On March 18, 2011, you could have seen performances by Dan Catrell, Strangled Darlings, and The Pickpocket Ensemble, at The Starry Plough.
Hello. I meant to go see my friend Mike’s band at Gilman last night. I was looking forward to photographing my friend’s band. The problem is that his band Slave Unit plays tonight. I was excited I guess. I was faced with a choice, one that I make from time to time. I could either look for something to do in the East Bay as an alternative, find a way to spend the night in the east bay and go to the show tomorrow, or go home to the south bay and do nothing.
Upon further research I found that I could try to see what was going on at Casa Zimbabwe, some bands were playing there last night, and it would surely be a good time. To find out this bit of information I had journeyed to The Long Haul Anarchist Community Center and Infoshop. The Long Haul isn’t open on Fridays, although they have a cork board, so I could find out about La Casa anyway. Not to hedge my bet, since I was pretty sure I had blown the weekend I wandered to The Starry Plough to check in with happenings there. It turns out I’m very fortunate that this is how things turned out.
I’ve had time to consider things somewhat since I moved out of the old messed up Victorian in Emeryville. I didn’t have to be concerned about mixing up my weekend plans. I sometimes take things too seriously anyway. It’s a little different when commuting on bicycle every day, after a while any unnecessary expenditure of energy becomes a big deal, I was critical to streamline my commuting with my errands so as to avoid wasting time and energy. I walk and bike about twice a week just for exercise, but I don’t need to be anywhere right now. I’m just doing my grad work, and looking for jobs.
The Starry Plough doesn’t have a tractor beam, they don’t really need one, and they have Sierra Nevada Porter on tap. Then I realize the band is setting up, and then I realize I didn’t do anything in particular for St. Patrick’s Day. I get water with my porter; I’m trying to save my liver for posterity if at all possible. I look at the flyer on the wall. I see something similar to what is posted on the following website: http://www.bellowhead.com/music_site/home.html. The Pick Pocket Ensemble…now that sounds like a good name for a bluegrass project. It turns out they have provided music for movies as well as NPR. Strangled Darlings are supposedly the love child of Tom Waits and Jack White, which damn, if that’s anything near the truth of the matter then I guess that would be pretty spectacular, or so that was my thinking. Dan Catrell has actually played with Tom Waits and his bio is freaking off the hook dude! Cartoon Network, Emmy award winner for PBS, Oakland’s The Crucible, ODC Dance Company San Francisco, Oakland, and San Francisco Symphonies, and more! It’s pretty much insane. Dan has to be superhuman. So what does it all sound like?
It sounds like an intermittent hailstorm in Berkeley and a tornado warning for San Mateo. With the Equinox coming up, the St. Patrick’s day ethos manifests itself with harmonic convergence anomalies such as the bar tenders who drink red bull and rock stars to cope with their supporting role during the previous evening’s holiday. Early in the evening there was talk at The Starry Plough of a couple who on St Patty’s tore up the floor late into the night, everyone loves traditional Celtic music, I suppose such things are to be somewhat expected.
Pickpocket Ensemble began out of what seemed like an extended sound check. I wasn’t sure, people were still milling inwards. They orchestrated a combination of what to my ear sounded like Latin and Slavic folk. It sounded romantic, was generally upbeat, and I thought it was also very beautiful. A review on their website says they have Serbian and Gypsy influences. The review also said Jazz and Appalachia. I thought ethnic bluegrass, at times even Islamic. It doesn’t matter those are all just labels, they sounded much better than what I’m listening to now on their website, and they sound pretty fantastic on their website. [http://www.pickpocketensemble.com. Special treat on website music and video! Also; http://www.myspace.com/thepickpocketensemble.] Their song, Bird In A Web, is on their MySpace page, and this is very reminiscent of their style. Memory reminds me of Mr. Grisman, and the ethno-folk Slavic, and Latin is manifested quite nicely in Disarray of Roses. While thinking of Pickpocket Ensemble and listening to songs like Packed Her Things, I am reminded of seeing David Grisman at The Great American Music Hall, when I was a kid in the 1970s. New to the scene I was told that what I was hearing was spectacular and nothing like what I would hear recorded. The Pickpocket Ensemble are spectacular and they sound awesome live. This band picked up where the maelstrom had left and reminded us all that we were witnessing the harmonic convergence as it was manifesting towards the equinox. Could the next band carry on with such a demanding orchestration?
