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Bang
on This
By
Paul Rapp
Bang
on a Can Marathon
Mass
MoCA, July 26
I’d seen Bang on a Can at Mass MoCA a few years ago, a twin
bill of Indonesian wayang theater and Eno’s Music
for Airports. I reacted as one normally would to a group
that first played second-fiddle to shadow puppets and then
played some pretentious fake muzak. As a result, I haven’t
been moved until now to go to one of their legendary marathon
concerts. But legendary minimalist composer and musician Terry
Riley was going to be there, and they were going to play some
Zappa compositions. Well, OK, let’s go.
The six-hour show was comprised of 14 pieces, performed by
14 different configurations of BOAC veterans and a mess o’
talented students who’d been working with BOAC over the prior
three weeks. It was a casual vibe; the audience was encouraged
to circulate in and out of the Hunter Theater; there was a
cook-out in the courtyard, and food and drink were welcomed
back in the theater. I learned that, contrary to popular belief,
beer and ice cream do go together, if the conditions
are right.
The program was already in full-swing when we arrived. After
a few quiet-to-the-point-of-being-ponderous selections, we
were assaulted, in a good way, by a killer piece: N’Shima
by Iannis Xenakis, performed by two female vocalists, two
muted trombones and two muted French horns. It was tribal
without the tribes—the sound of nature unhinged, with the
horns sputtering and quacking while the vocalists blasted
deep, guttural noise-syllables in perfect synchronization.
It was shocking, it was in-your-face, and it was beautiful.
Next up was Terry Riley’s 1964 piece Olson III, in
which a 13-piece ensemble played mesmerizing, shifting and
contrasting quarter-note patterns in 3/4 time, demonstrating,
almost comically, Riley’s overarching influence on Philip
Glass, and again featuring the female vocalists, now numbering
three, who sang aggressively and remarkably in one voice,
even when they were harmonizing, like a post-modern version
of the Lennon Sisters.
A little later came what was easily the highlight of the marathon:
a performance of Shelter, a seven-movement piece written
by BOAC principles Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, and David
Long, performed by a large ensemble, including three percussionists
and a not-shy electric guitarist, with surreal and impressionistic
film projected on the big-screen backdrop. The whole thing
was just stunning. The first movement, especially, was riveting,
with the women singers, who at this point were my heroes,
now singing with flat voices in close dissonant harmonies,
in the style of the Bulgarian State Radio & Television
Female Vocal Choir.
Then came the two performances that drew me to the show, which
were both disappointing. Terry Riley’s improvisation piece
clocked in at a short seven minutes, and consisted of Riley
noodling at the piano while throat singing, with four BOAC
members, trying, and failing, to figure how they were supposed
in improvise with that. Then the Zappa pieces were
attempted by a large ensemble of the BOAC students, who simply
weren’t up to the task of playing Zappa’s complex, demanding
music. It was just a big mess.
No matter. If the program had consisted of the performance
of Shelter, followed by five hours of ducks farting
into a funnel, it would have been worth it. Can’t wait ’til
next year.
A
Good Folk
Vetiver
Valentine’s,
July 26
Valentine’s seems to be working its way onto the freak-folk
radar. Last year, footage of an Akron/Family show at the venue
made it onto the DVD supplement for the band’s album Love
Is Simple; and, as Vetiver front man Andy Cabic confessed
on Saturday night, his own band’s return has become downright
“cyclical.” And why not? Like Francis in Ironweed,
Vetiver’s songs are built to ramble, and Albany’s not
a bad bet if you’re hungry for a hot bowl of soup.
It was with great chutzpah that the San Francisco quartet
opened their set with the softest ballad of the night. A far
cry from the mannered psychedelia that kindred troubadour
Devendra Banhart dispenses, Cabic’s folk is decidedly unfreaky.
While most who get slapped with the freak-folk tag spurn it,
Vetiver could easily retreat to the realm of traditional folk
with their bent toward the homespun and sepia-toned. As three
quarters of the band hail originally from North Carolina,
Vetiver’s allegiance is clearly stronger to Appalachia than
Haight-Ashberry.
Played through a charming vintage amp, Cabic’s guitar was
warm and yielding. The rhythm section showed the sort of restraint
that is equivalent to blazing chops, and guitarist Sanders
Trippe sprinkled the perfect quantity of riff and high harmony
on top. As Cabic sang about rainbows painting pictures in
his mind, his band did just what any folk outfit ought—cradled
their singer’s voice and rendered the images he described.
Despite having recently released an album of cover songs,
the band stuck for the most part to its back catalogue. “Oh
Papa” brought the tempo to a place where drummer Otto Hauser
could really stretch out. With a delicate touch and the adventurous
sense of a jazz drummer, he tastefully fractured the song’s
substrata at its highest crescendo. Four years back, Cabic
announced, Hauser had come see the band play at Valentine’s
and asked to sit in with a tiny hand-drum. He stuck every
single change and has been a member of the band ever since.
And it’s a good thing. The interplay between Cabic and Hauser
rivals that of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche at their
best.
Throughout the evening, though, it was Cabic’s honeyed voice
that owned the stage. Free of all baroque embellishment, it
crackled like a phonograph recording of itself. Sporting his
trademark Greek captain’s hat, Cabic seemed to have stepped
from another time. Before “driving on through the country,”
he stood alone for one last tune about the good times. Then,
like a character from one of his songs, he moved “Farther
On.”
—Josh
Potter
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No
Rain, No Gain
Photo:
Leif Zurmuhlen
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After
a round of showers pushed their start time back by an hour,
folk-pop chanteuse Aimee Mann and her band fought off
the rain, to the delight of the fans assembled for Monday
night’s concert in Albany’s Washington Park. Much of the large
crowd waited unmoved through the brief downpour, and they
were rewarded with a slightly abbreviated set that drew heavily
from Mann’s latest disc, @#%! Smilers, but also featured
selections from her six other solo discs, including a stripped-down
“You’re With Stupid Now,” and “Save Me,” her Oscar-nominated
song from the Magnolia soundtrack.
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