Outer Music Diary

Steel Pulse - Paradiso Club, Amsterdam 11/26/83 + The Ritz, New York City 7/12/84

One of my finest nostalgic experiences was seeing Steel Pulse open for INXS in about 88-89 and being crammed to the front of the stage with a whole lot of dancing in a crowd that was decidedly tilted to the female gender. I’d heard an album or two by this point, but this always cemented the reggae band as being a favorite of sorts even if I’d not necessarily laud their canon itself. This collection of two short shows is kind of split for me. True Democracy was basically “my” Steel Pulse album and even though it was released before both of these shows, it seems songs like “Chant a Psalm” show up more in the second show than the first. Anyway as a pop/reggae band there’s not really a lot to be surprised about, and as usual one’s enjoyment factor will dramatically increase with physical contact. Sound quality on both of them: not great but quite listenable.

Boris - Amplifier Waves

Boris is one of those groups (or projects maybe) where even before you hear them, their reputation makes you know almost exactly what you’re going to get, a lot of bass-derived and, ahem, amplified sounds. In many ways this seems to be tilted to the audience who likes the more avant garde aspects of the stoner rock sound (although I just laughed writing that) and seems more in the league of something like Earth or maybe Khanate to some extent (although definitely no vocals here). Slow, big loud noises apparently seem to have found their audience, maybe in a sort of post-early Melvins sort of mode, but I found this to be really predictable and tedious overall. I’m not sure if this is one of their central releases per se, so I’m definitely not done with Boris yet, but this album did meet just about every expectation I had for it.

Grateful Dead / Janis Joplin - Euphoria Ballroom, San Rafael, CA 7/16/70

Kind of a short little gig during one of my least favorite (early) periods for the band and you know when Janis joined the Dead that it was basically all about her and Pigpen, usually doing versions of Lovelight that go on forever. But even with that said, I found this kind of charming in its own way, but I’m generally fond of Joplin’s vocals and she tends to shine doing crowd raising numbers. You can just imagine her and Pigpen duelling it up on stage like it was another lifetime ago.

Umphrey’s McGee - Guiness Oyster Festival, Chicago, IL 9/6/03 (video)

Umphrey’s McGee sound an awful lot like what would happen if Echolyn became a jam band. My first exposure to the band was a different video recorded by a bumpy camera that didn’t really do a whole lot for me, but this set was entirely impressive (and much better filmed). The band seems to exist on the shoulders of their two frontmen, both excellent guitarists and decent vocalists who, probably a lot like Garcia and Weir did in their day, trade spotlights. I’m not familiar with UM’s own music, which tends to hop styles like a lot of jambands - modern/indie pop here, jazzy jam there and the obligatory reggae number - but I enjoyed just about everything, laughing with pleasant surprise when the band segues effortlessly into Zeppelin’s “Fool in the Rain,” which has to be one of the most unlikely Zeppelin cover tracks. UM’s as terribly tight as you’d imagine from a jamband sort of tour schedule and there are loads of solo guitar spots, probably the closest thing on their repertoire to the scene they’re mostly allied with. Really cool stuff and unquestionably progrock.

Bevis Frond - Rockpalast, Harmonie, Bonn, Germany 10/6/04 (video)

Bevis Frond make me feel like I should like them a lot more than I do, at least up to the point of this video, where it sort of clicked for me what it was I don’t like. As you can generally tell from any of their concerts, Nick Saloman likes to talk and I do seem to remember anti-prog screeds and such in Ptolemaic Terrascope (and a previous DVD that I watched), which wouldn’t necessarily bother me except that such statements fall flat when his own songs seem so ambition-less. I’m constantly thinking, “another song based on a clichéd 3 or 4 note riff which sounds like what Jimi Hendrix would have been like if he couldn’t write.” Even things about Frond that I remember liking, the long 10-15 minute guitar bonanzas don’t seem to light me up like they used to, but perhaps some of the polish has faded over the band’s career. I do like the fact they’re using two guitarists for this Rockpalast show and that it’s all excellent quality, but I think I can safely say these guys aren’t for me.

