Big Ears Festival

Apr 25 2019

Thumbscrew at Big Ears Festival 2019: This is really happening

 

I adore Thumbscrew‘s 2018 double release Ours and Theirs.  It earned this site’s Best of 2018 #4 slot, and garnered a mention in my Best Bandcamp Jazz in 2018 column.  The trio of guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Tomas Fujiwara possess a cryptic sound, something that incorporates each musician’s distinct individual form of expression that, also, somehow, almost unexpectedly, meshes perfectly into a single, crisp perspective.  And it’s an equation whose success proves out whether they’re composing their own odd sonic machinations or covering works from jazz legends of a wayback era.  It’s quite magical.

And seeing it happen live…?  It was surreal.

Thumbscrew’s Saturday afternoon show at The Standard was pretty straight-forward.  The trio nested themselves on the stage behind their music stands and just played along to whatever was written down in front of them.  Held up to the electricity flowing between musicians and audience from the Fire! trio on that same stage the night before, this performance was tame by comparison.  But just seeing the trio recreate the music of Ours and Theirs in the moment was like peeking behind the face of the universe at the clockwork mechanisms within.  It was riveting.  There is something almost alien about Thumbscrew’s sound, even when it radiates an unmissable familiarity, that to witness the human beings responsible for it… and to see proof that, yes, it’s three beating hearts and three calculating minds that set that strange and alluring music in motion, it hit me with the sensation of The Big Reveal.

Some or all of that might not make any sense.  Obviously I never doubted the music of Ours and Theirs was created by human beings.  But so much of our interface with the music we connect with on a daily basis is through the impersonal mediums of digital files and CDs and vinyl, and it’s not difficult to lose sight of the humanity behind it all.  This sort of detachment is further compounded by the personalization triggered by and in each of us, as we attach meaning and imagery and consequence to everything we hear as part of the process of making the music a part of who we are.  It’s why seeing this music live is so invaluable.  Because on top of the wonderful surprises and fascinating deviations that inevitably result from a live performance, and the sensory mainline of experiencing the music live and feeling it as much as hearing it… there’s also the communal nature of the concert, of reconnecting the music to the artists creating it while simultaneously tethering that connection to all of the people in the audience doing the exact same thing at the exact same time.

And we take that back home with us.  That sense of community and connection are revived when next listen to that music again on our stereos, alone and in the privacy of our homes, but not quite the solitary act it once was.

The music of Thumbscrew is no less strange and enchanting than when first I heard it, but having seen and heard it in Knoxville at the Big Ears Festival 2019, that magic resonates on a much more human level than it once did.

Be sure to check out Thumbscrew’s excellent 2018 double release Ours and Theirs, released on Cuneiform Records.

I wrote about this album for The Bandcamp Daily.

Available at: (Ours) Bandcamp | Amazon and (Theirs) Bandcamp | Amazon

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Apr 22 2019

Fire! at Big Ears Festival 2019: Way down in your bones

 

I’ve enjoyed some Brötzmann recordings in my time.  Hell, the discovery continues into the present day.  But I never truly appreciated the man’s artistry or the absolutely power of his sonic delivery until I saw him live.  It occurred in a small church in Lexington, KY, out on North Limestone and years before that neighborhood became the darling of the real estate industry.  Peter Brötzmann teamed up with vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, and the way the icy tones of that percussion clashed and melted into the searing heat of Brötzmann’s saxophone was like nothing I’d experienced before.  There was an immediacy to his sound that the recorded medium never could accurately relay in its totality.  But it was revelatory of more than just pure power.  Hearing this music live also illuminated how nimble Brötzmann could be, even on an instrument like bass clarinet, whose sound typically shines as displays of heavy soul, not delicate turns of phrase.  That being said, all of that still came secondary to Brötzmann’s ability to brutalize the laws of physics with his saxophone, like he was ripping apart reality at the seams or threatening to obliterate the walls and bring the whole building crashing down.

