Bigger Ears
Mar. 27th, 2017 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ateolfAfter my meal and bit of shopping (also, found out Lonesome Dove, one of the food vendors, does breakfast so made a note of that as well!) I went back up to the Mill & Mine to see Anna Meredith. She was pretty good. A lot of interesting things (sometimes bordered on whimsical a little more than I typically like, but overall there was more good than bad). The guitarist got a bit shreddy but oftentimes in this Fripp/computerish way that could be cool. I enjoyed it but I didn't feel too bad cutting out a few minutes early to make it down to The Square Room to check out Matthew Shipp & Bobby Kapp. That was REALLY good. Possible the best jazz show I saw the festival (and I saw a few great ones). Pretty free-form, piano and drums. Matthew's playing reminded me of Cecil Taylor in a lot of places. At one point he was reaching into the piano to pluck the strings directly, that was fun. Considered leaving early to get to Blonde Redhead in time, but I knew I was enjoying this more than I would that so I stayed til the end. The Mill & Mine (where most of the shows I saw were) is the northernmost of all the venues and a little removed from the rest. Anyway, I made it up there for Blonde Redhead. I missed their first few songs but that's okay. They were billed as performing the album Misery Is a Butterfly (which I think is kinda mediocre, definitely not bad like the one that came after it, but the least exciting of all their stuff I own, I think there's one song I really like and the rest is just okay). They were playing with a string quintet and their performance was a little staid even given the source. It wasn't a bad show but it didn't blow me away. The came back for a short set after the album and played some new stuff with the strings for half of it and played the rest as just a three piece. They still didn't play anything from before the album in question. They were more energetic as a three piece. I was hoping for at least one older song from back when I liked them, but no luck. Ah well.
At this point I'll take a little break and mention something I realized I forgot. The first day in Knoxville, while scoping out the venues and the lay of the land downtown, we stopped to do some planning/routing at this pharmacy with a soda fountain and got some ice cream stuff. Not really that noteworthy, but I like mentioning stuff. I'll also take advantage of the break to talk a little about the layout of this festival. There were nine main venues (not counting the Terminal which was like the headquarters) spread all over downtown. Downtown Knoxville isn't huge as downtowns go, relatively small, but still a good amount of space to cover when going back and forth between different venues. A few were close together, but the Mill & Mine is a little apart (with The Standard being pretty close). The Knoxville Museum of Art is also a little removed from everything else, over by the Sunsphere (Wigsphere) on the western edge of downtown. So, with festivals there's the standard issue of maybe having to miss some things you'd like to see due to conflicts where something else you want to see is playing at the same time. This setup has the added effect of limiting you not just by time but spacetime as well. If you've got two shows you want to see that don't necessarily overlap but they're at opposite ends of downtown and then maybe you'd have to go to one end and back right after for another show, that limits you as well as you might take up half the show just walking (and you're doing so much walking and standing as it is, all day). Anyway, not as easy to fill in every gap as it would be in other festivals where everything is closer. On the other hand, it does provide a nice atmosphere that feels integrated with the city and intimate in its own way. So that was kinda nice. Give and take I guess. It mostly limits some things you're a little interested in or curious about if they're too soon and too far.
