The stage at Neumos was full of large amps, an extra large drum set, and a gong; this was going to be a thunderous show. The lights dimmed and fog spread across the stage, creating an epic, almost pretentious, landscape. But when Boris finally came out, with spotlights shining on their beautiful Asian faces and Takeshi ripped into his double necked guitar, we were reminded why this was our favorite Japanese experimental stoner-metal band.

Boris rocked through a diverse set, ranging from noise, psychedelic, ambience, and straight out metal. Most of their songs had a constant solidified distortion sound, similar to My Bloody Valentine. This set tone for how sludgy and noisy the band’s show is. Through the noise, you could clearly hear the clever riffs, forging the differences in the precision of the songs. They even got down and creepy with ambient sound, featuring Wata singing softly and disturbing, as if she forgot she wasn’t in Massive Attack.

Boris was at their best when their songs turned very stoner-rock, getting slow and almost boring, but then picked up into blaring psychedelic noise. At these moments it was easy to lose it all and get completely absorbed in the atmosphere created by the band.

The show ended with Atsuo furiously bashing on his gong, every bang sounding like exploding glass. He eventually fell backstage while the rest of the band wailed and drowned in their own noise, eventually slowing down into utter nothingness.

I had forgotten how interesting and diverse metal can be, and Boris was the perfect reminder.

Went to RiffTrax: Reefer Madness at Thorton Place movies last night.  A one time screening of a live performance of the MST3K guys riffing on Reefer Madness plus some other shorts. Super funny.  Sometimes, during the screening, you could see the three dudes as they riffed while the movie played (as opposed to MST3K, where you only saw the back of their heads.)  Walked into the theater and it wasn't the typical movie trivia being shown but rather a series of slides that were a parody of movie trivia slides as warped music played in the background.  That made my night as they reclaimed the whole cinema experience. Theater not very full but those there were ready to laugh, which also made the evening fun. They started with some off-the-hook shorts to get things rolling, then into a colorized version of Reefer Madness. Got off a ton of good lines.

Didn't know about the whole Rifftrax thing: you can download all kinds of riffs. And also learned about Fathom events, where they do one time screenings in conventional movie theaters.  So on the whole an evening that twisted the typical movie going experience. Next live Rifftrax one will be October 28th 2010 for House on Haunted Hill. Should be fun.

Cuong Vu plays The Triple Door on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010.  Should be a killer show. Got a chance to do an interview with him, in which we discuss jazz in academia, jazz/rock fusion and lots of other topics. Vu goes off!  Check it out:

artofthemix: Who are you playing with these days?

Cuong Vu: While I do a lot of sideman gigs, traveling to Europe, Canada, and Mexico, I primarily have two group that I'm focusing on at the moment.

I'm still working with my band which is now the trio with added bassist, Luke Bergman.  So it's with Ted Poor on drums and Stomu Takeishi on bass as well.

I'm also starting up another group with Andrew D'Angelo, Luke Bergman, and Evan Woodle.

artofthemix:  How is life as a UW faculty member?

Cuong Vu: I like the job very much.  It consumes me too much sometimes but I am very energized and excited by the relationships and exchanges with the students and the amazing progress that they make.  And I'm learning from the experience.

artofthemix: How important is academia and the university system to the perpetuation of jazz?

Cuong Vu: The way that it's been codified and generally done in the majority of the schools (at least in the U.S.) is actually and has been snuffing the life out of jazz.  Much of the music that is being made these days is either a poor carbon copy of what happened decades ago or is a completely superficial and is attempt at commercialism that shoots for the lowest common denominator.  I find that most jazz musicians (well most musicians in general) only know of the music that they do and haven't checked out as much music from other genres or cultures (or even the cultures and trends of their surroundings) as possible so the music sounds singular in dimension.  The understanding of music then isn't universal in it's fundamentals and is instead an understanding of a music that is a caricature of itself, which then makes it harder for the audience to deeply connect with (not that that's the only problem).  I mean Radiohead, Bjork, Sigur Ros are all edge pushers whose music is complex and yet they have a huge followings.  It probably wouldn't be nearly as big without the vocals but I think that even if they did instrumental music, they'd still have a wider reach than the musicians who aren't as diverse in their musical research.

