Craig Wedren

at the Black Cat, 1/15/2006


If you don't know who this is... Craig Wedren was the lead singer for a band called Shudder to Think. They were a favorite of mine, and I think their album, "Pony Express Record," is a must-have (as well as some of their others... but let's pretend the "must-have" list is short).

I'm short on time so I gotta make this quick... The show also featured Amy Miles. Her opening set was hit or miss in my opinion. This was the last night of their little tour, and I think they drank a little too much. Miles is a great singer, but I felt like she sounded her best when singing other people's songs. Apparently Craig is producing her next album - I'm curious to hear the results, I suspect it will be quite good. They sounded great singing together.

Miles and Wedren shared the same band - which must have made for an efficient tour. They also did a taping for Pancake Mountain earlier that day (see photo)- so the business end of this tour should've worked out pretty well?


Wedren played much of his new record, "Lapland." (you can stream some of the songs on his myspace page)

He also gave the crowd a thrill by playing a few "hits" from the Shudder to Think catalog. That sounded good -- but couldn't live up to my own memory of hearing them play live multiplied by the years of associating their performance on the Pony Express Record Tour that I heard in Austin as one of the greatest shows ever. My perception of that night still serves as a kind of benchmark by which other concerts are judged. Shudder To Think just played with such incredible precision, and gorgeous subtlety - plus Wedren's tremendous vocals = the best thing ever.

"Hit Liquor" sounded really nice. He re-arranged the grinding bridge part of the song: I thought that was a place where he played with a vibrator originally? (could be remembering wrong) but he did it using a delay to create a grinding wall of sound, and added some impressive vocal looping - as impressive as what I heard Feist do a few months ago.

That voice. He still sounds great, and he's writing interesting songs. I would probably praise this show more heavily, but it's hard to compare to my own expectations given my opinions about his old band. The Shudder to Think songs sounded strong, but the second guitarist was no Nathan Larson.

'Capers

at the Mead Theater Lab (Flashpoint), 1/12/2006

Saw an interesting new play called 'Capers last night at a special preview showing. It's a solo show written and performed by Anu Yadav. I don't know jack about her, but after seeing the show I think she can safely be referred to as a dynamite performer and highly successful writer of political theater. That's no easy feat. Most political art tends to collapse under the weight of the politics (in my opinion) - so making this work is a major challenge. I think in this case, it's definitely working.

'Capers is a one-woman show based on the stories of families at the Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg public housing projects - also known as 'Capers - in southeast DC who protested the government-funded relocation and demolition of their neighborhood.

Ms. Yadav spent several years as a volunteer and organizer at Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg and created a performance built around composite characters based on the people she met and worked with. Her performance is excellent, especially her voice work. A solo performance with a cast of characters could so easily be terribly confusing - but she clearly articulates each individual character using voice, gestures, posture, etc.

I'm no expert in theater, but I thought it worked well and it's easily worth an evening of your time and $10.

Supersystem

at Black Cat, 1/7/2006



Chris Porter wrote a nice review of the show that ran in the Post, so I'll try not to duplicate.

This show was crazy packed. I saw them a few months ago at Warehouse Next Door, which wasn't quite full - maybe 75 people? A few months (and lots of good press) later, and the Black Cat is jammed to capacity. It was the place to be, apparently. Both DC punk icons named Ian were there (MacKaye and Svenious) as well as a few hundred other scenesters. The show was excellent. I think I liked the Warehouse show better mostly because it was a smaller crowd.

Stupid Pitchfork wrote a dumb-ass review of their record and gave them a 4.9. The reviewer really doesn't get it. I guess it's time for name-dropping... Back in 2000, I did a short East Coast tour with Ty Braxton and Eric Bernasek. At our Pittsburgh show, one of the openers was a dynamite avant punk-ish group called El Guapo. Now they are Supersystem and they rock. They rocked before, but Rafael played oboe in addition to guitar, and Justin played drums, electronics, bass clarinet, and probably other things that I don't remember. Back then, they were a duo. Now it's a quartet. And they rock.

All the reviews I've read of the last record say disparaging things about El Guapo - and they're so wrong. Also, all the reviews I've read don't seem to understand what's going on. In the Audiofile column in Salon.com, they thought the guitar parts to "Born into the world" were lifted off some African record (they're not, Rafael is a great guitarist and writes interesting music and plays that stuff himself). Stupid Pitchfork criticizes the lyrics to "Everybody Sings" suggesting that they are random and just "hoping to find meaning by accident." Um, actually that song is probably the one on the record that is MOST CLEARLY ABOUT SOMETHING and it's pretty damn obvious. Stupid Pitchfork. I think from now on I will only refer to the dumb ass website called Pitchfork Media as "Stupid Pitchfork" and I urge you to do the same. For more evidence, read the stupid review of Bob Massey's record... or the one for Travis Morrison's Travistan, which scored a big fat zero. Stupid Pitchfork. There's a review of Travis Morrison's show at Black Cat the other night in today's Post... Mark Jenkins tastefully refers to them as "an inexplicably influential Web site." Stupid Pitchfork.

ps. you can stream both songs I mentioned here.

Postsecret

at the former Staples store, Georgetown, 1/7/2006

Lots is already written about this show, so I don't feel like I need to add to it.
You can see the project's website,
and thoughtful discussion here
and here (I added my two cents in the comments of this one)

Happeningistime

at Spare Room, Baltimore, 1/7/2006

Ginger Wagg presented a multi-media performance / installation piece. I can't really write about her work as an outsider, since I've had the good fortune of working with her over the past few years, and also helped her make some recordings for this event.

Anyway, I can try to describe some of what I saw: For the last few months, Ginger has been traveling around the country and sending packages to the Spare Room. She made an installation of all the mailed materials, and did a two-hour performance.

A room in performance artist Cindy Rehm's house was the venue. The floor was covered with long pieces of white paper (like from a roll of butcher paper or something). Envelopes and packages were arranged in pathways on the floor. Ginger was wearing a costume - a crochet bodysuit by Agata Olek featuring a crocheted balloon person attached. During the performance, she opened packages and envelopes, arranging the contents, and writing on them, writing on the floor, etc.

At first, I was unsure how this was working. When I arrived, the audience was standing outside the room, peeking in from the living room through closed french doors, or peeking through the doorway from the kitchen. Eventually, a few brave spectators ventured into the performance space to view the installation more carefully. At one point, Ginger handed me an envelope to open. It had a few receipts in it: snacks from a grocery store, a purchase from a liquor store, an ATM receipt for a cash withdrawal, etc. Being the bookkeeper that I am, I put them in alphabetical order by vendor and put them back on the floor. Later I thought I should have arranged them by date - or maybe "coded" them like I would a reimbursement request at work? The piece was about the trail we leave behind as moments slip into the past. Not sure what it meant that this person-sculpture was attached to Ginger? Maybe a reference to baggage from the past we carry with us? Maybe a representation of the person we used to be in the past?

I was trying to get to three different events that night - the other two in DC - so I only stayed for about twenty minutes. During that time, I saw Ginger open a small padded envelope that contained a pair of black pants, a package full of maps, and envelopes with letters, receipts, notes, airplane boarding passes. I didn't see enough to really speak to the big ideas in the piece, or the success or failure of the work... but it was certainly an interesting investigation of time passing and the associated detritus that we leave behind.