Posts

Posted on

Make Out Machine

Michael Blake's Red Hook Soul performing at Xerox during the 2017 Rochester Jazz Fest
Michael Blake’s Red Hook Soul performing at Xerox during the 2017 Rochester Jazz Fest

We stopped in to hear Michael Blakes’s Red Hook Soul on Sunday night but we only stayed for a few songs. The sound in the big tent is so oppressive. We had already decided to hear them at Xerox on Monday and they were so good we caught both the early and late shows. Every member of this band is a solid pro and the sound here was perfect. We sat in the front row for both sets and we had an incredible stereo mix of the two mostly rhythm guitars. Tony Scherr on the left had the crunch and Avi Bortnick the classic clean soulful scratch. Of course none of this would work without a way in the pocket bass player. The band plays vintage 70’s soul and Blake writes songs in that vein (“Make Out Machine”)for the band. He chooses the best and Michael calls out songs on stage. Last night they played a different Gladys Knight song in each set along with Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s “Volunteered Slavery” and Taj Mahall’s “Buy You a Chevrolet.”

Bill Frisell was at the first show with his wife, Carol d’Inverno, and his current bass player, Thomas Morgan. Margaret Explosion played the Mercer Gallery opening for Carol’s art show at MCC last year and we had her over for dinner. She told us they are in the process of moving to Brooklyn where she begins a residency next month.

En route to the Xerox hall we spotted Bernie Heveron, formerly of Personal Effects, playing bass with the Red, White and Blues band.

Ikonostasis at the Lutheran Church was the most avant-garde guard band of the festival so far and maybe my favorite. A trio with no bass player. This one worked, unlike the band we saw at the Little Theater last night. Kari Ikonen, the piano/synth player is the leader but I was sitting so close I could only get two players in the frame and the sax player, Ole Mathisen, and drummer, Ra-Kalam Bob Moses were far more interesting to look at. The band went from pretty to abstract to outer space and back. “What time is it?” asked Ikonen after an hour or so. “Just keep playing’ said someone in the crowd. And they did with a beautiful middle eastern piece that started like a call to prayer.

Leave a comment
Posted on

In The Burning Of The Republic

View from inside inside Golden Port Restaurant
View from inside inside Golden Port Restaurant

I didn’t hear the Peruvian half of the Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet but the Afro-jazz part was right on. The rhythm section, piano, bass and drums were all amazing players. The percussionist was rough and tumble and that’s where the magic was. The combination was beautiful.

When Eivor was in Rochester with Yggdrasil about thirteen years ago she bought an electric guitar at the House of Guitars. In fact she was playing that guitar at the Lutheran Church. She told the crowd she went back to the HOG today and bought another guitar, something from the sixties. She finger picked Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” on it tonight. Her lofty voice was perfectly suited to the church.

Hey, we know that Guy, chatting up the cigarette lady.

This young trio laying in the street sounded pretty damn good.

Derick Lucas from WGMC introduced the Neil Cowley Trio and told us we were in for “a life changing experience.” Well, not quite. More progressive rock than jazz with lots of unison parts they were melodic and a joy to listen to but I found myself exhausted before the set ended.

After securing our wrist bands for early entrance to Kilbourn Hall on Sunday night we took refuge in Golden Port where we split a Curried Vegetable dish. It rained twice while we were in there but the sun came out just as we left.

We spotted Bill Frisell and his bass player, Thomas Morgan, going in the side door of the Eastman for their soundcheck. We’ve heard Frisell everytime he’s been here and almost decided to skip this one but I’m glad we didn’t. We found front row seats and sat right next to Bob Martin and Ken Frank from Margaret Explosion. In this duo setting Frisell sounded better than ever. The musical exchanges between the two were intense. The minor key “Rambler'” an early song of Frisell’s, was my favorite.

Matthew Leonard from the D&C introduced the band at Harro East.

