I Just Read About That…

[DID NOT ATTEND: July 8, 2023] The Smile / Robert Stillman

Much like with the Trey Anastasio Band and Phish (the only way to get close to Trey is to see him solo), The Smile seemed like the only way to see Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead up close. Their drummer is Tom Skinner from Sons of Kemet.

So when they announced a show in Philly I was all set  to grab a ticket.

Then I listened to the record and… I didn’t think much of it.  Granted , I didn’t give a lot of time to the record, but what I heard was just too jazzy for my liking.  So I was just as happy to not go see them.

I see that it has sold out, so good for them.

Robert Stillman is a composer and multi-instrumentalist from the northeast United States, currently based in Margate, UK. His music juxtaposes the archaic with the futuristic, incorporating influences of Jazz, Minimalism, American Folk music, and experimental electronic music to create a sound described by the Guardian Observer as “lending an avant-garde shimmer to pre-modern American sounds.”

One review of his set says he was

Perched behind a Yamaha DX7 and some DJ gear, Stillman blended down tempo jazz sax with minimalist electronic beats to warm-up the growing crowd

This sounds like a show I would have enjoyed intellectually, but not in practice.