SideNote: How I almost got to meet my hero at Classical Music Northwest

Rankly amateur mandolin player that I am, I've still got my heroes. Some of my favorite mandolinists in the world are Ricky Skaggs, Mike Marshall, Chris Thile and the late great Bill Monroe, may he rest in peace. So last night I'm at the Catlin Gabel School for the first time, excited to hear Chris Thile, a virtuoso of the highest caliber, really an absolute genius on the instrument.

After sitting down, the delightful elderly woman next to me asks why I'm taking notes. I explain to her that I'm writing for Northwest Reverb, a widely read classical music blog based in Portland.

‘What's that?'

I'm not sure if she means ‘what's NW Reverb?' or ‘what's a blog?,' so I break it down for her. After asking if she has a computer (she does) I write down the web address and tell her to just type it into her browser and go from there.

With the utmost seriousness she asks ‘how do we get more young people like yourself out here to these concerts? What can we do to get young people more interested in this great music?' (Or something very close to that.)

I tell her that that particular topic is of great interest for me as well, and explain a little to her about Classical Revolution Portland. She (as well as the gentleman she is with) seem absolutely fascinated by the concept behind it (playing classical music in bars, pubs, coffee shops, other very accessible (and cheaper) venues) and they ask how to find out more about it.

Fortunately for me, Mattie Kaiser, Executive Director of CRPDX and a talented violist, is sitting one row ahead of me. She perks up on hearing me talk about CRPDX and I hand the ball to her so I can read some program notes. Mattie then gives the woman a card, and since I don't have any cards (note to self: get cards!) I take back the paper I had given her and scribble down the Musical Oozings website as well as the CRPDX site for her friend. I then notice to my chagrin that I've got about a half a sheet of paper left in the notebook I'm using, and will have to start writing on the cardboard backing to finish this review. C'est la vie; way to be prepared.

A little about Mattie: in addition to her musical talent, she's definitely a ‘people person': loquacious, gregarious, self-confident, in short, uniquely suited to being an all-around musical gad-about, one of the many hats she wears. I know that she works behind the scenes for CMNW at the Kaul Auditorium shows. After the opening piece, a spectacular transcription of a Haydn piano sonata (click the link to read the actual concert review), Mattie pops back one row to sit next to Kristin and I. (We're sitting in the balcony and the view is quite a bit better from row two than row one.) And then I'll be damned if Chris Thile himself doesn't show up out of the blue and sit right next to Mattie.

Kristin and I exchange excited glances (we're both big fans) and yet, wanting to be nonchalant, I don't say anything, I just wait for Mattie to introduce me. Mattie had been talking about how she was hanging out with the Punch Brothers one night and they started a spontaneous jam, playing long into the evening, drinking and partying. Just as Mattie gets ready to do introduce us, the woman we had been speaking with before launches into a lengthy conversation which eats up the entire time left before the start of the next piece.

Never fear, I tell myself, I'll have a chance to say ‘Hi' afterward. So we get through the fascinating Adams piece (it was so assaultive at points that I wanted to stand up and yell 'bring it on!) and before I have a chance to say anything, Chris hops up and takes his leave, wanting to prepare for the opening of the second half. Never fear, I tell myself, a little less surely, I'll have a chance to meet him after the show.

So I sit there during the intermission, anxiously awaiting my second live performance of Brandenburg #3 in just a little over a week.

"I think I need some night vision goggles," I say jokingly, squinting at my cardboard notes in the dim light.

"Or some paper..." says Mattie, eyeing my makeshift writing surface dubiously. Such dry wit. Touche.

After a fresh rendition of the third Brandenburg, hoping (in vain) that Chris would come up and sit with us again, I get to looking at the next piece, a Sextet for Piano and Strings by Mendelssohn.

I turn to Mattie. "So exactly how much sex is there in a sextet? I've never been entirely clear on that..."

"Ignore him." That would be Kristin's voice, in my other ear.

Mattie laughs. "Well, you can have two threesomes, or three twosomes."

I think for a minute. "That's a lot of sex!"

"Ignore him." Again, a little more insistently this time.

Since when do I need a minder? I ask myself. Better not answer that.

The sextet was fantastic, very sexy indeed, and after the concert ends I look forward to meeting my mandolin hero. First thing I do is go out to buy the Punch Brothers inaugural release How to Grow a Woman from the Ground so I can get it autographed, hopefully by the whole band. Now that would be something. Mattie graciously says that she'll go backstage and see if Chris would be willing to come out and say ‘hi' for a minute, or if I can go backstage to meet him.

The first sign that things are not to go as planned is that there are no more CDs or ‘merch' of any kind out front; the lady selling them has packed up and gone. So Kristin and I are waiting outside by the backstage entrance for Mattie (and hopefully Chris) and I get to visit for a bit with her parents, who are also waiting for her. I introduce myself and they say ‘Oh...we know who you are. From the Baroque Bash.' My reputation precedes me...I hope that's a good thing.

So Mattie comes out a minute later and says Chris isn't back there, but he might be out front. Paul Kowert, the bass player, and Chris Eldridge, the guitarist, are there by where the merchandise table used to be, and they are apparently as confused as I am that it is no longer there. I get to visit with them for a moment...class acts all the way, very polite and humble despite their formidable musical talents. I wait around for a few minutes, but it becomes apparent that Chris won't be making an appearance.

So I decide to leave before I start to cry like a little girl. My disappointment must be painfully obvious; Mattie makes another crack (she's quick that Mattie; she can zing you before you know you've been zung) and Paul seems a little discomfited by the fact that I'm mostly waiting around for the big star, Chris Thile. I try to explain that it's just because I've been a huge fan for years and yada yada yada but I'm sure he's heard it all before. I hope I made clear that it was a great privilege to talk to them and I was in no way diminishing that.

