Music
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![Quintron and Miss Pussycat at Baby's All Right](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/8656/15740108470_d6105d0efb_z.jpg?resize=640%2C427&ssl=1)
After months of anticipation, Quintron and Miss Pussycat played Baby’s All Right on Saturday. I had to miss the Weather Warlock show on Friday because I had to move (yes, again) and didn’t have time to get in a Day-After Thanksgiving bike ride and make it to Bushwick for a show at sunset. But as far as Saturday was concerned, there was no way I was going to miss that show.
Before Quintron and Miss Pussycat played their set, they put on a ten-minute puppet show featuring Christmas Bear.
![Quintron and Miss Pussycat at Baby's All Right](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/7516/15901584696_7846bc9d6c_z.jpg?resize=640%2C427&ssl=1)
In the puppet show, Christmas Bear finds an old family recipe…a very old recipe… for baking a special kind of cake. You can see a version of the show from earlier this year and learn how Christmas Bear’s cake fares in the baking contest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwT_5FWwmXQ
After the ten-minute puppet show, the show started in earnest with a cover of “Rhinestone Cowboy.” As you can see, I had a pretty good spot for snapping photos, even if there were a few people blocking my view of the stage.
![Quintron and Miss Pussycat at Baby's All Right](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/8565/15305149444_2fb972b9a9_z.jpg?resize=640%2C427&ssl=1)
But when Quintron and Miss Pussycat began to play their original work, the crowd went nuts. The crowd turned into the kind you’d see at punk or a metal show. It had been a long time since I had been to a show like that. But since I wanted to get some good photos, I rode that crowd, as it rushed towards the stage, all the way to very front. I stayed there for the remainder of the show where I had an excellent vantage of Quinton playing the Hammond organ and his own Drum Buddy.
![Quintron and Miss Pussycat at Baby's All Right](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/7503/15926747662_5d62b96cd4_z.jpg?resize=640%2C427&ssl=1)
And, I had a great view of Miss Pussycat, too.
![Quintron and Miss Pussycat at Baby's All Right](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/7502/15901586936_2ed085375a_c.jpg?resize=533%2C800&ssl=1)
The only drawback was that I had to support myself by grabbing on to a monitor on the stage, hold my camera above my head for most of the set, and ensure that I was not going to get pinned against the stage. But the bright side of getting pummeled by a mass of people significantly younger than me was that I was extraordinarily close to the action.
![Quintron and Miss Pussycat at Baby's All Right](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/8678/15740107730_cc3cdbfc68_z.jpg?resize=640%2C427&ssl=1)
My friend John, who came with me to the show, appreciated my position at the front of the crowd. At one point, I turned around and noticed him taking video of the show.
![Quintron and Miss Pussycat at Baby's All Right](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/7467/15925433591_b9fd63f669_z.jpg?resize=640%2C426&ssl=1)
By the end of the almost two-hour performance, I was pretty beat up from having people knocking into me for almost two hours. It really was a case of being “too old for this shit.” But as sore as I was after the show and the next day, being that close enabled to make some pretty dynamic photos that only begin to capture the excitement of an electrifying and intoxicating performance that night.
Two months ago, I was ecstatic about the opportunity to see Quintron and Miss Pussycat perform at Baby’s All Right in late November, and I bought a ticket.
In addition to his famous Drum Buddy, Quintron (or Quintronics, as he’s calling his electronic-gizmo manufacturing outfit) has built an audio synthesizer that responds to the weather. You can hear it in action, day and night, courtesy of the Internet.
![warlock.jpg Warlock](https://i0.wp.com/juanomatic.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/warlock.jpg?resize=640%2C292)
The Weather Warlock is the name of the machine and also the improvised lineup of musicians that play as a drone band to accompany the Weather Warlock synthesizer. As part of Quintron and Miss Pussycat’s tour, Weather Warlock (the band) will be playing Weather Warlock (the synthesizer) at four special shows in Chicago, Ann Arbor, Brooklyn, and Miami.
The Brooklyn demonstration of the Weather Warlock will be at Secret Project Robot in Bushwick, Brooklyn on Friday, November 28. The show will take place at sunset, which I understand is supposed to happen at for 4:31 PM EST, and will feature some very special jammers, including Nels Cline, Sean Lennon, and, not surprisingly, Quintron.
Skip Black Friday, and go see and hear this unique contraption in action!
Weather Warlock (November 28) and Quinton and Miss Pussycat (November 29)
- November 28, 2014
- Sunset
- Secret Project Robot, 89 Melrose St, Brooklyn
- November 29, 2014
- 8:00 PM
- Baby’s All Right, 146 Broadway, Brooklyn
- 12.00
Today, I read the following phrase on a midterm exam:
You can download MP3s onto cassettes.