Shabaka & the Ancestors tore it up. They started with a chant and the “In the burning of the republic. . .” theme ran throughout their set. “We need you people. You need these hymns. Feminize the government. Feed our children. Black lives matter.” I assume the Ancestors are artists like The Last Poets and Sun Ra. Shabaka Hutchings certainly channelled Pharoah Sanders on tenor sax.

Red Hook Soul does classic, King Curtis style, r&b. Tenor sax player, Michael Blake, whose band, Blake Tartar was one of our favorite groups of the fest a few years back and was just in town performing at the Bop Shop, leads the band, a money making project for him. Bill Frisell’s long time bassist, Tony Scheer, plays guitar in this band. They play again tomorrow night at Xerox Auditorium.

Fred Costello was playing Bill Dogget’s “Honky Tonk” on the stage at Gibbs Street. His band sounded great and we couldn’t help thinking how his R&B sounded so much more authentic than Red Hook Soul. Could have just been the great Bill Dogget number.

Elliot Galvin Trio at Christ Church was contemplative and very pretty. Their spartan sound and delicate touch worked really well in this space. Not entirely ethereal, they even played an off kilter blues.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Like Jazz

Old brick building in downtown Rochester near Richmond Street
Old brick building in downtown Rochester near Richmond Street

We checked out the sound samples on the jazz fest app, looking for the stuff that sounded the most like jazz, and found a parking spot on Richmond Street. This trio was playing a party in the patio of the modern apartment with all the gee-gaws. They sounded pretty good.

The Huntertones met at Ohio State and got their start playing house shows. They were doing a Stevie Wonder tune when we walked into Montage. They used to call this “frat rock.”

The leader of the Moscow Jazz Orchestra, the only one not wearing a red, white and blue striped tie, sounded fantastic on his own. His song, “Nostalgic,” was, slow, romantic, cinematic and bluesy. His tenor tone reminded us of Gato Barbieri.

After 21 years of continuously singing the good news of Jesus Christ, Tim Woodson & The Heirs Of Harmony, billed as “True Gospel psalmists,” sounded like a loud festival rock band. The singers all wore white and hadn’t taken the stage yet.

Yggdrasil, we have heard many times at the jazz fest but their sound has remained the same. They work in a folky, sometimes Bjork austere, sometimes Pink Floyd ponderous fairyland.

You can’t see the vocalist of this band playing in Spot coffee. He was more like a metal shouter. It looks like they might have cleared the place. We were drawn to the barefooted guitarist. His heavy pschedelic sound was spilling out into the street.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Santo Smiles

Deck at dusk after rain
Deck at dusk after rain

I don’t think we have been to an opera since Peggi’s mom died. Maybe that Wagner, “Live from the Met,” broadcast that we saw at the mall was after she passed. I’d like to go to Glimmerglass this summer but we say that every year.

I have a ready-made opera in my head. It came to me in a flash this morning. We stopped by the Friendly Home where my mom spent the last year and half of her life. Someone else’s name was on my mom’s room. We caught up with the staff and I commented on how quiet the main room was and they told us there was a group in the sunroom so we headed down there.

Brandon, the former activities director, was promoted and I thought he was irreplaceable but I was wrong. A woman named Molly was in the center of a circle of residents. She was throwing a large ball with “Life is Good” on it to one person at a time. This must be one of the last skills to go because people who have lost all the rest can still catch and throw the ball.

Brandon was a genuine gentleman and so casual. The residents loved him because he never talked down to them. He was able to engage people who I thought had already checked out. But Molly one-upped Brandon.

She sings to the residents, not just songs but everything she says to them. “Here comes the ball, Tony.” She came over to us and said she had learned that music engages the whole mind where talking does not. She didn’t have to explain a thing. We were watching this play out. Philomena laughed and Santo smiled! The residents were so stimulated Molly had to call for help. Beverly and Nancy got out of their chairs. The opera was just getting going.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Don’t Explain Yourself

Ozzie In Bloodline on TV in Living Room
Ozzie In Bloodline on TV in Living Room

We must be drawn to Monroe County. Peggi and I met while going to school in Bloomington, Indiana in Monroe County. We moved, Peggi to and me ‘back” to, Rochester in Monroe County. And we just finished slowing our way through Netflix’s “Bloodline,” the dysfunctional family drama set in the Keys, Monroe County, Florida.

