SOUNDTRACK: LEO KOTTKE AND MIKE GORDON-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #100 (October 21, 2020).
I’ve enjoyed Mike Gordon’s playing with Phish and his solo records for years. But I’ve never really explored his recordings with Leo Kottke.
It’s been 15 years since the legendary guitarist Leo Kottke put out a new recording, and it’s no coincidence that his new music is with Phish bassist Mike Gordon. The two have a history of making albums together, but that hit a hiatus in 2005 with their Sixty Six Steps project. They’re back with a 2020 album, Noon, and Phish drummer Jon Fishman joins the duo.
They open with “Flat Top,” a fantastic instrumental with lots of melodic runs.
They begin with what fans of Leo Kottke fell in love with 50 years ago, the sound of his acoustic guitar fingerpicking. Mike Gordon punctuates the opening song “Flat Top,” which at moments feels like a musical chase.
Mike plays his five string bass like a lead instrument, either playing a kind of counterpoint to Leo’s guitar melodies or even following them along beautifully.
Jon Fishman is a tasteful addition. Mike and Jon have played over 2,000 shows together, so there’s telepathy there. Still, he also finds ways into the music that isn’t merely rhythmic; he adds aural atmospherics with brushes in hand. There are some fun visual tricks but — musically speaking — not a moment of trickery. Just pure magic.
Before “The Only One” Leo’s phone rings and he talks about his friend Sam. He met Sam when they played poker. Sam told Leo his two pair beat Leo’s three of a kind. “On such rip-offs life long friendships are made.” Mike introduces Fish (“he’s my hero”) who is playing in the studio downstairs from Mike.
Introducing the song, Leo says, the name “The Only One” sounds better than “How to Be an Asshole,” I gotta admit.
There’s plenty of picking in this song as we’l, but its also got some gentle singing from Kottke, harmonies from MIke and gentle drumming from Fish. The middle solo section is a wonderful moment where both Leo and Mike play complementary solos.
And while they’re miles apart for this Tiny Desk (home) concert, Leo at Creation Audio in Minneapolis and Mike and Jon at Tank Recording Studio in Burlington, Vt., there’s plenty of humor and spirit traversing the wires.
They do an amusing visual joke of them throwing a water bottle through the cameras frames–it’s lined up perfectly.
Mike tells a story that might have inspired “Sheets,” but Leo says,
I don’t know why I wrote this tune. I don’t know why I write any of them. I’ve always got my guitar–annoy the neighbors. I have to hear the guitar. And every now and them something will come up. This song uses some of Mike lowest bass notes–they really resonate with Leo’s pretty guitar and gentle singing.
The final song is clearly written by Mike. He introduces “I Am Random” by saying
This is a song that’s not about being a person standing in a room doing something … ever.
Then he says
it’s about people who came to our country from Kiev in 1885–they took a bell out of a church tower and rode it on out of town.
Who knows what the truth is. This song has a great funky bass line and Mike’s lead vocals. There’s all kinds of weird (random?) things going on in the song. Bass slides, time changes and a wonderfully chaotic denouement from all three.
This is a fantastic introduction to what this dup can do and a great introduction to Kottke’s music for me.
[READ: December 3, 2020] “A Famous Man”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth time reading the Calendar. I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable. Here’s what they say this year
You know the drill by now. The 2020 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories from some of the best writers in North America.
This year’s slipcase is a thing of beauty, too, with electric-yellow lining and spot-glossed lettering. It also comes wrapped in two rubber bands to keep those booklets snug in their beds.
As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check back here to read an exclusive interview with the author.
It’s December 3. Kathryn Scanlan, author of The Dominant Animal, doesn’t need to pay admission if she’s just visiting the gift shop. [Click the link to the H&O extras for the story].
Yesterday’s story was told in first person plural. This one is told (in part) in second person singular.
“You” follow the life of a famous man.
The man (never named) lived in small house near a river when he was a small boy. He fished there too–people claim they found some of his ephemera when they have fished there.
When the boy was older, his family moved to larger house on a hill. They farmed. The work was hard.
When the boy’s brother died, they left for a town. In this town, people argued about “whether one human had the right to own another…the boy’s father argued in the negative and was stabbed repeatedly.”
The house on the hill was sold to a couple. The couple charges you $2 to look around.
The famous man’s first house fell into disrepair, but after the man died, a museum established about him decided to move the entire thing to the museum, away from its natural homeland.
Years later, you lived in the house that’s next to the lot where the famous man’s house once stood. A family bought the property and put up a new house. You played in that yard. You even helped to paint the sign that pointed to where the famous person’s house once stood.
Years later you find yourself in the town named for the famous man and you go to the museum where you go into the house that used to stand next to where you grew up.
The story was rather elliptical and a little unsatisfying, but still engaging.
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