The Ethnic Heritage ensemble showed up about 9:30 for an 8pm gig tonight at the Bop Shop Atrium. They were coming from Toronto and they got hung up at the border but the crowd stuck around. The band sauntered in like they weren’t even late and opened with a trance/chant tune on thumb piano with the lyrics, “Pharoah Sanders”. When we last saw these guys at the Jazz Fest in 2005, they did a similar piece called “Ornette Coleman”. All three played beautiul percussion at various times. Corey Wilkes, who also plays trumpet with the Art Ensemble, is an amazing player. Tom Kohn should have a great recording of this show.
Like most people in my painting class my father works on a number of paintings at the same time. We work paintings up to the point where we could use some feedback from the maestro and then set them aside before continuing. This one of Margaret Explosion is not done but it is getting close. My father based the painting on a photo he took off the tv when WXXI broadcast the Margaret Explosion episode of “On Stage.”
I stopped by to see Bob Martin yesterday in his second floor suite at Bob Martin Associates. He was working on one computer and uploading the Margaret Explosion WXXI video tracks to YouTube on another. I previewed them on our iTouch this morning when I got up. Some of the songs had zero plays when I checked in.
Sound of Tomorrow hosts Heather and Ross at the Mez in Rochester, NY
We joined the staff at WXXI for a last minute pizza party celebrating the airing of the final show of the second season of “Sound Stage”, their locally produced, Elliot Spitzer’s payola refund funded series of local band performances. The Chesterfield Kings were barely audible on the wall mounted flat panels but they looked great in front of their Marshall stacks even when they were playing acoustic guitars. This was a preview of Sunday’s seven o’clock airing, a glimpse of tomorrow with a band that sounds like yesterday.
While we were there we managed to talk Jan Marshall, Scott Reagan and Sue into following us over to the Mez for a live Valentine’s Day podcast from SOT. The Sound of Tomorrow’s theme song sounds suspiciously and appropriately close to the Mystery Science Theater theme song. Scott Bradley, the guy with the trumpet, played keyboards and anchor, Chris Zajkowski of the Squires of the Subterrain played drums. The two of these guys sound like a whole orchestra. They were joined by a surprisingly funny Miché Fambro on a few songs. Miché came into town in the eighties and left town in the nineties. In between he lived in Ithaca, the Berkeley of the East, “long enough to want slap an NRA sticker on my car”.
Hosts Ross Johnson and Heather Zajkowski, the Babe with the Power, sat in chairs on stage reading from notes but mostly creating and going with the flow. Del Rivers and his buddy did some stand up comedy and Heather belly danced with her posse. Phil Marshall, who wrote some of the music on the brand new, Who Sell Out styled, “Squires of the Subterrain – Adventures in Radio Land, TV Land and the Blogospere” cd, was no show due to illness but the evening was perfectly delightful like an old fashioned radio broadcast.
I visited the SOT site and got sucked in to a hilarious review of David Bowie’s Glass Spider tour. The show we heard last night must still be in production because it is not up on their site yet. That’s probably why they call it “The Sound of Tomorrow”.
James, the owner of the alcohol free club with the best sounding room in the city, gave up trying to sell the Mez on Craigslist and has decided to stick out.
Pegasus Early Music performance with Julianne Baird in Rochester, NY
Our neighbors, Rick and Monica, had their second house concert last night. This one featured an alt country-like band from Austin with a lead singer named Lisa. Rick asked me to record the show so I set up some mics. The drummer recognized me from a long time ago. He played with a band called the Stripminers and we shared a couple of bills when I was playing with Personal Effects.
It was nice crowd and intermission was fun. The kitchen became the epicenter. Walter Ketcham was holding court and there was all sorts of interesting food to sample. Karen Miltner made some toasted almonds with Chinese Five Spice and they tasted just like the ones Peggi makes at Christmas. That’s because Karen is the food critic for the local paper and Peggi got the recipe from one of her columns.
Karen was talking about the restaurant in the old Fabrics and Findings building and someone said they served tapas there. I piped in that they were probably big portions and not like the tapas you get in Spain. I said, “Someone should just do regular sized tapas here”, and Karen said, “Small portions won’t work in this town”. So that was the end of that conversation.