These thoughts were bouncing around in my head as I watched Fire! perform at The Standard on Friday night.  This was my first opportunity to see them live.  The raw strength and driving intensity displayed by the trio didn’t come as a surprise.  I have a far greater familiarity with the music of Mats Gustaffson and his various Fire! ensembles than I do Brötzmann.  Fire! Orchestra is a fixture of my listening routine.  I knew what I was getting into when the trio of saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werliin took the stage at midnight.  But the live setting meant I would feel the music, that it would pound away at my heart at the same time it was bleeding into my ears.  It’s an entirely different experience.  And it’s about more than the trio’s devastating power.  At times, they enter fugue-like states when the music grows more moody than manic.  Their sonic barrage can take on a trance-like quality, a high-intensity hypnosis where volatility becomes the catalyst of expectation and resolution.  But, yeah, the best part is feeling when the music shakes the earth beneath the feet.  And a packed house at The Standard on Friday night got shook that way, very late into the night.

Fire! released a new album last year.  The Hands was a return to the core sound that eventually expanded into their Fire! Orchestra recordings, and it was what they brought to the stage at the stroke of midnight.  The Standard is actually a very bright and airy type of venue, one where the sunlight can lead to some pretty opportune ambiance depending on what kind of event is going on.  But the festival had no difficulty retrofitting the sonic intensity of Fire! into the space.  They partitioned off one section and gave the stage a deliciously claustrophobic feel, making it so that no matter where you stood, the trio’s sonic blows could reach out and smack you.  The lights sliced through the air, leading to some strategizing on the best place to stand so they didn’t fry your pupils.  Gustafsson, Berthling and Werliin began with a display of patience, slowly building up to the moment when they’d explode into flight.  And, eventually, after some electronic effects from Gustafsson ended and his saxophone began, they unleashed everything they had inside.  It was as thrilling as their trio recording promised, but, damn, you could feel it in your bones.

This trio’s music gets slotted in the Jazz category for any number of reasons, but, seriously, for any reason you go see a rock concert, those same reasons apply to the Fire! trio.  Their show in Knoxville was Exhibit A.

If you’re not familiar with the Fire! Orchestra recordings, get started now.  2013’s Exit and 2014’s Enter are birds-of-a-feather recordings, with the former being a live performance recording and the latter a studio session.

Enter was also this site’s 2014 Album of the Year.

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Apr 19 2019

A Big Ears Festival 2019 interlude: More than just fuel

 

Big Ears Festival is pretty much entirely a downtown thing.  By most measures, it’s a walking distance event.  And while a bit of pre-trip research revealed some pretty neat places to eat, drink and hang that were located in the neighborhoods outside of the city center, if you’re going to be at the festival and try to see as many shows as you can pack into a day, it’s a pretty easy decision to stay right in downtown and never leave.  Let’s talk about some places I ate, because, damn, there were some very fun places I took a seat in between all of the shows.

And that’s not easy, by the way.  The Big Ears Festival performances were packed in pretty tight.  With only one exception, all of the places I ate at were joints I passed by as I walked over to a show venue and made a note to stop back along the way and grab a meal.  This really isn’t an ideal decision making approach, but it was all I had. And I either got very lucky or it’s difficult to find a bad place in downtown Knoxville to eat, because I had some great food in some very fun and welcoming spots.

Kaizen was the standout meal of my trip.  I had the good fortune of passing by there as I scrambled over to see Ralph Towner perform at a nearby church.  The lighting and the outdoor patio spoke to the way I’m wired, and a quick glance at the menu posted outside the door promised the kind of food that typically floats my boat.  I made the decision right then to stop back for dinner as soon as Towner was done bringing heaven down to earth.  I’m so glad I did.  Kaizen has an Asian-inspired menu.  Their various rice and noodle bowls and steamed buns were the highlights of that menu.  I ordered two items.  One was the oyster fried rice, a bowl of goodness filled with delicately fried oysters, kimchi, fried egg, tamarind-chile syrup, fried shallots and fresh herbs.  It had that perfect balance of being a filling dish without it making me leave feeling heavy.  Those fried oysters were delightful.  The breading delivered a nice crunch, but it was as light on the palette as anything else in the dish.  The house-made kimchi was amazing.