Long story short I leave sans CD, sans having met my mandolin hero. It's not that I wanted to hang out (though I obviously wouldn't have minded) or become the guy's best friend. Just a simple handshake, and to say ‘thanks for all the great music, and you're really an inspiration to me.' Not too much to want, is it, to say ‘your marvelous playing is one of the things that keeps me going when I want to bash myself in the head with my cheap mandolin instead of play it when I get frustrated at my meagre skills (if such they can be called.)' Not that I ever dream of playing as well as he, but that's not the point: it's the inspiration, not the emulation, that matters.

I think my dissapointment was all the more poignant because of the fact that he was right there next to us and I could've spoken to him then, but didn't want to be rude and interrupt the lovely woman next to us who was chatting with him. Don't get me wrong; I blame no one but myself. I had my shot, and I blew it. I guess it's one of those things you just have to do when the opportunity arises: speak now or forever hold your peace, so the saying goes.

And so life goes on. Maybe I'll get a chance to meet Chris someday. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Concert Review: A night of Americana at Chamber Music Northwest

Chamber Music Northwest presented a satisfying, varied program of Americana on Thursday, July 2 in the Kaul Auditorium at Reed College. A number of artists were featured on this night that celebrated American music in honor of our Independence Day weekend.

Opening the program was John Williams' new work Air and Simple Gifts (2009), composed and arranged for (and famously pantomimed during) President Obama's historic inauguration ceremony earlier this year. Featuring David Shifrin on the clarinet, Jennifer Frautschi on violin, Fred Sherry on cello and Anna Polonsky at the piano, this moody yet joyful work aptly set the tone for the program to follow. After a brief introductory air the familiar tune came to the fore. Frautschi and Sherry played wonderfully; with a scaled-back yet spacious timbre that showed respect for this hallowed tune, they deftly handled Williams' tricky fracturing of the main motive between the two instruments.

Next came Leonard Bernstein's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, (1942), Bernstein's first published work as a professional. Bernstein himself characterized it in part as a 'student work,' and its sometimes unlovely yet never uninteresting structure was a sharp break from the opening. David Shifrin, clarinettist and artistic director of the festival, displayed the smooth, buttery elegance for which he is known, and yet infused his playing with a smarmy wit, very fitting for the non-sequitur interjections which spewed from the clarinet into the grumbling, harmonically complex base laid down by Polonsky the piano.

The half closed with a composition by Aaron Jay Kernis entitled Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby (2006). With the composer Kernis at the piano, Frautschi on the violin, Bryan Johanson playing guitar and Hyunah Yu singing soprano, this dense and complex work was a bit mystifying and suffered from some balance issues. Yu had a lovely voice but it seemed small, and she was frequently drowned out by the violin and piano, which did nothing to help with her diction issues. This piece might have been better served by a soprano with a bigger set of pipes, one willing and able to stake her place amongst the bullying strings, or failing that the violin and piano should have scaled back to fit the needs of the singer, who was really the centerpiece of this composition.

Given that, however, Frautschi was impressive all night long. The range of tonal colors she was able to elicit was exciting to hear, from high-pitched mewlings to a broad, viola-like singing. The guitar sounded nice when one was able to hear it, which was really only when nothing was coming from the violin and piano. Though Yu was drowned out far too often, there were moments of great beauty and emotionally intense import, and her murmuring glissandi and delicate, almost fragile ornamentation were important in bringing out the overall meaning of the piece. This work, especially the final lullaby, seemed ultimately overly-complicated and far too long to expound on the themes presented in the text.

The second half reverted to more traditional fare: a song cycle by Gershwin, and the same composer's Rhapsody in Blue arranged for piano, four hands. Yu and Polonsky teamed up for three of Gershwin's best-loved tunes: The Man I Love, I Got Rhythm, and Summertime. The first was a huge hit with the crowd, but it seemed as though her singing was covered, or muted unnecessarily. In the second tune Yu gave an extremely personable delivery, and it seemed that by the time she got to Summertime, everything fell into place. The last tune worked; her sultry tone and languishing, unhurried manner embodied all that this song is about. It was by far her best delivery of the night.

The Rhapsody in Blue was fun and a sure crowd-pleaser. Polonsky, playing with a sincere and entertaining physicality, was joined by Elizabeth Harcombe, and despite a bit too-heavy sustain pedal at first, they managed to find many of the right orchestral colors and were given a standing ovation.

The final piece of the night was a world premier by Rob Moose entitled New Old River Music: Traditional Melodies in Four Movements. This was performed by the Punch Brothers, a group that is hard to describe as just a bluegrass band (nothing wrong with that), though it seems that bluegrass is where they start...

Featuring young (though incredibly experienced) mandolin phenom Chris Thile, fiddler Gabe Witcher, guitarist Chris Eldridge, Paul Kowert on double bass and Noam Pikelny on banjo (joined by guest clarinettist Shifrin), the Punch Brothers served up a very different offering than the rest of the night's fare.

The first movement, based on Done Gone, began cautiously, with the main theme taken up alternately by fiddle, mandolin and banjo before exploding in glorious ensemble, with a free-flowing, improvisational feel. In the second movement (Midnight on the Water), the clarinet struck up a plaintive theme accompanied by a few ingeniously hesitant plunks from the banjo, and then the rest of the group came in for a surprisingly delicate arrangement. The song turned into a slow country waltz that began right where it started.

The Turtle of Laurel Lake opened with Thile's incomparable gossamer picking on the mandolin, the composition making use of the marvelous facility with which fiddle tunes transcribe to the mandolin. The movement delighted in its clever, untroubled ambience. Big Sciota sounded like slowly gathering drops of rain tinkling alternately from the different instruments in a very tricky pattern, rapidly gathering steam and making use of some surprising, satisfying harmonies and an incredible, judicious use of space. By the end, this ethereal framework had mutated into a good old-fashioned hoe-down like a bolt of thunder out of the blue.

