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What Do I Know
by Cripsy Duck
7-23-00
(printed in C-VILLE Vol.12, No.31)

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"Many desire to kill me,
and many wish to spend
an hour chatting with me.
The law protects me
from the former."
Karl Kraus
featuring:
Hope Clayburn - Johnny Gilmore - Houstonium
John D'earth - Lyman - Book of Kills - The Proles

The paper said Aaron Binder but up at Michael's Bistro I found Hope Clayburn's quartet featuring George Turner on guitar and Johnny Gilmore on drums, coincidentally the same line-up that performs under George's name these days as well. Awesome jazz they did produce for the twenty-ish people up there.

Tragic irony struck me full on watching undergrateful Charlottesville's humble superheroes belting it out for next to nobody for a measly 50-ish bucks apiece. It's a decent gig by local standards, and Hope blew her brilliant heart out, but it's a little sad to see such phenomenal musicians working so hard for so little recognition.

Of course, it really sucks for the drummer, who has to haul his whole damn set up there-- all 50-120 pounds of it-- assemble it, play it like he's running a bloody marathon, and then tear it down and haul it out piece by piece. If not for the sheer joy of playing, it would hardly be worth it. But then again, the drummer in question pretty much juices the playing for all the joy it's worth.

mr. thrillmore
With all due respect-- and plenty is due-- Johnny Gilmore is the only drummer I've ever heard who could possibly get away with overplaying to the degree he does. With a playful but studied deliberateness, he rocks out in sagely defiance of the mythical drummer's axiom-- penned back in the day when cats like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich ruled the roost-- that less is always more-- that it's not what you play, but what you choose not to play that matters. Very Zen.

Although he's clearly rooted to the philosophical heart of this concept, Johnny Gilmore could quite obviously care less about its practical application. He's a rogue superdrummer, a drummer's drummer hell bent on finding a space to squeeze out a monster groove-- nay, three to five monster grooves (all at once)-- never failing to stir up god-like rhythmic tsunamis.

It always works. With the jazz quartet he starts by laying in very delicately, tastefully playing the respectful support-and-respond role traditional to the jazz drummer's throne. But as the set wears on, his thump and pop street beat can't help but creep to the surface and he begins to put a whomping on the groove, filling the musical corners with rapidfire accents and super-funky ornaments. This never fails to turn heads and win converts to the cult of Johnny.

As it should be. After all: Johnny is the man. As far as I'm concerned, he's a bloody legend.

The following night he's burning up the Bistro again, but this time with long-time deep groove cohort Houston Ross on bass and an old bandmate of theirs, Clayton Brown, on guitar. This combo spun straight-up funky Houstonium with big Band of Gypsies meltdowns, complete with a latenight last minute half hour eruption of planetary proportions. Dazed, glazed and amazed, I stumbled out into the cool dank of Charlottesville's midsummer.

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The following night, on a lark and an ominous urge to stay jazzy ("Go deep" said my inner beat-poet.), I stumbled upon a bizarre ritual at Miller's where John D'earth's usual Thursday night gig had surfaced in the middle of a 100-hour poetry reading marathon.

The cross-pollenation of the two scenes somehow transcended the inborn limitations of the one ("Heavy ideas weren't meant to be spoken," opined one local pundit.), and provided a cosmic raison d'etre for the other. Poets were at the mic ranting while colorful musical scenarios were improvised around them. At other times writers took poetic solos in the middle of jazz standards. (You know: verse - chorus - guitar break - POEM!...) It was quite a thing to behold the synergy created by the well-executed fusion of these now too distinct artforms. Their divorce should be anulled. Jazz and poetry make a great couple.

You could tell that the band was getting a big kick out of it, and I was reminded of a very important fact: some of the very "best" (as in "most musically informed") stuff in this town happens every Thursday night at Miller's. The musicianship, the interaction, the tune choices-- man, it's good. Big ups to guitarist Jamal Milner's otherworldly et ceteras, drummer Robin Sinclair's joyful reductions, and of course, the refined and inventive trumpet musings of Mr. D'earth himself.

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lyman's no lemon
The following night I settled into a little rough around the edges rock at Tokyo Rose. Lyman opened the show with their hard rock border punk raucousness. They are actually a promising little band, shades of Danzig, with some dopey cover tunes and a fistfull of great original stuff. One of the other musicians in attendance commented that Lyman sounds good enough for radio, and he could well be right. They don't suck at all. After them came Book of Kills, who I didn't get all that into. What do I know. They were a little sucky but they covered a Ramones tune, and that's always a good idea. They were followed by the Proles, budding filmaker Johnny St. Ours' rock project, performing with his brother on drums while their usual drummer was on hiatus. The Proles do a junkyard sprawl variation on the Nirvana rock formula-- far more Seattle than C-Ville's usual punk varieties. I think they were pretty good, but they were offensively loud-- guitars feeding back uncontrollably between tunes. St. Ours' lyrical rants were, of course, unintelligible over the din, but they looked meaningful. I'll have to check in later.

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