I put the blame squarely on the lame educational system that systemized jazz where it's teachers for the most part have forgotten that jazz was and should be about innovation and searching to push the music further and further while maintaining their connection to the undercurrents and trends of the present.  But now, the idea of the arts as something that is crucial to humanity is quickly dying off so many of the finest musicians who had been out in the world doing their thing, have to luck into a good teaching position in order to survive.  These world travelers are now bringing that experience that breadth of vision into the classrooms and it's breathing life into jazz education.

Now that these people are in academia and if more and more infiltrate, then things will start to drastically change for the better.  We need this to happen in the Jr. Highs and Highs School in order to really change things around.  Unfortunately the teachers in the grade school - high school are even less stellar than the ones I'm complaining about so that will be a harder barrier to penetrate.

So...wrapping this up, I think educating the future musicians is crucial.  But the other half that we have to take on is educating the future audiences as well.

artofthemix:  One of the defining aspects of the jazz/rock fusion I've been hearing these days (James Farm, Speak come to mind as far as shows I've seen lately) is the drummer playing on the beat instead of around the beat. Do you think our ear hungers for that cadence?

Cuong Vu: I'm not sure that I understand.  What is playing around the beat?  When I think of Lester Young or Louis Armstrong, I think of hard grooving swing and not about avoiding or blurring the beat.  They play with where the phrasing resolves and where they insinuate the one, but I hear them as playing "on the beat". Or do you mean that it's less syncopated these days and the beat is always spelled out, like 4 on the floor?

Anyway I'll assume that I understand and answer this way - I think that it's about the music.  Rock isn't about playing around the beat.  However, when it comes to the improvisation at least in Speak or in my groups or any of the great bands out there, I challenge you to find one. So...playing with time is still a part of the language as long as it fits into the narrative of the improv.

artofthemix:  Rock is kind of like electric folk -- it doesn't take a ton of talent or training to play rock. 3 chords, an amp and a backbeat.  And some attitude. Of course, that's a reduction, but hopefully you see what I'm getting at. Jazz, however, requires both talent and training.  So fusing them can make for a curious mix. Thoughts?

Cuong Vu: I think that in rock music, it's more likely that you can get away with not having a high level of mastery of musical skills.  But if you think of the greatest bands, they were bad asses that have technique.  Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Deerhoof, Meshuggah, Frank Zappa's bands, the list goes on and on.  Having a great groove/backbeat is not simple.  Making 3 chords sound interesting is not easy.  Getting a good sound out of an amp that is your own sound isn't something that just happens most of the time (requires great ears and understanding of the music and the musician's role in each piece and each section).  U2's guitarist, the Edge, is a master of getting sounds.

I think that the skill set can be really different from the one needed to play jazz but any band/musician that transcends and make impactful music, there has to have been a great deal of time, commitment and intensity spent on their craft.  And lots of jazz musicians would sound pretty stupid playing rock so...it goes both ways.

artofthemix: What did you have for breakfast?

Cuong Vu: My breakfast is coffee and the trumpet in my face for a few hours.  Today, it's coffee and an e-mail to you.

Caught J. Roddy Walston and The Business at Chop Suey last Monday. Long hairs from Baltimore. Piano sounding good, honky tonk. Definite Jerry Lee Lewis invocation (not imitation) -- don't see that too much these days. Straight up rock'n'roll. All originals 'cept one Little Richard cover (again, don't hear that too much these days). Some clever hooks. Opened with "Don't Break The Needle" and closed with "Used To Did" their two hits if you will. Got crowd singing along to the last one. They put on a show for the small Monday crowd. A hard workin' rock'n'roll band fer sure. Here's some pics of the ring leader by Adam Forslund:

Photographer Adam Forslund was at the Xavier Rudd show at Marymoor Park on Friday August 13th, 2010. Check out his pics from the show below:

J. Roddy Walston and The Business are playing Chop Suey on August 16th.  Their stuff rocks!  Check out an exclusive Flotzam interview with J. Roddy.

Interview With J. Roddy Walston and The Business by flotzam

(Apologies on sound quality problems; it gets better later in the interview...)

Win Butler, front man and lead song writer of Arcade Fire, grew up in the American landscape, presumably in the suburbs. It wasn’t until he was an adult that he moved to Quebec, married Régine Chassagne and formed Arcade Fire. They first released Funeral, a sad but honest look at death and relationships. They followed up Funeral by huddling up in a massive church and filling the large walls with echoing sound, deepening and enlarging their music. The result was Neon Bible.