The audience went wild for the Punch Brothers, who returned for an encore sans Shifrin to give a taste of the program being presented tonight, Saturday July 4th, at the same location. Fans of authentic, deeply-felt and impeccably performed American folk music with a twist would be hard-pressed to find a more entertaining concert.


Crossposted at NW Reverb.

Concert Review: PBO presents masterful Brandenburg concert

Oregon Bach Festival audiences were treated to a very rare treat on Monday, June 29th at the First United Methodist Church in Portland. The Portland Baroque Orchestra, one of the nation's premier early music orchestras and a guest ensemble at this year's festival, presented all six of Bach's famous Brandenburg Concertos under the sterling direction of Monica Huggett (who did triple duty as violinist and violist as well.)

These works were composed over a ten-year span while Bach was still a young man, and presented to a music-loving (though ultimately ungrateful) prince, the Margrave of Brandenburg. They represent Bach's foray into the Italian concerto style, and like so many of his efforts they are uniquely his own and yet stand as one of the crowning achievements of the genre. This review shall present them in the order in which they were performed at this concert.

Concerto No. 1 in F Major, BWV 1046

Carla Moore, violino piccolo, Debra Nagy, oboe, R.J. Kelley, Paul Avril, natural horns

Right from the start, and continuing throughout the night, Huggett set positively brisk tempos, and these lent the works an air of excitement and forward momentum. The opening Allegro felt like it was played by a German festival band, what with this work being in some ways the most 'un-concerto-like' of them all in that there is very little in the way of clearly defined separation between the concertante (soloists) and ripieno (supporting orchestra.) The horns, as Bach no doubt intended, set up a somewhat awkward honking that stood at odds with the smooth texture of the tutti. Kelley and Avril played well, with a minimum of the warbling and quavering which seem to be a natural part of the old valveless brass instruments. The second movement (Adagio) was delectable, with Moore and Nagy engaging in a skillful badinage between the oboe and the feisty violino piccolo, tuned a third higher than the regular violin. In the third movement this small instrument was unfortunately too-often drowned out (as were the brass and winds by the fearsome choir of strings in the first.)

This first concerto stands alone in having four movements, and the fourth presented the most delightful moments of this first concerto: a main menuet theme repeated three times, separated by three sections in which the horns and oboes played alone their own menuets and a Polacca while the ripieno stood silent. The brass and winds were superb in their presentation of these savory, dancing vignettes, while the ripieno varied the da capo menuet dynamically upon each of its returns.

Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050

Monica Huggett, violin, Janet See, flute (transverse), Boris Kleiner, harpsichord

The most virtuosic display in a long evening of such displays undoubtedly belonged to Kleiner, who in the first movement executed the extremely difficult harpsichord solo with crystalline clarity. (Huggett's performance in the Fourth Concerto rivaled Kleiner in this respect.) He segued seamlessly in and out of the dual roles of continuo and soloist, and when he reached the long cadenza all in the room, orchestra and audience alike, remained in awed, respectful silence while Kleiner absolutely tore up the keyboard, a wistful smile of amusement on his face as he played the triplet passages with fierce rapidity and yet cautious delicacy, mindful of the delicate filigree that Bach had provided.

The second movement, marked Affetuoso, was splendid, structurally simple and yet full of the sighing, weeping baroque pathos that is a hallmark of so many of the slow movements of Bach's works. Huggett, See and Kleiner played this trio with marked clarity, infusing it with tender, sombre sentiments without becoming maudlin or overly slow.

Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048

The opening movement of this concerto, again with no real concertante and ripieno sections, rather featuring three trios of strings and continuo, was perhaps the most perfectly executed movement of the entire evening. It was thrilling to hear live a performance that was on par with any of the best recordings that I have ever heard of this work. To use a sports analogy, everyone in this group was 'in the zone,' and the relatively straightforward melodic structure that Bach employs was tossed off from one trio group to the next, constantly moving, always perfectly deployed. The ritornello, or refrain, to which Bach keeps returning over and over never became tiresome--in part because of the breathless tempo that Huggett employed. Each group pushed it forward, and everyone played fearlessly--individually, as a trio, and in aggregate.

In the second movement Huggett engaged a Corelli-esque singing tone in her playing, and the third movement saw a return to the lightning-quick prestissimo of the first. It is hard to imagine this work played any faster than the PBO took it this night, and yet due to their countless combined years of skill and dedication there was no sacrifice of accuracy or interpretation. Concerto No. 3 was perfect.




Concerto No. 6 in B-flat Major, BWV 1051

Monica Huggett, Vicki Gun Pich, viola, Tonya Tomkins, violoncello

The only real intonation problems of the evening occured as this work opened the second half. It took a dozen bars or so for the group to settle in, both in terms of synchronicity and pitch center. When it did however, the rich, low sonority, aided by the violone and pair of violas da gamba in the continuo, lent this work its uniquely lush character: gallant and philosophically almost post-baroque, especially in the third movement despite the archaic strings for which it was scored. Huggett and Gun Pich really communicated with one another admirably after the slow start, and by and large this concerto was presented with exceptional unity by the small string band.

Concerto No. 2 in F Major, BWV 1047

Monica Huggett, violin, Kathryn Montoya, recorder, Stephen Bard, oboe, Guy Few, trumpet

In this concerto, arguably the most popular of the group, Bach most closely adheres to the concerto grosso style--that is, a clearly defined concertante that is distinctly separate from a supporting orchestral cast. And what a concertante it is: four disparate instruments forming a group that could rightly stand alone without the backing of the ripieno--in fact it is thought that the music for the concertante was originally written as a stand-alone chamber sonata for those instruments.

