and his 858 Quartet at the tiny Barbes in Brooklyn and an all-original show by the Martin Rivas Band (hilariously dubbed, for this performance, anyway, The Crunchy Fudge-Nut Ice Cream Bar Boys) at the Bitter End. From what I understand, the 858 Quartet — a string quartet with Frisell on electric guitar in place of one of the violins in a traditional string quartet — hadn’t played together in quite awhile and I was grateful to have heard about this intimate performance from an inside source. And seeing one of Martin’s shows where he plays his own songs is always a great time. I think the songs on his forthcoming Sea of Clouds record sound better each time I hear them. It was a fitting way to close out a very busy few weeks.