This town attracts the strangest folk. They show up all psyched about how cute and perfect it is and soon enough they're tearing down buildings and staging City Council coupe d'etats. I personally think we should wall off the city (which henceforth should be referred to as a "settlement") and surround it with a massive parking deck, allowing no cars within the perimeter-- just service vehicles. Now that would be cool.

Tuesday, April 4, 2000 -- A prospective City Councilman stopped by my place of employ and rapped for me. You heard me right. RAPPED for me. In the bad, white, hip-hop styl-ee, no less. Creepy. Warren Beatty's bold and poignantly cheesy cinematic Bullworth jive is one thing, but this fellow's plagiarized piddle totally turned my gizzard green. Maybe I'm too pastoral.

I did see some real music later that night up at Michael's Bistro. Poking my beak in to sniff out the scene I was hit in the earhole by the George Turner Quartet, complete with Hope Clayburn (Baaba Seth, Myontonia, etc.) creating a disturbing and beautiful effect by blowing two saxes at once and Johnny Gilmore (TR3, Corey Harris' 5X5, Soko, etc., etc., etc.) throwing down the over-the-top drumkit maneuvers he's known for. They laid into a big old jam of the Meter's "Cissy Strut", and I got to enjoy watching another roomful of complete strangers fall under the powerful sway of Gilmore's "bold-as-love" monster drumming.

gilmore & ross are boss

Wednesday, April 5, 2000 -- The night before wasn't enough, so I crawled up to Orbit Billiards to get some more soul food in the form of Plutonium, Charlottesville's most volatile power trio. Built around the unstoppable grooves of TR3's (and Soko's) Houston Ross and Johnny Gilmore and faithfully adorned by Full Flavor's Matthew Willner, Plutonium is the original radioactive party armament. Whenever TR3 is off tour these days, I anxiously await a good chance to be pummelled by the marathon superfunk of these three unruly jamsters. Wednesday's show bore the usual trademarks: No jam was cut shorter than ten minutes. Each set featured funky soul vocals and lush pockets by Houston Ross, the bassmaster from a deeper dimension of love, extended guitar odysseys, curb-rough raps and Disney voices from the wiley Matthew Willner, and do-or-die thumping and massive drum solos by the B3 bomber of bump, Johnny Gilmore. Improvisation was piqued and freaky, and the groove, well it's undeniable. Even on an off- night-- which this wasn't-- this band still kicks all the butts in town. I'm serious. This is not just kid's play, this is the big boys on their home turf. Go see them. But be prepared for a serious down-home, Mothership-in-Hiroshima butt-shaking.

Friday, April 7, 2000 -- I went to Hope Clayburn's CD release party at the Outback Lodge, but didn't last too long as I quickly managed to lock horns with (of all things) the son of a City Councilman in a strange contest to determine who had the bigger chip on his shoulder. Strange but true. It must be election season.

I bailed out shortly thereafter and pretty much missed the show, but I thought I might include some excerpts from my first impressions of Hope's new record in a CD review section I like to call "Rough Press."

Hope Clayburn - self-titled

Track 2 "New Cicadia" - Gentle newagey acoustic/electric guitar cavorting with piano angels and a bouncy bass in a dawning newborn insect Laurie Anderson jungle fantasy.
Track 3 "Strong" - Nasty muted keyboard bass riddim, funky space keys, Stevland Morris flavorings on the clavinet. "Resistance is futile." This is some strange 1984 robotic overlord conspiracy spiel isn't it? Funky in the Fishbone soul stylee.
Track 4 "Black Meringue Pie" - The latin jazz influence cometh forward. Sounds like Hope doubling herself on flute and sax. Here she blows as she's known to blow, getting a good Middle Eastern bazaar vibe on the lead sax with hints of Paquito D'Rivera. Uh oh, the humming harmonic buzzing flute maneuver. Nasty timbale break.
Track 6 "Sweet Infinity" - Acoustic guitar jazz. I think I need a bong hit.
Track 7 "Desert Fishin'" - Here comes the judge! Gospel hand claps with a "storm clouds of soul" organ groove. "I do believe that it's good to be back in your world again." Always good to sing about belief against a gospel backdrop. Freaky muted computer sax solo. Yeah! Fell off at the end nicely.
Track 8 "B.C." - Her comes de reggae RIDDIM, mon. "Jah bring the sun and the rain and he gives my life direction." From prayers in verse one to promises of forbearance in the second. Dig the minor key jump ska bridge/outro. Heavy duty. I believe that tune was about half as long as it wanted to be.

The otherworldy groove of Baaba Seth's Hope Clayburn is couched nicely amidst the medium fidelity recording of this, her first solo record. If I had one gripe it would be that Hope's mighty horn skills are understressed throughout. But, like a romp through a strange candyland urban forest, this disc will make fine tunage for some funk retribution worldbeat ruminations. I believe she played all the instruments and did all the work for herself. A fine but short effort. 9 tracks in 32:15. B+
-Cripsy Duck
cripsyduck@mindspring.com