Bloodline got in trouble early on. They killed off the best character, Ben Mendelsohn’s Danny, and the others had to fill the void. They couldn’t so Danny kept reappearing. Kyle Chandler as John Rayburn does the nightmare deed, killing his brother Danny, and his guilt drives the rest of the show. You’d think heavyweights like Sam Shepard and Sissy Spacek would have been given more to work with as the family matriarchs but Shepard dies early and Spacek never feels present. The second most dysfunctional sibling, Kevin, played by Norbert Leo Butz, almost gave Danny a run for his money but the writing completely fell apart.Jamie McShane and Chloë Sevigny, as Eric and Chelsea O’Bannon, were both great as support, so good they outshone the leftover leads. And latecomers like Beau Bridges and John Leguizamo helped bring some new life into the show but the whole thing crash landed when characters started explaining themselves and even each other.

1 Comment
Posted on

Intolerable

Garth Fagan reading poetry at R1 Studio in Rochester, New York
Garth Fagan reading poetry at R1 Studio in Rochester, New York

“Poetry is an embarrassing affair. It is born too near the functions we call intimate.” That line is from Czeslaw Milosz‘s “Road-side Dog.” Milosz’s writing is not precious enough to be called poetry. It lies somewhere between poetry and prose. It is economical. He is not afraid to be simple or advance dumb ideas. And yet he effortlessly uncovers essential truths. His writing shares the properties of minimal art but it is also emotional.

Louise thought I would like his writing and I do. I was planning on returning her book when we met at a poetry reading on Friday night so I re-read most of it while we sat by the pool. It was too nice an evening to go in, that and she suspected the event, the last of a series of tie-ins with the Minimal Mostly show at R1, this one chosen poetry read by local luminaries, might just be “intolerable.” We were there for a half hour or so and it was delightful. But not even close to Milosz.

In a Landscape
In a landscape that is nearly totally urban, just by the freeway, a pond rushes, a wild duck, small trees. Those who pass on the road feel at that sight a kind of relief, though they would not be able to name it.
Czeslaw Milosz

Leave a comment
Posted on

Carrying On

10 new Models from Crime Page on studio wall, June 2017
10 new Models from Crime Page on studio wall, June 2017

I ran into a guy who was in my painting class for many years. He asked if I was still painting. I said I am drawing. He said I haven’t done anything in two years. That would be just about the time our teacher died. Fred Lipp affected many people that way. He was a way of going forward. Criticism, correction, repeat and then on to the next piece.

I too took a long break but I never stopped thinking about his advice. I live with his words in my head and the absolute last thing he would want would be for someone to stop when he left. I was going to move on from this whole crime face stuff but I’m not finished with it yet. I never will be but it sort of encompasses everything so why bother. And I have an opportunity to show a lot it in October so I’m carrying on.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Where Is Everybody?

Dog mailbox on Rock Beach Road, Rochester NY
Dog mailbox on Rock Beach Road, Rochester NY

Our roof is relatively flat. I think it might be a 2 12. It is definitely not a 3 12. So it collects a lot of debris. I usually get up there every spring and blow it off but I’ve been putting it off this year. Always some excuse. I do like putting my Home Depot noise cancelling headphones on though so I climbed up there this afternoon.

I was just finishing up on the far end of the house and I gave the leaf blower one last tug. I heard a crash and realized I had knocked the ladder over with the extension cord. Peggi had gone down to the street pool. We’re on duty this week so it is our responsibility to keep it clean. Like everything else this job’s done by a robot now so all she had to do was drop it in and the thing crawls around on the bottom and sucks up everything in its way. I figured she would be back soon.