Now we're on Friday. We did get up to make it to stuff in the morning. There was this show I was going to go to real early but we were a little late. I had some time to catch part of it, but I wanted to be early to Matmos. We got some breakfast tacos as well as these biscuit and gravy doughnuts (sounds weird but was amazing) and checked out the merch again. At some point, Wild Honey got some new stuff in so I'll assume it was then and I picked up: Brian Eno: Music for Films and Tortoise: TNT. So I rush down to the Tennessee theater (the biggest venue, and old ornate Orpheum-styled theater) to see Matmos. Well, I felt dumb that I rushed so early as they weren't letting anyone in yet and I had to sit on the sidewalk for thirty minutes (and there really wasn't even a line yet). Anyway, the show was good. Not nearly as good as when I saw 'em at Day for Night (doing the Ultimate Care II show). They were doing an interpretation of Robert Ashley's "Perfect Lives (Private Parts)." They did three sections: "The Park," "The Bar," and "The Backyard." In the first there was a string section and flautist accompanying along with two singers who punctuated with repeating key phrases (spoken but in kind of a singerly way). The one guy did electronics and the other Matmos guy just read the text. In the second part they did a complete wardrobe change and the strings/flute were replaced with piano. It fit with the piece, but the piano was mostly doing a kind of boogie woogie thing. The last section was the best. It was just the two Matmos guys and the one guy was playing acoustic guitar and synth along with reading the text. From what I understand, all the text was based on but different from Robert Ashley's original. After that I walked over to the Knoxville Museum of Art to catch The University of Tennessee Electroacoustic Ensemble. This was really awesome. There were a bunch of musicians spread around the bottom floor in this big open room in these little stations around the room. There were different electronic instruments (one synthesizer, an EML no less) and different acoustic instruments (traditional band stuff). Really enjoyable experimental stuff. After a while the musicians went upstairs where there were other musicians in similar stations in a couple different rooms. So you could walk back and forth between the rooms and hear different things. Towards the end the initial musicians went back downstairs and picked back up again. Even though it wasn't a "real" band (stupid distinction I'm not actually making) it was one of the better performances I got from the festival. They had some cdrs out on a table so I picked one up: The University of Tennessee Electroacoustic Ensemble: Vantablack. I had a good amount of time to make it up to the Mill & Mine so I took a leisurely stroll back up that way. The next act was American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME). A string quartet (at least for this performance, mostly). The first piece was just a cello solo. Then the rest of the strings came out. They ended with Charlemagne Palestine's "Strumming Music" with a larger group including a percussionist guitarists and vocalists. They were really good. Modern classical stuff. I picked up their cd Thrive on Routine from the merch table. I probably took a break and ate something like a sandwich from The Tomato Head at the Terminal. Anyway, next was Jóhann Jóhannsson's "Drone Mass" (also performed by American Contemporary Music Ensemble). Jóhann wasn't onstage during the performance but he did come out for the applause at the end. That was also really good. I picked up his Orphée cd from the merch table. Would have gotten a t-shirt too but the biggest they had were mediums (European mediums at that!). Mary Beth had met back up with me for that show and we continued the night together (and the rest just stayed at the Mill & Mine). After a gap we watched Colleen. She was really good. We sat out on the patio and listened watched her sound check through the window. I think we had some tacos from Goose Island's tent on the outside of the venue. Mary Beth was getting very excited 'cuz she was soundchecking all her favorite songs. The set was really good. We got up front and people were yelling at us to sit down. See, this is not a venue with seats. People were sitting on the floor, which is something they did at some of the shows there and not others. If there were seats, I'd understand the complaint. But we ignored them. Other people were standing too. The show was really good. Afterwards we sat outside again and these people approached us saying someone recognized us as having painted murals in Memphis. So yeah, that's not something we've done. But after mentioning we are from Memphis, well they're from Memphis and we talked a bit. They do a podcast about experimental electronic music so I got pretty intrigued. I checked it out later. It's called Sonosphere. Looks like it's got some awesome stuff. Also, the first post was about that Wolf Eyes show here a few years ago. Awesome. Mary Beth brought up my festival so when I had to talk about it I kinda flubbed it up. Anyway, we went back inside to catch Tortoise. They were also really good. Lots of really good shows, hell. The drumming was pretty spectacular especially the one guy (they switched it up a bit, two drum sets on stage, not always both played at the same time, but sometimes). The one guy who does the most drumming was really badass and he beat the shit out of those drums. He was playing synth at one point and the cameraman who was filming on stage was right on his back and I thought it was kinda funny, looked like he was humping him. Later, going back to the synth from the drums, he waved his arm at the guy and yelled at him to keep his distance. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought it was a little unusual. I picked up a t-shirt and Tortoise: s/t from the merch table.
Now we're on to Saturday. This was the most eventful day of the festival for me, unsurprisingly. Let's see if I can get everything in. I grabbed a couple breakfast tacos from the Terminal which I ate walking while rushing down to the Regal Riviera to catch the screening of Instrument (with Jem Cohen and Guy Picciotto doing a q&a afterwards). And I made it just in time. The movie was really good. Mostly just footage. Live footage and clips of things. I thought the way it was structured was really good. Hard to explain. I'll try to talk about it the best I can while not neglecting all the live music and things I saw this festival. Okay. Impressive moment during a show at a gymnasium: drums are under a basketball goal and Guy jumps up and climbs through the hoop and hangs upside down and proceeds to sing. Speaking of drums, Fugazi's drummer! (He has a name, Brendan Canty). There are clips of this interview Ian and Guy did with with a girl in middle school for some school program with awkward pauses and camera edits and nervously scripted questions and it was pretty wonderful. A good bit of 90s nostalgia to be mined from the clothing and the number of benefit shows. They had bits where they did headshot kinda things of people in line for the shows, but the most memorable of this stuff was coincidentally enough outside the Knoxville show where they actually interviewed people. The negative comments were amusing. The band apparently liked those and hated the compliments and Jem Cohen (the director) I guess had to fight a little bit to get any of the positive comments in. The guy who moderated the q&a was actually one of the people in the movie with one of those positive comments. I really liked the movie a lot and the q&a was pretty cool too. It went on a long time so I didn't get to catch much of Meredith Monk's set at the Bijou. I caught about the last twenty minutes. What I saw was really good. Operatic and modern. After that I head over to the Tennessee (luckily all these are in the same area within a couple blocks of each other) to catch Xiu Xiu's performance of Twin Peaks music! Well, I'll leave you in suspense as I head off to create a new post.
