Thursday, September 29, 2005

Them Gourds

I got to work at 11am today. Yes, it was a good night.

We started out at our place with a vat of sangria and about 30 of our closest friends. Great fun. We laid waste to 3 gallons of wine, a bottle of brandy, a crapload of fruit, a bunch of beer, and a table full of snack items. Very fun. Nice that so many people turned out early and stayed out late on a schoolnight.

I left the party and headed downtown early to try and catch Kevin Russell and whatever other Gourds I could round up so I could drag them to the BCRP studio and record some promo stuff for my show. I hovered about the Neurolux entrance, then went to the studio to set up, then went back to the venue, and stuck near to the entrance for a while. They never showed--well, they did, but they snuck in the side door and I didn't see them until they took the stage. Oh well. Kevin's promised to record a couple drops for me and send them via e-mail.

The Hackensaw Boys opened, and they did a fine job of whipping the crowd up. Good solid 6 piece acoustic music that sped around the stage and stomped all over, though without the "look at us and how hickish we are" facade of so many bands like that. They were good.

The Gourds opened up with "My Name is Jorge," which was a hell of a way to start, especially as it was followed by "Dying of the Pines" and then "Hellhounds." Great way to kick things off. They were having some sound problems, but they seemed to get them ironed out quick--due no doubt in no small measure to Rche being in the house--and got on with the rocking.

They put together a good set, digging into the old stuff, taking solid turns through the newer stuff, and even playing a couple tunes I'd never heard before. The biggest surprise of the evening was just how much Kevin's playing the electric guitar nowadays, as well as Claude's time at the keyboards. Suddenly dude can pound the ivories like mad. Really impressive. For a good bit of the night they seemed like a straight-up rock band, with Jimmy on electric bass, Claude on keys and Kev on the Fender, with Max switching between mandolin and guitar and Keith playing drums like he was back in Prescott Curlywolf. It was a big change, and one that could have gone over poorly. But they pulled it off and even had me hoping for more of it.

The first encore had Kev and then Jimmy come out solo, and to be honest I'm having trouble remembering what they played. I do remember that one of Kev's songs was new, original, and just beautiful. The final encore was a fairly rushed and obligatory turn through "Gin and Juice," which was a bit disappointing after the others and in light of everything else they could have played. It was done rock band style, which was a cool twist, but it still felt like "OK lets play this song and get the hell out of here."

Seemed like they had a great time, and we stayed and talked to Kevin and then Jimmy and then Claude until about 2:30 in the morning. Then we walked home. Getting to bed at 3am on a school night is great fun, and makes me very thankful that I have a flexible schedule and reasonable bosses.

Now the question: Do I go to Seattle this weekend to see The National, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and M83? Long drive. Tough call.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Gourds Tonight!

Something about seeing these guys play always feels like going home.

Tonight, for the second time since we've been in Boise, The Gourds are coming to the Neurolux, and we couldn't be happier. Last year they came on Cathy's birthday, which was about perfect as could be. This year, it's our friend Allison's birthday, and we'll be celebrating beforehand with a vat of sangria the size of my car.

Openers tonight are the Hackensaw Boys, about whom I've been reading quite a bit lately. They were even favorably reviewed in Pitchfork, which was quite a surprise to me, as they seem to do their bluegrass offshoot without a trace of irony or hipness. I've checked out some of their tunes on emusic, and while I was expecting something closer to the frenetic acoustic insanity of someone like Split Lip Rayfield or that other Austin band that plays the Continental all the time (drawing a blank here), they're more thoughtful and carefully assembled and song-oriented than that. At least, that's the case on first listen. Tonight's set could be a completely different thing.

I've also been giving Blood of the Ram, the Gourds' newest record, plenty of air time lately, and the tracks there have definitely grown some on me. Some of it is as great as they ever were, and while other parts don't really hit me so hard, it's easy to identify the quality of the songs and the growth and movement of the band within them.

So, Gourds tonight. Very exciting.

The Race for Race

While I agree that the rush to blame the disaster in New Orleans on racism was a bit premature, or a bit kneejerk, or at least not well thought out and carried out in the heat of the catastrophe, I have to say I am far more disturbed by the backlash and by the stronger racism and hatred it's conjured up in us. I'm pretty sickened by the internet trash being sent around about it, as if racist whiteys are finally able to publicly rejoice in what happened and can now let all their demons out of the closet where they've been half hidden to play in the flooded streets and spit in the eye of any who disagree.

Both these attitudes are way off base and nothing but destructive. Blacks in New Orleans were inordinately affected by the hurricane--that seems undoubtable. Beyond that, it's really hard to know anything for sure.

The tube-glued couch potatoes among us seem to think they've got it all figured out, that black people--all black people--simply ran amok with guns blazing and peckers hanging out destroying anything of their city that wasn't already destroyed, and then started crying that white folk weren't helping them enough. That's about as simpleminded as saying that the country ignored New Orleans because the only people left there were black.

