He was a Friend of Mine
Sad sad sad news at the recent death of Charlie Gillett (Richard Williams in The Guardian wrote a fine obit), and what is there to add really but that he was truly a major force for good in music...and also that I was pretty chuffed that he liked my work :-)...
A total gentleman, I was honoured to have Charlie as a friend and supporter...Charlie invited me as a guest on his long-running BBC radio program several times, first time with Peter Stampfel when we over in the UK doing a Du-Tels tour at the end of 2001...next after my "Edge of Heaven" 30's Chinese pop album came out in 2002, I was his guest that time at a special party for all his longtime London fans broadcast live from The Kashmir Club off Baker Street on the occasion of his 30th anniversary BBC show, on a bill with his other special guests the wonderful Fado singer Mariza, Nick Lowe, and Nick Hornsby...I remember performing "The Mad World" on that one (one of the late lamented long gone John Peel's favoreets too, JP broadcast the studio version of that particular edge 'o heaven nugget on one of his last shows in fact)...
I was Charlie's guest a third time a year or two later when my second album with Dutch lutist Jozef Van Wissem "The Universe of Absence" had just come out, Jos wasn't there but I got Charlie to spin a track or two from our album and also performed live some of the music from Jacques Tati's "Mon Oncle" and "M. Hulot's Holiday" on the programme...always enjoyed playing Radio Ping Pong with Charlie which was kind of a variant of Stump the Band; you'd serve a volley of sounds in his direction and he'd lob a fast one back at ya, first time on with Peter I brought several choice cuts to share with him and his listening audience (which encompassed folks all over the globe) including Sun Ra and Yochanon's "The Sun Man Speaks", Bob Dylan and The Band's gorgeous Basement Tape outtake "Banks of the Royal Canal", also Beefheart's "Diddy Wah Diddy"....may not have all been his cuppa (particularly the last track) but I wasn't about to pull my punches either, which he obviously appreciated :-)...Charlie will go down with Peel as amongst the most influential UK DJ's ever to enlighten the populace/slam dance cosmopolis (do the worm on necropolis)...He was a sweet and gracious guy who nearly single-handedly invented the genre of World Music as we know it today, as well as writing such influential tomes as his masterful early rock treatise "The Sound of the City" (which I remember laying on Adrian Sherwood at his house in East London at the same time as I played him Walter Gibbons' incredible mix of Arthur Russell's "Let's Go Swimming" which I had vetted for release moonlighting as the A&R guy for the little Indie label that could, Upside Records in NYC...check out the latest MOJO for more on Arthur... and Tim Lawrence's cool new biography, "Hold On To Your Dreams")...
Just heard about Mike Zwerin passing too (oh nooooooooo), James Campbell wrote a touching obit in The Guardian....very creative trumpeter/trombonist who played with Miles circa "Birth of the Cool" live, also Archie Shepp ("The Magic of Ju-Ju") and many other greats, and a fantastic writer who wrote some wonderful books about this and that, esp. one about the Swing Era in Germany during the reign of the Nazis...also over many years wrote a must-read column for the International Herald Tribune profiling musicians passing through his home base of Paris, he wrote on me in fact after my friend British expat/Paris resident/mover and shaker Karel Beer introduced us...you can read the full piece here...He was an acerbic funny sensitive and hip Jewish intellectual, and I will really miss the guy...another light going out...
A lot of water under the bridge since my last posting almost 2 months ago, I have been terribly busy needless to say but would like to catch up now for all my dear readers...
