Off Minor

Wow, Boat-Ting is just the best thing ever. Back again on Monday…

Steve Noble, Lol Coxhill, John Edwards
These guys were playing at the last Boat-Ting I went to (the last but one-one)… They’re all awesome, but I think I preferred their performance tonight… It seemed to get off a bit more. Tho that might have been because I’d nabbed the sofa seats at the front, so they were playing right into my face.

Last time I wrote that I didn’t really feel like I got Lol Coxhill, but I sure do now… I think I wrote some bollocks about him being more meditative and developing than other kind-of blasting players that just play all sorts of random screams. Well, that’s partly true I think, but he was playing with bursting energy that I hadn’t seen him pull out the (very few) other times I’ve seen him. John Edward’s playing was also really inspired tonight (not that it’s usually not inspired) but there was a lot of inventive sounds coming out; they all seemed like they were pushing themselves just that little bit further. They played three improvisations, the last piece was a cool short thing with Lol Coxhill starting off with some great little melody that exactly showed how it’s nonsense to say that Free Improv doesn’t know how to play tunes.

Still haven’t bought any Coxhill records, probably should have bought something from the front desk :(

Ambrosia Rasputin
Another poet up, tonight. Rasputin was excellent. Don’t know anything about poetry, it’s not really something that turns me on that much. But this was more heavily about the performance than the words themselves, I think (tho that’s obviously not really true; the words were obviously the important thing, but there was more emphasis on the sounds than the words themselves. Whatever that means). He’s also really funny (and plenty rude). I really loved it…

There is a link to a recording of him on WFMU’s site, but the link appears to be broken. Whether permanently or not, I don’t know… The description there is apt: “Groundskeeper Willie taking the BAD acid”

Charlie Collins + Beatrix Ward-Fernandez
This was a duo that was supposed to be a trio (with John Jasnoch), and which was cut down due to illness. Collins was playing vibes, Ward-Fernandez violin and then, for the second piece, theremin. I always used to hate the sound of vibes, but now I love them. They’re especially good to watch being played; I can never understand how it’s possible to play using four mallets at once. This was also the most jazzy thing of the evening, if that’s right. Anyway, the violin was good, and the theremin cool, but my soft-spot for the vibes meant that I was putting them back in my own mind and treating them as not much more than backing. Excellent anyway!!

The Otters + Mark Astronaut
This was billed as ‘The Otters’, tho after looking around it appears to be The Otters (Dom Perez-Silva (guitar), Joe Davin (bass), Dennis White (drums)) + Mark Astronaut (vocals)… Judging by the rapid evacuation of many of the Boat-Ting patrons, rock and roll isn’t something usually featured… But I thought it was wicked. Actually really fantastic. I don’t anything about the group but there are a couple of links elsewhere.

They were really loud (I mean, as to be expected) and Alex Ward, who was doing a stirling job on sound, was having problems getting the most out of the possibly limited sound system (particularly with reference to vocals), having to constantly run backwards and forwards to try contain the maelstrom… As an overall performance piece, I think it worked quite well!