outcats (black dog, confusatron, flipside)
yeah, so flipside is bringing their movie-for-your-ears back to the black dog next friday (uh, that'd be june 3rd, i do believe) and you oughtta go see 'em.
inasmuch i've said often that in the future, no one will have to smoke cigarettes because tad gaither will be there to sell them clothing that's impregnated with nicotine from having been worn by black dog habitues, and he often gets ribbed for being 1) notoriously tight-fisted and 2) an insane conspiracy theorist, i also think it's time that someone rendered props to the cantankerous old yank for consistently offering up the most eclectic and interesting mix of music available here in the fort these past eight years or so. time was when his sunday night jam (hosted by michael pellecchia) was pert near the only straightahead gig in town (johnny case's long-standing residency at sardine's excepted), and bertha coolidge's lengthy association with the dog allowed messrs. bubeck, carter, metzger and stitzel to open the ears of dozens of kids that teethed on '90s alt-rock and jam-band toonage to the true faith o' jazz.
beyond that, tad's sweaty basement (which, in a previous incarnation, served as the home of the tarrant county democratic party -- how _appropriate_) has played host to some of the most transcendent pablo and the hemphill 7 gigs, offered kulcha far i a venue when no one else in town would book 'em, gave dave and daver a place to land when their time at the moon ran out, and served as the hothouse in which confusatron blossomed from a streetcorner curiosity into a full-on _experience_. (the confusatron boys -- all bullshit aside, now a truly great, groovin'-thinkin'-and-feelin' eight-headed hydra -- are fixin' to pare back their weekly residency to an every-other-week thang; one hears that they're peeved with the thursday night poets for running over into their time slot to try and capture some of confusatron's crowd. hopefully brian batson and his crew can still recall the time not so long ago when they were gassed that some of the poets wanted to stick around and freestyle over their jams. while it'd be overdoing it to say that pride cometh before the fall, an attitude of gratitude is always a good thing to cultivate.) nice work, tad (and jimmy, and billy, and shaggy, and damian).
but i digress.
flipside's a band i only recently discovered (when some intrepid soul at kntu spun some of their music before being hustled off to the college radio gulag), but they've been at it for close to a decade now. to these ears, they're the closest thing the metromess has to a '60s aacm or '70s noo yawk loft aggro (imagine a non-afrocentric art ensemble of chicago, or one of henry threadgill's '80s or '90s units) -- imbued with tradition but not constrained by it. their freewheeling sets veer from bop to funk to free and back, hitting all the signposts in between (mambo, circus music, stripper-blues, believe-it-or-not heavy riff-rock) with intelligence, wit, and humor. dave monsch colors and shapes the music with his battery of saxophones, flutes, and small instruments, as well as providing valuable compositional input (in a just universe, his monkian theme "bitch" would be a bona fide hit). bassist paul unger has the biggest sound this side of charlie haden's coupled with a similarly prodigous melodic imagination (particularly when he picks up a bow). to top it off, he plays funk on stand-up better than any four-stringer i've ever heard. and dennis durick is living proof of the adage, attributed to art blakey, that "if the drummer isn't the best musician in a band, it isn't a jazz band." durick, who's played and recorded with quartet out, ex-miles sideman dave liebman, and seemingly every jazzbo in denton and dallas, brings the sound to life and makes it breathe and dance.
a secret: this is some of the _sexiest_ music you'll hear anywhere. while it might seem like lunacy to make such a claim for freeblow, hear me out: the difference between this challenging music and the room spray they play on the oasis is the difference between sex and seduction. while purveyors of smoove "jazz" spew like kenny g and grover washington, jr., offer up polite pastels and hallmark card sentiments, someone like cecil taylor, say, can hit you where you live with an unquiet storm of tumultuous emotions and near-brutal physicality, if you're up for it. i say music like cecil's, or flipside's, is the best mind-fuck you can get.
inasmuch i've said often that in the future, no one will have to smoke cigarettes because tad gaither will be there to sell them clothing that's impregnated with nicotine from having been worn by black dog habitues, and he often gets ribbed for being 1) notoriously tight-fisted and 2) an insane conspiracy theorist, i also think it's time that someone rendered props to the cantankerous old yank for consistently offering up the most eclectic and interesting mix of music available here in the fort these past eight years or so. time was when his sunday night jam (hosted by michael pellecchia) was pert near the only straightahead gig in town (johnny case's long-standing residency at sardine's excepted), and bertha coolidge's lengthy association with the dog allowed messrs. bubeck, carter, metzger and stitzel to open the ears of dozens of kids that teethed on '90s alt-rock and jam-band toonage to the true faith o' jazz.
beyond that, tad's sweaty basement (which, in a previous incarnation, served as the home of the tarrant county democratic party -- how _appropriate_) has played host to some of the most transcendent pablo and the hemphill 7 gigs, offered kulcha far i a venue when no one else in town would book 'em, gave dave and daver a place to land when their time at the moon ran out, and served as the hothouse in which confusatron blossomed from a streetcorner curiosity into a full-on _experience_. (the confusatron boys -- all bullshit aside, now a truly great, groovin'-thinkin'-and-feelin' eight-headed hydra -- are fixin' to pare back their weekly residency to an every-other-week thang; one hears that they're peeved with the thursday night poets for running over into their time slot to try and capture some of confusatron's crowd. hopefully brian batson and his crew can still recall the time not so long ago when they were gassed that some of the poets wanted to stick around and freestyle over their jams. while it'd be overdoing it to say that pride cometh before the fall, an attitude of gratitude is always a good thing to cultivate.) nice work, tad (and jimmy, and billy, and shaggy, and damian).
but i digress.
flipside's a band i only recently discovered (when some intrepid soul at kntu spun some of their music before being hustled off to the college radio gulag), but they've been at it for close to a decade now. to these ears, they're the closest thing the metromess has to a '60s aacm or '70s noo yawk loft aggro (imagine a non-afrocentric art ensemble of chicago, or one of henry threadgill's '80s or '90s units) -- imbued with tradition but not constrained by it. their freewheeling sets veer from bop to funk to free and back, hitting all the signposts in between (mambo, circus music, stripper-blues, believe-it-or-not heavy riff-rock) with intelligence, wit, and humor. dave monsch colors and shapes the music with his battery of saxophones, flutes, and small instruments, as well as providing valuable compositional input (in a just universe, his monkian theme "bitch" would be a bona fide hit). bassist paul unger has the biggest sound this side of charlie haden's coupled with a similarly prodigous melodic imagination (particularly when he picks up a bow). to top it off, he plays funk on stand-up better than any four-stringer i've ever heard. and dennis durick is living proof of the adage, attributed to art blakey, that "if the drummer isn't the best musician in a band, it isn't a jazz band." durick, who's played and recorded with quartet out, ex-miles sideman dave liebman, and seemingly every jazzbo in denton and dallas, brings the sound to life and makes it breathe and dance.
a secret: this is some of the _sexiest_ music you'll hear anywhere. while it might seem like lunacy to make such a claim for freeblow, hear me out: the difference between this challenging music and the room spray they play on the oasis is the difference between sex and seduction. while purveyors of smoove "jazz" spew like kenny g and grover washington, jr., offer up polite pastels and hallmark card sentiments, someone like cecil taylor, say, can hit you where you live with an unquiet storm of tumultuous emotions and near-brutal physicality, if you're up for it. i say music like cecil's, or flipside's, is the best mind-fuck you can get.
posted by stashdauber at 9:41 AM
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