Carlsbad Music Festival
Daniel Pate - Played David Lang's Unchained Melody then did a piece by a local artist on a vibraphone prepared with tin foil and manilla folders. Cool compositions to make the performance interesting but this dude needs to loosen up. He has no voice.
Gyan Riley - Absolutely stunning performance. Neoclassical American primitivism guitar business that was gorgeous, impressive, and virtuosic.
Hausmann Quartet - Pretty great modern classical string quartet. They did a piece by Charlotte Shaw that I saw the Isuara Quartet perform before. Isuara had more passion. Hausmann had stronger pizzicato game. They did a few other interesting post minimalist pieces too.
Crew D'Etat - Funky and dope and dank brass band.
Peter Sprague + Leonard Patton - The singer was on some ****ty soul nonsense but he had some good scatting. The guitarist is great and had his moments but overall he was boring as ****. If he opened up it'd be pretty awesome.
Nathan Hubbard Trio - Fire avant garde jazz. Bass, vibes, and drums. Pretty wild performance I gotta say. They did two sets and I had to leave early during the second one to catch a different show, but both were really captivating. These guys have great chemistry.
Matt McBane - Props to this dude for being the man behind this festival and for being a nice guy but damn dude, this dub influenced classical business ain't gonna cut it. So boring.
Stephanie Andrews + Andrew Munsey - Stephanie Andrews on trumpet, Andrew Munsey on drums, Brian Walsh on bass clarinet, Joshua White on piano, Dave Tranchina on bass. They were dope as **** free improvisation that reminded me a bit of Braxton. Joshua White absolutely shredded on the piano, probably the best performance I've ever seen him in.
Donnacha Dennehy Composer Portrait Concert - Four performances of pieces by Donnacha Dennehy. Andrew Anderson did Stainless Staining, a minimalist piece with tape and piano. Very hypnotic and beautiful. Isaac Allen, Alex Greenbaum, and Tina Chong did Bulb, which was minimalist but went to wilder heights than the earlier piece because there were more instruments. I kind of wish that I hadn't looked this composer up because a pretty similar performance with these performers was the video I watched to get an idea if I wanted to see it and it would have been better if it was new for me. Daniel Pate did a piece called Paddy and it was more involved so it made up for his stiffness. It's a very busy piece and hard to pull off. Hausmann Quartet did The Weather of It which was dizzying and hypnotic minimalism. I mean hypnotic literally because I went to weird places. Or maybe I was just a little bit too drunk and dozing off. Still a good performance though.
Sibarg Ensemble - Essentially a piano trio with a kamencheh (a bowed four string gourd instrument) and an Iranian vocalist drawing on traditions of jazz and Iranian music. The groundwork was very much like Village of the Pharoahs and went into some awesome dark territory as well as some heavy spiritual vocal performances. The pianist was badass, I wish that I sat where I could see him better. Everyone in the group was badass actually. The rhythm section slayed and they all fed off of the crowd and went to some really cool places.
Mandobasso - Only stayed for about ten minutes. They're good players but they can't carry it with their setup of just a mandolin and bass. Should try to go for Mandoguitabasso or Mandopercssiobasso.
We Are the West - Chillin on the lawn and caught these guys while having my beer. About half of their performance was terrible vomit worthy pop rock ****ty ass **** you terribleness, but then they'd do songs where they were doing dope ass progressive rock with an interplay kind of like This Heat that were ****ing amazing. What the **** guys, quit trying to be accessible. Just play the good **** and cut the stupid BS.
Eric Byers - Well performed and nice pieces, but felt more like a recital than a performance. Also the chairs were pretty comfy and I was nodding off a little. That's mostly on me though.
Nathan James - I don't even want to talk about it.
Scott Paulson - Used a lot of children's instruments as well as a harp, piano, and theremin. He did some kind of playful stuff and brought some kids on stage to play his assortment of instruments (you know I wanted to jam up there but I let the kids have it). It's cool what he's doing: showing kids how easily you can democratize music. They had him marked in the program as sound collage and that was a bit misleading though. And he was a lil creepy.
Fazi - Chinese rock group. Had some weird outsider qualities that I couldn't put my finger on as far as the group goes and the vocalist had a lot of energy even though he looked like he had just smoked weed for the first time. They also had the tamest feedback solo I've ever seen. Not even saying that like it's bad, it was just interesting how restrained it was.
Johnny Gandelsman Plays Bach's Complete Sonatas and Partitas - A two hour solo violin performance done entirely from memory with a passionate and folksy bent that didn't even feel like thirty minutes. One of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life.
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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.
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