Posted in Black Pumas, De La Soul, Guster, Hozier, Newport Folk Festival, Newport, RI, The War on Drugs, Tinariwen on July 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »
[DID NOT ATTEND: July 31-August 2, 2020] Newport Folk Festival
We went to Newport Folk Festival in 2019. We’ve had a kind of understanding that we would try to go again.
I’ve managed to score tickets for previous years (and then resell them when we couldn’t go). But this year I was shut out instantly. Which is fine as the festival often conflicts with our summer schedule.
(more…)
Posted in Basic, Chris Forsyth, Philadelphia, PA, Tinariwen, Underground Arts on July 25, 2024| Leave a Comment »
[DID NOT ATTEND: July 24, 2024] Tinariwen
Tinariwen is a pretty legendary band. They play a guitar driven “desert blues” in which the guitar is played pretty much non-stop. It’s unique and original to American ears but is apparently part of a Mali musical sound that combines traditional Tuareg and African music with Western rock.
I’ve been trying to see them for a number of years and things never seemed to pan out, until this year.
The night was a challenge as parking was limited and I wound up coming in later than I intended. It was also much more crowded (so early) than I anticipated. So I had to stand off to the side.
About half way through the show, I had to get out of the crowd and Underground Arts was super nice in that someone got me a chair (I’m using a cane at the moment). I actually felt obliged to stay in the chair which meant I was in kind of a crappy location visually for most of the show. But it was so crowded that I wasn’t going to see much anyhow, so I’m grateful for the seat. (more…)
Posted in Basic, Chris Forsyth, Philadelphia, PA, Tinariwen, Underground Arts on July 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »
[ATTENDED: July 24, 2024] Basic
Philadelphia’s own BASIC, Chris Forsyth on guitar, Nick Millevoi on baritone guitar and drum machine, and Patrick Avery on percussion and electronics. I saw them open for Tortoise back in 2023 and really enjoyed their rocking, possibly improvised set.
The venue was super packed. I started in the center but couldn’t see anything so I moved to the Nick Millevoi’s side, but was still blocked by a pole. Eventually I sidled up and managed to see all three of them.
Last time, I felt Christ Forsyth’s guitar was a little quiet, but this time the sound was great.
Like last time, Avery had a tiny bass drum that he hit with a mallet. On it was a kind of woodblock, which he hit with a plastic mallet. That’s all he had. Millevoi often started a drum machine as he started playing so technically Avery didn’t have a lot to do, but seeing and hearing him add bass drum was a nice touch. Avery also played with some electronics on a table near him–I think he was doing a lot more than I realized (since I couldn’t see him very well, it’s hard to know).
They played for about 40 minutes and it was a great rocking set. Nick and Chris both played great solos from time to time and Mikel held it all together.
I do hope to see them one more time, hopefully from the front where I can really see what’s going on.
And what was fun was that Chris and his family (I assume) stood next to me at the end of Tinariwen, and then he was super friendly after the show where we chatted about the upcoming Basic album.
Posted in Garcia Peoples, Philadelphia, PA, Tinariwen, Underground Arts on October 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »
[DID NOT ATTEND: October 1, 2022] Tinariwen / Garcia Peoples
Tinariwen is a pretty legendary band. They play a guitar driven “desert blues” in which the guitar is played pretty much non-stop. It’s unique and original to American ears but is apparently part of a Mali musical sound that combines traditional Tuareg and African music with Western rock.
Like last time, their show happened to be booked at a time when I had a lot of other things going on.
I would very much like to see them so I hope they come back again before too long.
Having Garcia Peoples open was a stroke of genius booking and honestly only made me want to go to this show even more. It happened to be on the same night that I had a ticket to see Indigo de Souza. Which wound up getting cancelled anyhow. But then I had another show the next night.
I hope they both come back together–what a great double bill.
Posted in Cancelled, Coronavirus, Philadelphia, PA, Quarantine, Tinariwen, Underground Arts on November 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »
[CANCELLED: November 5, 2021] Tinariwen
Tinariwen is a “Desert blues” band of Tuareg musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. The band formed in 1979 in Tamanrasset, Algeria, but returned to Mali after a peace accord between 1990 and 1995. They gained interbational attention with their album Aman Iman in 2007.