February 12th went to see Jane Birkin perform a wonderful show at Florence Gould Hall here, I have a soft spot for Jane ever since hearing and purchasing while still in high school Serge Gainsbourg's 1969 duet with his then wife Jane on the infamous "Je T'aime Moi Non Plus" which came out in the States as a single on Fontana...a single which served me in good stead a few years later when I curated the celebrated Porno Night at Yale for the Yale Film Society, of which I was a director, "Je T'Aime" was part of the warmup music I played from the projection booth as folks filed into Linsley-Chittenden 101 before we got down to the serious bizness of projecting "Deep Throat" (which we did non-stop for a record 40 plus shows over one weekend)...I also was happily subjected to a playing of her fantastic "Arabesque" album all night long a few years ago for a similar number of spins on a from dusk till dawn drive from Moscow to St. Petersburg courtesy my guy Andrey Borisov, Exotica Records label boss who put out my "Coming Clean" album over there...and she was in fine form in NYC on this wintry night, she looked radiant in a kind of Patti Smith "Horses" ensemble replete with loosened tie and white shirt (a tie, she made sure to point out to the adoring crowd," that hangs nearly all the way down to my, uh..."--gazing southward... "my shoes!"), and she was in excellent voice throughout the show, hall was packed to the rafters despite an inexplicable media blackout of notices for the show in the local press, she referenced the recent success of her daughter Charlotte and also spent a long time speaking out on behalf of jailed Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi... ran into super gamine-esque avant-film maker Marie Losier, who has just about finished up a new documentary about my friend Genesis P. Orridge, and turns out she is a big JB fan...I love Jane--she's still got it...
Another fun night out in Manhattan Caroline and I went off to hear the Bang On a Can All-Stars, the crackerjack new music ensemble who were doing all sorts of new premieres at Merkin Hall under the broadcast aegis of John Schaefer's New Sounds ...the hall was packed for some outstanding playing by my pal Mark Stewart (not the On-U sound rabble rouser, rather the NY session guitarist) and I heard some intriguing new work including a bright shiny piece by the guitarist from trendy band 'o the mo' Dirty Projectors that sounded like tinker toys being assembled with chattering marimba to the fore, and several lovely film and music pieces commissioned specially for the ensemble ending with a swirling minimalist aural swirligig of a piece by Michael Nyman cued to a rapidfire film of old Noo Yawk...
March came in like a lion and then it was off to Holland to perform at the Cross-Linx Festival in Eindhoven and Utrecht with a wonderful conglomeration of Dutch avant, rock and classical musicians--
Josef Van Wissem, Frank Veenstra, and GL, Cross-Linx Festival Utrecht Holland, 3/4/10
Gary and Jozef Van Wissem rock out at the Cross-Linx Festival, Musiekcentrum Vrendenburg, Utrecht Holland 3/4/10
Click to enlarge
including my old friend and collaborator ace lutist Jozef Van Wissem, the great graphic artist and music experimentalist Rik Van Iersel, Colin from Kyteman, hot Dutch band of the moment, DJ DNA from great Dutch rap-rock ensemble Urban Dance Squad, Dutch madman/vocal improvisor Jaap Blonk, festival organizer/guitarist/singer Frank Veenstra, the fetching Heet Brood girls and a host of other wacky musicians...Theo Van Rock was engineering too (ex-Rollins Band)...we wowed the crowds at both halls we performed our hour long set at, and the whole shebang got a rave review in the Dutch national newspaper De Volkskrant...I finished my sojourn in lovely Holland with a stay in Amsterdam with my old friend Flip Nagler who heads up NGN Films...he made a documentary on my back in the 90's entitled "Guitar Unbound" for the Dutch Arts Channel Kunst -Kanaal...and he is making a new updated one on me currently...had a nice lunch with Lieven Bertels, artistic director of the Holland Festival, who initiated my "J'Accuse" collaboration at the Holland Festival last summer with Reza Namavar and Ensemble Kameleon ... and had pannekoeken with stroop waffel sirop (mmmmmmm) with Co de Kloet, my friend the Zappa/Beefheart expert who initiated a commission I received from the Dutch national radio NPS a couple years ago collaborating on a score for the last lengthy interview with Don Van Vliet, entitled "I Have a Cat"...I finished my stay by giving a masterclass solo acoustic performance for the Musik Conservatorum at their new Music Matrix Performance Space which was organized by my guy Dawa Records label chief Jack Pisters, you can see a link to clips from this performance up on my new solo acoustic page, elegantly designed by my wonderful webmaster Tanya Weiman...