I have a complicated relationship with kimchi. I don’t really like it that much.  But I associate it with these big bowls of stew I’d get at the Joong Boo Market‘s dive-y little snack shop in the back of their grocery store.  They serve these huge bowls of stew with veggies and seafood, and they are delicious and will fight off all the maladies one can get from a typical Chicago winter.  Those bowls were served with a couple small sides… of which kimchi was one.  I’d eat the damn stuff even though it tasted weird, like the garnish equivalent of sour patch kids candy, because I knew if I ate everything that place served me, my body would feel healthy as it ever did.  So, I look at kimchi as taking my medicine.  That might not make any sense to you, and, honestly, I wouldn’t fault you your confusion.  But that’s where we find ourselves.

The thing of it is, it seems like a lot of restaurants these days are having a field day toying with kimchi as a component of a dish, and so it’s been fun to keep encountering it in new contexts.  The house-made kimchi at Kaizen shook my world.  It was arguably the best kimchi I’d ever had.  And it made this impression as part of a dinner that was hitting me on all cylinders.

The steamed buns were the other item I had that evening at Kaizen, and they were as fun as they were delicious.  I sometimes shy away from those steamed bun dishes because too often it’s more stick than steam, which I find an unpleasant texture.  Thankfully, Kaizen got it right.  And much like the breading on the fried oysters, these were seriously light in the best way.  I chose two of them:  The “Thai Sausage,” with Chiang Mai sausage, peanut sauce, herbs, and pickled ginger, and the “Eggplant Bun,” with crispy fried eggplant, hoisin sauce, citrus mayo, cilantro and scallions.  Cheers to the waitperson who recommended the eggplant.  There were so many choices on the menu speaking to me, and I was able to narrow it down to a few, but I was still indecisive.  Y’see, I know the things I like and I can recognize the things that interest me, but then there’s an additional consideration when on the road… there’s the likelihood I might never be back to that particular town again, and so what I really want to order is the thing that I don’t want to miss… the dish that the restaurant does special and unlike any other place.  The eggplant steamed bun was it.  It’s so nice to be able to ask the waitperson which item on the menu would I be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t try, and for them to know right away which choice to make.  The eggplant was outstanding.

Speaking of waitstaff and personnel, that same person also recommended the Dogfish SeaQuench Ale to go with that meal, and damn that was an excellent recommendation.  I told him what I was looking for, and he delivered it.  I’m also really grateful for Kaizen getting me a seat out on that patio.  It’s not a large place.  The interior has a small bar people can eat at, ideal for solo diners like myself, plus seats packed in tight.  It’s intimate, and doesn’t feel crowded.  Well, it was a very busy night, and they had a running wait list, and even though I was riding solo, instead of making me sit at the bar (which would’ve been understandable), they sat me a table outside on that patio… the spot that, visually, drew me in as I passed by it on the way to see the Towner show.  I’m very aware they could’ve sat me at that bar and flipped the patio table that much quicker by seating a couple there instead.  That they accommodated me like that was appreciated and also representative of my entire Kaizen experience.

It’s normal to romanticize what it might be like to live in a city or town you’re visiting for a short while.  It’s the kind of daydreaming that’s a fun exercise on its own merits, but it’s so easy a practice to slip into when your life has taken you outside its normal routines and surroundings.  I do that kind of thing all the time.  If I were to move to Knoxville, Tennessee, one reason for that change would be so I could eat at Kaizen whenever I desired (aka all the time).  It’s that good, and if you’re ever in downtown Knoxville and need a place to eat, that’s where you should go.  It’s definitely a reason for me to plan a return trip to Knoxville.

Speaking of kimchi, Kaizen wasn’t my only run-in with that oddly compelling vegetable.  For lunch on Saturday, I stopped at Curious Dog Hot Dogs & Sandwiches… not far from Mill & Mine (where I would see Spiritualized, Sons of Kemet and Makaya McCraven before the weekend was over) and down by the railroad tracks.  It has a classic lunch spot look to it… brick everywhere, wood tables and chairs, wall coolers filled with soft drinks and beer, and chalkboards colorfully listing out the menu in detail.