I tried pinging Peggi’s phone with my watch but the phone was in the house below. Our neighborhood was awfully quiet. About forty five minutes went by and was getting anxious so I tried lassoing the step ladder with the extension cord. After fifteen minutes or so I had it standing up. I climbed down and walked down the street to the pool where I found Peggi and a neighbor trying to repair a leak in one of the pipes in our pump.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Musique Non Stop

Michael Bates Trio wth Michael Blake at Bop Shop
Michael Bates Trio wth Michael Blake at Bop Shop

It seems like just a week ago we were listening to David Murray and Kahil El Zabar playing in the Bop Shop performance space. And we were back there last night for the Michael Bates Trio. We catch Kahil every time he comes through town and he always has a band with players of the highest order. There has been so much music going on lately we probably would have skipped last night’s Michael Bates Trio but Michael Blake was in the band and we hadn’t heard him since 2008. The trio was fantastic and I’m so glad we didn’t stay home. Blake is for real, a great player with the finest influences making his own contribution in real time. He brings his funk band, Red Hook Soul, to the Jazz Fest this year and he is prepared to tear it up.

Drummer, Jeremy Clemons, was wearing a t-shirt that read, “POOF. Lead a Creative Life.” I’m down with that. We talked to him after the show about another of his gigs. He’s played with Burning Spear for the last three years.

Between those gigs we saw Chandler Travis Philharmonic at Little Theatre 1. Pete LaBonne has played with them and they do some of Pete’s songs. They came through for us this time, It was interesting to hear how their new drummer, Jerome Dupree, Morphine’s old drummer, takes Rikki Bates place. Funny how different the two feels are. And heard Annie Wells at her record release party, halfway around the world, out at the Lovin’ Cup. She sounded great. her delicate voice and a rock solid backup. She still brings the house down with Dave Ripton’s “Heroin and People.” Woody Dodge followed Annie and they are a real powerhouse of Americana. Bill Lambert writes songs that should be hits but I couldn’t take my eyes off their drummer, Sean Sullivan. Is he left handed playing a right handed set or is he just so fluid he can play any damn way he wants?

Leave a comment
Posted on

Brilliant Distillation

Park bench in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, New York
Park bench in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, New York

Who would go to a documentary about Sol Lewitt at two in the afternoon on the warmest day of the year? Well, we would. The screening is another installment in the series of events surrounding the “Minimal Mostly” show at R1 Studio.

The movie had a maximal amount of substance, much more than Wednesday’s lecture at the gallery. Although I really enjoyed MAG director, Jonathan Binstock’s, take on Ellsworth Kelly’s work, a brilliant distillation launched by the Kelly prints in Deborah Ronnen’s show. He said “sometimes I feel like I could round up all the art in my house and replace it with one Ellsworth Kelly because his work is the essence of art.” Peggi and I had just seen a show of Kelly’s last paintings in Chelsea and I knew exactly what he meant.

The Sol Lewitt movie was insanely beautiful.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Gideon Cobb Days

Sandy Franklel accepting Leo Dodd Historic Preservation Award at Gideon Cobb days in Brighton, New York
Sandy Franklel accepting Leo Dodd Historic Preservation Award at Gideon Cobb days in Brighton, New York

My father was one of the founding members of Historic Brighton and during his time as president he came up with the idea of celebrating Gideon Cobb, an early pioneer and brick maker. Gideon Cobb Day was usually celebrated with a lunch at Mario’s and, of course, Cobb Salad was on the menu. My cousin, Ray Tierney is on the board now and he has renewed the celebration.

We gathered yesterday in a tent behind the Buckland House, an early farmstead home on Westfall Road that was preserved through the efforts of Historic Brighton. The supervisor of Brighton was there and many of the club members and Jerry Ludwig, the guy who writes the home improvement column in Saturday’s paper. My family was there as well because Historic Brighton has decided to give an annual “Leo Dodd Historic Preservation Award” award to someone in the community who worked toward those ends. This year’s recipient was Sandra Frankel and Ray asked if I would say something about Leo.

