+front+ +bands+ +the crawl+ +c.d.'s+ +b.s.+ +dissent+ +venues+ +info+
Church of the Lurch
by Cripsy Duck 12-12-00
(printed in C-VILLE Vol.12, No.51)
MICHAEL SOKOLOWSKI AND HOUSTON ROSS
JONES AND LEVA -
THE RECIPE - FRONTBUTT
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
|
12/7/00 I used to check these guys out every Thursday at W. Main St.'s short-lived Main Street Guitar and Drum (where the Marriott now sits). Soko, their new-world-jazz power trio collaboration with drummer Johnny Gilmore, regularly laid out a deep and funky blend of piano-fronted future-jazz/soul for twenty or so of us amazed and enthused onlookers. Nowadays, Ross and Gilmore are the backbone of the Wonderband (Wednesday nights at Michael's Bistro), and Sokolowski hauls his solo piano meditations to Miller's every other Monday or so, but there's been a serious dearth of full-on Soko ruminations. It's too bad. Here's a band whose first record In November Sunlight, sported cameos by both Dave Matthews and Leroi Moore, a band fronted by Michael Sokolowski-- one of Tim Reynolds' most frequent collaborators-- a dude so transcendantly cross-pollinated that WTJU's local jazz artist round-up egregiously overlooked him despite his spokesmanship for the medium and work as one of its more progressive and expressive local purveyors for well over a decade. Perhaps some geniuses (and I do not wish to wield the term lightly) are just meant to suffer the occasional lonelinesses of a fickle and unimpressable audience. It's a shame. Sokolowski and his inspired union with the two baddest rhythm players on the village scene are very worthy distraction, and the community would do well to recognize them as generating some of the more significant high-brow cross-over jam/jazz in Charlottesville's simple interior.
At the Prism, Sokolowski and Ross pulled off a nice low-key variation of the Soko groove on acoustic piano and upright bass, rolling rather mellowly through a few In November Sunlight pieces and some other nice jams for the better part of an hour. It was refreshing but short-lived, and I couldn't help but wonder when the duo will once again incorporate Gilmore to bring forth the extended high-octane version of the combo. Soon, I hope.
12/8/00 Carol Elizabeth Jones and James Leva have been a favorite folk duo around here for forever and a day, so I figured I'd better go put an ear on 'em. Acoustic Muse is a little folk promotion company that throws monthly-ish shows at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church-- a Unitarian church-- and I knew theirs would be a good opportunity to catch Jones and Leva in an appropriately family-type environment.
I sat down in a pew and poked through a hymnal. Unitarians are a relatively philosophical breed of Christians, as the hymnal poignantly revealed. None of your standard issue "lambs of Jesus"-type hymns here. No, their stuff is almost eastern in its focus on the "higher" aspects of mystical devotion and their staunch open-ness about the name of the object of this devotion. Hymns were called stuff like "Praise The Source Of Faith And Learning," and "The Peace Not Past Our Understanding." Seems a little heady for your average Sunday school class. Very little "died for our sins" kinda stuff and lots of "Source Of All Being" kinda stuff. I can respect that. The opening act was a good little songwriter named Lisa Stevenson, a woman with a pretty voice and some nice melodies. She played alot of very simple, everybody-writes-'em kinda three-chord folk stuff, and it was appreciated, although I did get a little uncomfortable with some of the sexual innuendos in one of her tunes, an a capella piece. Normally, I might roar approval but... well, we were in a church for heaven's sake. Jones and Leva do really sweet cowboy country and folk with harmonies and fiddles and a nice, quiet kind of wholesomeness. You pretty much gotta love 'em, although I was suprised at how laid back they were. They almost seemed more like hobbyists than hardcore folk artists. I'm not sure what I was expecting. They were pretty good, though, but I still left after the first set-- because churches make me sleepy. I think it's that institutional smell. (Incense works miracles, er... wonders.) Over at the Outback Lodge, the Recipe, a jam band from Morgantown, W.V., was holding court for some local fans and their own touring entourage, a group of devotees called "Porch People."
I was happily suprised at the Recipe's offering. Smoothly taking jam rock on an Appalachian/Bluegrass field trip with a sonic relevance few bands muster, they've introduced a banjo/mandolinist and fiddler to their hippy rock blend and made it pay off nicely. The jams are rhythmically intense, if a little short on high octane soloists (fiddler Hannah Ross does an admirable job holding up the majority of the "rippin'"), but I have to give huge accolades to vocalist/emcee Kristen Wolverton, an awesome singer in the Janis-Joplin-goes-to-blues-church tradition talkin' a mouthful of smutty trash between tunes. My favorite! Who needs strippers when you've got a foxy woman who'll sing her butt off, crack anal sex jokes and remind you that "some girls like to be spanked." Yes!
12/9/00 A freaky show in a peculiarly happening place topped off by the koolest kookfest in town, an '80's rap coverband called Frontbutt made up of members of All of Fifteen and Navel, faithfully throwing down the super-silliest old school hip-hop grime from "You Be Illin'" to "Bust a Move" to "Humpty Hump." Take that, M.C. Hammer.
|
