Monday, January 30, 2006  

Deerhoof

Washington Post, Monday, January 30, 2006; Page C05

Indie rock that traffics in overwhelming amateurism -- real or willful -- is generally the sort of music that makes a critic question his profession and count the seconds he'll never get back in his life. The man known as Le Ton Mite, one of the opening acts Saturday at the Black Cat for San Francisco's art-rock quartet Deerhoof, owes me about 35 minutes. Looking like a mixture of young Allen Ginsberg and really old Allen Ginsberg, Le Ton Mite warbled atonal, faux-naive tunes that he described as "the songs you wish you heard as a child." I'm glad my childhood was spent with Kiss and Donna Summer.

But Deerhoof uses insouciance like a red herring: While singer-bassist-guitarist Satomi Matsuzaki may whisper-squeak off-key of ducks and bunnies, the boys in her band play their instruments with unbridled energy and, yes, skill. The group's 2005 CD "The Runners Four" is one of the most strangely beautiful, deranged but accessible indie-rock records to come out in some time. Like the band's 70-minute, 15-song Black Cat set, the CD isn't always pretty or successful, but it is suspenseful.

Deerhoof's sound is like a live mash-up: It can engage in the Who's primal power and Cream-y jamming only to be cut off by a tight surf-guitar riff stolen from the Fall or a tense drone straight from Can's Krautrock playbook. Drummer Greg Saunier hits his kit as hard as Keith Moon, and guitarists Chris Cohen and John Dieterich can launch into spindly interplay that sounds like punk-jazz. Nothing seems to last longer than four or eight bars, and the music is a collective spasm of sounds and riffs culled from multiple genres. When it works, as on the Stereolab-ish "Running Thoughts," there's undeniable freshness; when it's merely a car wreck, as on some of the longer instrumental pieces, you can forgive Deerhoof for at least giving it the old college try. Le Ton Mite? Not so much. --Christopher Porter

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006  

Siggi Flosa and Those Reykjavik Blues

Washington Post, Wednesday, January 18, 2006; Page C10

Nordic jazz has been generating some buzz lately because of the quality and diversity of the music, from warm electronic-tinged grooves and rich folk-informed melodies to hot free-blowing improvisation. But the cliches about jazz from that part of the world -- it's cold, distant music with an indifferent relationship to the blues -- were proved true when Icelandic alto saxophonist Sigurdur Flosason brought his band to a half-full Blues Alley on Monday as part of the club's Nordic jazz series. Performing as the Siggi Flosa Quartet, the group played seven airy songs in its early set that sounded like tunes for a university jazz lab, not an urban jazz club.

The academic life is something Flosason is steeped in: He studied at the Reykjavik College of Music and earned a bachelor's and master's at Indiana University. But Flosason, born in 1964, has also made some headway in the "real world" as well: He was a finalist in Europe Jazz Contest 1990.

Flosason's dry, light, vibratoless tone has much in common with the cool school of American jazz, and specifically that of fellow alto player Lee Konitz, whose style has influenced many European musicians. But unlike Konitz, Flosason didn't display the experimental edge that makes Konitz such a compelling player. He and his gently swinging band -- pianist Eythor Gunnarsson, bassist Valdimar K. Sigurjonsson and drummer Petur Ostlund -- played the standard "It Could Happen to You" and six overly polite Flosason originals. Even the song named "The Invasion From Mars" sounded more like a jaunty welcome theme for well-adjusted aliens than a menacing soundtrack for a sci-fi war flick.

Blues Alley's Nordic jazz series continues tonight with the considerably hotter playing of Norwegian saxophonist Kjetil Moster -- one of the country's most exciting young players -- and on Jan. 23, Sweden's rock-and-electronic-steeped E.S.T. --Christopher Porter

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Monday, January 16, 2006  

The Washington Capitals' Alexander Ovechkin -- the real one, the one who will be the R.O.Y.; not the video-game version above -- just scored a goal that was so friggin' amazing, so unbelievably great, that I teared up. Totally moist eyeballs. Video forthcoming...of the goal, not my tears. Update: Here's the video.

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Monday, January 09, 2006  

Supersystem

Washington Post, Monday, January 9, 2006; Page C05

Teaching the indie kids how to dance is difficult. Many of these unfortunate souls were born with two left feet and a deep self-consciousness, which limits them to performing fake Irish jigs or wacky break-dance moves. Very few of them know how to just let loose and bust a move or three.

At the Supersystem show Saturday at the Black Cat, a house full of indie-rockers tried to shake that thang -- and many of them did just that, at length, without acting like shaking your booty is something to be embarrassed about.

Supersystem was formerly known as El Guapo, which over the course of four CDs created a lot of irritating art rock. But on 2003's "Fake French," the trio started playing with new-wave dance grooves. Then came a name change, a new label (Chicago's Touch & Go), a new CD ("Always Never Again") and an expanded lineup with a new drummer (Joshua Blair). The punk-funk makeover was complete.

Playing 10 taut songs in an hour-long set, Supersystem had the crowd pogoing, shaking and shimmying to a potent blend of Devo, A Certain Ratio, Liquid Liquid and other early-'80s groups that married the tense energy of punk with the hypnotic rhythms of Africa and disco. Bassist Justin "Destroyer" Moyer, keyboardist Pete Cafarella and guitarist Rafael Cohen traded sing-shouted vocals as Blair kept techno-like time on his drums. Highlights included "Born Into the World," "The Love Story," "Click-Click," "Six Cities" and "Everybody Sings." But Supersystem's songs tend to sound enough alike -- sharing Arabic- and African-tinged guitar bits, spiky bass lines, squealing synths and nonstop percussive thump -- that the 10 tunes worked almost like one long medley. Plus, it's much easier to boogie down to one incessant sound when you have two left feet. --Christopher Porter

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Monday, January 09, 2006  

Soldiers of Jah Army:
Keeping the Faith at State Theatre

Washington Post, Monday, January 9, 2006; Page C03

When a band is called Soldiers of Jah Army, you might expect the musicians to be militant, straight-outta-Kingston Rastafarians, their massive dreads flowing past their waists, gigantic chalices burning bushels of weed.

On Friday at the State Theatre, dreadlocks topped the domes of at least three of the five SOJAs, but that's as close to looking the part of a traditional roots-reggae band as the group came: These D.C.-area musicians are white dudes, who not only play reggae music extremely well but also embrace the tenets of the Rastafarian religion.

The 900 fans who packed the sold-out venue didn't question that five pasty-faced guys were performing songs called "Rasta Courage" and "Brothers and Sisters"; the jam-band crowd was happy to dance to the deep grooves laid down by drummer Ryan Berty, bassist Bobby Lee Jefferson and percussionist Kenneth Brownell. Keyboardist Patrick O'Shea added reggae's distinctive offbeat plinks, but the obvious star of SOJA is guitarist and primary singer-songwriter Jacob Hemphill. A lank, sleepily charismatic frontman with a beatific smile, Hemphill has a sweet, soft, soulful voice. His singing can be slightly thin-sounding live, but on CD, such as SOJA's new "Get Wiser," it comes across with passion and depth.

Since the concert doubled as a CD-release party and a live DVD recording, the 22 original songs were broken up into three segments for technical reasons and so that special guests including Go-Go Mickey Freeman from Rare Essence and Eddie Drennon's string quartet could join SOJA onstage. This slightly disrupted the show's momentum, but the adoring audience didn't mind, singing their hearts out to numerous songs, particularly the title track to SOJA's 2002 CD, "Peace in a Time of War." --Christopher Porter

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