The Girl From the North Country

So here I sit, in a cozy house high in the hills of Berkeley, overlooking all the ever-lovin' famous bridges in the Bay area (through some gigantic windows in the living room of Daphne's friend Leila). Drove up here today with the wife and kid. Thandie was pretty amazing about the whole thing. A six hour drive, a punch-you-in-the-face kind of heat, and barely a word of complaint. Sometimes I find it hard to believe she's really two. (Other times, that fact is all too clear.)

Today was my last official day at the IML (so I need to change that fucking blogspot bio, eh?), and last night I got pleasantly drunk (as opposed to the sort of soul-sucking drunk that has been my wont lately) with some good friends from that ill-fated Institution. Reflecting on the brilliance of these folks, and the many and varied ways in which said brilliance has been mercilessly squelched by the bureaucratic machinery of the IML (and, by extension, by academia at large), I was put in mind of my favorite Shakespeare sonnet -- number 66, as it turns out:

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone

Speaking of death -- it's been a week since I saw the Zappa Plays Zappa show at the Wiltern. That was kind of depressing too, despite the exceedingly high level of musicianship on display during the performance. I suspect they're right in billing it as the best live show on the planet right now (though in the context of 2006, that's not saying much), but it's the question of "authenticity" that gets me. Like somehow the only valid performance is one that replicates more or less exactly the shows that Zappa was doing when he was still alive. Isn't that sort of the same rut that organized religion -- one of the very things Zappa fought so hard to undermine -- gets into?

What the fuck do I know? And what does all this have to do with the title of this post? Hmmm. I've gone north. I'm surrounded by girls. I like Bob Dylan's music. So sue me.

Cutting some slack for Mary Jane

Every time I think about leaving California, someone goes an does something like this.

And cuz I know that link won't work forever, here's the cut 'n paste version:

West Hollywood To Consider Easing Enforcement Of Marijuana Laws

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- Pot smokers wouldn't have to worry about possessing small amounts of marijuana in West Hollywood -- or smoking it in private -- if the community's City Council adopts a proposed resolution on Monday. The resolution would instruct the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which patrols West Hollywood, not to target adults who possess small amounts of marijuana or smoke the herb in private, city officials said. Minors and drug dealers would still be subject to arrest, and smoking in public would still be prohibited.

The council has already voted to allow dispensaries of medical marijuana under the state's compassionate care law approved by voters in a statewide initiative, said Councilman John Duran. Several dispensaries that sell medical marijuana to patients with a doctor's prescription for the drug have been operating in the community for more than a year. The community also has a large gay population, some of whom are living with HIV, and Duran said some patients use marijuana to relieve side effects from AIDS medications. "Council was unanimous earlier on in supporting medicinal use of marijuana," he said. "This goes a step further. As far as I know, we're the first city in Southern California to attempt to do this. A couple of my colleagues are somewhat conservative -- not sure what they'll do -- but I believe it'll pass."

Duran said he believes the resolution will get the three out of five votes needed to pass. If approved, the new rules would go into effect "immediately," he said. The council decided to take up the issue to avoid a costly ballot initiative regarding marijuana use being pushed by a local marijuana advocacy group called the West Hollywood Civil Liberties Alliance. If the council approves the resolution, the group has agreed to drop its initiative, which would save the city thousands of dollars, Duran said. The policy change was initially proposed as an ordinance, but was changed to a resolution to avoid conflicts with state and federal laws, Duran said. An ordinance is a law, while a resolution would merely send law enforcement the message that they should "focus on more serious crimes," he said. "Under state law, possession of marijuana is still illegal under the California Health and Safety Code," Duran said. "We cannot pass laws that contradict state or federal law, but we can give direction to our sheriff's department that we consider marijuana for personal use to be a very low priority and that (officers) instead focus on more serious crimes in the city of West Hollywood."

