Punk, avant garde, and otherwise adventuresome or entertaining gigs this week

A few notes on gigs that you might want to consider.

For those who just want to have a fun night out, Slowpoke and the Smoke play the Skinny's one year birthday bash at Lugz (2525 Main) on Wednesday! We like Tony Bardach. We were somewhat surprised to see just how many people made it out to that last Falconetti's gig - the place was packed - so it looks like there are other folks in town who like him, too. The Pointed Sticks, by the way, have put up new demos for their upcoming album, on their Myspace page...

For those interested in musical experiences that are more mind-altering than mood-lifting (musical experiences of the sort that require attentive listening), a group consisting of improvising percussionist Jeffrey Allport, Solder and Sons' Robert Pedersen, and the the Mutators' Lief Hall play at Blim on Thursday alongside Seattle's Gust Burns, and Zurich's Jason Kahn) - a gig which cancels out, for me, Ken Vandermark and Ab Baars at the Ironworks that same night, though if it ends early-ish, maybe I'll try to catch their second set. Ken and Ab both tend towards the more loud, aggro end of the free jazz spectrum - an end of the jazz pool which (with Mats Gustafsson, Peter Brotzmann and Albert Ayler as notable exceptions) that I spend little time swimming in these days (tho' I like Darren Williams and co., locally, I should note). Still, I have a powerful hankering for catharsis lately, and watching these guys blow their lungs out would probably help, if they were still onstage by the time I got there... Hmm.

Alternately, on the 2nd, you could go see the Ahna tour benefit show at Honey, with Robe & Allied, The Nihilist Party, SOLARS and DJ Vera... I will leave y'all to probe Myspace for some o' those links (can't find Robe and Allied), but here's the poster!

Of course, we will be goin' to see Nomeansno on Friday. That's gotta be well-past sold out by now. (My attempts to resist passing on Nomeansno's cherished disinformation about themselves have proven futile, since I am now being included in that disinformation - see their March 27th update.)

Of course, if you're more interested in avant-garde music, there's Xenakis' Kraanerg, which sounds remarkable indeed, at Christ Church Cathedral, that same night. It should be astonishing. Given that I've seen Nomeansno around ten times, I'm almost tempted... but no. I will not be welcome to mosh at Kraanerg, however lamely and briefly it may be, and I need to mosh at least a little.

For those of you who won't be doing either Nomeansno or Xenakis, there is no need to despair, since there will be a Fake Jazz Friday at the Front that very night which will be cheaper than either and likely very exciting. Actually, odds are you could start out there and make it to the Anza before Nomeansno even went onstage. They're almost walking distance from each other, on opposite sides of Main Street... Gotta think about that. The lineup includes a set by LSDJ, aka Mark Gabriel; I have a CD by him that is remarkable and likable and intensely listenable. His MO is to take a whole bunch of really cool records and create trippy, complex, intensely listenable sound collages from them. Names I recognize on the credits to the album I have include Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Steve Shelley, Jim O'Rourke, the Sun City Girls, Meredith Monk, Jean Michel Jarre (!), Graeme Kirkland, Andrea Goodman, and Robert Een. There are many others I do not know. Also on the bill that night: Blouse, Allport/Wilcox/Burns, Broken Sleep, and (once again) Jason Kahn...

Jeremy van Wyck, of course, is (with Bill Batt) the co-curator of all things Fake Jazz. Jeremy's more raucous rock band, Shearing Pinx, plays Saturday at the Biltmore with AIDS Wolf and Twin Crystals. I assume that my readers all have seen Shearing Pinx more than once - jagged straddling of No Wave and improv/noise that sorta reminds me of amped-up Confusion is Sex/ Kill Yr. Idols era Sonic Youth (as one easy reference point, if'n you don't know them). They're one of the best rocks bands in Vancouver right now, a must-see if you're (say) a punk yearnin' for somethin' a bit more creative, without wanting to lose any of punk's energy...

Then there's the Acid Mothers Temple, April 7.



A great show for those interested in out-there Japanese stuff or just fond of heavy psychedelic rock. My big interview with Kawabata is here, if you've missed it previously (and once again we thank Alan Cummings for his help with this piece). I like these guys, but as I've said elsewhere, I prefer their records (which tend more to musical experimentation) to their shows (which tend to see them rocking out). But were it not for other obligations, I would go see'em again. They usually have really cool rare stuff on their merch table, too, and y'all know how expensive Japanese imports can get...

Anyhow, those are a few gigs this week that seemed noteworthy... There's lots else, though. Check out Live Music Vancouver for even more options. It's amazing, given how determined the city seems to shut down venues, just how vital the Vancouver scene is...