There is truth in both those statements, but neither of them is the truth. There's a big difference there. And, mostly, I just wish we could disconnect ourselves from the canned and distorted reality of the idiot box and show a little common sense and sympathy. Something very bad has happened, and beyond the local politicians and Brown and Chertoff and Bush, we're not so sure who played what role in all of this.

I guess all I'm saying is let's think, not just react. Let's not assume that everything going on down there has been captured on TV. It hasn't. Or that all these malicious and racist e-mail bullshit making the rounds have any kind of wisdom in them. They don't.

Let's think for ourselves.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Jazz Joint

There's a new joint in town.

I've started a new program for Boise Community Radio called Jazz Joint. Bet you can't guess what it's like...

Actually, maybe you can't. It's two hours, once a week, focusing in a large sense on jazz music. I say in a large sense because it's not your normal public radio jazz show.

Jazz Joint will have rotating host duties, so far involving myself and four other people. And far as I can tell, we've all got pretty different ideas about what this show will be. And that's great. That's the point. There's already plenty of homogenous jazz shows out there, playing the greats playing standards, and that's a good thing, but that's not our thing.

I turned in my first show right before leaving town for vacation, so I haven't managed to hear any of the other hosts' work yet, but I knew their musical ideas beforehand, so I'm confident. But, in these descriptions, I'm also guessing. I'll update this as I find out how wrong I am. Art Hodge is way into breakbeats and all types of jazz, Tim Whitecotten leans more toward the hard rock and avant-garde modes, Isabel Holt is well versed in the classic and historical side of jazz, and Dave Foster leans more toward the ambient, electronic, experimental versions. A really good combination of perspectives if I do say so myself.

My own take on it is pretty scattershot, to be perfectly honest. It's not even all jazz. Jazz music, mostly bebop and hard bop from anywhere in the late 50s to today, makes up the core of the show, but it only spreads outward from there. I work in some electronic music that is, if not actually improvised, has more of an anarchic feel to it, and I'm also trafficking some experimental rock and some plain old avant-garde instrumental stuff. Thelonious Monk next to John Fahey next to David Murray next to Four Tet next to Isotope 217... You get the point.

Or, if you don't, check out the show. It's on Wednesdays from 11 to 1, mountain time, on RadioBoise.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Return

My two weeks of travel have come to an end, and now it's back to the grind. Sure, it's been a relatively easy re-entry, what with Kristi and Steve's fantastic wedding up at Warm Lake this past weekend, a trip that included a great mountain bike ride on the Eagle's Nest trail and road, but still. It ain't vacation, and it ain't in Amsterdam, so I'm gonna go ahead and be depressed about it anyway, thank you very much.

Two weeks is not enough. I mean, it is enough in that I feel like I did go somewhere for a decent length of time and was able to get work and everything else completely out of my system and adapt to a different pace of life, especially my sleep schedule. But last Wednesday morning, as I wandered the streets of Amsterdam for the last time, I felt all too deeply that I wanted another week or two. I wanted to see and feel more of that city before leaving it for god knows how long.

But, no such luck, and no more vacation time to play around with, so here I sit, back in my office, blogging over lunch, feeling all sorry for myself because I have to work for a living like most of the rest of the world. Poor me.

Highlights of the trip are tough to pin down in one sense, as just the acts of wandering the streets and neighborhoods of Paris and Amsterdam and Groningen were wonderful nearly every minute. Dinner at Robert et Louise in Paris was definitely one of the more memorable moments, as were the few hours spent watching football in a pub with an extensive English-speaking expat community the next day.

While the wedding weekend in Groningen, in the Netherlands, was without a doubt the highlight of the whole trip, other Dutch moments stand out with more individual clarity than the rest. Seeing Four Tet at the Paradiso was perhaps the most amazing and unique experience I had throughout this trip, the one that most made me feel I was experiencing something that just is not available to me here at home. And, of course, Wilco playing their tour-ender at that same venue was a pretty fantastic time as well.

In some ways, as it always is, it's nice to be home. Good to see Gus and Henry, good to see friends and to be able to cook my own food and to be in my house and to have my own bikes and all that stuff. But, there's still melancholy and longing for the places we just were, and there's still the time-tested means of best dealing with these things: planning the next trip.

New Zealand next fall for the Mountain Bike World Championships?

Myanmar next year for some SE Asia trekking and exploration?

A few weeks with my car and my mountain bike exploring British Columbia?

It's decisions like these that make time between travel more bearable.

And, it looks like the music offerings are still coming through town. Tonight, a band called the Moggs are doing an instore at the RX and a show later on at the Bouquet. I hadn't heard of them before, but the tracks available on their website are promising. I think I'll check them out.