Duran noted that after the council passed another resolution recommending that officers not arrest couples engaging in sex acts in cars that the number of such arrests went down. According to Duran, the city asked law enforcement to merely "tap on the window of the car and say `go home,"' instead of arresting couples found having sex in cars, which legally constitutes lewd conduct and a crime. He added that if deputies ignored the council's resolution, the city could opt to not renew the sheriff's contract to operate in West Hollywood and contract with another police department such as Beverly Hills, or start its own police department. Although a resolution regarding small amounts of marijuana would not be binding on the sheriff's department, Duran said he expects deputies would comply."I think, deep down, they really feel the same way we do," he said.

(via NBC news)

Yma Sumac

Good god, why has no one ever told me about this woman?

Bought her Mambo! on a whim yesterday, and can't stop playing it. Sorta goofy and beautiful all at once -- my favorite combination. And what a range, navigated with such ease! I would say she was the proto-Bjork (listen to "Five Bottles of Mambo," f'r'instance). In any case, she's anything but "easy listening" (though she usually gets classified that way).

I shouldn't talk about her in the past tense, of course, cuz she's still alive. For the record, though, her heyday was the 50s. Such a repressive time, such interesting music. Wonder if they'll say the same about this decade... anyway, I digress.

Also picked up a bunch of DVDs for Thandie: concerts by Etta James (talk about great art, check out her "I'd Rather Be Blind"), George Clinton (at Montreaux, of all places), Bob Marley, The Buena Vista Social Club documentary (hell, she loved the one about Howlin' Wolf, so I figured why not?), the original Batman movie (that's right, the cheesy one -- Yo Ho!), and The Wiz (say what you will about this Sidney Lumet / Diana Ross / Nipsy Russell / Michael Jackson weird-fest, it's still much hipper than the 1939 Judy Garland film).

Mortality, immortality, and critics

Came across this crazy picture of Frank Zappa tonight, courtesy of European superfan Paul Berkholst.



I know Zappa was no sentimentalist, but this image, taken shortly before his death, moved me. Maybe it's because we took Thandie to the beach the other day, and she panicked when I tried to show her that the ocean was nothing to be scared of by wading into it. It was as if she was afraid that all that water was going to wash me away, mercilessly. It wasn't like I wasn't already aware of the extent to which little kids depend on their parents... but that moment was something more, something that cut straight to an awareness that I'm not going to be on this fucking planet forever.

How does one live completely? In my case, I want to be a great artist and a great human being (father, husband, friend). Is the tradeoff, well, dying of prostate cancer at age 53? I used to think I was willing to make that kind of sacrifice -- one of the reasons I've developed such poor sleep habits. (Health be damned! There's more music to be written!) Now I'm not so sure. I need another solution.

It doesn't help when the rest of the world is unbelievably slow catching up with the "art" part. But thanks to Mr. Berkholst, I discovered more forcefully than ever before that Zappa went through the same shit. Here, for instance, is a clipping from PB's collection (check out his blog at the site above): a generally bad review of a live performance with the LSO (you'll need to click on it to read it):



(Who the fuck is "Howard Brubeck," by the way?)

The IJG actually hasn't gotten many bad reviews, though there are a few if you search for them (google "Industrial Jazz Group" and "Ken Waxman" sometime). But we definitely haven't "broken through" like we should have by now. I've started imagining myself stuck in the same pattern when I'm 80: writing strange, beautiful, interesting music, and continuing to be unable to afford to keep a band together.

This is a scary time to be an artist.

More commentary

This sentence was uttered by Thandie when I asked her why she was refusing to help me clean up her high chair, which she had liberally decorated with peas, meatballs, and strawberries:

"I'm just a baby."

Dumb question

Why isn't it called a "webl" instead of a "blog"?

Commentary

From Billy Jenkins:

"The musician is losing ground in this DIY technological age. You're looking at the screen now and maybe half listening to music. And a lot of that music is 'found sound', cut and paste and machine originated.

"The real musician has quietly been shown the door. You might enjoy them safely within the cages of a concert hall, regurgitating the only repertoire deemed safe - that which contains revivalism, nostalgia and familiarity.

"'Art' music, that deemed non commercial and worthy of government support by way of the Arts Council, not only has the above ingredients, but must also be 'culturally inclusive', 'educational' and above all - controllable.