That is like getting Arby’s to go and then freezing it so you can microwave it and eat it later. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
![Home_taping_is_killing_music.png Home taping is killing music](https://i0.wp.com/juanomatic.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Home_taping_is_killing_music.png?resize=280%2C231)
I worry about the new fascination with cassette tapes. Of all the recording media I ever used, cassette tapes were by far the worst. The sound was horrible. They wore out fairly quickly, which made the horrible sound even worse. I remember some recordings that sounded like the band was drowning under water. Also, the cassette tape was susceptible to damage by a cheap tape player. I remember seeing a Bic pen in a friend’s car for when his cheap deck would eat the tape right out of the cassette. He would use the pen to wind the tape back into the cassette.
I know that for the “kids today,” the cassette is a novel way to hold your music, and it’s portable to boot. It’s also probably the only physical form they’ve had to carry music. My generation has the same fascination with records, but at least those disks have a richer and warmer sound than digital formats. And we got a square-foot canvas for the cover art, which itself is a forgotten art form.
Or maybe, I really am getting older faster than I thought.
![King Kahn @ Music Hall of Wiilliamsburg](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/5551/14374474304_46688b9d90_z.jpg?resize=640%2C480&ssl=1)
Back in June, my friend John had an extra ticket to see King Khan and the Shrines at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, which he gave to me in exchange for some favor or another. (Or maybe he owed me money. I don’t remember.) King Khan and the Shrines put on a terrific, butt-shaking show. No one was standing still, and King Khan (nee Mark Sultan) commanded everyone’s attention including getting everyone to put their hands in the air. It wasn’t James Brown on the TAMI Show, but it was darn close.
King Khan returns to New York, with the BBQ Show, for two nights opening for the Black Lips at Irving Plaza. The show is tomorrow night, September 30, and you know you want to go.
The Black Lips and The King Khan & BBQ Show
- Tuesday, September 30
- 8:00 PM
- Irving Plaza
- 28.00
- Buy Tickets
- Wednesday, October 1
- 9:00 PM
- Music Hall of Williamsburg
- 28.00
- Sold Out
The above link to Amazon is an affiliate link. If you buy something that link, I will earn a commission fee.
At least year’s Gonerfest 10, Quintron and Miss Pussycat headlined the Thursday night show at the Hi-Tone in Memphis. Their performance absolutely blew away the crowd. Their energy and hard-hitting beats powered the audience, many of whom are in the late 30’s and older, through the 1:00 AM set time. I had heard of the duo before, but this performance made me a fan.
Quintron and Miss Pussycat will be coming to Brooklyn at Baby’s All Right on Saturday, November 29, at 8:00 PM. Yes, this is the Saturday after Thanksgiving so get back into town in time for this show.
Having been burned by Shannon and the Clams selling out each of their three shows last week, I jumped the gun and bought tickets for fear of being left out in the cold.
Details
- November 29, 2014
- 8:00 PM
- Baby’s All Right
- 12.00
With Gonerfest 11 less than two weeks away, it looks like I will not be attending this year’s music festival. Much like I have been buying a new iPhone on even years, I will probably only go to Gonerfest on odd years.
But not going doesn’t mean I completely miss out on listening to and discovering a bunch of new-to-me bands. User Treasure Hance has compiled a Spotify playlist with over 500 songs from Gonerfest 11 bands.
Listening to the entire playlist will take about a full twenty-four day, which is about how many hours you’ll spend on your feet at the Hi-Tone, where the evening shows take place.
The playlist will have to tide me over until Gonerfest 12 in 2015.
Three years ago, I went to Gonerfest and saw Shannon and the Clams at the Saturday show at the Hi-Tone, which relocated last year. This day is almost always an overwhelming experience because the Saturday afternoon at Murphy’s has two shows going on at once: one outside in the patio and also one inside the bar. And it goes from noon to 6:00 PM. And then there’s the five-plus hours of music at the Hi-Tone, which include the Shannon and the Clams set. The whole day is a rock ‘n’ roll assault on your senses.
![Gonerfest 8: Shannon & the Clams](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/6223/6883863836_a584f9d386_z.jpg?resize=640%2C425&ssl=1)
Since I won’t be going to Memphis this year, I’ll have to settle for seeing this band that I saw play there in the past. They have two three shows in New York, all in Brooklyn. Go see at least one of them.
Update: It appears that, as of Tuesday, September 9, all three shows are sold out.
Details
- September 9, 2014
- 8:00 PM
- Union Pool, 484 Union Ave, Brooklyn
- 12.00
- September 11, 2014
- 8:00 PM
- Death by Audio, 49 S 2nd St, Brooklyn
- 13.50
- September 12, 2014
- 8:00 PM
- Palisades BK, 906 Broadway, Brooklyn
- 12.00
Seasonal creep
It’s when someone tries to hurry along the next season when we’re still in the midst of the current season. Some examples include Back-to-School sales in July, Christmas decorations in October, and Valentine’s Day swag right after New Year’s Day. I’ll even add registering for spring classes in the second week of the fall term.
