Rockwood Show Review, 6.18.09

We played Rockwood Music Hall last night for Paul Brill’s 41st birthday.  Every show keeps getting better and this one was no exception.  Another magical evening and lots of thoughts and thought streams and things of that nature.

I wasn’t sure how it would turn out.  It has been raining nonstop in New York and more generally on the East Coast and yesterday was no exception.  Torrential, steady, merciless rain.  Horiztonal rain.  Vertical rain.  Mad whipping rain and boring sleepy perpetual rain.  We were all wet.  Every last one of us. You.  Me.  Everybody.  And on the day of the show, while I get a little nervous about my performance, I’m more nervous about who will show up.  Most of my friends and personal network didn’t seem like they were going to make it and a bunch of people were on the fence.  So it was an auspicious early part of the evening and my fingers were crossed but I was nervous.  [ed note: subjet of future post on transitions]

My nerves settled down once I got down there and the place was already pretty crowded and Neil Nathan was on stage playing with his band and generally sounding very nice.

The evening featured Danielle Gasparro, Neil Nathan, Bronwen Exter, Casey Shea, Alex Wong, Andrew Vladeck, us (The Flying Change) and Paul Brill and His Enormous Monstrosity Band.

So part one of the good vibrations was the simple fact that every one of these artists is incredibly talented and I was able to just be a fan for most of the night and listen to them do their thing.  Bronwen did a Jonathan Spottiswoode cover on a uke and then two tunes on her guitar.  Her voice was captivating and the arrangement was stark and haunting.  Casey Shea is a wonderful guitar player, has a Lennon-esque singing voice, is a great songwriter and storyteller.  I also admire his web marketing ideas.  Cool dude  Alex has a million things going on but still managed to play happy birthday on an instrument that I forgot the name of and then do some beautiful original tunes, also featuring Vienna Teng on the piano.  Andrew was his usual charming and magnetic self on his hot-wired banjo.  (I got there too late to see Danielle perform but I’m sure she was captivating).

So by the time we went on, the bar had been set relatively high.  Each one of these performers brought style, emotion, empathy, and honesty to their performances and I was worried about being able to live up to the standard they’d set.  I suppose whether I did or not is for others to judge.

But it was a great show for The Flying Change.  I can’t equivocate on that simple fact.

The band, as I’ve mentioned a few times, featured me on some poorly strummed guitar and vocals, Noah Lebenzon on electric guitar, Robby Jost on bass guitar, Marc Dahlio on drums and percussion, Matt Ray on piano, Stan Harrison on sax and flute, Katie Scheele on oboe, clarinet and English horn, and Bronwen and Paul on backing vocals.  A lot of people, especially for a tiny place like Rockwood where an already small stage is dominated by a grand piano.  Wonderful, intimate but tight.

So one lesson for you is that if you’re playing with incredible musicians, it really isn’t too difficult to sound great.  And these folks are just incredible, all of them having played with the best in the business, toured with the best in the business and all of them also bringing huge amounts of generosity and grace and love to their performances.  Artists, you see.  Maestros of melody and harmony and rhythm.

We started with a bang and a rousing rendition of “If You See Something” with Stan and Katie running scales on their horns and Marc whipping us all into an appropriately sized frenzy and everybody singing along and smiles on faces, etc.  The only issue with the tune, and perhaps more broadly with the performance, was that I tend to sing kind of softly and occasionally the bombast of all the other instruments drowned me out a little.  So we’ll work on that.  But I (mostly) hit my notes and you could hear me pretty okay most of the time and it’s really a fairly minor comment.  But there it is.

After “See Something” we did “Broken Bow”.  This is a good song.  I’ve written about it in the past and I stand by what I’ve written.  It’s a good song.  I am very confident of that.  There are other better songs in the world and there are worse.  But this one has its legs and it can stand and not get knocked over and I can lean on it and, you know, it’s a friend of mine and all that.  The song built and built and by the end everybody including Stan, Katie and Matt, most importantly, were doing that descending melody line that Alec originally wrote that night upstate (got to give the man credit where it’s due).  With the full band arrangement, and the energy contained and concentrated, this is typically one of my favorite tunes to perform live and it didn’t disappoint this time.