"Not only does the creative musician have to compromise their artistic vision to suit 'funding criteria', they also, to satisfy educational addendum, have to reveal (and thus weaken) the mystery and magic of their art."

Thoughts?

A new review

How's that for a generic headline?

Anyway, this one's from Scott Yanow at LA Jazz Scene:

"It is fair to say that the Industrial Jazz Group plays unpredictable music. Heard along the way are strong hints of rock & roll, blues, Eastern European folk music, dixieland, r&b, dance music, avant-garde ensembles and Stravinsky, and that is only in the opening number 'Doo Wha?' Led by pianist Andrew Durkin and consisting of seven horns and a three-piece rhythm section, the Industrial Jazz Group can almost be thought of as an American version of Willem Breuker's Kollektief. Alternating complex written ensembles with jammed sections and overheated solos, their music is avant-garde but never dry or meandering; not with their wacky sense of humor and knowledge of earlier styles.

"The band's strong musicianship and ability to instantly switch styles keeps it from merely being a musical comedy act although there are sections on Industrial Jazz A Go Go (available from www.evandermusic.com) where it will be difficult not to chuckle. Mixing together satire and reverence for the many musical idioms, the Industrial Jazz Group is both a crack up and a memorable musical experience. This is a band that certainly deserves to be much better known."

Thanks, Scott!

Click this

If I had a remote that could control the universe, I'd probably never let Adam Sandler make another movie.

T-H-A-N-D-I-E

That's how you spell "Thandie."

At least according to my 2 year old daughter, who spelled her name for me this morning.

Yeowza.

I'm so fat

Went to the movie theater for the first time in ages today (saw the third X-Men movie--which was a big blah, by the way), and noticed this rather amazing little concoction while waiting in the vicinity of the concession stand.

Let me set the scene: in the background, a startlingly fat little girl (maybe 3 years old) is playing a game projected on the floor; she stomps on digital popcorn, spiders, race cars, and so on. It looks like the most activity she's gotten in months.

Daphne and I are standing in line trying to decide what size popcorn to get.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice that one of the items on the menu is a giant pretzel in which is ensconced a glazed cinnamon roll. The entire thing is probably the size of a small frisbee. I feel a vague desire to retch.

I try to imagine the mindset that would create such a thing. "Let's see, I could buy this pretzel, and then buy this cinnamon roll, and eat them separately. OR, I could buy the pretzel-cinnamon-roll-colossus, and save myself the extra effort it takes to guide my fat fucking hand back into the bag to pull out the cinnamon roll once I'm done with the pretzel! Yeah! Pure genius!"

This is how the world will end. Not with a bang, but with a burp.

So as I said...

I recently posted this "review" of myspace on an email list I belong to:

"I was a little hesitant to get involved in myspace, but people kept recommending it to me, and a month or two ago I took the plunge. In the interim I have become pretty enthusiastic about its possibilities. I wouldn't use it as a standalone promotional tool (though who knows, maybe someday it'll be capable of that), but I do think it has the potential to be extremely powerful. (And, by the way, I have found some awesome music with it.)

"At the same time, there are some things that would make the site a better tool for indie musicians. Obviously, networking is not just about being able to easily amass large amounts of data (something the myspace interface is really good at). One needs to be able to organize and filter that data to use it effectively. So, for example, I find it very frustrating that except for the 'top eight,' one can't personalize the organization of one's 'friends' (say, by geographic region, genre, or even just alphabetically). Right now the order is determined by myspace, and to the user it appears basically random. What if we have a gig in city X, and I want to send a message to our friends in that city? Or what if I want to seek advice about venues in that city? It would be great if I could just go to a folder or a page that lists all my friends who are living there.

"Maybe this isn't such a big deal when your friends list is still in the hundreds (as ours is), but once you start working with four or five digits, it's got to be a bit of a headache. As I see it, the 'friends space' should be like a digital rolodex, configurable in any way you want. You should be able to make notes about your friends, tag them, stuff like that. (Let's say for instance you want to follow up personally with people who have added you -- something that can be time consuming if you choose to compose some relevant sentences and don't just post an all-purpose image -- it would be so helpful to have some sort of tracking system so you could see at a glance whose profiles you still needed to add a comment to.) In short, to realize its full capabailities as a networking tool, myspace should really enable you to go from the macrocosmic (your entire friends list) to the microcosmic (any specific subset of that list) more or less instantaneously.