I’ve heard they put on an amazing show.
When I saw they were playing Underground Arts I wanted to snatch up tickets but this weekend proved to be very busy with me going to a show on Thursday and Sunday.
But then on September 30, the tour was cancelled: (more…)
Posted in Angst, Baseball, Basketball, Bill Corbett, Birds, Charles Schulz, Comic Strips, Conor Lastowka, Fantagraphics, Football, Funny (ha ha), Halloween, Hockey, Humiliation, Jealousy, Joe Shlabotnik, Kevin Murphy, Letters, Marbles, Math, Mike Nelson, MST3K, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Peanuts, Pranks, Rifftrax, Sandi Patti, Sean Thomason, Set at School, Surreal, Technology, The Bible, The Future, Tinariwen, Tiny Desk Concert, Up Front, War, World War I, World War II on December 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »
SOUNDTRACK: TINARIWEN-Tiny Desk Concert #184 (January 5, 2012).
Tinariwen are a band from northern Mali, whose members met in the training camps of Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Much has been written about them and their story, which is pretty amazing. I’m only going to talk about this Tint Desk Concert.
Typically, they play an interesting electric guitar kind of trance music. But for this one they were all acoustic. As Bob Boilen notes, they are his “favorite electric-guitar-based band on the planet.” But he says he was:
“initially worried and disappointed when I learned that it was coming to play the Tiny Desk as a trio carrying acoustic guitars. My heart sank a bit more when the three Tuareg musicians from the Sahara arrived in jeans and polo shirts instead of the beautiful, flowing robes I’d seen them wear on stage so many times.
But they switched clothes and they do not disappoint on acoustic guitar.
I don’t know their music all that well, but it feels like the acoustic nature of this show is even more soothing and trance inducing. The two acoustic guitars interweave–one playing lead (which is mostly hammered notes–not a “solo” per se) and the other strumming. The percussion is the sound of two hands rubbing, clacking (with a cigarette lighter) and pounding (for bass drum) a large gourd.
The songs tend to be almost looping. Like they could go on forever. There’s no real verse chorus structure that I can tell. It’s more of a meditative sound.
All of the vocals are in Tamashek and I have no idea what the songs are about.
On “Adounia” both guitarists sing and the voices sound very traditional, almost atonal. “Takkest Tamidaret” opens with a more conventional sounding guitar lick, but it’s all so quiet in the mix, that you can’t tell how much his fingers are moving. The lyrics are a bit slower, but still in that droning style. I love the way “Tenhert” has a a cool riff from the lead guitar–one that probably sounds more intense on electric guitar. He sing/speaks incredibly quickly. “Tahlamoyt” is a much slower song with the lyrics pretty much all spoken word.
The “Mali sound” is pretty distinctive and Tinariwen are great proponents of it, spreading it around the world for all to hear.
[READ: June 8, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1995-1996
I was under the impression that these last few volumes of books would show a serious drop in quality. I had assumed that with the amount of product the Peanuts characters were sponsoring that these strips would be more cute. But that is far from true. I enjoyed this book as much if mot more than some of the other recent volumes.
I was also surprised to discover that I really enjoyed the Sunday cartoons more than the dailies. In the past I haven’t really gotten big laughs form the Sundays–it seemed like the big stories and jokes were in the dailies and the Sundays were unrelated one offs with varying degrees of punch. But I enjoyed a dozen or so in this book.
One of the major additions in this book is the inclusion of a slightly older Rerun. He is now mobile and even heading to kindergarten (I love that he is aging while the others aren’t). But rather than using Rerun for obvious cute child jokes (he’s no longer riding the back of his mom’s bike) Rerun is now making funny “outsider” observations about the world of Peanuts–he is constantly disenchanted with the way things are going and with the belief that people are always lying to him. There are also a ton of strips of him trying to shoot a basketball and failing miserably. Schulz has always tended to take an idea and run and run and run with it, but this one is pretty good for the number that he uses it. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 