E's Surf Report

Strong offshore wind.
Camping with a few friends in a rural, low-key area.
Wooded mountains, a touch of frost.
The winds are usually onshore here.
The surf usually big and disheveled.
The coast exposed.
But every dog has it's day.
And today this dog is howling!
Gazing out to sea from the top of the cliffs.
The reef looks serious.
Double-overhead, sucking, lurching ledges.
Peeling, exploding, firing, enticing.
Bust out the 7'6" mini-gun.
Gingerly pick down the cliffside.
Easy paddle out to the lineup.
The wind is raging and you can barely hear your friends as they hoot the incoming set.
The waves roar as they crack and explode down the line.
Look deep into the throaty, empty pit.
Forms take shape in the vaporized spit.
Large, powerful, grandiose.
Another set comes through and you commit.
The thing sucks out and you scramble for entry.
Sucking and sucking and pulling off the reef.
The wind makes it tough to find a ramp.
You look down and it's gonna be an iffy air-drop.
Finally feel the push and you're up and over the ledge.
Free-falling down into the destructive palm of the wave.
You just barely catch your inside edge and dig your fist into the face.
All hell tosses over your head and the tunnel enshrouds.
For a brief instant you anticipate an exit.
But the wave has other ideas and you get masticated like the gringo-chum you are.

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If anyone has set up TypeKey authentication for moveable type kick me an email at e@niceness.org. My attempts have been unsuccessful so far. I'm an idiot!! argh!

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Not to pimp Michael Kew any more, but his latest article in TWSurf sheds an interesting light on how many nor-cal locals feel about journalistic interlopers. Scary.

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Vaque is vogue.

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Good music coming to the Yay Area:
Bobby Previte's Coalition of the Willing
- at Amoeba (free show) and then the Independent
Bobby Previte is a legendary drummer (downtown NYC scene). Charlie Hunter is in this band playing a traditional electric guitar (as opposed to his usual 8 string). Skerik is also in this band. They basically kick ass!

Bill Frisell at Yoshi's.
Frisell is probably the leading jazz guitist today. But he's more than just a jazz guitar player. His ambiant/ethereal/moody improvisations are modern and avant-guard. Supposedly the drummer in this band is the real deal.

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stinkeye photo

David Pu'u photo

tpoo

ulu dance (can't remember who's photo this is?? sorry)

Typical day at Lindy

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review of some tzadic-related shows from nyc (from a zorn email list i'm on)

Hi.

I spent the weekend in New York, attending
Tzadik-related shows and thought some of you would
like to hear a bit about the Zorn-related
performances. The driving purpose of the trip was the
two Japan Society shows. The Japan Society has a
small theater (looked like about 200 seats, filled at
least 2/3 each night) and has asked Zorn to curate
shows of avant garde Japanese music for them-- the
program notes made it sound like they're hoping to
make this a series, so here's hoping we keep getting
phenomenal shows at the Japan Society.

Anyway, the show was billed as New Voices from Japan,
and featured Yamataka Eye, Haino Keiji and Makigame
Koichi (on Friday, he was sadly absent on Saturday)
joined by Jim O'Rourke, Mike Patton, Ikue Mori and
Zorn. The performances were sort of like the improv
parties-- subsets of the performers played together
on-stage, usually duos or trios, with everybody
performing the last piece both nights (and the first
piece Friday night). I got the distinct impression
the show was wholly improvised. Some impressions:

While I really disliked the Makigame solo voice record
from a few months back, I was stunned by his
performance-- his range alone was unbelievable-- if I
assessed correctly, he covered nearly six octaves
during the performance and a variety of techniques.
Given that I'm rather proud of my three octave range,
I was, needless to say, in awe. He's also one of
those performers who makes it look easy, he seemed to
barely move during the show.

The interaction between Zorn and Eye was purely
sublime-- whenever the two of them were on-stage,
fireworks abounded. Eye in particular was the monster
performer I had envisioned him being (I've never seen
him live before)-- bizarre, captivating, stuffing
microphones in his mouth and annunciating in his
throat, screaming, chanting and blowing on what looked
like a condom stretched over the microphone.

O'Rourke and Ikue Mori made for nice contrasts--
O'Rourke seemed to be playing with analog synths,
triggering largely organ sounds off a (invisible from
my standpoint) keyboard and a patch box where he moved
banana clips around, whereas Mori sat at her usual
laptop and triggered wacky electronic noises.

The audience was a lot of folks who I recognized from
Tonic and the Stone as well as a number of people who
were apparently pretty unfamiliar with this-- we had
expected significantly more people to leave early than
did however (based on experiences seeing Cecil Taylor
and Ornette Coleman at uptown theaters...), so
hopefully the wider exposure benefitted the artists
performing to some degree. There was one guy who
about five minutes in grabbed his stuff and ran (and I
mean RAN!) for the door as fast as possible, but for
the most part, a couple people I talked to who came in
with no idea what to expect but an open mind seemed to
really enjoy the show.

mike

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I attended Sunday's performance by Eugene Chadbourne
and John Zorn at The Stone-- I was too young to have
seen the two of them play back in the early days of
the downtown scene (I'm 28 now, so in the early '80s,
I was < 10), and as the two of them don't seem to do
this very often, I figured it was a
may-never-get-another-chance.

I had heard last time they played together, Zorn was
not into it at all, both both he and Chadbourne seemed
to be in particularly good spirits. I must confess,
I'm woefully unfamiliar with Chadbourne's work outside
of the downtown context, so forgive me if I'm stating
the obvious in talking about this.

Chadbourne performed on banjo and a square red
electric guitar with lipstick pickups, using finger
picks for the banjo and an assortment of oddities
(incuding what he referred to as a "She-Ra crystal" on
the guitar), Zorn stuck to his alto-- the same one he
played way back when, as Chadbourne observed.

They started a bit early (about 5 of 8) and finished
after about 40 minutes, but played an encore on the
desires of the enthusiastic packed house.

The performance was fantastic-- one of the best wholly
improvised shows I've ever seen-- it's clear that,
musically speaking, these guys came into their own
together-- there was a naturalness to their
performance that found them stunningly in sync--
Chadbourne generally presented a framework for Zorn,
whether on banjo or on guitar, and incorporated
elements of any number of genres, from country to
metal and loungey jazz and in between as well as a
healthy dose of skronk. Zorn, for his part, responded
in kind, pulling out all the stops in terms of
extended technique but also playing straight to match
the moods that Chadbourne established for him.
Occasionally, he pushed Chadbourne into different
directions-- the last piece of the set found Zorn
engaging in freewheeling squeals which Chadbourne
echoed and at times Zorn played nearly ambient,
rhythmically, and patiently, allowing Chadbourne the
opportunity to really breathe.

As a whole, I was most impressed with Chadbourne's
banjo performance, he seemed to really relish playing
the instrument and his performance on it seemed to
inspire Zorn-- a personal favorite moment was Zorn
playing along to Chadbourne's tuning his banjo and
Chadbourne deciding to continue twisting his tuning
knobs and coaxing sounds out of the instrument. Also
superb was a mournful, calling performance by Zorn on
alto mouthpiece with Chadbourne accompanying on a
whimsical banjo line.

I wish I could have stuck around for Chadbourne's solo
set, but I had to get back to Massachusetts.
Nonetheless, this was a great one.

mike