Yes they did. Strangled Darlings have a more vocal approach. With all of the harmonizing with Pickpocket Ensemble I would be reminded later with Dan Catrell, that there are blues even in the eye of the storm. Strangled Darlings were like a reprieve from all of the fuss of St. Pats, the weather and the equinox. This was more of a bluegrass sideshow or additional act to placate the minions ravished by the maelstrom of the convergence. Rhythmic jazzy blues to remind us that the music can be fun beyond the seriousness of external conditions, Japan and the middle-east were furthest from my mind at that time. I wasn’t of mind to worry about how much radiation was in the atmosphere. I simply could dig and respect the music, and enjoy the crescendos and melodies as they may have also related to the larger whole as it were. They managed to carry the algorhythms of the harmonic convergences that seemed to resonate with the previous band (the vibe for the night,) and carry it to the next. Circus and Mousetrap remind me of this, (http://www.myspace.com/strangleddarlings.) Listening to songs on their myspace page, I can see that they are somewhat more whimsical, they have a sense of humor, and they also really rocked out, and that’s what I found to be the relevant factor. They can play their instruments, but do they rock? They rocked.
In Dan’s website it indicates that he plays the saw, the accordion, and the piano. This reminded me that the lady of Stangled Darlings indeed played the saw, and this really helped to infuse the overall sense of audio vulcanization in yesterday evenings performance. At times I did think of Darlings as more of the riders of, although perhaps not the storm itself, their last few songs proved this theory wrong. Which leaves only room for a pretty demanding act, somebody has to be able to back that up, the storm is upon us! There was nowhere left to go other than through the roof. It was a good thing for us last night then that Dan Catrell was there.
I recognized the song Bumping And Grinding on the my space page from their performance. They did a different version, they didn’t have any brass. Nobody had any brass. None of the brass goes out on rainy nights? The version I heard had an extended variation on the Buddhist monk chanting, and it was equally good, if not better than their MySpace version. The version on MySpace is more cacophonic, although live or recorded they certainly indulge us with plenty of scherzotica. I felt the Latin and Slavic thing with Dan as I had with Pickpockets. I think I recognize Dancheck from their MySpace page as a number they played last night. They didn’t use any samples live, or a keyboard, and sound much, much wilder live. Cold Cold Night, sounds familiar, they may have played it yesterday, although I cannot remember. They did play Pretty Machine, the MySpace video does not do this song justice, and I hope that someone somehow recorded last night’s performance. The MySpace video translates as somewhat pedestrian in comparison. It is however, a very nice rendition, http://www.myspace.com/dancantrellsmegaband/videos. The video version on the MySpace doesn’t lend itself to last night’s performance at all, and I am reminded of any middle 1990s SNL performance, with an unfamiliar audience and bad acoustics. They played a version of Sweet And Endless also. Again I am disappointed by the bad video version on the MySpace page, yet again it’s a nice rendition. In comparison it would seem that someone spiked the punch with astrojazz last night-it was incredible. I am lead to believe that Dan Catrell is much further beyond anything his MySpace page can dictate for us. Just the same, a musician of his pedigree should allow for recent samples and last night would be an outstanding example of this. I think the most amazing thing about last night’s performance with Dan Catrell, is that it was strings and accordion. They managed to raise the roof, manage the harmonic convergence, and weather the storm without brass or electric instruments. Especially intriguing was the cellist who while busy interpreting sheet music helped to provide mealy rhythmic fills while accompanying the violinist, the standup bass, and accordion. Like Pickpocket Ensemble, Dan at times sounds like Latin, Slavic, and traditional Islamic music. It goes to show what I know, Dan informed me later that they played Greek, Mongolian, and Romanian traditional music, they are still incredible![http://www.dancatrellsmegaband.]