Jeff and Mary Kaye are in Mexico for a few weeks so they gave us their tickets to the Pegasus Early Music Series. Today’s concert took place at the Rochester Academy of Medicine on East Avenue. It was sold out so the “Music Room” in this old mansion was full. Julianne Baird, a soprano who the New York Times calls a “national artistic treasure” was the featured artist. Our favorite piece was one called “O Golgatha (Passio Marcum)”. It was dark, mournful, Passion of Christ thing written by Richard Keiser around 1700 and it almost sounded like a Spanish saeta.
They had much more interesting names for their songs back then. We heard songs with titles like “Bid The Virtures, Come Ye Sons of Art”, “Music for a While”, and “Seek not to Know”.
Jaffe sitting in with Margaret Explosion at he Little Theater in Rochester, NY
I brought my tripod to the Little Theater last to take a few shots of my painting show before it closes. I found a note tucked up under one of then that read, “Sorry, but this is some of the most unappealing “artwork” I have ever seen”. I was happy to see they were able to get under someone’s skin.
Jaffe sat in with Margaret Explosion for the fourth week in a row. He emailed us this morning to say that he thought “we got to a special place last night”. We found another note in the tip jar at he end of the night. It read, “I.O.U. We accidentally came out without any cash tonight. We saw you on WXXI’s On Stage and really enjoyed your sound. We’ll pick up a cd at your next gig.”
Robin Jon promo photo on the wall at Sound Source in Rochester NY
There are a lot of options in town for buying new band equipment but when you want to keep your vintage equipment going there is no better spot than Sound Source (“We Make Hearing Loss Affordable”).
One of the best things about a trip to Sound Source is that it is another opportunity to look at old promo shots for local bands like Wilmer Alexander and The Dukes and The Quirks and the the lounge duo, Robin Jon. Rob and Jon just happen to be the owners of this place so you take updated photos of these guys in the flesh if you can get the two of them together. They keep Rob in the back with his head lamp and soldering gun. Rob is likely to to offer you a fudgsicle or show you one of his new squishy toys. Jon manages the front end and takes care of the money.
Rob fixed Peggi’s sax pickup while we waited all the while triggering crying baby noises with something on his desk. He started talking about the Sound Source web site, which is in a sorry state, and wondered if he could learn how to post stuff to it on his own. We told him we would help with this effort. Rob’s father worked at Kodak and he took 3-D photos of Rob’s band during his his high school days. Rob has shown us these on a few occaisions and they are mind blowing. I’m wondering if there is any java script for displaying these on their new web site.
Our friend and neighbor, Rick Simpson, let us borrow “Stax/Volt Revue – Live in Norway” dvd. We watched it on the coldest night of the year (so far) and we couldn’t sit still. This is one amazing performance from openers, Booker T and the MGs, to Otis Redding. We loved Booker T on organ and Al Jackson on drums and Duck Dunn was a locomotive on bass. The same band backed all six artists on this tour. This show started hot and got hotter until it was almost out of control. Only the great Sam and Dave could take it down a few notches with “If Something Is Wrong With My Baby” and reach the high point of the show.
Rick Simpson came to our door to tell us that a big tree had fallen across our our path in the woods behind his house. We had to run right down there to check it out. You can only get a sense of how big this tree is by clicking the photo and spotting Peggi in the lower right hand corner. We had sixty mile an hour winds yesterday and there must have been some sort of micro burst in this one spot because four trees came down in a row.
We got a panicked call from Kevin Patrick on Christmas day about the audio player misbehaving on his blog. I had recommended the One Pixel Out player but it wasn’t set up right so he gave us access and we duked it out. I’m so glad we were able to help because I love this site and I love “Zabadak” by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. We didn’t hear this tree fall in the woods but I’m quite sure it went “Zabadak”.
Watkins and the Rapiers at he Flipside on Main Street in Rochester, NY
You can tell it’s near Christmas by the amount of red that bands are wearing. Another clue is that almost every tune we heard last night was a Christmas thing. I finally got the picture and got in the spirit. Down on Main Street, at the Flipside, Watkins and the Rapiers were thoroughly entertaining. They have a Christmas cd under their belts and add new chestnuts every year. Their Christmas tunes sound like classics. The place was packed but there should have been a line out the door. These guys have rescued Christmas.
