King Sunny Ade at the Belly Up! Eric Nielsen 6.17.9

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Nikka Costa at The Belly Up Chris Dier 6.15.9
I must first acknowledge that it was a Sunday night, and the end of a very long and stressful weekend. I was in need of transiency and a major change in perspective. I was looking forward to this show remembering the raw sexuality of Nikka Costa’s performance six years ago. I needed to be taken elsewhere.

Perhaps it was because it was a Sunday night performance, or the Lakers were winning the championship, but I have never seen the Belly Up so empty. I had room to stretch out, put my feet up and move my way across the floor without rubbing asses (or bellies in my case). The club was disappointingly only about ¼ full. Their loss is my gain right?

The opening act was JD Webb, who according to his bio should have been much better. His performance was self indulgent, egocentric and soulless, a major flaw for a soul singer. He was completely disconnected with the audience, and seemed disinterested in his performance. Vocally, his back-up singers out performed him. Enough said.

The crowd grew, still only about ½ full, in anticipation of Nikka’s entrance. From the first note, the vibe changed. The line between audience and performer blurred. Everyone on stage grooved. Everyone in the audience grooved. This is what I needed. more

Larry Jon Wilson - S/T (Drag City) Eric Nielsen 6.14.9
This sweet, precious, simple, aged voice and guitar simplicity draws you in. The outlaw country mellowed by time in an intimate setting that sounds like it was recorded in his living room with a couple of friends helping on the board. Confident guitar and words worth listening to make this a great listen.

Some simple fiddle is the only other sound on the disc besides the voice and acoustic guitar. If you like the classic Willie and Waylon, you'll get into this. Gently delivered The Whore Trilogy starts with Larry talking about going back to Hazel's, as the guitar hovers within the intro of the song. You get another voice responding about the Hazel comment and the purposeful leaving in of this dialouge is something I love. It's a statement of the moment, a sort of reality proof. more and a nice youtube

Bachelorette, Pikelet, Adam and Eves (Adam Powell), and Endless Bummer at the Che Cafe Krista Nielsen 6.2.9
We received the newest Bachelorette cd My Electric Family a few months ago, and its been a super nice inclusion to our iTunes rotation. Highlights are The National Grid (track #2) and Mercurial Man (#10), both offer interesting dynamics and time-changes. Technology Boy (track #5) is so catchy, it'll stick with you all day.

Bachelorette

I wanted to see the band live, wondering about the visual experience. Tuesday night at the Che Cafe on the UCSD campus, we arrived at 8:15pm, just in time for Bachelorette's sound check: Mac laptop, two women fronted, and a drum set in back. They checked one of the songs from the album and it sounded super nice right away. more

Waterboarding is Torture LB Nielsen
This uber-conservative (Mancow) who has been in favor of "enhanced interrogation techniques" rapidly concludes that this is torture. And that is in a friendly environment where he is warned before they start and decides when it ends.

Editors note: If you don't think the US was engaged in torture still you must watch Standard Operating Procedure. If you have Netflix you must play now.

Fischerspooner at House of Blues Chris Mutter 5.21.9

If you've never seen Fischerspooner perform you've been missing out. I fell into that category until last night when I was enlightened. My eyes were opened by a show unlike anything I've ever seen before. 

The stage was set with four large mirrors which flipped the audiences perspective and gave the illusion of looking out into the crowd from backstage. In addition to the mirrors was a stadium sized video screen displaying rehearsal footage which, in appearance, was so raw yet so amazing compared to what was happening on stage. more pics and review

New York Dolls at the Belly Up! Keith Boyd 5.21.9
What is Rock and Roll? Is it the three chord stompers that Elvis bequeathed to us for the past fifty years? Is it a look? A drug? A style? I guess there are as many answers to that question as there are people you’d care to ask. For me the ultimate reply is that I may not know what it is but I know it when I see it and tonight …I SAW IT!
The New York Dolls are such an unlikely comeback story. To think that years ago they were sweating away in clubs laying down the blueprint for Punk, Glam and sleazy Metal (think Hanoi Rocks, Guns-n-Roses, etc.) to a largely uncaring public and now thirty plus years later can pick it up from where they left off and go is mind boggling. more review and pics

Sound is God: La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and The Just Alap Raga Ensemble perform with Charles Curtis at The Dream House in New York's Guggenheim Museum ~  The Third Mind - American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860 - 1989 Eric Nielsen 5.19.9

Stenciled words at the entrance read, "Please be advised that the levels of sound and light in this environment may alter your psychological state."


