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Well I know this post is long overdue – but I have been busy with losing my job and my mind and what else…

Fever sick from a throat infection, I made my way to Bimhuis to see what I had been looking forward to for months, in fact my expectations were ridiculously high, and with my condition in mind how could the quartet of Moppa Elliott (Bass), Peter Evans (Trumpet), Jon Irabagon (Sax) and Kevin Shea (Drums) not disappoint?

They could by setting the standard for how Free Bob should be played by a new generation of players, that takes there references from a lot of different places than jazz.
Consisting of two hour long sets, and the shortest encore I have ever seen, MOPDTK made there way through a number of band leader Elliott’s compositions and a few standards, one of which was said to be John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme “, but I am not sure. Nothing unusual i this, however the treatment the quartet gave these compositions was of an exploding kind, and most of the time letting them so loose that someone like me, who knows the songbook quite well, was unable to recognize anything.

As a band leader and composer Elliott takes a very humble position on the quartet, hardly ever bringing focus to himself, and playing next to no solos on the upright bass. On the contrary, drummer Shea was not shy of bringing attention to himself, not afraid of claiming his space and having the brass duo wait for him to blow off steam before they could kick in with a theme or a solo, only to take everyone by surprise, by when given space to go wild being almost silent and quite frankly a bit silly, culmination with leaving the stage behind a curtain only to return without trousers. This was to great amusement to the audience and the rest of the quartet, but hardly an unexpected turn for anyone who has seen Talibam! (Shea’s dou with Matt Mottel) live.

MOPDTK really got around and played loud uptempo and wild improvisation as well a beautiful thematic passages and more lowercase improv. It was not always the disciplined tightness that reigned and there were passages of less interest, but the high were incredible high, justifying the more dull moments.

Saturday night was full of great surprises. After having decided not to go out I changed my mind and went with Jacob to Korsakoff for the concert of photographer Dennis band which I have no idea what is called. We were 20 minutes late, which wouldn’t have bothered me, if it wasn’t for the fact that they were surprisingly great. My initial thought was Codeine with a more fragile vocal, but I am not sure that it does them justice – but at least that gives some kind of picture.

Luckily afterwards Aynouk convinced us to join the rest at the party at OT301, which was fun and cheap, and more or less everyone was there. The high light was however was not the cheap bear but the DJ’s who were great and played both Battles, Gang Gang Dance and Juan Maclean.

The rest of the night I was too drunk to remember

Sometimes you are reminded why you keep on going to concerts; that it is not just seeing these people, who made those records you have, in the flesh. It of course makes perfect sense when you go to a concert of improvisational nature, but what about a rock concert, where they are merely playing the tunes?

This was the fourth time I saw Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, and it was the fourth experience – if anything links the performances – it must be the desire to open up the music, to show how the songwriting and the songs are not static, but something that you can bend and shape, to fit the tour or even then mood of the night. Thus I think I heard the fourth live version (excluding recorded versions) of my all time favourite Bonnie song, Nomadic Revery from the 99 album I See A Darkness.

To me the concert started out rather peculiar with a song(?) that I have never heard before. The notable thing was that a simple sentence was divided between four voices forcing the listener to pay attention to get any meaning out of it. Naturally this reminded me of the approach by me and my friends in koordinat for our multiple voice poetry readings. The show continued with a gem from the Palace songbook; The Brute Choir, in a version not unlike the one found on “Greatest Palace Music” and I was already happy and texting Filip: “…and I never held someone so sweet”.

Next high was when Will Oldham (dare I write this?) put away his guitar and did a duet with the female singer and violinist for “what are you?”. Other highs of the concert was classics “Gulf Shores”, “Ease Down The Road” and “A Minor Place”, and newer songs “The Seedling”, “Cursed Sleep” and “Beware Your Only Friend”. But the most uninterrupted joy was the three songs of the first encore: “In Spite of Ourselves” as a duet with Susanna, already mentioned Nomadic Revery, and finally the devotional I’ll be Glad. The crowd wouldn’t settle for this and the show ended with another encore and the cover of R Kelly’s “Worlds Greatest, hmmm…..

After a few drinks at Sid Lee’s I was meeting Denise to see Bram Stadhouders play with full band to support American singer/songwriter Dent May. The Korps is a sextet, that includes Bram’s duo improv partner Onno Govaert on drums, David Hoogerheide on keyboards, Harry Cherrin on saxophones and flute, Santiago Botero (yes I know what fellow bike riding enthusiasts are thinking now – but the answer is no!) on electric and acoustic bass and Claudia Hansen on percussion, has a somewhat Northern feel to it – though I might be saying this because I know the guys share my liking of Scandinavian improvisers.