I talked about how my father was into photography, painting, engineering, history, genealogy and family and how these interests all overlapped. He painted portraits of these early Brighton residents when no photos existed and he reconstructed the brick making kilns and factories in a CAD drawing program. He was able to bring history to life. And he shared his enthusiasm. This made Brighton a better town.

Peggi and I provided technical support with the websites, newsletters, presentations and his Brighton Brick book production. Historic Brighton made us honorary members and that is nice but what Historic Brighton needs is someone with the desire to dig through the past, willing to attend the meetings, lobby the politicians to preserve the remnants, someone who likes taking pictures and illustrating a story and someone who likes to share what they have found. They need someone as enthusiastic as my father was.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Immobilize

Carmen Herrera Series at Deborah Ronnen's
Carmen Herrera Series at Deborah Ronnen’s

We came out of the lecture at R1 Studio on Wednesday night and I couldn’t get the car started. The key wouldn’t turn. I had parked in a funny position. It really wasn’t a parking space at all and my wheels were turned almost as much as they would go. Had I kicked in Honda’s Anti-Theft system? We were planning on heading downtown to catch the Occasional Saints at the Little.

I googled “key won’t turn 2003 Honda Element” and learned Hondas were the most stolen car about fifteen years ago so they came up with the “Immobilizer” if the car sensed something suspicious. Someone suggested turning the wheel while trying the key. I did that and the steering wheel locked with a clunk. I couldn’t budge it. Someone else suggested waiting an hour and then trying. We sat in the car with our devices and tried again. I called my sister. She was already in her pajamas but rescued us.

We towed it to Honda in the morning and they put a new ignition. Some 700 dollars later we have one key to get in the car and another for the ignition.

Leave a comment
Posted on

B. O. B.

Bob Martin promo shoot for Personal Effects Mana Fiesta album on Restless Records
Bob Martin promo shoot for Personal Effects Mana Fiesta album on Restless Records

At the end of every song last night the chanting started up. Maybe it was the three big, white, cardboard cut-out letters hanging over the piano like one of Calder’s mobiles. It was Bob’s last night with the band. He is moving to Chicago and we will miss him.

Peggi and I have played with Bob for a long time. He answered a call for a guitar player back in the early eighties. We had just disbanded Hi-Techs and were forming Personal Effects and he came down to our rehearsal space. It was scary how quickly he picked up on what we were trying to do. Scary like we were left wondering if he was too good for us.

We played together for five years, five albums or so, and then Bob moved to DC. When he returned we were playing in an early version of Margaret Explosion. He sat in with us at the Bug Jar and the next thing you know he was back in the band. We’ve been playing at the Little Theatre for fifteen years now. But nothing lasts forever.

Bob has developed an incredibly rich guitar palette. He will be irreplaceable and that is the mark of a true artist. That’s why the audience last night chanted “Bob, Bob, Bob.” I joined in.

Listen to Bar Car by Margaret Explosion

1 Comment
Posted on

Minimalism Is In The Air

Daily Mirror headline for Tate purchase of Carl Andre piece from Minimal Mostly lecture slideshow at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York
Daily Mirror headline for Tate purchase of Carl Andre piece from Minimal Mostly lecture slideshow at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York

Cathleen Chaffee, Senior Curator at Albright Knox Art Gallery, gave a lecture at the Memorial Art Gallery on Sunday afternoon on the topic of minimal art. Although the minimal aesthetic is easily applied to most art-making she concentrated on 1960 to the present, artists like Robert Ryman, Sol Lewitt, Agnes Martin and Dan Flavin. But she started back in the 1800s with a French woman who did illustrations of an all white painting, an all green painting and an all black painting. That joke about a blank canvas being a painting of a polar bear in a snowstorm has been around awhile.