I’ll admit that the weather this summer has been downright pleasant, temperatures in the low 80s with very low humidity, which hasn’t resembled the sultry summers of late. But yesterday, August 15, it was downright autumnal. Not only was it chilly enough for me to wear a sweatshirt when I saw the Boogaroos at the free outdoor show at the South Street Seaport last night, there were other signs of autumn:
- There were NFL football games were playing on the big screens at bars across the city,
- At one of those same bars, I saw a sandwich board easel advertising Oktoberfest beers,
- On Thursday, I was handed a beer list that included four pumpkin beers,
- Yesterday afternoon, I swore I saw NYU students beginning to move in to some of the dorms along Washington Square.
I really hate fall, despite the pleasant weather in September and early October. It signals the end of my lighter-than-normal workload, the end of softball season, long bike rides before more difficult to schedule, greenmarkets approach the end of their flavorful harvest, everyone is watching football, and I revert to wearing long pants. But before summer gives way to fall, here’s a few events still going on before it all ends in about two weeks.
Sadly, because the semester is about to start and I have work to do, I’ll probably miss all the outdoor stuff. Dang!
Over the last week, I’ve been in a pretty melancholic mood so I’ve been working long days and listening to music throughout most of that time. Upon the suggestion of a good friend, I’ve been listening to Jacco Gardner.
Immediately, Gardner’s music comes across as psychedelic, a throwback to the 1960s, which coincidentally is the period I’ve been immersed in as I write a dissertation chapter. You can choose your favorite artist to compare Gardner, such as The Zombies, Cat Stevens, Syd Barrett, but it’s not an exact replica of that era, either.
Jacco Gardner has two releases from 2013 easily available. His full-length album, Cabinet of Curiosities, is available on iTunes. In addition, a single bears an appropriate title for this time of year, The End of August is also available on iTunes.
New Yorkers can catch him for free with the Boogarins tonight at the South Street Seaport, part of the Seaport Music Festival. If tonight’s no good, Jacco Gardner is also playing tomorrow night, August 16, at Baby’s All Right in Williamsburg, where it seems there’s at least few good shows for me to catch each month.
The above links to Amazon are affiliate links. If you buy something through those links, I will earn a commission fee.
All this month, Soundcheck, the daily music show on our local NPR cash-cow WNYC, is airing a series on the music of the summer of 1994 because that was twenty years ago and, looking back, that was a pretty nifty year for music. That was also the summer after I graduated high school and eagerly anticipated my move to college.
Man, that was a long time ago.
To give you an idea of how long ago that was, most of my music listening happened in my car, and my way of listening in a car seems downright antiquated. The centerpiece of my in-car music system was a $300 Sony Discman CD player that came with a three-second memory buffer. That memory prevented the CD from skipping anytime I hit a pothole.
![D-235-sonyvintage.com-.jpg The Sony CD Walkman (Discman) D-235 from the 1990s](https://i0.wp.com/juanomatic.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/D-235-sonyvintage.com-.jpg?resize=640%2C384)
I could power this device with batteries, but it would barely last an hour, especially if the buffer was being used, not nearly enough for a drive from my parent’s home in the Antelope Valley to my school in Santa Barbara. To keep the tunes going, I used a DC adapter. I know many people still use these to charge a phone or, if you’re a cab driver, a standalone GPS unit. The charging port in cars from those days was designed as a cigarette lighter because in those days, there were more people who smoked than people who used a handheld computer. Getting that outlet to power an electronic device was, I think, one of the most clever hacks ever devised.
Listening to the CD player through the car’s audio system required another hack using a car audio cassette adapter that connected to the line-out jack from my Discman. I would insert the other end, shaped like a cassette tape, into the tape deck. Also, with that adapter I was guaranteed backward compatibility: I could listen to cassettes and CDs, and I wasn’t forced to upgrade until I was tired of exhausting my tape deck’s cutting-edge features, such as auto-reverse and song seek.
With all this great hardware, of course, I had great software. In 1994, and years before the iPod, carrying my entire music library was virtually impossible. I needed to bring a small batch of CDs with me. In 1994, I probably owned about 200 CD but didn’t travel with more than twelve discs at a time. Every car trip required careful curation and anticipation about what my friends and I might want to hear many hours in the future. This might seem inconvenient today, but I really got to know my music back then, especially how good a particular band was beyond their hits.
After college, I found myself listening to music in my car less frequently. Santa Barbara and UCSB were particularly friendly to walking and cycling, and long drives with my friends became a rare thing. That combined with a move to New York City made riding in a car a less common occurrence for me that riding in an airplane. Whenever I get into a car today, I just turn the radio to the local NPR station.
As much as Soundcheck’s bidecennial retrospective on 1994 makes me feel like an old man, it at least confirms that my music is objectively better than anything these kids listen to these days.
The above link to Amazon is an affiliate link. If you buy something that link, I will earn a commission fee.