Concert Review: Marc Ribot and Ceramic Dog at The Stone

So I’m interning for WKCR (89.9FM New York or online at wkcr.com) Columbia’s PREMIER radio station and also the first FM station (kinda). It’s wonderful. Good people and great music and a legitimate commitment to noncommercial and alternative broadcasting. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying learning  and listening.

I’m interning for jazz and new music. The jazz department is really top notch but also maybe a little pretentious. The new music department is very kind and weird and wonderful. During one new music listening session a senior department member put on Ceramic Dog’s album Party Intellectuals, and it was so cool. I’d enjoyed Ribot’s guitar playing many a time before (mostly with Ribot y Los Cubanos), but I’d never heard it quite like that. Ches Smith’s wild drumming and the wonderfully emo and weird vocals brought it all home for me.

Sunday I went with some new music department people to see Ceramic Dog at The Stone, John Zorn’s space devoted wholly to experimental music. The Stone is a magical place that was enthusiastically introduced to me by KCR folks the minute I announced my intention to pursue new music. It was as cool as promised.

The show was wild. I was thoroughly engrossed by Ribot’s ingenious playing and Ches Smith’s absurd energy. The vocals they did were also pretty cool. Some creepy whispered vocals done by Ribot were notable. Ches Smith though was conceivably my favorite part of the show. His drumming was unlike most drumming I’d seen / heard before just for its sheer constant energy. Also that fucking bass . . .

An Ode to a Dying Bay Area Music Scene Following a Tragedy

A fire at Oakland Ghost Ship last Friday (12/2/16) during an electronic music performance has left 36 people dead so far and many injured and missing.

“According to the Oakland Fire Department, this fire has taken more lives than any in the city’s history. And yet for many of us, these spaces are what have kept us alive. In a world that demands its inhabitants to be a certain way, think a certain way, or live a certain way, we gravitate to the spaces that say: Welcome. Be yourself. For the tormented queer, the bullied punk, the beaten trans, the spat-upon white trash, the disenfranchised immigrants and young people of color, these spaces are a haven of understanding in a world that doesn’t understand — or can’t, or doesn’t seem to want to try.”

I am so heartbroken. It’s been so confusing and hard to comprehend the news these past few days, especially living across the country. San Francisco Bay Area spaces like these got me through high school, and they’re so important. I truly never feel safer than I do at little diy bay area music spaces, and so this just feels like a slap in the face. I know that those who lost their lives or were injured in the fire likely felt the same way. I know they attended shows feeling safe within an inclusive and loving community of artists not scared of not up to code spaces. Media coverage that describes reckless children and seems baffled as to why anyone would attend a show in a “dangerous” warehouse is so fucking clueless.

For one there is almost NOWHERE LEFT. Where can small bands play in San Francisco? Where can we go to enjoy music for free or less than $8? For art to flourish there must be these little spaces, and they’re constantly being threatened. SUB/mission was forced to close, Honey Hive is constantly dealing with threat of closure, Bottom of the Hill has to fight developers and tech leeches who want to buy up all of San Francisco and don’t seem to realize they’re sucking all the life out of a beautiful thing.

But still art and music won’t cease to exist with nowhere to go. Beautiful things will be kept alive by passionate, beautiful people who are fighters and who care deeply. They move into the spaces that they can. Oakland Ghost Ship was a testament to the passion of wonderful individuals who realize that art is necessary for life and that inclusion is nessecary for art.

So please please don’t criticize or question the judgement of those who spend time at tiny house shows or in unfinished warehouses. Celebrate us and protect the few spaces we have left to enjoy music and feel safe and included. And PLEASE always always make and love art.

In honor of the dead and injured I will be writing a few follow up articles about my own memories of SF/Bay Area diy spaces and why they’re so damn important.

California

Everyday since the election I’ve woken up happy to be a Californian. Not only did we as a people soundly reject Trump’s bigotry and hatred, but our state legislature came together to draft a statement making it very clear that they will fight any attempts by the Trump administration to deport or discriminate against hardworking Californians. And we elected an extremely competent and inspiring woman of color to the Senate. And we achieved a super majority of Democrats in the state legislature. Annnd we legalized weed.

I’m even happier to have grown up a San Franciscan. Our troubled city that I doubt all the time was the bluest part of the whole state in the 2016 election.

Living in New York, I dream about Northern California’s rolling hills, clean clean air, rocky coast and evergreen trees.

So listen to Joni croon about California and thank god for Canada too.

Old Van the Man

Oh my this makes me laugh but also really happy. So cheesy but soo lovely. And Van Morrison’s voice is always awesome.

I can see him turning down the lights
Now he’s holdin’ her the way I used to do
Used to do, used to do
I can see her talkin’ ’round an’ tellin’ them lies
Exactly like she told me, too
Whoa, here it comes
Here comes the night
Here comes the night

Chick Corea and Gonzalo Rubalcaba

Sunday night I saw Chick Corea play with Gonzalo Rubalcaba at Blue Note jazz club in Greenwich Village. Chick is doing a residency at Blue Note for his 75th birthday party from October 19 thru December 11 which is incredible. Blue Note has even been advertising his residency as “The Greatest Jazz Birthday Party Ever.” I was skeptical of this branding, but it really was the greatest jazz birthday party ever, complete with Chick’s friends and wife, Gayle Moran, in the audience. The audience was also very into it–vocal and loud at the right times.

I don’t think there are two more fun pianists than Chick Corea and Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Chick is just WILD. He’s a favorite of my mother who knows far more about jazz than me, but this does mean that I’ve been exposed to some cool stuff thanks to her. She and my dad have seen Chick a few times before together, and my mom has seen him play with a host of incredible musicians (including Herbie Hancock, Bela Fleck and Bobbie McFerrin to name a few). They were both still extremely impressed by his performance with Rubalcaba on Sunday. The two piano gods played a few loosely planned pieces but primarily improvised and jammed together. However, what was perhaps unplanned fell together into beautifully organized and composed pieces. Chick and Rubalcaba communicated with each other impeccably and filled each other’s silences flawlessly. It was pretty magical hearing the two grand pianos together, played by such incredible pianists. It often sounded like one four armed virtuoso was playing not two separate musical minds. It was also a beautiful sight, the two huge, shining black pianos on stage in the shape of a ying yang.

Some highlights of the night were Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind and Fire coming onstage to sing with Chick, “A Spanish Song” (not to be confused with “Spain”), and Gayle Moran coming onstage to sing 500 Miles High (he played 500 Miles High!!!). The crowd also broke into “Happy Birthday” for Chick which was very lovely.

It was a wonderful night! Listen to some Chick Corea and revel in his crazy, unique, out-of-control playing.