Godfather of Modern Minimalism, La Monte Young, held the premiere of "Raga Sundara, vilampit khayal set in Raga Yaman Kalyan" performed by The Just Alap Raga Ensemble in a setting of Marian Zazeela's light installations at New York's Guggenheim. This Indian classical Raga was taught to La Monte and Marian by Pandit Pran Nath and, infused with original compositions and multiple drones in harmonies written by La Monte, debuted at these two performances.  The Raga Ensemble is seven performers including cellist, instructor, and Ocean Beach resident Charles Curtis, who has collaborated with Young since 1986.

Charles, a world class cellist as well as a professor of contemporary music at UCSD, not only collaborates with some of the most famous composers in the world, La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier most recently, he also has an extensive list of local San Diego artists he has worked with, including Pall Jenkins, Ilya Monosov, Joshua Blatchley, dancers Justin Morrison and Leslie Seiters, Dan Bryant and Mia Ferm, Michael and Liz Kaufmann, Jeff Thayer and Brian Chen of the San Diego Symphony, pianist Aleck Karis, and his colleague and neighbor Anthony Burr, clarinetist and composer, with whom he works very closely. more

Mogwai at the Belly Up! Eric Nielsen 5.17.9
All hail the hessians. San Diego lives. Existential soul filled the sold out room on Friday night, and my friend tweeted about feeling alive again. There were no soulful guitar solos, no heartfelt lamenting vocal wails. Instead it was a cold, positive absurdity. It ranged from the pop of Air vocoders of Killing all the Flies to the barn burning set closer that locked in and rocked the same riff for what was an eternally blissful forever of lights, action, camera, descent, into a dark UK hole.

Entranced by the lights and the massive volume jumps and dumps, we all closed our eyes (not much visual action by the band members, but plenty of lights). Folk Death '95 lulled listeners into loaded delight before the ever present foot stomp, volume pedal jump made famous in SD when we were the next Seattle. The big experience of Mogwai are these rushes of existential light brought about, not by the usual ushers of soul, but by a palette of sound delivering a slow build of repetition that the whole room felt build and could time the fucking climax all together.

Like a Massive Attack exponential, from across the pond came waves of sound and across the crowd came winds of volume blowing our hair in a Hollywood photo shop kind of way. The guitars and keyboards barely were discernable as the number of pedals at each station numbered past the teens. The guitar was very reminiscent of Ilya with the massive delay, fast strumming. The keyboard and bass held most of the clarity like the beginning of Auto Rock and was soon awash with a crashing ocean of sound like the waves and the entrance to the Who's Love Reign O'er Me. more

New York Dolls – ‘Cause I Sez So (Rhino Entertainment) Keith Boyd 5.12.09
It’s been said in many different ways that there are no second acts in American life. So often the taint of scandal or changing tastes leave celebrities from any number of fields (music, film, politics, etc.) washed up on the shores of their broken egos nursing various addictions and schlepping themselves on reality TV. Thankfully there are exceptions to this scenario and such is the case with the New York Dolls. Formed in the creative melting pot ghetto of the early 1970’s New York music scene, The Dolls were a gleefully trashy lipstick smear on a drab time. They presided over the transition from the fading Flower Power era and stood in as transvestite prophets heralding the coming ground swell of Punk. Two amazing albums, a few tours, horrid mismanagement and a host of drug/alcohol problems later it was all gone. As their second album predicted it was “Too Much Too Soon” and the spinout was strange, lovely and sad. Johnny Thunders, after making his mark with a variety of Punk and 1950’s inspired combos died of a drug overdose. As evidenced in the amazing documentary “New York Doll” bassist Arthur Kane slowly descended into an alcoholic haze. First drummer Billy Murcia died early on of drug and alcohol related causes then second drummer Jerry Nolan died of a stroke. This left only Sylvain Sylvain and David Johansen who carried on through out the next two decades in a variety of ways. Johansen’s post-Dolls career has been a testament to the deep reservoirs of creative energy the man possesses. From his prescient lounge/cabaret act, Buster Poindexter to his wonderful folk/blues work with his band The Harry Smiths David Johansen has remained active, vital and productive. Sylvain Sylvain played with his group The Criminals as well as in various lineups with David Johansen through the years. more