1914 was to be a pivotal year with Marcel DuChamp the master, Kazimir Malevich making some of their strongest work. Ad Reinhardt and Rauschenberg did solid color paintings in the fifties as they fought their way out of Ab Ex. And John Cage’s silent “4:33” piece was a response to that. Art does not exist in a vacuum.

This lecture was in conjunction with Deborah Ronnen’s sensational “Minimal Mostly” show at R1 Studios on University Avenue. Her show features some of these same artists along with Ellsworth Kelly, Annie and Josef Albert, Carmen Herrera and Frank Stella. The pop-up show is up til the end of June so do yourself a favor and find some time to visit it.

1 Comment
Posted on

PDA

Two geese and four baby geese on Durand Lake
Two geese and four baby geese on Durand Lake

I never expected to fall apart when I read the first line of my mom’s remembrance (see previous post) yesterday. I think what happened was I actually conjured up that sensation, much more vividly than when I wrote the line. In that moment, I felt like I was back in my mother’s arms and I was overcome with emotion. A good thing.

I was knocked out by my siblings’ tributes and the sum total was an overwhelming testimony to our mom’s virtues.

Two of my mom’s cousins on the Tierney side spoke, both of whom grew up with my mom in the same Rosewood Terrace neighborhood. Joe O’Keefe told me a story about their common grandmother, a Kelly who left Dublin on a ship bound for New York as a caretaker of an elderly man. She was supposed to return but she fell in love with a Walsh. They married as soon as they landed but only on the condition that Walsh drop his affiliation with the Church of England and get right with Catholicism.

During the ceremony Joe described my mom as somewhere between Erma Bombeck and a saint. On his way out the door he told me they used to hold these teen dances all over the city and kids would usually go without dates. He said he always made sure he danced with my mom and said he was determined to find a Mercy girl like my mom. And he did, my mom’s good friend, Ginny.

1 Comment
Posted on

Both Gone

Leo and Mary Dodd circa 1949
Leo and Mary Dodd circa 1949

I should have this memorized so I don’t have to read from my notes at my mom’s service tomorrow. But I don’t.

When you’re young there is no safer place than in your mother’s arms. You learn that when things get weird you can always return to your mom. I first met my mom in 1950. Everything was brand new for me but I had a sense that everything was brand new for her as well. There was an air of experimentation in our home and I watched this play out as our family grew. Teachers come and go but your mom is on a higher rung. You learn from your mom how to make your way in the world. When she had enough of our nonsense she would say, “Go out and play.” That was the best advice she ever gave me.

My mom was very aware. She had keen observational skills and a fashion sense that she shared with us all. I was the only one in my Confirmation class with a striped sport coat. A few years ago my father and I did an event at the Brighton Town Hall where we drew quick portraits of people. My mother surprised me by looking over my shoulder and making suggestions that were right on.

Mary was not shy about expressing how she felt about something even if it went against the popular grain. This was jarring to me at first but I grew to admire her for that streak. We argued plenty and she was a formidable opponent. In the process she taught me to think for myself and she gave me the confidence to leave home.

Mary was a devout Catholic but grew frustrated with the church and would say “I wish they would stop praying and do something.” To a college demonstrator my mom’s peace flag seemed like a benign protest. But when a neighbor demanded that she take it down because her son, my friend Tom, was fighting in Vietnam, I witnessed my mom hold her ground in a real world situation.

The nurturing caregiver relationship slowly flipped over time. Yet Mary faced her decline with determined dignity. And she shared with us the gift of spending time with her fellow members in the Friendly Home’s Memory Care center.

I will always feel lucky to be Mary’s son.

2 Comments
Posted on

Beginners

Religious nuts in Times Square 2017
Religious nuts in Times Square 2017

I’ve been working on some new charcoal drawings. I love the graphic quality of the medium. I find it dangerously graphic. I get way out ahead of myself with bold, confident strokes and then I step back and discover I put those beautiful marks in the wrong place. That’s just one of my problems. And that is why God made erasers. Working subtractively is every bit as exciting as building things up.