A hotdog and fries and beer just sounded good to me right then, and something about a place that looks like a deli has such a comforting effect on me… well, I grabbed a seat.  I went with the Curious dog.  I had to go with their classic.  Plus, the potato salad, bacon and house sauce just sounded good.  I don’t regret it.  That being said, they did have a hotdog that had kimchi on it, and I’m gonna have to try that one next time I’m in Knoxville.  There will always be a part of me that regrets not getting it otherwise.  The dog and fries and beer were exactly what I needed before heading up the street to see Thumbscrew at The Standard.

Saturday morning breakfast was at a solid breakfast joint in the Old Town neighborhood.

Old Town actually borders downtown, and you really don’t notice leaving one and entering the other.  Brick lined streets and a mix of modern and old architecture frame winding streets.  OliBea was along one of those streets.

OliBea is a sunny place, and plenty welcoming.  I had the Carnita Tostada, with confit cheshire pork shoulder, frijoles, queso fresco, eggs and salsa verde.  It made my Friday night journey of late night music and drinking inconsequential on my body’s well-being.  I chatted with a friendly guy about the town, the festival and some of the music we’d seen and just music in general.  I answered his request for some jazz recommendations, and one of the names I gave was Mary Halvorson.  Not long after, I finished my meal and made my exit, just to realize that the guitarist was seated at the table directly behind me.  Several people have since commented that this was an almost cliché type of Big Ears occurrence.  I am glad to have made a contribution to keeping that an enduring festival experience.

Sunday morning breakfast was at Tupelo Honey Cafe.  I have no complaints about the food.  I had the Old Skool Breakfast Bowl of two sunny-side up eggs, potato cracklins, salsa verde, black-eyed peas, cheddar cheese, bacon & sausage crumbles, and goat cheese grits.  It sounded like what I’d need after a couple late nights of music and drinking.  I was feeling a bit wore out by this time. The breakfast was very good.  Naturally, I was happy that I liked everything, but what I came here for was a bloody mary and a seat at a patio table.  The restaurant is located in Market Square, just off the main drag of downtown.  Market Square is pedestrian only, a wide thoroughfare of brick and trees and archways and birds fluttering happily about eating the offerings from any one of the restaurants and diners and bars that lined this street.  I walked up and down the stretch several times in between shows, and I’d marked out a couple spots I might like to plant myself on Sunday at the end of the long weekend.

Even with the crowds, there’s something quite serene about this section of downtown… as if the geography recognizes the need to be calm after the nighttime electricity of the area has faded away with the appearance of sunlight.  In any event, some decent food was the bonus for a bloody mary on that patio on that morning.

As I made my way over to the Tennessee Theatre to see Nik Bartch’s Ronin, I was right as rain.

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Apr 18 2019

Ralph Towner at Big Ears Festival 2019: Hearts go still

 

From the palpable shock and astonishment that swept through the church, it was obvious that most of us hadn’t known:  Not long ago, Ralph Towner had been through heart surgery.  The guitarist relayed this information on the wings of a joke, as he introduced the next piece of that evening… a rendition of the standard “My Foolish Heart.”  That’s the kind of evening it was.  Towner had the audience wrapped around his finger.  His guitar was simply a tool for enchantment, and all of us were locked in.  But he also kept a smile on our faces.  Sometimes because of a whimsical phrase on guitar.  Sometimes because a familiar tune elicited pleasant associations.  And, sometimes, the smile was the cause-effect pairing with a joke.  But he had us all, for any and every reason.

Towner performed on a Friday evening at St. Johns Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Knoxville, TN.  His show was one of the highlights of Big Ears Festival 2019, and one I’ll never forget.