The Avett Brothers w/ Magnolia Electric Co. at the Belly Up Eric and Krista Nielsen 5.10.9



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Wooden Shjips – Dos (Holy Mountain) Keith Boyd 5.11.09
Whenever a band releases a new album music critics wet all over themselves looking for signs that the artist has “progressed”. In countless reviews I’ve read the phrase “treading water” to negatively denote a band staying within a certain signature sound. I guess I get it. Mining a known quantity can be a sign of artistic stagnation and the results can often times sound boring. On the other hand constantly seeking out the new can end up with music that is rootless, shallow and equally lacking in flair. I suppose the heart of the matter comes back to the artist/band in question. The trick to making it work is a balancing act. Just as many great visual artists can be identified by a brushstroke or their use of light the key is to have a unique set of skills but use them in a variety of ways. This need that critics have for constant novelty is a bit of a sickness really and it falls apart completely when a band finds a deep sonic wellspring to explore. Such is the case with Wooden Shjips and their excellent new album, ‘Dos’. more

Crack of Dawn by Eric Sorensen

UCSD ArtPower - Compañia Nacional de Danza 2 - Without Words, Duende, and Gnawa - Dance by Duato
by Krista Nielsen 5.5.9

The music was traditional, Debussy from early 1900s of flute, viola, harp, and string orchestra, setting a sweet, romantic, classical tone to the evening. Dancers, from a single performer to possibly 15 or 16, moved across the stage throughout the performance, formulating shapes, emotions, and telling stories with their bodies. Neutrally dressed and at times, seemingly almost nude, the dancers translated the instrumentation into ballet-like beauty juxtaposed by humorous, quirky formations. En pointe shifted to flexed feet, fluidity to odd yet interesting patterns of bodies rolling, sliding, tip-toeing, quick then slow into meaningful positions.

Occasional snaps and claps broke the silence between the music and the dancers, whose arms and legs entwined into angles, lines, and shapes. The female dancers held strange empty smiles as they wrapped around the men's bare chests; innocent yet in control. more

Matisyahu at The Elemental Experience Eric Nielsen 5.3.9
I couldn't get to the show until late and managed to get there just before Matisyahu played. I've been promoting this show for a good month with Will from Roll Call Entertainment, since it supports such a good cause: raising money for the homeless youth of SD. Having worked with the homeless for two years in SD, I know these children need our help. The show raised over $32,500 for the cause, though I'm not sure exactly how the money will be appropriated (I'll try to follow up).

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SD Dragon Boat Festival 2009 Eric Nielsen 5.3.9

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Acid Mother's Temple at the Casbah Eric Nielsen 4.28.9

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Django Fest 2009 - The Laguna Beach Festival of Arts Forum Theater - Jessica Fichot and Andreas Oberg with Gonzalo Berara Keith Boyd 4.27.9

This was a great show with a few surprises and a touch of the atmosphere that perhaps keeps this music from reaching a broader audience or makes it so that the primary venue to hear it is at festivals instead of the clubs. Jessica Fichot and her band OWNED IT!!! She was so great. She played a toy piano and accordion and she sang in French, Chinese, Spanish, Russian and Arabic! All of her songs were superb balances of French “chanson” styles and an originality that drew from but didn’t imitate folk music from around the world. There was an edge of cabaret to her performance and all the while it was sweet and sexy and light hearted and scary and just really perfect. more

Rob Crow, MC Flow and Mr. Tube and the Flying Objects at Sight and Sound Eric and Krista Nielsen and Marc Gentry 4.25.9