There was an article in the Styles section of yesterday’s paper about the artist, Wayne Thiebaud. He is in his nineties and still active and the article prompted me to get my Wayne Thiebaud book out. My sister, Amy, worked at University Press in the early eighties and they published the book. She gave it to me. I dove in again and spent part of my morning looking at his work. He is quoted as saying: “I think of myself as a beginner. If you could just do it, there’d be no point in doing it.”

Leave a comment
Posted on

Circular Saw

Circular plywood pattern and compass
Circular plywood pattern and compass

I have a circular saw and I used it to cut out this round piece of plywood but what I really could have used is a saw that cuts circles, like a jigsaw or maybe a band saw. We have these big flower pots out back and rather than fill them with top soil I decided to “short shelf” them. That’s a grocery store term. I broke this stick and jammed it down the pot until it stuck to both sides and then brought the stick in the garage to measure the diameter of the circles. Then I split the distance and pounded a nail in the center. I tied some string around my pen and the other end around the nail and swung my circumference. And then in a series of short cuts I whacked out the circles with my circular saw.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Foxes

Barbara Fox 'Light Play" Collage at UR Gallery at Art Music Library
Barbara Fox ‘Light Play” Collage at UR Gallery at Art Music Library

Barbara Fox’s opening for “Light Play,” a show of recent collages at the Art Music Library on the UR campus, is next Thursday, June 1. We have family in town for my mom’s funeral and probably won’t be able to make that so we stopped by today. It was just us and the art today and that enhanced the experience.

We had just seen Rauschenberg’s sometimes heavy-handed collages at MoMA where my initial inclination was often to just look away. Barbara’s work is just as playful but it is delicate and it draws you in. There are smudges and drips and her hand is present. With a graceful color sense the collages are drawn and painted, layered, and pasted in multiple layers. They are loose and gestural and then perfectly formed. There is a musical dialog in this work that I found most enjoyable.

It was also a treat to find my brother, John’s, “Get Together,” concrete sphere chairs sitting by the entrance to the gallery. We went out for a walk when we got back and spotted three baby foxes playing near a drainage pipe in the big gulley at the end of our road. We watched quietly for a bit and one of them tackled and killed a squirrel. They didn’t eat the squirrel, this was just for sport. The poor thing is laying upside down and I’m sure some other facet of nature will come into play to dispose of it.

1 Comment
Posted on

Civilization Begins Tonight

Photo for Margaret Explosion gate-fold cd "Civilization"
Photo for Margaret Explosion gate-fold cd “Civilization”

Not just another Wednesday night at the Little Café. We plan to project movies behind the band. That is, if we can locate the Little Theater’s screen. If we can’t, we’ll project the movies on the wall and the band. There’ll be a light show. Or maybe we’ll just turn the lights out and play in the dark. Wednesday, May 24 7-9pm. Free Admission. ALSO: Just announced! Special Guest Pete LaBonne will be joining the band tonight on the grand piano. Hope you can make it out.

Here’s Frank DeBlase’s review from City Paper
“Margaret Explosion seems to pull songs out of the air. No pre-planning; no script. The music plays them, and what’s left is a perfect in-the-moment moment for this purely live band playing songs we’ll never hear again. It is sexy and cool to the max. And just remember: “sensuous” wasn’t reserved just for the loins.

On “Civilization,” however, Margaret Explosion had a little studio fun. The basic tracks are still improvised, but they’re left open at one end to make room for another set of layers. There’s stereophonic panning so severe in spots you may fall out of your chair. And the guitar is prominent as the soprano sax snakes and undulates through. It’s trippy in the extreme. It’s darkness at the end of the tunnel. It’s heady, and it’s beautiful. Adding to the finality, the band has announced that guitarist Bob Martin is leaving the group and Rochester, for that matter. It’s quite a loss — ironic, really. It’s an end for a band that played songs with no end. “Civilization” is now that end.”

Leave a comment