I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: March 23, 2026] What is Now 

I was excited to see Orcutt/Shelley/Miller and was made even happier when Chris Forsyth was listed as the opening act.  I’ve seen Chris in various forms five times and I love that he is creative and virtuosic but also experimental and noisy.  This show was with another group that he has recently gotten together with.  They are called What is Now and it’s a trio with double bassist John Moran (Bark Culture, Daniel Villareal Trio) and drummer Joey Sullivan (Florry, Bark Culture).

Solar Myth is a small venue and I’ve seen some loid shows here.  But this trio proved to be pretty quiet.  The played two pieces which I think were entirely improvised.

The first was about 20 minutes.  I enjoyed watching Chris wrangle his guitar–occasionally making pretty sounds, but largely making interesting experimental noises.

Joey Sullivan was fun to watch because he had a whole selection of gear on the piano next to him.  These included metal pieces that he put on his drums, a kind of spring that he hit and which rattled, and various other things that he put on the drum heads.

I was a little bummed that John Moran faced the other two guys because I was standing sort of in front of him and I never got to see him doing anything–except from the side.  So I could see his bow going back and forth (at one point he made a really noisy scraping “solo” that seemed to introduce a new part of the song.

After about 20 minutes the song wrapped up.  Chris said they would do one more–a quickie.  He asked Bo the sound guy how much time they had and Bo said “enough.”

So they started up a new song.  It was much the same but very different.  I really enjoyed the way the double bass seemed to be the component that held everything together while the guitar and drums seemed to roam around.

Is this jazz?  Maybe.  It’s noisy, occasionally gorgeous and mostly really interesting to watch.

And it’s always fun to chat with Chris after the show–he’s such a nice guy.