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Sir Richard Bishop - The Freak of Araby Eric Nielsen 4.24.9
Not for the faint of heart, The Freak of Araby battles me into a listen and compels me to head bang in a middle eastern style. All of our fucking wars in the middle east have brought some of that culture home. Blood-Stained Sands gets me to some intense desert world of creatures, seances under full moons and wicked, red skies. Super hardcore, blazing fire pits surrounded by dancers while others are sacrificing/severing an animal in the dark ritual. It's a rich seven and a half minutes of other-worldly power, opening doors to dimensions unseen, charming snakes and souls. A break down of inhibitions, a chakra shaker.

Sir Richard performed at The Che recently, opening for Tara Jane O'Neil, and I was aghast at the audacity of his solo guitar playing. It was mostly blues/troubadour with an outlandish over the top approach to the guitar of a million notes a second with some kind of singing that I didn't connect with. After the show, I was able to talk to him some, get an angle inside of what was going on in that guitar processing head space, and he's actually a mellow cat, opposite of his all or nothing guitar. Prior to my listen of his new disc, The Freak of Araby (Django reference from a Django freak), a surprise is what I was looking for. Something special that blows away anything I'd imagined, or so different that it strikes my brain in a memorable way. And, The Freak doesn't deny this desire as a relentless guitar dominates this disc. The frequencies of the guitar are often brittle and sharp like breaking pieces of glass stuffed inside my ears. They ride high over the background drums and bells. Of course the manic guitars are all over almost every song, especially Kaddak El Mayass, but there is some great dialing down and dynamics throughout. more

Interview with Matisyahu Ed Moller and Eric Nielsen 4.21.9

Check him and his band out on 5.2.9 at The Elemental Experience.

At what point in your life did your faith reveal itself to you? Obviously your spirituality is a big part of what you do.  
I have always remembered believing in God. When I was 16 went into Colorado mountains on a backpacking trip and I remember starting to get in touch with a certain void or vacant feeling. Later that year I went to Israel and began to sense the eternal ancientness of the Jewish people and God.

Can you elaborate on how you write songs/lyrics with this in mind?
Music and song is the expression of what I am. There is no such thing as keeping it in mind, it just is. Ups, downs, faith, pain, struggle, joy. It is all God. Music is the expression of it all wrapped up and smeared together.
 
What is the recording process like for you?  Are there any tricks or secrets you care to reveal?
Recording is about emotion, precision, focus, and the ability to let go. It's like taking a picture. What really matters is where you at before you get to the studio. Ya know?
 
If you could play on stage with anyone living or dead, who would it be and why?
There is no band that I am more excited to play with then my current one. It is a new band I put together consisting of the Dub Trio and my long time guitar player and friend Aaron Dugan, and keyboard player Rob Marscher. The sound is unique and uplifting. The
musicians are humble and good listeners which is the main skill in being amazing musicians. more

Jozef Van Wissem – It Is All That Is Made (Important Records) Keith Boyd 4.17.09
Back in the olden days it used to be that you could tell a lot about a record from its cover. The artwork on an album would lay out signifiers of what to expect, the artist’s intent or give further ambience to the proceedings. While this is probably still true to a certain extent, the trend in recent years is to go for either extreme glamour shots or to be obscure unto the realm of pointlessness. There are exceptions of course. Bands such as SunnO))) and Acid Mother’s Temple are still making wonderful covers full of great art, bizarre in-jokes and atmosphere aplenty. Indie and homemade labels are by far the best champions of good cover art and it is from that milieu that we get Jozef Van Wissem’s excellent new disc, “It Is All That Is Made”.

Released on independent powerhouse Important Records, this disc sports an amazing cover that serves to highlight the music inside and give us a clue as to the artist’s intent. The cover is a creamy off white paper with a church window portrait in the center of Mr. Van Wissem with his instrument of choice the Lute. The photo is done in a grainy gray/sepia and features the artist wielding his lute like some manic Heavy Metal guitarist laying down a riff. To round out this pose there is a very prominent leather and stud bracelet on Van Wissem’s left wrist. This is Baroque gone Iron Maiden and it works both visually and thematically. more

Stoked On WAVVES: SD-Centric Exploration/Assessment From A Fun City/Illadelph Vantage Point (Fat Possum) 04.17.09 David R. Stampone
Since WAVVES left San Diego to tour the world early this year, a raging brushfire of giddy acclaim and some reactionary disdain has swept across the blogosphere, scorching up more traditional media as well. No artist from the 619 (area code) has ever garnered anything quite like it.

