ah the sheer bloody giddy glee, the joyous joy of this tonight.
three guitars. one drummer. one sampler. two voices. two saxomaphones. one trumpet. one trombone. one cowbell. and christ knows what else.
kinda hard to describe how far removed from whatever anarcho-somethingorother seventies crass-esque cliches you might have in yr head, sounds you might have in yr ears, upon basic description of the ex. had conversation at bar with youngling who seemed to be expecting some socialist worker vendor bellowing marxist slogans into his face whilst hammering three chords out over projections of rivers in war zones, filled with bloated dead baby corpses, shell / apple / enron logos superimposed over their fly-masked faces.
hard to pin down the evolution of the ex over the past five(?!?) decades. it’s been an ever swelling swollen melange of punk (past and post), diy aesthetics, noise, jazz, improv, world, folk. rhythmic from top to toe, from drums to strings, from voice to samples. a propulsive compulsive metre with the urgency and cadence of heartbeat hammering against ribcage. a type one theta pulse, inducing amped-up psyched-up bouncing undulations of synchronised minds and flailing bodies. everything always seems to be buildingbuildingbuilding into some giant hypno-stomp that makes you want to (and wants to make you) dance and holler and wave yr fucking arms around like some pasty glaswegian windmill. had to squeeze a lazy netherlends reference in somewhere.
which only describes half of the muscle on display tonight. as it’s part of a tour with four genuine honest to god tooting geniuses. mats gustafsson, ken vandermark, roy paci and wolkter wierbos. giving it big band brass (balls), giving it free skronks and melodic workouts in all manner of skewed sad sweet ecstatic beautiful ugly ways. used to seeing gustafsson, the chunk of jazz wrestler, wielding that hernia inducing sax of his like some horn of the gods, but it’s a delight to watch paci playing air guitar on trumpet or wierbos jigging around with gay abandon when not huffing himself to death on trombone.
tonight was everything right about music. a willingness to engage and be engaged with. it was fun. it was powerful. it was emotional. it was serious. it was, i guess, about the beauty of freedom and everything that entails.
damn …lucky UK Bastards …. but I find great consolation in this one: tomorrow I’ll be witnessing the glorious (so i hope) return of the legendary Caspar Brotzmann Massaker – original line-up!. Also on the bill: Ghédalia Tazartes (who I only know from name)
well … it was 100% intense all the way, even when they play quiet pieces. the drummer is also insane – very massive, strong drumming and very functional. they played old pieces, no new ones. but, considering their fantastic albums, that’s hardly a problem. the songs were performed very similar to the album versions, which confirms that Brotz has his delay/wahwah/feedback completely under control. every detail, every sound of his guitar explorations is sort of premeditated. the crowd went berserk.
tazartes: vocal acrobatics (mixture of eastern-europe worldmusic/avant vocal art). together with weird rhythmic music completely on tape. a 4 year old boy (his grandson? his son?) joined him on stage and sang a bit, played/improvised a bit on harmonica. charming.
sadly enough afterwards i missed the drunk/doped DJ who fell of the stage, he and all of his LP’s/CD’s scattered all over the place. very limited stuff apparently, covered with beer…. a friend of mine had to help him to get back on his feet. rock’n roll
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damn …lucky UK Bastards …. but I find great consolation in this one: tomorrow I’ll be witnessing the glorious (so i hope) return of the legendary Caspar Brotzmann Massaker – original line-up!. Also on the bill: Ghédalia Tazartes (who I only know from name)
oh it was sweee-eet!
didn’t realise it was just a uk tour. surprising considering how well it seems to have gone. maybe later in the year…
anywas surely casper brotzmann makes up for this?
and oddly: the record i wrote about the other day by él-g, he has played with ghédalia tazartes. is it a solo gig or with friends?
should be quite the gig.
tazartes: i think it’s a solo gig.
concerning your él-g post, some nice prose you got going there, haha (even when i hardly know who colin farth is). will have a listen to él-g.
Vandermark was positive about the UK-shows, only the food they got was awfull
what a surprise!
colin firth: shit british actor. limited range. up for an oscar aparently.
the dutch complaining about british food?!? bloody cheek.
vandermark = amercan. that puts him perhabs even more in no position to complain.
and hell, who needs food when you’ve got pubs, pints of lager & beer nuts?
d’oh. should have read properly before jumping feet first into nationalist stereotypes.
yes, typically scottish!
(oops)
Caspar Brötzmann Massaker was totally awesome! Fookin’ hell! — return of a legend — completely insane!
heh. that’s what i like to see / hear. some unabashed enthusiasm.
was it loud? or LOUD?
and is there a new record on the way?
well … it was 100% intense all the way, even when they play quiet pieces. the drummer is also insane – very massive, strong drumming and very functional. they played old pieces, no new ones. but, considering their fantastic albums, that’s hardly a problem. the songs were performed very similar to the album versions, which confirms that Brotz has his delay/wahwah/feedback completely under control. every detail, every sound of his guitar explorations is sort of premeditated. the crowd went berserk.
tazartes: vocal acrobatics (mixture of eastern-europe worldmusic/avant vocal art). together with weird rhythmic music completely on tape. a 4 year old boy (his grandson? his son?) joined him on stage and sang a bit, played/improvised a bit on harmonica. charming.
sadly enough afterwards i missed the drunk/doped DJ who fell of the stage, he and all of his LP’s/CD’s scattered all over the place. very limited stuff apparently, covered with beer…. a friend of mine had to help him to get back on his feet. rock’n roll
sounds amazing!
not for the dj though…