Next up were “Dirty White Coats” and “Hold My Heartache”.  Again, very beautiful.  Katie took on the part that the strings played on the record and it was perfect.  ”Hold My Heartache” is always a special thing live and with Bronwen and I doing the “ooh ooh” parts while Stan honked out his sax solo.  And then in the background Matt doing what he does which is create beautiful piano melodies.  Magical.  And haunting and all of that.  (Listen, it’s okay for me to be so effusive.  I’m talking about the players mostly, not myself).

We did one cover last night which I will send out once it’s mastered and that was the song “Pieholden Suite” by Wilco.  I chose it in honor of Jay Bennett’s passing and dedicated it to Jay and I’d made that decision a few weeks ago.  I don’t know all the intimate details of its writing to be honest but I know that Jay named his studio after the tune and the arrangements and the production have his fingerprints all over the song.  So while Tweedy may have written the lyrics I made the assumption that this was a song special to Jay’s heart and we gave it a go.  Weeks passed and my grandfather, Leo Seligson, passed away unexpectedly.  I loved him (and continue to love him) very much so I also dedicated the tune to him.

The song is kind of tricky to play.  It’s called a ‘Suite’ for a reason.  The second verse is a whole different set of chords than the first and then there’s this minor key interlude and then the third verse and then this outro that is different yet again.  So in the space of about three minutes you go through a whole series of movements and it is (almost) like this little mini-symphony.

We played it fairly straight with Katie, Stan and Matt leading the way.  There may yet be room to take it even further than we took it.  But Noah did a nice job of adding some noise and some atmosphere in the background to lend it some dissonance and conflict and Bronwen sounded lovely on the third verse.  It came off well (I think) and I did my best on the vocals.  We tried to honor the original intention of the song and I hope we succeeded.

Last song and the highlight of the set was a new song called “Valentine’s Day”.  We typically end with “All My Friends” but we had just done a cover and, given that we’re not a cover band, I felt like we needed another original, but one that kept the spirit of ‘All My Friends’.  The energy.  The emotion.  The power.  And a foundation simple enough to go somewhere with.

We succeed and I think left people with a very strong and positive feeling.  My favorite anecdote was the little aside I shared with Matt before we went on.  I told him to get more melodic in the first part of the song because I didn’t want it to just be me banging on my guitar.  Of course, he proceeds to conjure up this form, a variation on one of the central melodies.  Better than I could hope for and perfect and almost whimsical but also melancholy.  So all of a sudden the song was good.

That’s what it’s like.  See when you can say to someone “Yeah, just do something beautiful right in this part” and then they can.  Well, I “wrote” the song in the sense that the feeling is mine and the idea is mine and I’m guiding it.  But let’s be serious here forks.  This is a collaboration.  And it came together.

[ed note: Jesus, dude, this review is long. ]

So, anyway, long story long, the set was short and sweet and raucous and poignant and people came up to me afterwards and congratulated me and it was a packed packed house and it was just special.

And then Paul came on and blew even me off the stage and his show was ridiculous and his band was so tight and the arrangements took on this sprawling organic infectious life and it was very beautiful.  So many highlights but my favorite “Paris Is On”, the sax solo in “And So To Sleep” and his general mettle and prowess on the axe all night.  He sounded like Neil Young up there.  Sparse but articulate, edgy and groaning on the guit.  Good shit.

Afterwards, we all stood outside the club reveling in the evening and laughing and talking about the show and about music and then later we got some doner kebabs from Berreket and we asked for some extra sauce my friend.  And it was good.  Paul has done this thing where he’s brought all of these artists together and there are circles upon circles of overlap and he puts on these shows and we all come together and sing on each other’s songs and play on each other’s songs and overall it is a privilege and an honor and a cool thing to be a part of.

I got a CD of the show from the sound guy and I’m going to cut it up into the songs and master them and then I’ll send out a few of them to everyone and a few of them just to the people that were there as a gesture of thanks.

But it was a good thing  and we took another step in the right direction and most of my close personal friends flaked except for a few and the room was still packed so there you go.  We’re like a real band or something.  Go figure.

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