Up at the crack of dawn this morning, I couldn't sleep for buzzing about the terrific Fast 'n Bulbous show we played last night at the Bowery Poetry Club here on the Lower East Side. It capped a week of tight ensemble playing with the boys (my partner Phillip Johnston on alto sax and arrangements, Jesse Krakow on bass, Richard Dworkin drums, Joe Fielder trombone, Rob Henke trumpet, and Dave Sewelson baritone) on a couple radio programs beloved of the free spirited musical community of NYC.

First up was Irene Trudell's Monday afternoon show on WFMU, an oasis of insanity in the flatlands of Jersey. Irene and I are old friends, and in fact, she met and later married her husband Peter Keepnews on the freezing cold set of the "Skin the Rabbit" video shoot back New Year's Day 1993 (this little gem actually got played on European MTV! another time, another story...) And I've been making live appearances on WFMU for years, starting back in the days when it was a little hole in the wall on the Upsala Universirty Campus in East Orange University, to the renaissance years when it was ensconced in a suburban tract house down the road apiece, where I brought Jeff Buckley for his first ever live radio broadcast in 1991...now it sits in a small office building in Hoboken, a multi-level hive of off-the-wall free-form folderol, and we got an extemely warm welcome from program director Brian Turner and co. Irene set us up with the help of my good friend, the recording engineer/Gods and Monsters sax player/computer savant and for this occasion Gary's guitar tech, Jason Candler...4pm came the countdown to infinity...Irene introduced us...we launched into "Pachuco Cadaver"--and we blew the roof off the sucker! Our show (4 songs or so) should be up in the WFMU archives, so check it out...some pictures were taken and they should be posted here soon as well.

Next up was our Wednesday blow-out on John Schaefer's "New Sounds"--John is a saint to the experimental music fringe in New York, and years ago he had the excellent good taste (on my recommendation) to hire Irene to be a part-time recording engineer at his enclave, the city's public radio station WNYC FM--so we sounded fantastic, naturally, and played even better (in all honesty), and got to do a good solid set of 4 tunes punctuated by a lot of good natured spritzing and bantering in the recurring interview segment between John, Phillip and myself. Again there should be some photos up shortly.

Then last night it all came together at our live show at the Poetry Club. Started with mc and Poetry guy Bob Holman reading some of Don Van Vliet's gritty surrealistic poems and lyrics, I followed suit with "Infra-Grams" from the hard to find "Skeleton Breath Scorpion Blush" collection, then Denny Walley, in town for a few days with his lovely wife Janet, came up and the two of us blew through a dual guitar version of "Steal Softly Through Sunshine" from "Trout Mask Replica" which we had nailed down tight with The Magic Band--it sounded really ripping here in this stripped down arrangement. Then the band came on, and all hell broke loose...like I said. I'm still buzzing...

more sooner than later

yours,

xxGary





--
Posted by Gary Lucas to Gary Lucas at 12/18/2004 01:06:56 PM