Bob Henrie and the Goners at Abilene
Over at Abilene the joint was rockin’. We had just walked in, our glasses were still steamed and people were trying to get us to dance. Bob Henrie and the Goners are real treasures. They are better at early rock n’ roll than anybody. Their covers sound better than the originals. Some bands sound too loud in this room and others just get lost unless you are right on top of the band but these guys sounded like a live record. They have been playing together for twenty five years or so and they are real pros but that is no reason to go see them. Go see them ’cause they are a blast.
Indo-Pak Coalition at the Village Gate Atrium last night in Rochester, NY
Last night we stopped in the at the Village Gate Atrium to see Indo-Pak Coalition with Rudresh Mahanthappa on sax . The sax, tabla, guitar lineup had all sorts of potential but it didn’t really work for me. Seemed kind of academic or something and I was never any good with that.
Rochester Contemporary has their Members Show opening tonight. I always like this show. I put this recent crime face in there. We saw Barbara Fox recently and she was complaining about how her work gets lost in it and that is certainly a drawback of an uncurated free for all but I like the chaos of it all. And it is full of surprises. We want to be over at the Eastman House by eight to see the Patti Smith movie, Dream of Life.
Margaret Explosion playing upstairs at Abilene in Rochester, NY
I dragged my feet getting to this report on Black Friday’s gig at Abilene. I wanted to post a sound file with the entry and I hadn’t found time to listen to the tracks. I was almost afraid to because Ken and I had such heavy colds. We were both doing legal drugs to take the edge off. Ken took some Sudafed and I went with the Advil.
Danny has a magical little room upstairs. And just like magic Dale and Myna showed up for our set. I hallucinated seeing Dale tuning a guitar at stage left while we were playing our set at the Scorgies thing but they couldn’t make that one. Dale and I played together for a couple years in early New Math and we did a gig with Myna’s band, Human Switchboard, and the rest is history. It is always good to see him.
Jack played guitar and bass clarinet with us, Bob was celebrating Liz’s birthday at ONE, and Ken played his electric bass instead of the stand up. The lineup switch, the room, the drugs and the Nod people shaped the sound of the evening. It felt out of our control. Peggi, though, was in full control and sounded better than ever.
The room could be both perfect and magical. Danny has to get a liquor license for the upstairs bar. NYS makes you get a separate license for each floor. Some one has to move the furniture out of the alcove where the low rise stage is. No furniture in that performance space. The Get Out The Vote posters should be history, as graphically interesting and successful as they are/were. The rest of the place is so timeless. And Danny needs to serve Guinness on tap. These demands will be in our rider the next time we play there.
Nod rocked the house downstairs. It was almost a perfect evening.
It will be a relief to play as Margaret Explosion tonight. The gig we did as Personal Effects required rehearsal time, stamia and earplugs. The night before Thanksgiving is usually a good night at the the Little. A woman from my high school class came to see the band when she was in town for our reunion and she asked if her husband could sit in with us on piano when they came back for Thanksgiving so we’ll see what happens.
Last night was my last painting class for the year. Lorraine Bohonos had some beautiful paintings near completion and Geri McCorrmick is breaking out of her concentric mandalas and Maureen Outlaw worked on the end stages of three fantasy scenes. I worked on a crime guy’s honkin’ neck all night. I still seem to spend a lot of time fumbling around trying to find a solution to a problem that I created. These kind of activities test my patience even though I know it is the process that I must learn to enjoy.
Margaret Explosion is a relief because it is all about the moment where Personal Effects was mostly about getting it right for the delivery.
Personal Effects on stage at Scorgie’s reunion at the German House in Rochester, NY
Look how old the Scorgie’s crowd got! (click photo for full shot) Funny thing, the band hasn’t changed a bit. I posted a few more on the Scorgie’s site.
There are so many familiar faces in this photo like Earl with the video camera and Arpad and Brian Williams from the Goners and Monica from the HOG (along time ago) and Nick Gerber down front and my sister Ann (it’s hard to get her out) and Rick & Monica and Mary Caine and Bob Mahoney and Martin Edic and the guy in Peggi’s yoga class and Passion B’s drummer, Tim Dodd, and Stan the Man & Lynn, Amy & Howie and Doug Rice and Jeff & Mary Kaye, Mark Schwartz and Maureen Outlaw and Trish from the LDR and Ashley Black.