"There are, of course, workarounds for these things (adding the friends you find into a separate database program, for instance). But of course, that all takes additional time. And as a wise man once said, 'Time is the thing.'

Just a few thoughts... thanks for the discussion."

Is that supposed to make me want to go to the show?

A recent Pollstar article has the headline: "Kanye, Tool on the Scene."

True, the effect would be more egregious if there were a colon instead of a comma, but still, come on. I'm no Kanye West fan, but doesn't anybody proofread this stuff?

Flaming Tuba

No, really. Fire dancers and a burning tuba performing "Oops I Did It Again." In the words of the anonymous sage: hilarity ensues.

Go ahead! Check it out!

Pod People

That, I think, is going to be the name of the IJG podcast series that I'm hoping to get off the ground this month. But in the meantime, here we are as featured in someone else's podcast. (The show is Taran's Free Jazz Hour. Thanks, Taran!)

Little Things Mean A Lot

Sometimes ya gotta go with whatcha got. I don't know, I find this project funny, poignant, surreal, disturbing, sad, and (effectively) critical all at once. Bravo, little soldiers.

Talk about poignant, disturbing, and sad, I caught a bit of HBO's Baghdad ER documentary tonight. Not very surprising, alas, but it made me wonder just what obscure corner of whose ass Bush supporters continue to pull out the malarky line that "things are getting better over there." (I know, I know, we're over there now, can't pull out, blah, blah, blah. You got your way, already. But those of us who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning still get to point out the hell you have created.)

Aggy, we hardly knew ye

I've been trying to start a feud with Christina Aguilera for a year or two now. Part of me wants to challenge her to a battle of the bands. Part of me wants to keep taking veiled pock shots at her (and American Idol) through IJG song titles, liner notes, and live concert interludes. For whatever reason, she hasn't taken the bait.

My motivation here goes back to an incident in the history of the IJG in which a certain motherfucker trombonist (who shall remain unnamed) bailed on some crap-ass gig of ours in order to play with the barely legal ex-mouseketeer. It became a sort of in-joke (in my own head, anyway) to tease said trombonist about his decision, based on the premise that his talent was out of all proportion with the ex-mouseketeer gig. It was a sort of backhanded compliment; he was, the joke stipulated, much better (musically speaking) than that.

Though I continue to milk the joke (because, well, I find it funny), I completely understand the mechanics of the decision to take an Aguilera gig over an IJG one. Not only is there beaucoup bread in the former, but most of the cats I play with have this sort of perverse obsession with the little blonde diva, as if she's actually hot or something.

Whatever. In all seriousness, I do think she can sing. To paraphrase something Zappa once said about John McLaughlin: one would have to be a moron not to recognize her talent. She's just not terribly interesting. I personally think she should do a "girl group" album, introducing a new generation to the Ronettes and the Crystals, et al. Instead, she decided to do this.

Everyone knows it's windy

So last week it was Portland; this week it's Chicago. The search continues.

Actually we have no real designs on Chicago, just came out here for Thandie's birthday and to visit Daphne's folks (as well as a few other scattered friends from days of yore). Chicago is a fun, somewhat abstract place with a downtown that I adore. I've written elsewhere about the wonders of Millenium Park. And it was eerily enjoyable this afternoon to watch the fog roll in off the lake. And of course there is some great music (and some great music history) here.

But we couldn't live in this town. One of the silliest reasons is that the superabundance of food, fatty fatty food and the culture that surrounds it, would wear on us very quickly. Last week Conan O'Brien joked that he could only do his show in this city for five days because his cholesterol level had already shot up in that time. Sometimes it seems like all people do here is eat, drink, watch sports, and try to run each other off the road (I know that's a bit of a cliche, so my apologies for offending any of youze). Don't get me wrong: some of the eatin' is quite delicious. We had a stupendous soul food breakfast this morning, and I doubt whether there are very many other places in this country where you could top off the first meal of the day with some delicious peach cobbler--at least without someone looking at you askance. But living here would be like dealing with Thanksgiving all the time. I would find that a bit depressing.