The nobility, complexity and virtuosity of this concerto can hardly be overstated. That great nineteenth-century Bach scholar Philipp Spitta rhapsodized thusly about the opening movement: "...How it goes past like a troop of youthful knights with gleaming eyes and waving crests! One [concertante instrument] begins a joyful song which echoes through the tree-tops in the forest; a second and a third take it up, and their comrades chime in in chorus...anon it is heard for an instant, and then wafted away by the wind and drowned by the fluttering of the leaves."

The blend in the concertante was warm and mellifluous, and unlike portions of the first concerto where the horns and winds were sometimes drowned by the strings, the soloists stood apart and there was no problem distinguishing them from the group. Even the recorder, so easily subsumed, was by and large lucid and easily heard. However, at least at the start this movement was the only part of the evening where the tempo seemed to pose somewhat of a problem, as occasionally the soloists seemed to be in a hurry to catch up.

The second movement, a dirge-like sonata a tre for the concertante (minus trumpet) left naked the soloists, demanding of them a scaled down sensibility, a focus drastically narrowed from that required by the rollicking introductory movement, and they responded with the artistry one would expect of this group. The third movement again returned to a blistering tempo, and Few managed a fiendishly difficult part for a fiendishly difficult instrument with admirable grace.

Concerto No. 4 in G Major, BWV 1049

Monica Huggett, violin, Kathryn Montoya, Debra Nagy, recorders

This concerto was very fitting as the grand finale, and it allowed Huggett to shine in a demanding violin solo that approaches any of the ferociously difficult concertante written by the great concertoist (himself a masterfully adept violinst) Antonio Vivaldi. Huggett displayed the expertly channeled ferocity and daring showmanship that is her trademark style, fitting for one who considers great rock 'n roll guitarists among her foremost musical idols. The recorders played beautifully; a finespun, pastel duo, but they were unfortunately too-often swallowed by the ripieno. I don't know how much of this might be attributed to the vastness of the sanctuary at FUMC; I noticed no such problem with these same works in the very different acoustic space in the PBO's two-concert presentation at First Baptist last year.

During the finale Hugget left everything on the floor. In the spirit of Spitta's fantasy, I might say that like Euterpe Huggett impelled her instrument to call out heroically each time the ritornello appeared--sallying forth as though a daughter of Boudicca, leading the throng back into the fray for rally after rally after rally with unflagging leadership and razor-sharp determination.

The thorough professionalism and informed artistry demonstrated by the soloists and ripieno in all their various combinations throughout the evening were very impressive. The daring, the brashness that came to the fore all throughout this presentation of some of the most difficult works in the orchestral baroque repertoire left in this reviewer nothing but the greatest respect for these rarest of performers, an admiration and a local boy's pride for the beauty and wonder that the Oregon Bach Festival and the Portland Baroque Orchestra bring to the world.

Sources:

Philipp Spitta--Johann Sebastian Bach--His Work and Influence on the Music of Germany, 1685-1750. (First published in German 1873; first English translation 1884.)

Martin Geck--Johann Sebastian Bach--Life and Work. (First published in German, 2000; English translation 2006 by John Hargraves.)

Guarnieri Quartet Mesmerizes at CMNW Festival

Thursday evening, June 25, saw the renowned Guarnieri Quartet play the Chamber Music Northwest Festival as part of their farewell tour. After 45 years together, 2009 will be their last season.

Reed College’s Kaul Auditorium was full to capacity to hear them play two late Beethoven quartets, No. 12 in E-flat Major and No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 127 and 132 respectively. These deeply pensive works seemed somehow fitting for a farewell concert.

From the exclamatory opening chords of the No. 12 onward, the Guarnieri Quartet (violinists Arnold Steinhardt and John Dalley, violist Michael Tree and cellist Peter Wiley) displayed the masterful ensemble playing for which they are known. Their ability to generate a rich and complex depth of sound often gave the impression that there were more than four instruments on stage.

Certain moments stood out as particularly exceptional. In the Adagio, cellist Peter Wiley was able to bring a delectable, murmuring melodic motive up from the depths, retreat until it threatened to fall back into the dense harmonic texture and then suddenly bring it forward to make its presence felt once more. There were times his singing timbre made it sound as though a second viola had entered. During the Scherzando, the entire group played a galloping mezzo-staccato couplet theme in perfect unision, drawing the full melodic meaning from this difficult texture. The old joke that Beethoven was the greatest composer who couldn’t write a melody was put to lie; the challenge is to find and draw out that melody, and this group certainly did that whenever it was called for.

Opening the second half with the A Minor, the playing in parts of the first movement seemed a bit restrained, almost rote. This was soon remedied by the extreme, intentionally jarring dynamic contrasts of the Allegro ma non tanto. The middle of this five-movement work, the Molto adagio, was sublime and absolutely magnificent. The GQ interpreted the many different shades of this long, meandering segment with the utmost skill and dexterity. At times it felt forward looking, an almost Dvorăkian hymn to the splendorous, wide spaces of America. At other times it seemed as though Beethoven was quoting the main theme from Pachelbel’s Canon, and the GQ captured this sensitively, rendering a warm, woody intimacy that called to mind a chest of viols from a far earlier era. Their superb interpretation, their ability to intuit the spirit of the many different musics Beethoven seemed to be invoking was rapturous, and the auditorium felt breathless and transformed as the movement died away to a whisper. The Guarnieri Quartet plays at Reed College again tonight, featuring a concert of late Brahms, including the famous B-Minor Clarinet Quintet featuring Festival A.D. David Shifrin on clarinet.


Crossposted at NW Reverb.