At this point I'll take a little break and mention something I realized I forgot. The first day in Knoxville, while scoping out the venues and the lay of the land downtown, we stopped to do some planning/routing at this pharmacy with a soda fountain and got some ice cream stuff. Not really that noteworthy, but I like mentioning stuff. I'll also take advantage of the break to talk a little about the layout of this festival. There were nine main venues (not counting the Terminal which was like the headquarters) spread all over downtown. Downtown Knoxville isn't huge as downtowns go, relatively small, but still a good amount of space to cover when going back and forth between different venues. A few were close together, but the Mill & Mine is a little apart (with The Standard being pretty close). The Knoxville Museum of Art is also a little removed from everything else, over by the Sunsphere (Wigsphere) on the western edge of downtown. So, with festivals there's the standard issue of maybe having to miss some things you'd like to see due to conflicts where something else you want to see is playing at the same time. This setup has the added effect of limiting you not just by time but spacetime as well. If you've got two shows you want to see that don't necessarily overlap but they're at opposite ends of downtown and then maybe you'd have to go to one end and back right after for another show, that limits you as well as you might take up half the show just walking (and you're doing so much walking and standing as it is, all day). Anyway, not as easy to fill in every gap as it would be in other festivals where everything is closer. On the other hand, it does provide a nice atmosphere that feels integrated with the city and intimate in its own way. So that was kinda nice. Give and take I guess. It mostly limits some things you're a little interested in or curious about if they're too soon and too far.
Now we're on Friday. We did get up to make it to stuff in the morning. There was this show I was going to go to real early but we were a little late. I had some time to catch part of it, but I wanted to be early to Matmos. We got some breakfast tacos as well as these biscuit and gravy doughnuts (sounds weird but was amazing) and checked out the merch again. At some point, Wild Honey got some new stuff in so I'll assume it was then and I picked up: Brian Eno: Music for Films and Tortoise: TNT. So I rush down to the Tennessee theater (the biggest venue, and old ornate Orpheum-styled theater) to see Matmos. Well, I felt dumb that I rushed so early as they weren't letting anyone in yet and I had to sit on the sidewalk for thirty minutes (and there really wasn't even a line yet). Anyway, the show was good. Not nearly as good as when I saw 'em at Day for Night (doing the Ultimate Care II show). They were doing an interpretation of Robert Ashley's "Perfect Lives (Private Parts)." They did three sections: "The Park," "The Bar," and "The Backyard." In the first there was a string section and flautist accompanying along with two singers who punctuated with repeating key phrases (spoken but in kind of a singerly way). The one guy did electronics and the other Matmos guy just read the text. In the second part they did a complete wardrobe change and the strings/flute were replaced with piano. It fit with the piece, but the piano was mostly doing a kind of boogie woogie thing. The last section was the best. It was just the two Matmos guys and the one guy was playing acoustic guitar and synth along with reading the text. From what I understand, all the text was based on but different from Robert Ashley's original. After that I walked over to the Knoxville Museum of Art to catch The University of Tennessee Electroacoustic Ensemble. This was really awesome. There were a bunch of musicians spread around the bottom floor in this big open room in these little stations around the room. There were different electronic instruments (one synthesizer, an EML no less) and different acoustic instruments (traditional band stuff). Really enjoyable experimental stuff. After a while the musicians went upstairs where there were other musicians in similar stations in a couple different rooms. So you could walk back and forth between the rooms and hear different things. Towards the end the initial musicians went back downstairs and picked back up again. Even though it wasn't a "real" band (stupid distinction I'm not actually making) it was one of the better performances I got from the festival. They had some cdrs out on a table so I picked one up: The University of Tennessee Electroacoustic Ensemble: Vantablack. I had a good amount of time to make it up to the Mill & Mine so I took a leisurely stroll back up that way. The next act was American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME). A string quartet (at least for this performance, mostly). The first piece was just a cello solo. Then the rest of the strings came out. They ended with Charlemagne Palestine's "Strumming