Now, it’s been four years since the release of Neon Bible, and Arcade Fire has done something no other band is doing right now; instead of they wrote a concept album about the suburbs, deep with mixed feelings and nostalgia. They rid themselves of the enlarging noise of Neon Bible and the epic song structure of Funeral, but delivered a realistic look at the feelings surrounding growing up and revisiting the suburbs.

There is something about growing up in the suburbs; the friends, the things they do, and all the wasted time. There is something about the style of the suburbs; the roads, the familiarity, the mountains of malls, and all the driving around. There is something about the daily growth in the suburbs; the creativity and the life of the children, the pressures of conforming and growing up, the strange feelings of moving away from your home. There is something ordinary but extraordinary about these nostalgic suburban feelings.

Arcade Fire delivers these thoughts and feelings with ease across their sixteen song album as all the songs on the album are related as they take different perspectives on suburb life.

The songs are filled with attempts to hold onto childhood, obvious realizations of having to become an adult, and memories of revisiting what was once home. On the song “Ready to Start,” Butler sings about becoming a businessman and starting his life as an adult, growing away from the child’s creative spirit. He hints that if he was someone else, or with someone else, he would’ve tried harder to be creative. The songs with Régine Chassagne singing lead stand out, almost as if she represents the creative spirit outside of the suburbs. On “Empty Room,” Chassagne and Butler duet, calling out for each other in an empty room, as if he is trapped in the suburbs and she is far away in the promised land waiting for him and on “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” she shouts about staying alive and artistic in a land where everything is the same and everyone tries dampen your spirit.

In the end, Arcade Fire takes all of their nostalgia, all of their mixed feelings, and says easily and matter of factly, “if I could have it back, all the time we wasted, I would waste it again,” summing up everything and moving on, realizing that regardless of what happened or whats going on, there is joy in these memories.

Mp3s from The Suburbs:

Empty Room

The Suburbs

Sprawl II

Ready To Start

All tracks found here.

Jazz at The Sunset!  Kinda different than your typical night out at that club. Caught the tail end of Flexicon covering a Beatles song.  Then, Speak. These guys put out  some serious jams admidst brooding compositions.  Bassist and drummer were tight rippin it up on the foundation. Bassist never even faced the audience but was locked with percussion madness. Drummer would modulate from highly syncopated, jazzed-out lines against the beat to straight, balls-out rock.  Some tunes slipped into alt. time signatures, 7/8 and what not. Brain engaged. Keyboard player on the Korg getting all modal. Saxophone was laying down emotional skronk. Here's some pics:

photo by Adam Forslund

photo by Adam Forslund

Xavier Rudd is playing Marymoor Amphitheatre this Friday, August 13th.  He had time to do an exclusive interview with Flotzam in which we learn some Austrailian slang, talk about playing the didgerigoo, find out what Xavier had for breakfast and more. Check it out below!

Interview With Xavier Rudd 

Imaad Wasif opened. Big fat rock guitar sound. "These are songs of love. These are songs of longing. These are songs of the universe."  Imaad sporting white pants, white shirt, long hair.  Singing about the rapture. Seems like an intense dude. Here's a pic of him from his MySpace page:

Then The Dodos. More emoting. No bassist but two percussionists.  Acoustic guitar. Lots of major pentatonic songs and tonic/subdominant changes with syncopated percussion, sort of high school marching band-like meets the Kodo drummers. At some point, someone from audience yells "Take off your shirt!"

The New Pornographers then marched on stage, all nine of them.  That band name always been slightly disturbing -- afraid to type it into a search engine. The name transgresses while the band stays so clean.  Check out this great piece in Magnet Magazine where the journalist going to Canada to interview them gets stopped by Canadian customers because of his notebook with "new porno" written and has his laptop searched (in which his porno collection is found) and then confiscated. Too funny.

Neko Case got to belt out a few but mostly was as back-up harmonies with a tamborine.  Interesting to see her in that role now that she's so huge.  Got serious pipes that's for sure.  Songs with Neko on lead were choice.  Audience seemed to react as such. More Neko! And Kathryn Calder tore it up with harmonies.  This band puts down some serious power pop. Ended with "Bleeding Heart Show" -- drummer getting his fill of fills on the final anthemic refrains.

Didn't get any pics from last night shows, but here's some exclusive pics Adam Forslund took of them at Sasquatch earlier this year as the sun set:

photo by Adam Forslund

photo by Adam Forslund

photo by Adam Forslund