CD Review: bitter sober EP

I first heard bitter sober at the Portland Pride fest two weeks ago. I had gone into the party to take a break from the parade when I heard this all-girl band up on stage with a lead singer whose expressive, beautiful, warbling voice immediately captivated me and would not let go. I watched them play until they were done, even waiting through an interruption from a hideously loud marching band (I'm not sure but I think it was probably March 4th) making its exit from the parade under the Morrison Bridge. Her voice immediately called to mind Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, one of my very favorite new bands that I've heard in the last five years (I gush about them whenever I get the chance.) While her voice did remind me of Karen's soulful honesty, the music was not similar at all, so I bought the cd and look forward to reviewing it.

I'm not familiar with Sarah and Tegan, the group they seem to get compared to in some of the other articles I've read about them. Just as well I guess; I didn't become hypnotically addicted to this music almost instantly just because they reminded me of someone else; it was lead singer Sherry Soto's fucking phenomenal vocals that hooked me in and wouldn't let go. The CD is short and over far too soon, but I guess this isn't much of a CD review anyway. I love every song on it simply because Sherry Soto is singing it. Check out the MySpace page linked above if you've any interest in hearing her amazing pipes.

CD Review: Handel's 'Samson'

Carus Verlag recently released a new three-disc set of Handel’s titanic oratorio Samson, featuring Nicholas McGegan again teamed up with collaborators the FestspielOrchester Göttingen and the NDR Chor, as well as a bevy of world-class soloists. Although only three years old, one can expect many great things from the FestspielOrchester in the future; under McGegan they have released three Handel works on the Carus Verlag label: Acis und Galatea, Solomon, and now Samson.

The story of the biblical hero Samson proved fertile ground for Handel’s boundless imagination, and there are few as well-equipped to realize Handel’s vision in our day as Nicholas McGegan.

Thomas Cooley, singing the title role, delivers a mixed performance in this release. While technically never less than precise, some of the arias, especially on the first disc, come off as just that—technical. While such precision is admirable, if it is not accompanied by sympathetic emotional interpretation, it may come off as dry, a risk that runs particularly high when singing works from the Baroque. Alto Franziska Gottwald, in the important role of Micah, has a voice that is heavy and oft overbearing.

The great advantage to a work of this length is that even if some portions occasionally suffer for want of interpretation, there is so much to hear that it is worth listening to that the less satisfying segments do not detract from the overall enjoyability of the presentation. One Cooley aria in particular, ‘Thus when the sun,’ is truly exceptional, a breathless moment of reverie as Samson contemplates the fate he must now know awaits him, the punishment for his treachery coupled with the bittersweet redemption for failing his God. Cooley here displays a true emotional verité, encapsulated within yet never confined by the stylistic strictures of the baroque. Soprano Sophie Daneman as Dalila provides a welcome respite from the largely lower-range and dark-timbre voices featured in this oratorio; of particular delight is the rich, argumentative duet she sings with Samson, 'Traitor to Love!'

McGegan and the FOG are absolutely spectacular—in addition to the the flawless accompagnato skills they bring to the table, the sinfoniae that are scattered throughout exhibit crystalline perfection and could stand alone. The NDR Chor is as able and exact a baroque choir as one could want, and their English diction (for a non-native speaking choir) is superb. Early music lovers will find everything delightful about the baroque era in this three-hour epic masterpiece.

Cross-posted at NW Reverb.

Old Hat: Sasquatch, the rest of the Story. The Queer Spirit of Rock?

Spencer Moody and The Murder City Devils

So now for the backtracking to the two acts that impressed me the most: The Murder City Devils and Jane's Addiction. Sandwiched in between them was Nine Inch Nails. I've the greatest respect for Trent Reznor--he turns out a lot of music that people really enjoy and has many other talents as well (including acting as peacemaker between perpetually feuding JA bass player Eric Avery and frontman Perry Farrell on their current NIN-JA tour...get it?) From a strictly aesthetic point of view however, there is plenty of NIN that I just find boring as hell. I was glad to hear them play Hurt, my personal favorite song of theirs, and one that (if there's anyone who doesn't already know this) the Man in Black himself Johnny Cash thought so highly of that he covered it on one of his last releases before he died. (Here's a link to a high-quality video of Cash's cover. Worth checking out.) And of course they played Head Like a Hole, the first song that I (and I expect a good many others ) ever heard by them. The first time I ever heard the term 'industrial' used as a musical style descriptor was in reference to NIN and Ministry back in the late 80's.

What impressed me so much about about the Murder City Devils was not just the quality of the show--although they did rock, playing their dirty, alcoholic garage punk with just the right mixture of control and fuck-it-all abandon, despite the fact that lead singer Spencer Moody was drunk off his ass. I'm never sure whether or not MCD are actually together or whether they just reunite occasionally to play various shows; maybe it's some weird combination of the two.

Perry Farrell, god of rock 'n roll hedonism.

At any rate, right from the start Moody began challenging the audience. Moody and the rest of the band members have never been shy about their bisexuality; their album art has photos of them cannoodling in a decidedly non-platonic fashion, Moody has talked about it at length, about how people wonder if they're gay, straight, bi, whatever. On Saturday he immediately called out all the homophobes in the audience, asking them how they liked coming to a show with a bunch of faggots up on stage.

The Seattle Stranger has some direct quotes, like the one here: "A lot now, we play these shows in front of a lot of people, and I see a lot of gross, disgusting high school jocks in the audience. But what we do is for all the beautiful faggots, and the rest of you can all eat a big bowl of wet dicks."

Or there's this gem: "I may be stepping out of bounds, but all the heterosexuals in the audience, all the straights, can just turn around and face the other way. If you don't turn around, I'll accept that you're homos, just like all of us up on the stage."

Well I didn't turn around, I stared facing forward, not only because I love these guys and I love Moody's fearless- in-your-face confrontation, but also because I'm totally queer--I've been bisexual since...oh, about birth or so, so I strongly identify with bands like MCD (and JA) who openly embrace their queer sides.

