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Archive for the ‘Pat Mastelotto’ Category

Stick Men (Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, April 29, 2026)

Posted in Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, Pat Mastelotto, Stick Men, Tim Motzer, Tony Levin on April 30, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 2, 2024] Stick Men 

About a year and a half ago I saw Stick Men for the first time and it was fantastic.

I was able to get up close to the stage to see Tony Levin (the main reason I wanted to go) play the Chapman Stick up close.  I have seen him play with King Crimson but have never been THIS close.  I didn’t know much about Markus Reuter, who also plays a kind of Stick–his own U8 Touch guitar.  But wow, he was amazing.  And he made playing these crazy complicated song so easy.  And I can’t forget Pat Mastoletto, who I’ve seen several times playing drums with King Crimson.  He’s amazing to watch, but I laughed to myself at what an amazing show this was if he was the least interesting thing on stage.

I enjoyed the show so much last time and I was really looking forward to this show as well.  The lineup was the same as last time.  And I was able to get nice and close.

I don’t know many of their actual songs.  And it doesn’t matter.  They mostly play instrumentals that are complicated and fantastic to watch.  Much like saying you could listen to a favorite singer sing the phone book–whatever the instrumental equivalent is, I was happy to watch it.

In fact, they opened this show with a relatively brief impov–almost a warm up–and it was fun to see them noodling on their instruments.  But it tunrs out that they played ten of the same songs as last time (in a different order) and that actually worked out really well, because  recognized them from last time, so it was even more fun knowing what was coming next.

They started with Cusp.  Reuter’s guitar is so fascinating because he holds it upright like a cello and both hands are just moving all over the fretboard.  Like a Chapman Stick but shaped like a guitar.  For this song, he was playing most of the bass line while Tony played lead on the Stick.

They followed it with the title track from their new EP Brutal–it was great–very heavy and rocking and featuring Tony going “uh!” (more…)

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Tim Motzer (Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, April 29, 2026) [STICK MEN]

Posted in Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, Pat Mastelotto, Stick Men, Tim Motzer, Tony Levin on April 29, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 29, 2026] Tim Motzer 

About a year and a half ago I saw the exact same lineup in the exact same place.  Tim Motzer opened for Stick Men.  Last year I hadn’t heard of Tim, but this year I had a much better idea of what to expect.  Last year I wrote

Tim Motzer is a Philly-based guitarist.  For his live show, he plays acoustic guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, and electric guitar.  He loops his melodies and creates percussion by tapping on the hollow bodied acoustic (and gets a lot of different sounds from it).

Last time he played four songs.  This time it was five.  But the show started the same way (actually this time, someone in the front row said, “Take us on a journey, Tim.”

The first song was on the acoustic guitar.  It was fun to watch him build and then deconstruct the melodies and work within the drum beat that he created.

This year he said he had some new pedals.  One of the seemed to make his acoustic guitar sound like a glitchy electronic concoction. It was pretty neat.  Last time eh didn’t say the names of any songs.  But his year he told us he was working on an album and he was going to play songs that he was working on.  The first was Chaos Resolution.   He didn’t name the next one. (more…)

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Stick Men (Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, August 2, 2024)

Posted in Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, Pat Mastelotto, Stick Men, Tim Motzer, Tony Levin on August 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 2, 2024] Stick Men 

I have been trying to see Stick Men since just before the pandemic.  They play around here relatively frequently but the timing or location (not to mention the pandemic) has prevented me from seeing them.

But, luckily, they came back to Ardmore and I was able to get up close to the stage to see Tony Levin (the main reason I wanted to go) play the Chapman Stick up close.  I have seen him play with King Crimson but have never been THIS close.

I didn’t know much about Markus Reuter, who also plays a kind of Stick–his own U8 Touch guitar.  But wow, he was amazing.  And he made playing these crazy complicated song so easy.