Rik's American Cafe: Gary at dinner at Rik Van Iersel's house, Eindhoven Holland 3/1/10
l to r: Erik Vanderberge, Agnes De Haan, GL, Joshua Van Iersel, Teun Jansen, Theo Van Rock, Rik Van Iersel, Frank Veenstra, and Nathanael Boelen
Click to enlarge
I headed to Munich directly afterwards to catch some of the TNT Theater Company's latest productions at Amerika Haus courtesy my friend Steve Aaronson, the troupe's executive producer and also head of Costa Rica's gourmet coffee and chocolate consortium Cafe Britt (for a taste thrill par excellence, try their white chocolate coffee beans)--saw some great plays including a compelling 4 person "Don Quixote" in Spanish, an Edgar Allen Poe triptych, and "The Picture of Dorian Grey" expertly recast and staged by UK director ex-pat Paul Stebbings...Munchen was fun as always and Steve and I and his Israeli friend Hadra did some cool sight-seeing including skating out to the perimeter of a frozen Alpine lake amongst breath-taking wintry scenic views, and a visit to the monumental Nymphenburg Palace, not unakin to The Hermitage in Saint Petersburg for sheer bravado of scope and design, housing some of the rarest treasures of antiquity and more... one of the best things there was the Hall of Beauties where I found festooned some of the fairest members of the court of King Ludwig of Bavaria (and his son Mad King Ludwig)--including a portrait of the actual über-groupie Lola Montez, famed Irish turn-of-the century courtesan who ensnared King Ludwig Of Bavaria in her clutches (amongst other luminaries...including Franz Liszt)...
Portrait of Lola Montez hanging in Nymphenburg Palace Hall of Beauties, Munich
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Have a cuppa...Gary at Cafe Gitane in the Jane Hotel NYC, 3/13/10
photo by Honey Twigg Aldrich | Click to enlarge
Back to NYC for a few days then off again to start a another European solo acoustic tour, my preferred mode for playing out these days...Paris was simply lovely, and ensconced in my favorite Terrass Hotel on Saturday night March 20th I met my old friends the photographers lovely Laura Brunelliere and US expat Mark Lyon for dinner and then off to Centre Pompidou where my dear friend legendary filmmaker cinematographer Albert Maysles ("Gimme Shelter", "Grey Gardens", et Al.) was being feted over a month long retrospective of his works, Al was there and was in fine form doing a Q & A after a screening of his and his brother David's seminal documentary "Salesman" ("Biblebelts worn from here and after all were born in the know"--Van Dyke Parks "Public Domain")...full confession: I scored the Academy Award-nominated Maysles Films/HBO documentary "Lalee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton" in 2000 and really got to know this great American artist...good news is that HBO have agreed to release "Lalee's Kin" by popular demand to the home DVD market in a couple months, it won't be available in stores but you will be able to order a custom burn of the film on DVD directly from Amazon.com ...meanwhile you can enjoy these clips from the film featuring my score here...
Gary and his friend legendary filmmaker/cinematographer Albert Maysles ("Gimme Shelter", "Grey Gardens") at his month long retrospective at Centre Pompidou Paris 3/20/10
photo by Mark Lyon | Click to enlarge
Later that night I went to the Sunside Jazz Club near the Beaubourg where I've performed three or four times previously to catch a few numbers by the ensemble of my pal Daniel Yvinec, the great acoustic bassist and the director of the Orchestre National Du Jazz, he released a cool album last year featuring his arrangements of songs by Robert Wyatt with performances by luminaries like my friend Yael Naim, Daniel sat in with me a couple days later when I performed solo acoustic at Le Point Ephemere, a fantastic new club near the legendary Hotel Du Nord off the Quai de Valmy, we played a duo of "Our Love is Here to Stay" and then an acoustic "Grace" where we joined by the gorgeous chanteuse/actrice Melissa Mars, Melissa was fresh off of an endless tour gracing stages all over France performing a leading role in the hit musical "Mozart L'Opera Rock", and she sang a really powerful version of the well-known Buckley/Lucas song and also a tres charmante version of a song we co-wrote, "Angel" which was featured on her last album for French Universal...