As the case with fellow youngster Valerio Cosi, the Korps seem to move freely between composition and improvisation adhering to neithor. The set was made up of the loose compositions, but players were able to maneuver within those. The turning point is Stadhouders airy guitar picking that has the same tropical feel like the works of Manual, and the mood in general is not unlike what you would find on early Arve Henriksen records. However the group did stray into heavier and more dense territory with varying success putting them closer to the post rock discourse.

To fully enjoy the music though a quieter space than the one of Bitterzoet would be preferred, but the mixing was close to flawless, so even though the quieter moments drowned somewhat in the noise of the bar you were still able to enjoy them.

The setting seemed to suit Dent May a little more. Today a two piece act with May on Ukulele and whatshisname on percussion. It started of pretty cute in a I-am-just-singing-this-little-silly-song-about-love kinda way, not very far from some of the most enjoyable moments on Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs – but it never went anywhere from there and frankly just got a bit tiring at the end. Anyway I was not there to see Dent May in the first place, and I expect that he did what it is he does to the best of his abilities, and the in flux of semi-nerdy teenage girls didn’t seem to mind.

http://www.bramstadhouders.nl/
http://www.myspace.com/dentmay

As house rules dictate, I was going to switch off the flash on my camera, to prepare to take photos of drummer Rashied Ali’s trio with bassists William Parker and Charles Gayle on saxophone and piano, but alas that ended up being the last action of my camera apart for the display changing to blue screen with the message: Battery Empty. So once again no photos for this blog – I thought – but no! – camera phone to the rescue, and it appears that the inability to zoom aside, the camera in the phone is actually more suited to take pictures in the dark.

Update: G’verdomme I cannot find the cable to extract the photos from my phone.

I cannot help it but my initial thought when the three players entered the stage was Rolling Stones, these multimillionaire guys that get unlimited praise for keeping on going, while not unimpressive, Ali: 73, Gayle: 69 and youngster Parker: 57 flew in the same day at 8 am, and couldn’t get a hotel bed until a couple of hours later and still played for almost 2 hours, sometimes at incredible speed.

First set started in a rather traditional manner with Gayle soloing on the sax over the rhythm section of the other two, then leaving the stage and bringing the attention to Parker and ultimately leaving Ali alone with his drum kit. More interesting was the middle part where all three players interacted. Parker is definitely my favourite jazz bassist but it is when he is layering the sets with heavy and complex rhythms I find him the strongest and not so much when he takes center stage. The set ended quieter with Gaye switching to the piano.

After a break of approximately 30 minutes, where I could enjoy a much needed cigarette in the cold Amsterdam night, the players returned to stage, picking up more or less where they left, but soon switching to what in my ears was the high light of the show. After being silent for a couple of minutes Gayle hits one of the low keys at the piano, which initiated a radical mood swing. Parker grabs the bow and plays deep droning tones while bending the string with his other hand, Alis playing is darker and quieter at this point, and Gayle sticking to the low keys with his left hand while pressing down a long span of keys with his right arm. The result is dark and complex and demonstrate the extend of these players ability.

The set then transfers in to a Coltrane ballad which I was a) unfamiliar with, b) don’t remember what was called, but it was lovely, before transforming into another less engaging exercise in solos and finishing with a tight free playing by the players who by now are tired as hell.

Friday night at Bimhuis always make for a more mature crowd and with my 31 years I felt like a youngster. In general the concert was possibly a bit to much of a traditional exercise, but I am thrilled to have finally seen William Parker live – now I only hope to see him as a band leader soon.

Once again I forgot my camera – this time I really regret it, as there were a lot of Kodak moments, and I was actually pretty close to the stage.
Well it all started with my posting in my facebook status (who the fuck uses Twitter anyway) that I was going to see Metronomy later that night, and Bjarke reacting to it – so we decided to go together, have a few beers and talk about the past, present and future – and a lot about cigarettes.

We met up at de Baile for a Columbus on draft before heading to a crowded Paradiso where Bloc Party was playing on the big stage and all the indie kids were sweating. Well tonight I had left the avant garde attitude at home so had no problems with walking up to the balcony and catching the last two songs by the British rock band, before heading into Kleine zaal where Metronomy was playing.

Metronomy are fun – and possibly my favourite indie act from last year. They came on stage all dressed in black with touch lamps attached to their shirts and a happy go lucky human robotic attitude reminding me of Devo. Probably not to concerned with being super tight they played their asses of, and had a pose for any moment not touching their instruments.