Perry and Dave

I don't agree with the actuality of Moody's attempted segregation of the straights and the queers but he made an excellent point: it was exclusionism, an exclusionism that he foisted, or attempted to foist upon the audience. It immediately called to my mind, as hopefully it would any other thinking person, the current battle for marriage equality (a battle which by the way us queers and our allies ARE WINNING bit by bit and will continue to do so until our second-class status is a thing of the past nationwide. Get ready Fred Phelps , soon those faggots will be holding big queer weddings in Westboro, KS. OK; enough ranting. I'm planning on starting a NEW BLOG (the working title at this point is 'Random Crap') wherein I can give voice to my many non-musical thoughts.) By the simple act of telling the straights to turn around it was sort of like a 'lesson' in reverse-discrimination. Straights can get married, gays can't. Gays can continue enjoying our show, straights can't. A pretty simple, straightforward narrative.

Was it effective? Who knows. As far as I know none of the band members are totally gay, I don't even know if they are all bi. I don't expect that Moody really thought everyone who was still watching them was gay, nor do I think for a second he was trying to insult straight people for being who they are. Taunting and baiting the audience, challenging them mentally, intellectually, physically, is one of the oldest tricks in the punk rock playbook; direct audience involvement, a breakdown of that 'third wall.' It certainly was in homage to that punk rock tradition, but there was no doubt there was a larger point being made.

It got to the point where some audience members were actually getting up and leaving, as he repeatedly taunted jocks, straights and homophobes, asking them why they listened to faggot music. "Who the fuck does this guy think he is?" said the jockish-looking young kid in front of me who stood up in disgust and left with all his friends. It was fucking brilliant--I was cheering and hollering the whole time. All throughout the set, in between songs (he even jumped down from the stage and made out with a random guy in the audience, who blogged about the experience in the comments section of the above-referenced Seattle Stranger article) he cajoled, cursed, taunted and insulted, to the point that (probably for the best) his bandmates started playing over the top of his rants just to get the next song started. Good times; that's what I call some real rock 'n fucking roll.

(Just for fun, here's a link to some pictures of the hapless straight couple that got caught boning on top of the hill during the Decemberists. The Seattle Stranger links seem to always take some time to load but they're worth checking out.)

The festival headliners came later that evening: I've seldom been as excited about seeing any band as I was about seeing Jane's Addiction. To understand why, I feel like I must digress from my prepared remarks to talk a little about why THIS band means so much to me.

My history with Jane's Addiction is much deeper, much more profound and tied up emotionally, with my image of who I am, of from which tradition(s) of the pop-sub-culture jungle I hail. The first time I ever heard of them I must've been about 16. I had joined the Sony tape club...the kind where they sent you one tape a month and you had to pay for it no matter what? Well one of them that I picked was Jane's Addiction's Nothing's Shocking, a band whom I'd never heard of before and knew nothing about. Still, the cover art was a picture of naked siamese twin chicks sitting on a bench with their hair on fire, so I figured 'what the hell.'

I got it and listened to it a time or two, and I think it was a little beyond me at that point. There are some other bands that I just didn't 'get' the first time I heard them (the Pixies come to mind immediately) but to whom I returned years later and became a passionate fan. I got into punk rock listening to dubbed tapes that I got from my friend Glen who was in 8th grade when I was in 9th, who in turn got them from his punk friends Max and Guy (with whom I became friends later.) By the time Nothing's Shocking arrived in my mail box and I'd determined it wasn't really quite for me (although the refrain of 'sex is violent, sex is violent, sex is violent' on Ted, Just Admit It was intriguing to my virgin ears) I traded it to Max for a copy of britpop band The Primitives Pure that I think was a little too tame for him but which was right up my alley (and which I still love.)

(NOTE: The next little bit is a big digression. Skip to the end for the short version of why I love Jane's Addiction so much.)

A few years later saw me beginning my life as a hard partier after abandoning the Jehovah's Witness religion of my youth. They 'disfellowshipped' (excommunicated) me shortly before my 21st birthday because of my remorselessly hedonistic ways: such as getting wasted all the time, smoking pot, throwing raging keggers at my house, fooling around with women who weren't my wife, etc. I fell under the category of the 'unrepentant sinner.' (I'm still thinking about getting that tattooed somewhere someday...) One night I overheard some coworkers talking about Perry Farrell while they were giving me a ride home from work. I innocently asked 'who's Perry Farrell.' I still remember the chick looking at me (she was also the first person whom I personally knew as openly bisexual; 'I like the hotdog and the taco' she told me once) with disdain in her eyes and saying, "Ever heard of a little band called Jane's Addiction?" I nodded yes. "Well he's the lead singer." 'Nuf said, I guess.

But when I really became a fan was shortly after that. The first time I ever took acid I didn't know what to expect. I took a hit, waited a couple hours, took another one. Went over to a friend's apartment and this girl we called Grim was decorating the walls with these glow-in-the-dark fingerpaints, and had the black light on. (Everyone seemed to have weird nicknames. I had two: 'Puker' and 'Fireball.' Fortunately for me neither of them stuck.) That's when I noticed that the insanely interesting shapes painted on the walls were resolving themselves into the visage of a kindly, bearded old man, and they were moving, sliding down the walls like an effervescent river of light. I went into the other room where the light was on and wondered why the hell my hands were changing colors, going from blue to green to red to yellow, and why the stuccoed ceiling above me was churning and frothing like a boiling pot of mud. I wondered why I was suddenly feeling ridiculously happy, more overjoyed for no reason than I had ever felt in my entire life. And that's when I noticed a simple guitar riff coming from the other room, accompanied by the bongos. My friends Haystack and Patterdale were playing the main riff from Jane Says over and over again. Or were they really? How many times did they play it? Who really knows. All I know is that the tune wrapped around me like a fuzzy blanket, calling to me like the calm burble of a river heard from far away.