And I can’t forget Pat Mastoletto, who I’ve seen several times playing drums with King Crimson.  He’s amazing to watch, but I laughed to myself at what an amazing show this was if he was the least interesting thing on stage. (more…)

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Tim Motzer (Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, August 2, 2024) [STICK MEN]

Posted in Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA, Pat Mastelotto, Stick Men, Tim Motzer, Tony Levin on August 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 2, 2024] Tim Motzer 

Tim Motzer is a Philly-based guitarist.  For his live show, he plays acoustic guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, and electric guitar.  He loops his melodies and creates percussion by tapping on the hollow bodied acoustic (and gets a lot of different sounds from it).

He played four pieces in about 45 minutes.

The first on the acoustic guitar.  It was fun to watch him build and then deconstruct the melodies and work within the drum beat that he created.

When he switched to 12 string guitar the sound was more varied.  Afterward he said that he had a new array of pedals and some of the sounds were surprising to him as well

For the electric guitar he played a heavier song with a notable riff.  For this and t he other 6 string piece, he used the e-bow a lot to generate cool sounds.

It was genuinely unclear to me if he was improvising the whole time or if he was playing some of his original pieces.  It doesn’t matter, of course, because the music was cool either way, but I would give the songs a mention if I could tell which songs they were.

For the final piece, he played the 12 string guitar again and briefly used a violin bow (only briefly) to generate new sounds.

It was a pretty mesmerizing session.  The set was marred a little for me by the guy next to me who would whoo!  every once in awhile (like “Whooo 12 string!”) and the guy in the other side of me who kept getting out his phone and then reciting into it before taking a photo (I guess posting to Facebook) “He just took out the violin bow”)

But those annoyances were not very frequent so it wasn’t too bad.

And, overall, it was cool to see Motzer in person after having streamed his set from Sellersville last year.

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Stick Men / Tim Motzer (Egner Chapel, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA, February 24, 2024) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Allentown PA, Egner Chapel, Muhlenberg College, Pat Mastelotto, Stick Men, Tim Motzer, Tony Levin on February 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: February 24, 2024] Stick Men / Tim Motzer 

I have been trying to see Stick Men since the pandemic.  I wasn’t really aware of them before hand.  They played a show in Sellersville a few years ago and I was busy.  They play a lot around New York, but don’t seem to venture off the island all that often.

A show in Allentown seemed like an interesting opportunity to check them out.  But it coincided with a day that we had already set aside for another event.  So, there would be no Stick Men any time soon.

Stick Men is the trio comprised of Tony Levin and Pat Mastellotto from King Crimson and Markus Reuter, one of the foremost players of the Chapman Stick guitar thing.  Bernier and Levin both play them during the set (hence the name).  I’ve wanted to see them every since I heard about them (A chance to se Tony Levin right up close!).  But Stick Men seems to tour quite a lot, and now that King Crimson is more or less dissolved for good, I assume they’ll be touring a bit more.  So when Son Lux, a band I’ve tried and failed to see twice before) was scheduled for the same night, I had to see them while I had the chance.

Tim Motzer is an experimental guitarist.  Apparently you never know what you’re going to get with him.

This was the same line up as in Sellersville, so I guess they tend to tour together.

An excerpt from Motzer in Sellersville is here.  I don’t see Stick Men available anymore.

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Stick Men / Tim Motzer (Sellersville Theatre, Sellersville, PA, April 28, 2022) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Pat Mastelotto, Sellersville Theater, Sellersville, PA, Stick Men, Tim Motzer, Tony Levin on April 28, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: April 28, 2022] Stick Men / Tim Motzer [rescheduled from August 5, 2020 and April 1, 2021]

April 28th turned out to be a banner night of shows.  There were four I was interested in seeing–three of those I was really interested in.  It was very hard to choose especially since one of them was a show rescheduled to that night and I already had tickets to a different one.