Music" with a larger group including a percussionist guitarists and vocalists. They were really good. Modern classical stuff. I picked up their cd Thrive on Routine from the merch table. I probably took a break and ate something like a sandwich from The Tomato Head at the Terminal. Anyway, next was Jóhann Jóhannsson's "Drone Mass" (also performed by American Contemporary Music Ensemble). Jóhann wasn't onstage during the performance but he did come out for the applause at the end. That was also really good. I picked up his Orphée cd from the merch table. Would have gotten a t-shirt too but the biggest they had were mediums (European mediums at that!). Mary Beth had met back up with me for that show and we continued the night together (and the rest just stayed at the Mill & Mine). After a gap we watched Colleen. She was really good. We sat out on the patio and listened watched her sound check through the window. I think we had some tacos from Goose Island's tent on the outside of the venue. Mary Beth was getting very excited 'cuz she was soundchecking all her favorite songs. The set was really good. We got up front and people were yelling at us to sit down. See, this is not a venue with seats. People were sitting on the floor, which is something they did at some of the shows there and not others. If there were seats, I'd understand the complaint. But we ignored them. Other people were standing too. The show was really good. Afterwards we sat outside again and these people approached us saying someone recognized us as having painted murals in Memphis. So yeah, that's not something we've done. But after mentioning we are from Memphis, well they're from Memphis and we talked a bit. They do a podcast about experimental electronic music so I got pretty intrigued. I checked it out later. It's called Sonosphere. Looks like it's got some awesome stuff. Also, the first post was about that Wolf Eyes show here a few years ago. Awesome. Mary Beth brought up my festival so when I had to talk about it I kinda flubbed it up. Anyway, we went back inside to catch Tortoise. They were also really good. Lots of really good shows, hell. The drumming was pretty spectacular especially the one guy (they switched it up a bit, two drum sets on stage, not always both played at the same time, but sometimes). The one guy who does the most drumming was really badass and he beat the shit out of those drums. He was playing synth at one point and the cameraman who was filming on stage was right on his back and I thought it was kinda funny, looked like he was humping him. Later, going back to the synth from the drums, he waved his arm at the guy and yelled at him to keep his distance. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought it was a little unusual. I picked up a t-shirt and Tortoise: s/t from the merch table.
Now we're on to Saturday. This was the most eventful day of the festival for me, unsurprisingly. Let's see if I can get everything in. I grabbed a couple breakfast tacos from the Terminal which I ate walking while rushing down to the Regal Riviera to catch the screening of Instrument (with Jem Cohen and Guy Picciotto doing a q&a afterwards). And I made it just in time. The movie was really good. Mostly just footage. Live footage and clips of things. I thought the way it was structured was really good. Hard to explain. I'll try to talk about it the best I can while not neglecting all the live music and things I saw this festival. Okay. Impressive moment during a show at a gymnasium: drums are under a basketball goal and Guy jumps up and climbs through the hoop and hangs upside down and proceeds to sing. Speaking of drums, Fugazi's drummer! (He has a name, Brendan Canty). There are clips of this interview Ian and Guy did with with a girl in middle school for some school program with awkward pauses and camera edits and nervously scripted questions and it was pretty wonderful. A good bit of 90s nostalgia to be mined from the clothing and the number of benefit shows. They had bits where they did headshot kinda things of people in line for the shows, but the most memorable of this stuff was coincidentally enough outside the Knoxville show where they actually interviewed people. The negative comments were amusing. The band apparently liked those and hated the compliments and Jem Cohen (the director) I guess had to fight a little bit to get any of the positive comments in. The guy who moderated the q&a was actually one of the people in the movie with one of those positive comments. I really liked the movie a lot and the q&a was pretty cool too. It went on a long time so I didn't get to catch much of Meredith Monk's set at the Bijou. I caught about the last twenty minutes. What I saw was really good. Operatic and modern. After that I head over to the Tennessee (luckily all these are in the same area within a couple blocks of each other) to catch Xiu Xiu's performance of Twin Peaks music! Well, I'll leave you in suspense as I head off to create a new post.