The set was mostly made up of songs from 2008′s Nights Out, but also a few tracks from the former one-man-band debut from 2006, that I mistakenly bought after the show. I found myself singing along and dancing, when not sipping one of the large beers that Bjarke insisted us drinking. I could tell that the band was hoping for a more eager crowd, but they still delivered, and made me smile throughout the whole concerts.

We stayed to watch We Have Band who played afterward. I remember meeting Petra and that they played an uninteresting cover version of a song that I have now forgotten – it was not a bad performance, but I am sure i will not remember it by the of the year. The Metronomy concert however I will.

A couple of years back I saw Gang Gang Dance in Copenhagen after their release of God’s Money, a record I at that time found interesting, but not mindblowing. The concert turned out to be a complete mess, and I was not at all impressed.

Gang Gang Dance

That event let to my more or less total disregard of last years Saint Dymphna until I out of boredom downloaded it anyway. It turned out to be one of my absolute favourites of last year, but with the previous concert in mind it was with some doubts that I went to see them again friday night at Paradiso.

Gang Gang Dance

Nothing to be afraid of though. Gang Gang Dance delivered the best concert so far this year. The focus was a little for on the percussive side of their (new) sound and with longer repetitive sections, but most of the stuff was recognisable as stuff from their most recent record. Not always 100% tight, the show was an hour long non-stop borderline danceable tour de force of the sound that makes the Gang Gang Dance quilt. I believe that this is as modern as it gets in widely accessible music right now.

Gang Gang Dance

I was meeting up with my friend Tycho at a café close to Occii – it was in a part of town that I had never been before (though been to Occii quite a few times) and it looked almost like a village. But nevermind, we started on the beers, and never stopped hehe.
When we arrived at Occii the first supporting act was on, a Dutch one-man show, not without humour, and with a few decent hooklines, but didn’t stray far from your everyday bedroom artist. Next up was a french 4 piece woman band, that played and sang so bad that I was reminded of a high school band trying to be Breeders, but not really coming to terms with all these difficult things called instruments.

I never really cared much about Parts & Labor, but it was a good excuse to see Tycho. However they did rock, and played their asses of, and we were both thumbs up – favorite moment was when the drummer ran of stage during the applause, because he was to thirsty to just sit there haha. I will give Parts & Labor a second chance, any band who deliver like they do deserves it.

Not a lot of people were at Kleine Zaal at Paradiso Sunday night at 10 o clock when Aethenor was supposed to start – I counted 12 when I was on the phone with Lars, but by the time the band got on stage it had grown to at least the double. Maybe the lack of audience kept the quintet from playing much more than half an hour, but for a late Sunday evening it seemed well ballanced.

For this small tour of Holland Belgium and Berlin, Steven o’Malley, Daniel o’Sullivan and Vincent de Roguin was joined by Kristoffer Rygg on Laptop (a HP, not a Mac – how refreshing), and occational throating vocals and by free jazz drummer Steve Noble. The impact of the latter in my ears much more notable as i quite often lifted the band out of its trademark soundscapes to something more hectic and powerful.

The highlights of the concerts was when the music was most dense and all five players joined in, most engaging Noble, and de Roguin on organ, in the more quieter passages, the players seemed borderline uninspired or maybe I am misreading concentration, but for o’Malleys part it is certainly different than seeing him cape dressed droning away in Sunn O))).

Happy I went though, and I will come back if AEthenor decides to do the same, and then I will be showing a little more enthusiasm myself, and maybe have more than just an apple juice. There is also a new album out on VHF featuring among others Alexander Tucker and David Tibet.

http://aethenor.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/aethenor

Friday  afternoon Bram updated his facebook status to tell the world that he was going to see trumpeter Arve Henriksen perform that night. I was all FTW! I am checking these concert schedules all the time and I hadn’t seen anything about this. Turns out that Henriksen is part of the Christian Wallenrød Quartet and so is my favourite violinist Nils Økland – a fact that I was equally unaware of.  I already had plans for the evening, but naturally they had to be cancelled in favour of this concert.

The quartet also features Per Oddvar Johansen on drums, and of cause Wallumrød on pianos. It was supposed to be a quiet affair and so it started out, with most of the playing barely audible. However it did build up more volume as the show progressed, and in the second set for a minute or two this went loud.
It was one of the more traditional and composed things I have seen at Bimhuis, but nonetheless wonderful. I was also thrilled to hear Økland and Henriksen duoing on one of the formers tracks, and in general i was a joy to see each member play.

I had forgotten my camera, so no pictures – but it was a very generous show and the r seemed happy to be there which is always a joy, and the Bimhuis was almost full – which was nice for a change. Now I am off to Paradiso to see Æthenor play (but I am very tired).

http://www.christianwallumrod.com/
http://www.arvehenriksen.no/
http://peroddvar.no/