The rescheduled show was Stick Men, the trio comprised of Tony Levin and Pat Mastellotto from King Crimson and Markus Reuter, one of the foremost players of the Chapman Stick guitar thing.  Bernier and Levin both play them during the set (hence the name).  I’ve wanted to see them every since I heard about them (A chance to se Tony Levin right up close!).  But Stick Men seems to tour quite a lot, and now that King Crimson is more or less dissolved for good, I assume they’ll be touring a bit more.  So when Son Lux, a band I’ve tried and failed to see twice before) was scheduled for the same night, I had to see them while I had the chance.

Tim Motzer is an experimental guitarist.  Apparently you never know what you’re going to get with him.

Both Motzer and the Stick Men show were streamed for a couple of days afterward, so I was able to see them both, which is nice.

An excerpt from Motzer is here.  I don’t see Stick Men available anymore.

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Jackson Pearce and Maggie Stiefvater–Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Unicorn Training (2015)

Posted in Fantasy, Fire, Funny (ha ha), Jackson Pearce, King Crimson, Lo Moon, Maggie Stiefvater, Magic, Manuals, Mr. Mister, Pat Mastelotto, Short Books, Supernatural, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series, Unicorns, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on January 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LO MOON-Tiny Desk Concert #688 (January 5, 2018).

WXPN has been playing “This is It” quite a bit lately and I’ve realized that it sounds way too much like Mr. Mister (I think it’s Mr. Mister, or something else cloyingly 80s) for me to really enjoy.  [Speaking of Mr. Mister, how is it possible that Pat Mastelotto, currently touring with King Crimson, was the drummer for Mr. Mister?  Are they better than “Broken Wings.” There’s hardly any drums in that song at all and Mastelotto is awesome].

Anyhow back to the history of Lo Moon, lead singer and instrumentalist Matt Lowell says he created the song “Loveless” 5 1/2 years ago in a basement studio in New York.

He then moved to Los Angeles and linked up with Crisanta Baker (guitar, bass, keyboards and backing vocals) and multi-instrumentalist and principal guitarist Sam Stewart. They spent months in a backyard shed with gear and guitars everywhere. There they learned to feed off each other, sometimes jamming on two-chord drones for six hours straight without even saying a word. With the lights turned down, it was a comfortable space for the band to catch its artistic wind and create a celestial sound.

No word on when Sterling Laws was added as a drummer.

The show starts with “This is It.”  Lowell is on piano, and the song sounds pretty faithful to the recording. It’s the combination of the four note melody and the synth sound of those four notes at the end of the chorus that really rings Mr. Mister to me.  The addition of the backing vocals (ahhhing) is a nice addition to the song.

For “Real Love” Chrisanta switches to piano, Sam switches to acoustic guitar and Matt goes to electric guitar.  He plays a pretty melody on the guitar, but I can’t help feel that his voice is too soft, too middle of the road.

The same is true for “Loveless.”  They switch back to the original instruments.  Like “Real Love” it’s a pretty song, but ironically, without those Mr. Mister notes, there’s really no hook.  The songs just sound like pretty, generic songs on some kind of soft rock station.

[READ: September 9, 2017] Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Unicorn Training

I enjoyed the first Pip Bartlett book.  It was funny and had a good time with magical creatures.

In the first book we find out that Pip Bartlett is a young girl who can speak to magical creatures–unicorns, silky griffins, fuzzles–but no one believes her (because no one else can).  This is a drag because she loves magical creatures and her Aunt Emma is a veterinarian of magical creatures (people know magical creatures exits, they just don’t think people can talk to them).

Pip loves Unicorns and in the past has assisted Mr Henshaw with a very timid Unicorn–Regent Maximus–who was afraid of his own shadow.

I love the tone of the books.  This one opens: I was shoveling Greater Rainbow Mink poop. This wasn’t as bad as you might think. Greater Rainbow Minks only eat brunt sugar, so their poop literally smells like candy.  (It’s NOT candy, of course, It’s very important to remember that no matter how good its smells, it’s still poop).

And then we see (or actually we don’t see) a Rockshine who can only say the word Hey, but most often says “Heyyyyyyyyyyy!”  Rockshines are dull sheeplike creatures who turn invisible when frightened–which is often. (more…)

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