The flames were considerably fanned when, on February’s first full weekend, WAVVES debuted in New York City with three shows -- blog-touted, well-attended and later rave-reviewed in the New York Times -- before a month of sold-out dates in Europe, then a dozen shows in four days at Austin’s South By Southwest music confab, and subsequent gigging across North America.

Yet the buzz began late last year, when Nathan Williams, under the name WAVVES, began offering his home-recorded solo guit-noise-pop tunes for posting on various blogs, including his Ghost Ramp (where, notably, a recurring feature has been his strikingly erudite musings on hip-hop, embedding memorable YouTube clips and giving historical context -- in effect, likely producing SD’s best classic rap blog). NY label Woodsist soon put out his self-titled debut album. Accolades ensued and anticipation swelled for the second full-length, Wavvves (yep, extra “v”), released on March 17 by much larger indie label Fat Possum. (Advance copies had been flying around the internet for weeks). Reviews of both albums were mostly positive, many invoking Los Angeles duo No Age for their similar vox/guitar/drums-making-gnarly-pop orientation: more

Akron/Family - Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free (Dead Oceans) Eric Nielsen 4.16.9
The new Akron/Family disc is coming out May 5th and it's their first without guitarist Ryan Vanderhoof who went to live in a Buddhist Dharma Center Tsogyelgar/Flaming Jewel (or so the story goes) sometime in 2007. Following up on that story sounds more interesting than reviewing this record. Mentioning this first allows me to talk about the disc in this context, because so much of the music is similar and has so many of the same elements, yet it's so different without him. Not only is it their first disc without Vanderhoof, it's also their first on the Dead Oceans label (home to SD locals The Donkeys).

OK here's my premise and it's a tough one to play out. Remember the album Boces by Mercury Rev and how amazing and dark and dirty and mysterious it was? And then David Baker left the band and they had a transitional period into their kind of Disney soundtrack sound? Well that's what I feel like has happened to Akron/Family and this new album. When they were working with Gira and Young God records, there was this air of mysterious beauty. That has now changed, leaving something missing. All the elements of the band are still there, but it's so much less chaotic, so much more mainstream, and without the fantastic dynamics of the earlier records. Sorry to say, but compared to the earlier albums, it's almost boring (I absolutely adore their earlier albums). Nothing on this release touches the craziness of Raising the Sparks from Akron/Family Angels of Light album. more

Ah Pook is Here N Fiitzpatrick 4.7.9

Bergamot Station, the former Santa Monica city recycling plant has been hosting massive art openings for almost twenty years now (however it may soon end as LA County might return it to its original purpose as a transit station once the Expo lightrail reaches there). Saturday's art openings were quite the crush of art lovers in search of free booze and good art. A good time was to be had for all cruising about six galleries. My fave was at Samuel Freeman with Thierry Feuz's "Monsoon." It was described as "a mixed media;botanical wonderland." The field of flowers were colored only on one side and begged one to get down to their level to examine them. Perhaps the biggest draw of the evening was Track 16's show of 95 year old Sam Cherry's photo series on San Francisco's legendary Black Cat Cafe. His series concentrated only on 1940-42. A center of queer expression long before The Castro it is also the bar Keroauc describes in "On The Road." His photos also included Charles Bukowski from the 1960-70's in Los Angeles. The highlight of the show was most likely the West coast debut of "Ah Pook is Here." Entitled the "Loat Art of Ah Pook is Here," it's the collaboration of William Burroughs and Malcom McNeil's graphic novel which was issued in 1978 after being partially finished. It's on tour about the USA after being hidden since then. Some of the illustrations are twenty-five feet long and quite a treat for any fans of either artist. "Monsoon" will be up till May 9th and the Track 16 show till May 2nd.

