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Live Music
Feb. 5th, 2012 11:04 amHere are a couple of belated music reviews for your contemplative pleasure:
A while back I went to Sam Bond’s to hear ‘the Pojama People’, a band dedicated to the music of Frank Zappa. Mr. Ike Willis was fronting the band that night. Mr. Willis was the second guitar player in several of Mr. Zappa’s later ensembles. Apparently he travels around the country, maybe the world, fronting various Zappa cover bands.
The Pojama People were bereft of their drummer, who is also the leader of the band; he slipped on a stair and concussed himself. The band was clearly missing his presence, and you could tell they were not happy with their performance. The one good part was that on certain songs Ike Willis’ guitar playing and voice sound eerily like Mr. Zappa’s. Close your eyes and listen while he channels the late great FZ.
On Thursday night I went to Sam Bond’s again to hear ‘Peter Stampfel and the Ether Frolic Mob’ which was a complex of combinations: a three piece band called the Dust Busters (banjo, fiddle, guitar) who played a bluegrass-ish mix of folk and country pieces; they sang in the usual BG close-harmony fashion. Then a thirty-something performer named Jeffrey Lewis who did his own thing, entertaining and thought-provoking, but indescribable. And then the Dust Busters backed Mr. Stampfel, with a guy on washboard and occasional songs with Mr. Lewis added in.
If you saw Stampfel on the street, you’d just nod and pass him by: another doddering old boomer out for a walk. He tottered around the pub like just such a guy. Then he got on stage and played fiddle and banjo like a maniac and ‘sang’ like a slightly tone-deaf weirdo who had ‘SOMETHING TO SAY, DAMMIT!’
I am not a huge fan of BG, but this was excellently done, with just enough non-BG elements to keep it from degenerating into endless fiddling. Plus Stampfel is clearly a madman, and added that worldview to the performance. BTW, I am told that Stampfel was a member of the Fugs, and also of the Holy Modal Rounders (those were obscure 60s groups for those of you too young to remember.)
A while back I went to Sam Bond’s to hear ‘the Pojama People’, a band dedicated to the music of Frank Zappa. Mr. Ike Willis was fronting the band that night. Mr. Willis was the second guitar player in several of Mr. Zappa’s later ensembles. Apparently he travels around the country, maybe the world, fronting various Zappa cover bands.
The Pojama People were bereft of their drummer, who is also the leader of the band; he slipped on a stair and concussed himself. The band was clearly missing his presence, and you could tell they were not happy with their performance. The one good part was that on certain songs Ike Willis’ guitar playing and voice sound eerily like Mr. Zappa’s. Close your eyes and listen while he channels the late great FZ.
On Thursday night I went to Sam Bond’s again to hear ‘Peter Stampfel and the Ether Frolic Mob’ which was a complex of combinations: a three piece band called the Dust Busters (banjo, fiddle, guitar) who played a bluegrass-ish mix of folk and country pieces; they sang in the usual BG close-harmony fashion. Then a thirty-something performer named Jeffrey Lewis who did his own thing, entertaining and thought-provoking, but indescribable. And then the Dust Busters backed Mr. Stampfel, with a guy on washboard and occasional songs with Mr. Lewis added in.
If you saw Stampfel on the street, you’d just nod and pass him by: another doddering old boomer out for a walk. He tottered around the pub like just such a guy. Then he got on stage and played fiddle and banjo like a maniac and ‘sang’ like a slightly tone-deaf weirdo who had ‘SOMETHING TO SAY, DAMMIT!’
I am not a huge fan of BG, but this was excellently done, with just enough non-BG elements to keep it from degenerating into endless fiddling. Plus Stampfel is clearly a madman, and added that worldview to the performance. BTW, I am told that Stampfel was a member of the Fugs, and also of the Holy Modal Rounders (those were obscure 60s groups for those of you too young to remember.)