After that Jane's Addiction became a staple of mine, and will forever be intimately entwined with the psychedelic phase of my life; I mean I was a real space cowboy for a few years there. Acid, mushrooms, plenty of weed, copious amounts of booze, pills, other drugs that I don't like to admit to; whatever came my way I took. Strange, strange times, days where unimaginable terror and inexpressible joy sometimes resided one right next to the other. I went for four months without wearing shoes once. Grateful Dead shows, Rainbow Gatherings, hemp fests, rock fests, lazy days of nothing, classes and work thrown in somewhere amongst all the partying.

There was this time when we drove over the hill (we lived in Bend) and took some strong acid (orange and pink blotter, if I recall correctly) before sneaking into the Cougar Hot Springs one night. It started to kick in real fast; by the time we were done staggering down the trail through the forest in pitch blackness I was very in-tune with the universe but couldn't seem to manage a coherent sentence. There were a bunch of Hindu hippies there, burning low-light torches so we would hopefully not get busted by the park rangers (now that would be a bummer)...I spent the evening feeling very sensual, surrounded by penises and breasts and asses and Eastern religion...there were chants and dances and the aligning of chakras...I felt all the atoms in all the stars in the universe as I took a handful of sand and, underwater, passed it over my legs and let it carress my skin, more intimate and pleasurable than the touch of any lover I had ever known...the trees above my exploding eyes rained a river of paisley down on my head, dripping onto my face like a melting soft-serve ice cream cone beneath the whirlpool stars..the smoke from the torches and steam from the waters swirled around us, dappling the torchlight into shadows that took forms as real as my own and then they disappeared slowly as the morning inexorably crept into our world...we took an empty bottle of Henry Weinhard's Boar's Head Red Ale and filled it with warm water, taking turns pouring it over one another's heads and beautiful, naked young bodies, still too high to feel any self-consciousness, passing a bowl of good ganja around as the long comedown began. 'The brethren of the pool....is the brethren of the pool!' was our motto, one of those ridiculous phrases that means nothing to anyone who wasn't there but summed up all of the feelings of that incredible, indescribable evening to those of us who were there, melded in mind and spirit and taking psychedelic voyages to the undiscovered, paradisaic tropical isles of the psyche.

Eric and Perry

And once again...Jane's Addiction was there. After the trek back to the main road, a trek which saw two random hippies riding on the trunk of my car, passing a steamroller of cannabis in and out of the window as we cruised down the road, we made our way back to Bend (sans random hippies, whom we dropped off at the main road to hitchhike to wherever they were going.) We all piled on an immense bed and ate fried egg sandwiches that Scotty made, and we watched JA's film Gift, a sad, strange, beautiful homage to heroin addiction, as the overworked synapses of our crusted brains finally shut down and we drifted off to sleep in a big pile, the late morning sun warming us like the benevolent smile of Apollo through filthy, cheap windows...

Other random connections that make JA important to me is the fact that my cousin Stacey used to hang out at Scream (a punk club in LA where Jane's Addiction got their start) and she's hung out with Dave Navarro (who she said was cool) and Perry Farrell (who she said was a dick) before they were big.

Back to the rock fest....

I saw Perry fronting his new project Satellite Party last year when the opened for Smashing Pumpkins. I was glad that they did a bunch of JA and Porno for Pyros tunes but it still was nothing like seeing JA, all of them together. Perry is the consumate showman, and knows his audience well. He uses phrases that endorse psychedelic exploration (long now a thing of the past for me) and the expanding of consciousness (something I'd like to think I continue doing without the use of chemicals) and the embrace of sensuality, of Bacchanalian hedonism. "Being here with you all is making my dick hard,' he said, without any trace of false modesty or rancor. He urged us to take out our cocks and play with them as we visited each other's tents, saying that it doesn't matter how big it is, but, he joked, it never hurts to be....

Ocean Size....

So they played lots of good tunes from Nothing's Shocking, Ritual de lo Habitual and of course the self-titled debut album (which we usually called 'Triple X' in honor of the record company that released it.) Nothing from Kettle Whistle, not even City, my favorite non-studio-produced JA tune.

It was the radical comparison between Spencer Moody and Perry Farrell's approach to the whole queer question that really struck me. I guess there's really no 'question'...some of us are queer, some aren't. 'It's just the way I'm wired,' my friend Scotty used to say, and that's a phrase that's stuck with me for a long time. It is, indeed, the way I'm wired.

As Spencer insulted, cajoled, challenged, so Perry incited, lured, enticed. There is a time for both, for fighting and loving, for....oh never mind. No need to rhapsodize. In the words of the immortal Forrest Gump, 'that's all I have to say about that.' I'm queer, so love me or leave me. I'm learning to do the former.

ENDNOTE: Props to Wikipedia; I directed all my links there as the lazy man's way out. Good info there, sometimes not enough, sometimes too much, other times erroneous or hagiographic. It's a good place to start if you're interested in something.

Blurry photos: better than nothing. It's hard to take good pictures after drinking for 16 hours.

Drunk-o-vision...

The true spirit of rock? Sasquatch Music Fest Part 1: Everything but Jane's & the Devils

It might seem an odd thing to attach the term--'the true spirit of rock' to a gig like the Sasquatch Music Fest. Nothing against it specifically--after the heyday of the touring rock fests like Lollapalooza, Lilith, Warped, etc., in the 90s, a new dynamic of large, annual regional rock-fests came to the fore: fests like Sasquatch, Bonnarroo, Austin City Limits and Coachella (to name a few) filled the gap as the novelty (and some would say overall quality) of the touring fests petered out. (Zack Adams, Festival Founder.)