In music news: lookit! Lookit! The IJG has its first festival: in Carson City this August. More information on that soon.

Back in LA on Tuesday. All kinds of plans a-bubbling, IJG-related projects to see through, and yes, I'm writing more music (as my friend Joe used to say, "will it ever end?"). Hang on, let's see where this all goes.

Birthdays, travel, stock-taking

May has been quite action-packed so far. Got a generous last-minute no-way-you're-gonna-refuse sort of invitation to spend Daphne's birthday up in Portland, Oregon, courtesy of some of our oldest and dearest LA friends, Sarah Shute and Matt Smith. (Sarah took the above photo of my little familial unit waiting to board Portland's efficient-as-hell public transportation system. Looks sunny, right? We got caught in a beautiful rainstorm not two hours later. It was great fun.)

While in Portland, we watched the kids play in the yard (which was deliberately full of clover), drank way too much (apparently, Sarah and I are bad influences on one another in that department), ate some amazing food, and just took a break from the rat / crack race that is LA. Oh, yeah, and Daphne and I got the hard sell ("move! move!"), which included being driven around to several cozy, artsy, urban-yet-livable neighborhoods, and being flabbergasted at how affordable they are.

It's a bit overwhelming, now that LA is putting the screws to me and the wife both artistically and financially (oh, did I mention that I'll be leaving the IML in June? It's good riddance, really (sometime I'll tell you about it), but you know how nice it is to have a steady income). I'm painfully aware that we have to do something about the situation (though I don't want to be an alarmist); I'm just not sure what. I especially don't want to lose the network of musicians who have collected around the IJG; we've come too far for me to just throw that away and start from scratch elsewhere. It's no secret: I love those guys. So I'm thinking that if and when we do leave, it should be to go to a place where I can remotely maintain the group as an LA ensemble. Portland might be too far for that scheme (though perhaps not). The SF Bay area, on the other hand, might be just what we're looking for...

It's all too early to tell at this point.

Anyway, that was the first week or so of May. Got back on the 4th, played an IJG quintet gig at Club Metropol on the 5th (opening up for wicked cool east coasters Gutbucket), and now we're getting ready to head out to Chicago for another week or so; we'll be celebrating Thandie's second birthday there (did I ever tell you that all the women in my life were born in May?).

The quintet gig was fun, by the way. We had a few less people at that show than at the Barnsdall debacle two weeks back, but it didn't matter because the space was (a lot) smaller, and the vibe much more casual. I do love playing the quintet music (it's certainly more sedate and subtle and jazz-like than the big band), but somehow I don't think it's as, well, compelling. The big band sticks out like a sore thumb: a point of pride with me. It may not be for everyone, but it's different and unique, and I'm crazy proud of it. The quintet probably isn't so far removed from other jazz things that are happening these days. But it's (obviously) far easier to maintain. Ah, this fucking business.

It was a thrill to play with Gutbucket, by the way (you can get some of my take on them in an AAJ article I wrote about their first appearance in LA a little over a year ago). With all the struggling the IJG has been doing of late, it's comforting to know that there is a similarly "non-commercial" group a few steps ahead of us, and actually surviving at it. We can learn a lot from them, and I sure intend to.

Edmund Welles

Just stumbled across this group while browsing myspace. Four bass clarinets playing a combination of "who woulda thunk" covers (my favorite being the Knight Rider theme) and eerie originals. Sounds gmmicky, I know, but it ain't.

Oh, yeah, so the IJG is now on myspace. For a little whiile I was a little trepidatious about delving into this new tool, honestly. But I'm glad a few dedicated folks and fans talked me into it. If nothing else, so far the music I'm coming across is much cooler than most of the stuff I ever heard on mp3.com all those years ago.