my friend the great French singer/songwriter Silvain Vanot also sat in and did a beautiful rendition of my song "Jericho" as well as opening the night with an amazing set from his crack band which featured the legendary Henry Cow bassist John Greaves who currently resides in France...and my old friend saxophonist/composer Renaud Pion jumped on stage with his enormous baritone sax and let 'er rip for an incendiary "One Man's Meat"...what a great night!...inda house were old French friends and fans including Yael Naim and David Donatien, filmmaker Marie Bordaz, jazz singer Minnie Picoux, beautiful scenemaker mover and shaker Cheyenne Schiavone, French music journalist/legend Gilles Tordjmann, impresario UK expat Karel Beer, old friends Julien Simon and Nick Healing and his lovely wife, and all the way from Taipei my dear friends the artist Jacques Picoux and his partner Christophe Tseng (Gong Li's manager)...
Outside Le Point Ephemere in Paris after Gary's solo show 3/22/10, l to r: Renaud Pion, Daniel Yvinec, GL, David Donatien, and Yael Naim
Melissa Mars rocks out performing "Grace" with Gary and Daniel Yvinec at Gary's solo show at Le Point Ephemere Paris, 3/22/10
Superb French saxophonist Renaud Pion whips it out for "Dance of Destiny", Le Point Ephemere Paris, 3/22/10
The great French singer/songwriter Silvain Vanot after performing Gary's song "Jericho" at Le Point Ephemere, Paris 3/22/10
photos by Mark Lyon | Click to enlarge
Next day it was off by train to Lausanne where I had a lovely concert at the Le Lezard Bleu, which as packed to gills with Swiss fans, and where I was joined onstage for a number by my old friend Swiss avant-guitarist Gerald Zbinden, who I met some years ago playing the SKIF Festival ni St. Petersburg which resulted in us making an album together in Lausanne actually, "Down the Rabbit Hole" which garnered all sorts of amazing reviews when released last year...the kids dug my set to death, I did many encores, the club staff was incredible and I made some amazing new friends,including American Corinne Rubin, who showed up at my show in Boston a couple weeks later...I stayed the night in Gerald's chalet in Gruyere and then took the train to Zurich where I flew to lovely Dresden, one of my favorite places to play in Germany to play the 6th Jazzwelt Festival courtesy of my guy Steffen Wilde of Subtone Concerts...that night I had a concert at the Theater Schauburg, a beautiful old Art Deco theater where I performed a double bill of "Sounds of the Surreal" and also a solo acoustic set...the gig got a rave review in the Dresdner Neuste Nachrichten newspaper...next day I went exploring the Old Town with members of NYC avant-jazz ensemble Gutbucket who were also in to play the festival, a shimmering nearly summery day found us outdoors in several cafes and I also took them on a grilled bratwurst hunt (success!), we visited the nearby historische museum, which housed an incredible display of medieval weaponry and armour...and then that night I sat in at the new Jazz Club Tonne (played the old one years ago, housed in an old keller/bunker--hell I've played 5 or 6 times in Dresden in joints like the Scheune and the Star Club) with Dutch vocalese avant-gardist Jaap Blonk and really tore it up...
