Thursday, February 28, 2008

Kneebody/Ceramic Dog/Wayne Krantz @ The Knit 2/27/08

It was even better than I expected. I started with the Kneebody set, which started around 7:50 and went for a little over an hour. This was the 3rd time I’ve seen them and they are great every time. I also have their 3 cds, which I enjoy. It’s grooving, progressive, new jazz. Their songs are complex and all quite different. Trumpet, sax, drums, electric bass, and keyboard. The last time I saw them was at Tonic, with Simon Lott sitting in for the drummer. They opened for Todd Sickafoose’s Blood Orange, and it was a great night.

Next up was Ceramic Dog in the Main Space. I mean, as much as I enjoy Wayne Krantz, their was no agonizing over that choice. It was unbelievably awesome from start to finish. They played from around 9:15 to 10:25, including the encore. Ribot said they just finished making a cd, which will be out in a couple of months. It’s completely finished, but the record company wants to create a buzz. Really! He then informed us they were going to play all new material, none of which is on the new record. It was awesome, awesome avant-rock, with emphasis on the ROCK. They started with a phenomenal arrangement of The Doors “Break on Through (to the Other Side)” and kept it going from there. Ches Smith was banging those drums, and at times gently playing. Shazaad has his moog, his bass, and even played Ches’s snare drum for a number. Man, that was a killer set. I don’t think I’ll be able to miss them the rest of the year if they play in Manhattan again. Really great!

There was still time to catch the end of Wayne’s grooving, super-funky, kickass set downstairs. They had removed the seats for his set as they were running out of room. Good! The crowd was pretty young, like lots of students, and under 25s. That was great as we need to keep it alive and it was nice to see so many truly loving the music of both sets. It gives me a lot of hope for keeping the music coming.

All of this phenomenal music, and I was leaving at around 11, maybe a little later. Hah! Nice change and gears me up for the rest of the week.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

you know, you can check out Wayne Krantz + Kneebody + Bryan Baker's "Door in the Dark" at Galapagos on 6/18...$10 advance/$12 door.

Also, on 6/11 at the same spot is the Chris Tarry Group (w/ Dave Binney, Henry Hey, Pete McCann, Dan Weiss) + SNEAK + Uri Gurvich Quartet. $8 advance/$10 door.

Unknown said...

more info on those shows, tix, and so forth:

www.going.com/reallivemusic2

www.going.com/reallivemusic3