I can’t find Chris Schepp, Cheryl & Mark, Billy & Nancy, Dick Storms, Danny, Russ Lunn and Beth Brown, Olga, Jon who used to take a lot of photos, Fran, Del, Pete Presstone and Scotty and Jeff Labin, Andrea Kohler and Jason and Mike Mohawk and Rock n’ Roll Joel, Richard Casa, Chas Lockwood, Ralph Meranto, Gary Brandt and Chuck Perry but I saw or talked to them all at some point. And there’s Duane Sherwood way in the back doing the lights.
Bob Martin and Chris Schepp with Personal Effects blaster
Way cool article in the morning paper about the Scorgies Reunion tomorrow. Cool picture of Peggi on the front page! And Frank DeBlase did a great piece in City. He used my Polaroids on the cover of this week’s issue.
We had this General Electric blaster that we used to duct tape up to the top of the wooden column in front of the bar at Scorgies and it made some damn good tapes. Arpad transferred a few of the tapes to cd.
Here’s Personal Effect’s version of Tanya Gardner’s “Heartbeat” recorded live at the Peppermint Lounge in 1985 on our blaster.
Martin Edic, Peggi Fournier and Paul Dodd of the Hi-Techs backstage at Scorgies in 1980
Jeff Spevak from the Democrat & Chronicle, Michelle from Freetime and Frank DeBlase from City newspaper all called today wanting to talk about the November 21st’ Scorgie’s Reunion. When I say “talk” I really mean they were looking for usable quotes. Jeff wanted a funny story because everyone else had one. I kind of didn’t answer that one even though I could think of a few. I did put put about fifty Polaroids from Scorgies days from those days up on the Scorgies site this afternoon.
Robert Slide sent this photo to us this morning. He played bass in New Math when I was in that band. I think he took this photo when the Hi-Techs played with New Math at Scorgie’s. There’s only about ten days left before the show. We had a rehearsal yesterday afternoon but we still haven’t been able to get throught the forty five minute set we have planned. We have two Margaret Explosion gigs between now and then. Ken Frank was suggestting that we try a few of the Personal Effects songs at those gigs.
Willem Breuker Kollectiief at the Bop Shop, November 6th, 2008
Willem Breuker Kollectief played the Bop Shop Atrium last night and this time they had Willem at the helm. He was recovering from an organ transplant last year when his band played in the same place on the same date.
That coincidence coincides with another. One of my first blog entries here was on last year’s show. It was impossible to get all eleven band members in one shot. This is a big band with big orchestral ideas and perfectly executed small ones like funky circus sounding pieces. They are a pure delight.
My ears are still ringing from rehearsal last night. We played for three hours but still didn’t get through the forty-five minute set we plan on doing at the Scorgie’s reunion. Peggi is playing her Farfisa and relearning the chords to the songs she wrote. And she ordered a new Electro Harmonix PolyChorus from Sound Source so she can do the crazy sax parts in “Low Riders” and “Love Never Thinks”. Rob at Sound Source told her they’re still making the box because Kurt Cobain loved it. It looks exactly like her old one.
We ‘re watching he World Series and rooting for the Phillies but they can’t seem to get anything going tonight. I really like the Lincoln MKS commercial with Cat Power doing Bowie’s “Space Oddity”.
I had a hard time starting our chainsaw and I pulled the rope so many times that I broke it. I took the case apart and got at the spring where the rope is supposed to start. I was trying to thread what was left of the rope back into the tiny hole when our neighbor, Leo spotted me out front and stopped by to see what I was up to. He said he had some new rope so we went down to his basement to cut off a piece. I got all put back together and cranked away but still couldn’t start it. Rick from across was walking his dogs and he stopped by to say hi. He told me it might be the spark plug so I took the top off and removed the spark plug so I could sand the point. I was still trying to start the damn thing when Jared, our neighbor from down the street, walked by and got involved. He suggested that I clean the air filter and then spray some Quick Start fluid in there. We walked down to his house to get the spray can. Jared determined that it was flooded and I probably flooded the thing at the start by pumping that prime button too much. It finally started but my arm was sore as can be. I only had a few minutes to saw before John Gilmore and Bob Mahoney stopped by for dinner.