Acid Mothers Temple and The Melting Paraiso UFO at the Echo Eric Nielsen 4.5.9
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The Head Cat (Lemmy from Motorhead and Slim Jim Phantom from The Stray Cats) and Thee Corsairs - Brick by Brick Keith Boyd 4.5.9

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Maquiladora - St. Cecilia's Drowning Review from PopMatters by Dave Wheaton
I’ve never been to the desert. The American desert exists in my imagination only, from art. I think of cowboy songs, or Jonathan Richman’s song: “Why does the desert make my heart go thrum? / Well, the Martians land there / And they’re not dumb.” Colorful, but it neither conveys how unusual, even unsettling, a place the desert can be. Not like the spellbinding music of the California-based trio Maquiladora. Across their five albums they depict the desert as a strange place and embody that strangeness through the music itself.

The double-disc set St. Cecila’s Drowning reissues the second and third of those albums, 2000’s White Sands and 2002’s Ritual of Hearts, with bonus tracks. White Sands opens with harmonica, dust in the air, and then singing, strained in a starry-eyed mystical way and weary in a been-wandering-in-the-desert way. The instruments head off-key and the singing meanders, but a solid song still emerges. “Prostitute Song” it is called, and even if you can’t follow the lyrics, they convey a different desert than the conventional image. A reference to the smell of piss jumps out. “Julian”, the next song, is sung with a Tom Waits-like harshness. Again little is crystal-clear, but there is a very specific sense of journey: “Heading forward / Trading questions / A thousand nights in one”. The music is pretty: light, almost jazzy, and dreamlike. But it’s also sad, and the song reveals itself to be a requiem, or at least a song of loss, crying for the title figure. more

Hockey Moms at South Park Walkabout 3.28.9
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Tindersticks Coming to The Henry Fonda Theater in LA Friday Night Eric Nielsen 3.11.9

If you haven't had a chance to check out Tindersticks' The Hungry Saw, the 7th album since their inception in '91, you really should. It's contemplative, tender, gentle, soothing and well crafted.

They are playing their first shows in the US in over five years on this tour and it will be really interesting to see them pull off the sound live. Their timeless songs will make for a great evening of beautiful music.

This UK band has an underground following with an appetite for tasteful arrangements. It's great sit down European music lush with the smoky vocals of Stuart Staples and warm organ sounds.

Batsheva Dance Company at Mandeville Auditorium Eric Nielsen 3.1.9

My lack of history with modern dance mattered not, watching the Batsheva dance company Thursday evening in the Mandeville Auditorium in La Jolla. The energy in the room was electric as the lights faded up on a packed room entranced by the group from Israel. The show began with Matrix type movements, so beautiful, slow, and deliberately layered into fascinating body sculptures of the purest intent. It was fantastic brilliance through the bodies of five men and five women. How can I fully explain the magical feeling that streamed through my soul? Perhaps that of an excellent concert, when your mind is completely lost and contemplating life, disappearance of ego. more

AC Newman and Dent May at the Casbah Chris Mutter 2.27.9
AC Newman’s performance at the Casbah on Wednesday night was good but not great, interesting yet not intriguing, and strong while being far from powerful. The music was there, a good blend of vocals and instrumentation, which really came together during the performance of “All of My Days and All of My Days Off.” The passion was there, as you could tell that the band was happy to perform and really appreciated their fans. While there isn’t really anything bad to say about the performance, or the music, AC Newman just failed to inspire.

The real gem of the night was unearthed by the performance of Dent May, whose ukulele fronted band shined like a diamond in the middle of a rough long week. At first sight Dent May looked like the nerd you used to sit next to and cheat off of in high school chemistry. As the set progressed there was the realization that he was probably the coolest guy in the room. The sound was what you would expect if the Beach Boys covered Weezer’s “Pinkerton.” The songs were light hearted, fun, and sprinkled with comedy. Dent May was the perfect cure to an otherwise bland Wednesday night.

Set up for Drew Mulholland's concert at Glasgow University on 1.28.9

photo by John Cavanagh