All it takes are a couple phrases of a familiar song to send me adrift in memories, and back to a time when the music became imprinted my timeline.  And since all of these songs are familiar, it means I’m perpetually fighting the gravitational pull of the past, trying hopelessly to stay rooted in the moment.  Because, damn, Ralph Towner is thirty feet away, playing guitar in an environment of superb acoustics, stained glass all around, and nothing between me and the notes.  A minute into a new piece, and I’d suddenly hear it through stereo speakers in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains or an autumn day with a ceiling of cloudy Chicago gloom contrasting with the brilliant explosion of autumn colors and the crunch of leaves beneath my feet.  And then, suddenly, I’m transported back into the present moment of the church as the song reaches the homestretch.

[Ralph Towner’s 2017 ECM Records release My Foolish Heart is available at Amazon]

This was my second show of Big Ears Festival 2019, and both had taken place in a church.  And no different than the Harold Budd, Mary Lattimore & Nief-Norf show earlier that afternoon at Church Street United Methodist, the St. Johns Episcopal Cathedral was a gorgeous venue matched perfectly with this gorgeous music.

It’s impossible not draw comparisons between the masterful craftsmanship of the stained glass and church architecture and the musicianship of Towner with his guitar, and, by extension, the lofty plateaus of creativity aspired to, and achieved, by the artists on both building and music.

There’s a majesty to the music of Ralph Towner. If the totality of one’s interface is, like mine, through the vehicle of studio recordings, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that all of this electricity is simply the product of this man and his guitar, hunched over in concentration, and channeling everything inside that yearns to manifest into the world as sound. It’s weeks later, and I still find myself astonished at having ended up in place I’d never imagined life would take me and it just so happens, Ralph Towner is thirty feet away and playing his guitar.  The memory freezes me in time, observing it all over again.

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Apr 17 2019

Harold Budd, Mary Lattimore and Nief-Norf at Big Ears Festival 2019: Off the road and straight to church

 

I’ve been obsessively searching the internet for news of an upcoming release by Harold Budd and Mary Lattimore.  I haven’t found anything yet, but I’m not giving up.  Nor would you, had you been lucky to witness the collaboration of Budd, Lattimore of the Nief-Norf ensemble at Knoxville’s Church Street United Methodist Church.

I had only just hit the exit, parked my car and began hustling across downtown Knoxville to get my ass in a pew.  I was on a mission.  Interstate 75 was crap for construction traffic slowed down to a crawl, already causing me to miss one of the Friday shows at Big Ears Festival 2019, but I’d be damned if I’d be late for Budd & Lattimore.  There was so much great music on the festival line-up, and I wanted to see it all, but if there were three acts I had to choose above all others, one of those would be the collaboration of keyboards and harp and percussion set amongst the stained glass and cathedral ceilings and wood rafters and archways.

[Harold Budd & Brian Eno The Plateaux of Mirror:  Available at:  Amazon]

For me, the music of Harold Budd has often had a reverential quality to it, and one album in particular has been there for me in troubled times like a proxy for god.  The quality of music that it can be the source of love and light and comfort when life grows dark and despairing, causing a temporary amnesia that everything will be okay cannot be overvalued.  For me, and many times, the Harold Budd & Brian Eno recording The Plateaux of Mirror has been that beacon to return to a state of well being and calm, a remembrance of all that’s good in the world and the beauty each of us is capable of producing.

But that music is not just a rescue mission.  It is also the perfect note on which to end a sublime evening, an enchanting kiss goodnight and into sweet dreams.  Many have been the night I’ve been done with the day job, then done with night writing, but my mind too active to go yet to sleep.  And so I wind down with a good book, some tea or whiskey, cats curled up beside me, and peaceful music on the stereo.  The music of Harold Budd has always been a wise choice in these conditions.  It has been something special that makes what might otherwise seem mundane become transformed, even if just a little bit, into the sphere of life where a sense of the momentous creeps in and reminds us that many of the moments we should be celebrating in our lives can slip by unnoticed if we don’t open ourselves up to them.  Creativity, whether it be our own or that of others, is one of the very best tools to make ourselves more receptive.