But the true spirit of rock? Does that coincide with $9 cans of shit beer, with countless thousands of impossibly beautiful, impossibly thin, impossibly white twenty-somethings traveling from around the country on their parents' credit cards, with loudspeakers blaring about the great deals from the Verizon Wireless booth?

You get the idea. In one sense, Sasquatch is nothing but a giant money-making machine, over-charging you for everything and blowing pop-culture smoke straight up your ass to try and make you feel good about dropping a grand on a three-day long music festival.

But sometimes, something squeaks through. Something honest, sincere, direct and in-your face, something that cuts through the frilly shit with the focused intensity of a laser beam and hones in on that rarest of commodities--the truth. The naked, raw, brutal truth, observed from varying angles and displayed, even if unintentionally, for all to see. That happened for me, and for a lot of other people who were most definitely not comfortable with it, outside of George, WA on Sunday night.

I won't write a review of every artist I went there to see, maybe just a brief rundown so I can get to the meat of what I really want to write about. Truthfully I missed a lot of bands that I either vaguely knew of (most sadly for me I didn't catch Gogol Bordello) or wanted to hear because of the buzz surrounding them. Here's a laser beam of truth for ya: I missed them because it was so goddamned hot and cloudless, and I had to sleep off my morning drunk in the early afternoon each day and decided to do that at my campsite instead of at the fest.

I wanted to see Vince Mira, whom I wrote about in my review of last year's Sasquatch fest, but he was the opener at noon on Saturday so I had to miss that. New acts to me that I did catch were Animal Collective, who played a lot of spaced-out psychedelically tinged ambient rock that I thoroughly enjoyed, and Silversun Pickups, who (despite the fact that I really like their big radio hit Lazy Eye) bored me to tears with a pukey brand of distorted emo. I also saw The Decemberists again (unfortunately.) I know they are the most important band from PDX in the world right now, and I wish I could like them simply for the sake of hometown solidarity, but I've seen them twice now and I just can't stand them. I will allow that there were actually one or two songs of theirs that seemed alright this time, but these wimpy, heart-on-your-sleeves crooning singers (like the guy from Silversun and the one from Death Cab for Cutie) just make me want to drop a steaming-hot microwave burrito down their pants and then kick the crap out of them. And I'm not a violent man.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were a big reason I wanted to go this year: they are perhaps my personal favorite brand-new band that I've discovered in the last five years or so. I've got the raging hots for their gorgeous lead singer Karen O, and their songwriting is fearlessly original, even if her voice does occasionally sound like Siouxsie Sioux and some of their music is reminiscent of one of my favorite bands of all time, Throwing Muses. If ya gotta have influences, they might as well be good ones. Karen O had great energy and they rocked the place hard, and I even enjoyed their heart-aching love ballad Maps (the song that turned me onto them in the first place) despite the idiot girls behind me singing loudly through most of the song. Guess what? I know all the words too, and could sing it just as loudly as you can, but I wanted to hear Karen O sing it. Thanks a lot for ruining that for me you self-absorbed idiots. Thankfully someone shut them up before they ruined the entire song.

Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Despite their compelling story and one or two songs that I enjoy, headliners (all four of whom are brothers) Kings of Leon didn't really excite me. They seemed to play well enough, but the next day even seasoned KOL fans remarked about how lacklustre the performance was, so it's no wonder it didn't catch the attention of a marginal fan like me. Seattle's Fleet Foxes sounded good although at that point I was hiding in the few feet of shade afforded by a rickety wooden fence, desperately trying to avoid the merciless afternoon sun. TV On The Radio impressed me yet again with their strange electro-soul rock. I don't know that I'd rush out and buy any of their CDs, but I've seen them live twice now opening for other bands I wanted to see and I've liked them both times.

I watched this poor bastard wake up...he was still too loaded to care.

Erykah Badu was the main reason I stayed for all three days; she was the penultimate act of the fest, right before the Monday night headliner Ben Harper, who I can most definitely live without. I've loved Ms. Badu since I first heard her. She does hip hop with a huge dose of soul, jazz, blues, r&b and gospel influences, spinning it all into an incredibly entertaining, intensely personal style that I just can't get enough of. When I listen to her songs I always get the feeling that I'm sitting at the front table in a smoky bar late at night, it's dark except for the blinding light shining on the diva onstage three feet away, and she's singing right to me.

And diva she was...she ran a very tight ship and it showed in the results: a very tight blend of very complex, multi-layered music being performed by an eight- or nine-piece band. She's known for her fashion sensibility and I loved her bright, super-shiny pleather pants with big silver zippers all over them, her gray Public Enemy hoody, which hood she was wearing underneath a shortish stovepipe hat. Still, I couldn't help but think that her band looked vaguely terrified of her most of the time: they were playing good music but it didn't seem like they were having much fun. She ran that show like an Irish nun at a Magdalene laundry. (I think since I'm Irish I'm allowed to make that joke...)

Ms. Badu's always comin' for real...

So I ended up not even staying for the whole set. The call of a real bed and the dreaded thought of having to be at work 350 miles away at the crack of noon the next day pulled us back to the Wild Horse Campground (seriously--this is the place to stay if you are ever camping for a show at the Gorge. Take the time to make reservations as soon as you buy your tix.) Just as we finished packing up our super cool camping neighbor Liz got back; we had been planning to stay and leave early the next morning, so she was bummed we were leaving. I hope she gets ahold of me; after a long hug I gave her my name and told her to look me up on Facebook.) We took off, stayed at a motel in Yakima and were out early the next morning.

(More on that whole 'true spirit of rock' thing in the second installment when I write about the two main acts I wanted to see this year: Jane's Addiction and the Murder City Devils.)