We all headed out later to see/hear the Varnish Cooks at Abilene. Too bad the bands have to play insde in this weather. It is almost impossible to hear the band or juke box when the small bar is as crowded as it was last night but it was still fun. Danny took us upstairs for a quick tour of the swanky lounge up there. I tried talking him in to letting Margaret Explosion play up there when we split the night with Nod on Thanksgivig weekend.
Paul Dodd painting entitled “Model from Crime Page” 2008
Our painting teacher, Fred Lipp, is really much more than a painting teacher. And I don’t say that because he is also an extraordinary artist. He is a fly fisherman too but I have no idea what his skills are in this area. He is more than a painting teacher because his methods for teaching painting can also be applied to living your life. Last night in class I heard Fred give advice to a woman who was painting near me. He said, “Paint it as a whole, from start to finish”.
Say you are heading out for a drive. You might have a destination and you might even use a map. But if you really want to enjoy the ride you may decide to take a detour or a side trip or forget about your destination altogether.
“What we’ve heard is so disturbing It takes time to settle in Our destination doesn’t matter This is it… life hereafter” – Personal Effects, “This Is It” LP, 1984
I’m trying to connect the dots here. I devoured an article on Elizabeth Peyton’s “Live Forever” show in Friday’s New York Times and then started a new crime face painting on Monday. I sketched a guy that sort of looked like a woman and in fact I switched the situation in my mind and thought I was sketching a woman that looked like a man. The people in class thought he was a man and Maureen Outlaw told said he looked like me. When Peggi saw the painting she said, “I like him”. I said, actually it’s a woman and I reached for the Crimestoppers page that I used for my source. His name turned out to be “Jeffery”. I had played up the lips like Elizabeth Peyton did in her portrait of Kurt Cobain and the clothing was loosely painted like her portrait of Piotr Uklanski. My crime guy was thin and more youthful than the source. He looked like a rock star.
We watched the “Life and Times of Frida Kahlo the other night and I was knocked out by how beautiful and exotic Frida Kahlo was. This documentary was so much richer and more interesting than the Frida movie. Frida Kahlo was her artwork. She lived her artwork and painted the whole from start to finish. I have no idea what Elizabeth Peyton is like but I love her work.
While I was applying paint to my sketch of this crime guy and developing his attitude, it suddenly became clear that each move was not helping so I stopped. I was painting the whole from start to finish and this was the finish but I didn’t recognize it at first. The finish could come at any time regardless of my plans. I should live my life this way and then painting would be a breeze.
Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric in Rochester New York
Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby were about a half hour late showing up for their gig at the atrium in Village Gate. It seems the shows usually start mercilessly on time at this venue so we were happy to be the same schedule as Eric. And it was Eric were here to see. Our friends and neighbors, Rick and Monica, were here too but it was Amy Rigby who got them out of the house. It was funny to see the folky/singer/songwriter crowd mixing with the punky/oddball crowd. And these guys pulled it off.
Eric wanted to be home and who can blame him. They live in the south of France. They started with an anthemic call to “Keep driving until the wheels fall off”. These two are clearly in love so one of the lines was, “When we’re driving together, at least we’re a little closer to home”.
But Eric was most entertaining between songs when he just ran away at the mouth. They had played in Canada the night before and he told the crowd, “Canadians are the most unvulgar people I have met in my life. You people, on the other hand, look quite vulgar to me”. Matt, who records most shows for the Bob Shop, had his black mannequin head with binaural mics set up down front and Eric said he like to thank the head for showing up tonight. They had been in San Francisco and Chris Wilson from the Flaming Groovies came out to see them and told Eric that Cyril Jordan was a fan of Eric’s. He was quite blown away by this.
Amy is Eric’s biggest fan and she laughed heartily at all his nonsense. She sang some great songs as well like the one with the refrain, “Last night I was dancing with Joey Ramone”. I played drums for a while with another couple, Mary and Jon (Gary), and Amy reminded Peggi and me of Mary.
Eric and Amy rocked fine without drums and certainly didn’t need the cheesy little drum machine they used on a couple songs. They tore it up on “Kilbourn Road”, “Take The Cash K.A.S.H.” and “Whole Wide World”. They played for over two hours and seemed to be having a ball. Amy said this had been the best crowd of their tour and I was there when Tom Kohn paid them their measly 400 bucks. Not that Tom made and money. All is not right with this world.
