That was an amazing night.
It's interesting how much skronkier -- freer, noisier -- Gordon Grdina gets on guitar than on oud. There were some real freakouts on the guitar, lots of shrapnel in his playing -- jagged and explosive passages -- but the oud must not lend itself to that kind of thing, because every single line had a melodic thread, a tunefulness: you could grab onto the tail and be pulled through, so to speak, whereas on guitar, Grdina flings you all over the feckin' place, takes you on a much more raucous ("rock-us") ride (also sometimes quite tunefully, including a very recognizable reading of "Hey, Joe," but there were also some near-Borbetomagus-levels of freedom when he was on guitar, if you see what I mean). I assume he came to the oud by way of guitar; I'd love to ask more about his relationship to both of those instruments -- if he feels he has more right to take more liberties with the one, or if, like, "oud-skronk" is somehow less desirable, less interesting, less pleasing?
I remember Todd of the Winks going on mandolin-skronk voyages, often around covers of Sonic Youth's "I Love Her All the Time," and in terms of shape mandolins kinda remind me of teeny ouds, but... hell, I dunno. Been a long time since I've seen Todd on mandolin. Something to ask about, anyway.
And an amazing night. Shot vid of three of the songs -- one from the first set on oud, a longer piece that opened the second set on guitar, and then, near the end of the night, I saw that a seat at the opposite corner was free, and so I quickly jotted across the room to get a different angle, because I'm shooting a weird number of things over Gord's shoulder lately (see also here).
I did make one discovery about Hero's Welcome that I feel I must warn readers about: from where I was seated for the majority of the night, over my left shoulder, there was a framed uniform that must have belonged to a member of a military band or something, because it had ambitions to play along. Every time, in the first few songs, Tommy Babin hit certain notes -- higher ones, weirdly; you'd figure it would be the lower ones -- it would rattle and buzz in a most unwelcome way, kind of like having a hornet stuck in my left ear: "now with added percussion!" Grdina himself noticed it (he shot the uniform a nasty glance; it's level of musicianship was NOT adequate) and directed the sound guy over to do something about it, and it was very interesting that the sound guy DID manage to adjust the levels so the vibrations weren't as bad, but when Babin took a bass solo later in the night, it was still an unwelcome accompanist. I could lessen the buzz a bit by pressing my arm against it, but that got hard on my shoulder. So there's a helpful tip: when seeing shows at Hero's Welcome, beware that uniform! (Or sit somewhere else?).
Y'can see my handprint
And jeez, Kenton Loewen is real enjoyable -- best drummer I've heard in the Vancouver jazz scene (sorry, Dylan!) (though Al Wiertz was pretty amazing, too). Remember seeing Kenton 15 years ago in Vancouver with Eugene Chadbourne and Darren Williams -- think I caught him a few times with Doc Chad, actually (I did blog about those shows a bit and there is some footage of Chadbourne-Williams-Loewen at the Kozmic Zoo, which show I was also at... but it's not good footage, alas). Gonna see him again tonight with JP Carter and Haram's Emad Armoush on Granville Island... haven't been to Zameen before... doesn't look like they have food...
Most fun discovery of the night, though, was actually a different unit that Grdina has played with, because it connects with my time in Japan, when I was keen to explore avant garde music. Tim Reinert of Infidels thinks of me as a "rock guy," which I guess is true of late -- but there was a time, after Nevermind wrecked punk, back when Zorn was at his peak, where avant- was a prefix to almost everything I was listening to, and that overlapped with my time in Japan (1999-2002). Having noted that Michiyo Yagi was on the Tzadik label, I went to see a show of hers while I was there, doing avant-koto stuff (Ayuo was also on the bill, and maybe Yoshihide Otomo? I saw him a couple of times in Japan, as well as Keiji Haino and Ruins-Hatoba -- Tatsuya Yoshida with Omoide Hatoba, basically). I don't really remember it that well but I certainly enjoyed it at the time! Later, when I was volunteering here with Vancouver New Music, while I was more enthusiastic about Phil Minton (whom I interviewed) and Paul Dutton, I chatted with Koichi Makigami and enjoyed a few weird bursts of vocal improv that he did in the lobby of the Scotiabank Dance Centre, between performances (I didn't actually get to see his set but I enjoyed my interactions with him and bought a CD).
Anyhow, imagine my surprise that Grdina has recorded both with Yagi and Makigami, in Kichijoji, a cool little western offshoot of Tokyo (where I saw those Keiji Haino and Ruins-Hatoba shows). Weirdly, Byron Coley's notes mention FUCKING NANAIMO, too (if I'm reading him right it's because that's where the label is based; I mighta said on Facebook that the album was recorded in Nanaimo, but that is wrong). It's pretty cool to be discovering this just a couple weeks after getting the "Seven Potatoes" album with Damo Suzuki doing his thing in Nanaimo, confirming my suspicions that the East Van of Vancouver Island is Nanaimo, musically speaking (and maybe in other ways too). I listened to about half an hour of this via Bandcamp on the ride home (and scored the vinyl off the Hero's Welcome merch table). Goddamn amazing stuff.
I'm *never* gonna get to listen to this when my wife's home, you know? I don't think even the cat will dig it.
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