the brokers, confusatron, ph7

took a walk to the little wreck room to hear some reggae 'n' funk sounds. todo el mundo it seemed was there and it all felt very fine 'n' mellow. was afraid we'd miss the brokers' set 'cos the myspace invite thingy they sent out said 9:30pm and we didn't roll up to the wreck until 10-ish, but we needn't have worried -- _no one_ starts at 9:30. _no one_.

the theme o' the evening appeared to be _evolution_, starting with the marked changes in the brokers since we saw 'em at the ridglea opening for ph7, well, prolly _too many_ months ago. most noticeable: the absence of kbds and the replacement of the sax player with marcus brunt of tcu / black dog jazz ubiquity providing a little rico rodriguez action on trombone. gone also is the austin drummer who saved their ass on that ridglea gig even tho "he couldn't play reggae worthashit," according to brokers frontguy adrian valdez (who should know, having kicked the traps for sin-c). for them that keeps a record, the new man on drums is eric yacula, and he and bassist mark mcpherson moshed it up real fine, earning praise from ph7 stickman damien stewart, among others. adrian and his cohort in crime jesus garcia split the gtr 'n' vox duties and have a buncha new toons that tickle those blue beat 'n' rock steady ganglia just fine (so fine i had to start this morning with a spin of the king kong compilation, vintage sides from the late chinese-jamaican recordman leslie kong's late-'60s stable). when adrian sang the song 'bout the neighborhood chica who likes to go down and got to the bit about goin' upside her head, it was a little too, um, pimpadelic for my taste, but then again, in a certain way, these young cats come across like the _real_ ppl the darth vato boyzzz only play on teevee.

i'll admit that it's also been a few months since the last time we saw confusatron -- ever since their thursday nights at the black dog became so popular that you need a spatula 'n' crisco to make yr way thru the crowd, we've missed quite a few, i'm sorry to say. 'cos the unit that hit the wreck room stage friday night was as far from the mightily groovin' but still somewhat shambolic outfit we'd seen last time as that band was from the three-piece that usedta busk on houston street in front of the old coffee haus. a few months ago, confusatron was in transition from a pure "jam" band to one with strong improvisational skills and real toons that showcase those strengths. since then, they've trimmed the fat from their sound and focused their attack even more. (dig the four! part! band! vocals!) now, they're capable of inducing collective ecstasies on a sub oslo level, with a polyphonic spree-ish strain of positivity and upfulness. after they were finished, saxman brian batson asked me, "how did it make you _feel_?" i don't remember what i really told him, but i _shoulda_ said, "happy to be alive." at times when the whole band would be hammering on one chord while brian wailed over the top like a mad muezzin, it felt like the building was about to levitate.

while brian's sax and matt skates' bass are still the cornerstones of the sound, the band has developed some new fulcrums. musically, a lot of the direction and focus seems to be emanating from justin pate's keys. (one muso remarked, "i dunno how justin has time to do anything -- he plays with half the bands in town" and that's almost true, between these guys, ph7, darth vato, horses, and his own monday night solo thang at the moon.) visually, loose-'n'-limber gtrist john stevens is a show all by himself, seemingly having more fun than any 10 other ppl in the house. (he's the newest bartender at the black dog, and perhaps his extreme state of relaxation was due to the happy hour shift he worked immediately before the show. perhaps not.) he's got scary chops and a tone that'll take the top of yr head off (even playing thru steffin ratliff's rig), but more than anything else, he projects _groove_ and _ease_. a natural. back on traps, lucas white was kickin' it like a d.c. go-go drummer ('member bands like e.u. and trouble funk that usedta carry _three_ drummers 'cos they'd wear 'em out in the course of a three-hour set w/o breaks?). it'll be interesting to see what these guys do when skates steps out for a few months to play on a caribbean cruise ship (shades of ghostcar's karl poetschke). will they be able to maintain the same momentum with another bassplayer (chuck brown, say, or john shook)? or will they put down for the duration and reconvene on skates' return? film, as they say, at 11.

by now, pablo and the hemphill 7 should be comfortable with their status as daddies of the scene. their live shows are the gold standard of roof-raising groovaliciousness. man for man, they're prolly the best band on the set (even more so because they don't go out of their way to prove it), and frontguy / poet / strategizer joe vano has always taken an interest in mentoring up 'n' coming bands (like the two that played before ph7 last night) and creating bona fide events like the soundclash extravaganza (coming up again in november, hooray, at the axis, feh). they earned their following the old fashioned way, slogging it out on four-hour gigs, playing for anyone who'd book 'em, then spent the next coupla yrs honing their original material and releasing a pile of band-bootleg cd-r's (a mixture of live cuts, straightahead studio expositions of their toons, and dub experiments -- a dangerous play for a band with big ideas but no "legit" cd). now they've scrapped the results of earlier abortive attempts at cutting a debut disc and are in rehearsals for a no-fooling studio foray. i'm betting that when they do, the results will be as amazing as their live shows routinely are.