Happy The Man - “Live” (unofficial)

Despite the official Live release, Death’s Crown and the two studio albums, I’m not sure it’s all that well known what an absolute monster this band was live, especially when Kit Watkins was on fire. This was the first live item I ever heard by Happy the Man and to this day I’m still not sure of the source, I thought it was a collection of recordings, but I don’t remember the quality varying that much. This presents the band in their finest form, playing great first album material (and more). Kit was a massive influence on my own playing, particularly after I bought my own mini-moog, one of the first things I did was check out the patch he uses with Happy the Man, the sound that accentuates his most incredible solowing prowess. On this tape is the best playing I’ve heard from him, taking some of the greatest synth solos ever laid down, lines that would make Jan Hammer look like a putz. This is basically my favorite HTM stuff ever and I may never know where it’s from.

Grateful Dead, Hollywood Palladium 9/9/72

I had an impression that this gig was probably going to be really great, almost two weeks since the classic Veneta show from August 27th and in the middle of the band’s incredible post-”Europe ‘72″ tour. No surprise with a lengthy Bird Song (which was really never better than this era), the set 2 openening China Cat>Rider, the monstrous 35 minute Other One that’s the end of an even longer suite with Truckin’,  and the like. I’m not sure the band was ever quite as powerful and as assured as this, maybe during May 77 or early 69, but every time I pull out a heretofore unplayed gig from this era, it feels special. Stella Blue after the suite is almost heartbreaking.

Burning Spear - Trelawney Beach, Jamaica 2/24/78

I’ve got Marcus Garvey, but that’s the only Burning Spear I know and this average sounding show is from 2-3 years later. Where on the album, the vocalist’s bizarre style seems to work with the music, live the idiosyncracies dominate the sound quite a bit and it all sounds a lot less together. Still, that makes two data points, not enough to triangulate with, so I’m curious if it’s just a bad night.

Behold…The Arctopus - Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning

This is the Relapse CD that contains both of their EP length releases including live material, I can’t remember if this live material = the MP3s on the first EP or not and the printing on the booklet is too small to bother with checking for the facts. Apparently BtA only release EPs because the music is so complicated and nonrepetitive that they can only write so much. BtA are an instrumental technical metal group whose riffing extravaganzas cause whiplash, lots of building, multiple lines that crescendo and climax in virtuoso fashion. It’s one hell of a ride and now that there’s a good 50 or so minutes of music together, it seems more like a condensed double or triple album. This will definitely be too mathy for some, but another credit to the band is their ability to infuse emotional wealth into the style, it really does have a good sense of dynamics, so those looking for something both technical and visceral will find those qualities here.

Jimmy Smith & Wes Montgomery - Jimmy & Wes  The Dynamic Duo

First listen to a date I would have thought to have been more lauded, as I listened I wonder if it was the big band segments that might not have worked for some, as I found the album enjoyable while noting it gets a bit sweet at times. When this was released, it could have been the two kings of their respective instruments and neither of them were reluctant to hold onto their crowns, in fact if you hurled this forward in time a good 30 or so years, this could have been a fusion album by the likes of Planet X. Smith burns on his organ, while Montgomery generally takes the laid back approach, but they’re both definitely the most impressive, not when they are soloing but cooperating for sophisticated melodic impact.

Freddie Hubbard - Ready for Freddie

Man, what a scorcher! Joined by Tyner and Elvin Jones, with Art Davis on bass, Wayner Shorter on tenor, and the surprising addition of Bernard McKinney on euphonium, this has got to be one of Freddie’s best outtings. I found myself watching Hubbard, Tyner and Jones together a week or so ago giving tribute to a Love Supreme, however everyone is in far better form in late 1962 and this just accentuates my feelings of apathy to that video. This is prime hard bop, prime Coltrane-ish hard bop, a style I’d love to have seen Hubbard participate more in. A classic, right now I gotta figure out if it’s a 12, 13 or higher.