And Mary Lattimore, she’s a more recent development in my life, but has stood out lately as yet another example of why I never tire of racing down rabbit holes in search of new music.  I’ve become enamored with the harpist’s music and looking for an excuse to make the formal introductions with this site’s listeners.  Hello, please meet Mary Lattimore.  The Los Angeles-based harpist has most thoroughly captured my attention with her 2016 Ghostly International release At the Dam.

[Mary Lattimore At the Dam: Listen at: Bandcamp | Purchase at: Bandcamp – Amazon]

The sound of her harp is like predawn mist swirling above the undisturbed surface of a forest pond, strands of melody chasing one another to where it achieves a synchronicity with every breath, every heartbeat, every action.  And yet there abides an undeniable chasm between the melodic filaments, as if the elements might always hover nearby one another but never be united as one.  There’s a tension that comes from that kind of relationship, and it makes for the most alluring division of attention between the separate and distinct elements, and also on those moments that verge upon a state of unison.

So, yeah, I parked my car in a lot by the railroad tracks alongside the press check-in area, and then ran as fast my feet would take me and my dignity would allow (I look ridiculous when I run), and got myself over to church.

Knoxville’s Church Street United Methodist Church sits at the edge of downtown, and an easy hike from the opposite end where I had parked.  (A later installment of the Big Ears Fest will talk about the layout of downtown, the easy ways to traverse it, and how admirably simple the city and event organizers make it for people to get around… festival or otherwise).

After driving at a rate of 80mph for the hours just preceding, it was an odd sensation to sit perfectly still and listen to music that existed in a state of hushed anticipation, as if even the musicians weren’t sure what sounds would come next and were as likely to be as surprised as the audience.  But I was enraptured by this performance, and as I type this column up, it’s really sinking in just how strongly the show resonated with me… it’s like the electricity of the experience is firing right back up again, as if I just a minute ago stepped out of the church and back into the cool air of downtown Knoxville, TN.

The interior was gorgeous and couldn’t have been a more perfect fit for this specific performance.  This is music of an ambient nature, where sounds are meant to linger and breathe and drift through time and space with the patience of starlight stretching out to the naked eye here on Earth.  And it resonates with that same enduring strength, and so the space this room afforded was a perfect fit for the sonic intentions.

How long did they play for?  An hour, two?  I forget exactly, but I do remember that when it was over, it felt like it ended all too soon.  I could’ve sat there for hours and not stirred.

The isolated chirp of crickets.  A forest stream gurgling cheerfully to itself.  The rattle of leaves as a soft breeze glides on past.  The soft pulse of starlight, so far away yet so close.  Sound and motion that never rises above a whisper, yet so powerful as to cause an enduring tranquility to descend.  That’s what Budd, Lattimore and Nief-Norf did amongst the stained glass, raised archways and wooden beams that afternoon.  The flutter of harp, the purring of keyboards, and the murmur of percussion were a profoundly beautiful moment in time, over and over again.  This wasn’t music heard and seen so much as it was breathed in and out.  It was an intimate experience.  This was why I drove all morning to be in Knoxville.

The music was in my head after I left the church and began wandering Knoxville’s downtown streets.  The music is still in my head today, and it’s why I keep searching the internet for news of this music, or something like it, making its way to a recorded medium, and, soon after, into my music library.  I am so ready for it.

After the show, it was nice chatting with a few of my fellow listeners.  We talked about what we’d just heard, what we’d heard from these musicians previously, and what other shows we were looking forward to.  It was a kind of camaraderie that I experienced a handful of times during the festival weekend.  So enjoyable, even, that as I think back upon it, I’m a bit regretful that there wasn’t even more of it.  That kind of event, it’s a pleasant feeling to share with others what’s going through our hearts and minds.  And Big Ears Festival was exactly the kind of environment where those types of interactions would thrive.

I did go wandering the streets of Knoxville for a short time, and scoped out a place to eat a meal (covered in a later chapter of this story).  Also, as was the case for much of my festival experience… not much time to spend before the next show began.

Up next:  Back in church, and why not, because Ralph Towner is a god.

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