Gary at La Java (named after Serge Gainsbourg's "La Javanaise"), Lausanne Switzerland, 3/23/10
Gary grows extra fingers for the 6th Jazz Welten Festival, Theater Schauburg, Dresden 3/24/10
Outside Kino Schauburg in Dresden before performing "Sounds of he Surreal" and a solo acoustic concert, 3/24/10
Click to enlarge
Net day I flew to Marseille--what a spectacular city, I always love to perform there!! The club co-directors Olivier Maurel and Chantal Vasseur really made me feel quite at home at their amazing avant-music venue "L'embobineuse" with spectacular home cooked meals, I had a lovely set with a guest appearance on sax by Francois Billard, the legendary French leader of Barricade, the prog rock bank which also boasted my old friend the late French avant-composer Hector Zazou in the lineup--and spent the night at Chantal's enchanting chalet by the sea overlooking the harbor of Marseille...wow, some view :-) The next night saw a fantastic prog metal band called Drone Juice, three young guys who brought something vital and new to a form I have found incredibly trite over the last few years--ooh la la, happy to report the live music scene in Marseille is alive and kicking...
View of Marseille harbor from Chantal Vasseur's pad, 3/27/10
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Home again home again and wasnt home for very long before my dear fried the great Spanish spoken word artist Bruno Galindo came to town and we gave a stellar duo performance at the BAM Cafe...Bruno is one of my favorite collaborators in the world, we first got together a few years ago for a spectacular show in the major city park of Mexico City, Casa del Lago, under a tent in the midst of a thunder and lightning storm, I credit him with first bringing me into the Latin American scene which resulted in debut gigs for me in Brazil, Colombia and Cuba in the last year...the night before we went on the legendary Bob Fass' WBAI show "Radio Unnameable" and shpritzed acoustic for a couple hours, the BAM show next night had me roll out the electronics and the joint was packed and magic was in the air and the whole affair was Spanish by Spanish film makers Caroline Conejero and her friends, in the house were amazing Russian artists Valera and Natasha Cherkashin who have done an incredible exhibition and also published a series of art photo collages of underground metro stations all over the world, I had lunch at the White Horse with them a few days later and we are planning a big collaboration soon stay tuned...
Russian artists Natasha and Valera Cherkashin and GL, BAM Cafe Brooklyn, 4/2/10
Natasha Cherkashin, Spanish poet Bruno Galindo, film maker Caroline Conejero, and GL at BAM Cafe 4/2/10
Click to enlarge
Back home and I played at a screening of my pal Sebastian Doggart's new documentary "American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi" in the screening room of the Tribeca Grand Hotel, I contributed music to the score of this hard-hitting look at Condoleeza Rice (the second installment of Sebastian's obsessive triology which started with "Courting Condi")...at the after-party, attended by many of Sebastian's friends and colleagues as well as his lovely girlfriend Emily Kunstler,
I performed solo acoustic and was joined on "Grave" by lovely singer Alexandra Lash...
Then I hopped up to Boston for a solo acoustic concert at The Magic Room, run by my friend Des Desmond who was a founding member of the legendary Beantown band The Bentmen...the show was the major music pick in the Boston Phoenix that week, and you can read an interview by my pal Steve Beeber ("The Heebie Jeebie's at CBGB's"--great book) here...the show, replete with spectacular projections on me/behind me courtesy of Steve Grise, was one of my best performances ever, and in the house was my pal the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Franz Wright and his lovely wife, Franz laid a hand written poem on me that he had brought specially for my show (he rarely goes out, the hermit--READ THIS MAN!!) which I've carried around with me in my wallet like a condom ever since...I'm tempted to quote from it, hell, I am tempted to transcribe the whole thing right here, but I daren't without checking with the guy...oh well...keep watching this space!! Also in attendance was my artist friend Don Shambroom, whom I know since my days at Yale, and who has created some powerful new work...
My aim is true: The Magic Room, Boston 4/10/10
Punch the Clock: Gary at The Magic Room, Boston 4/10/10
The Magic Room, Boston, 4/10/10
The Magic Room, Boston, 4/10/10
The Magic Room, Boston, 4/10/10
Pulitzer prize winning poet Franz Wright, The Magic Room's Des Desmond, GL at The Magic Room, Boston 4/10/10
photos by Catherine Rogers | Click to enlarge
Coming home, baby... I did a wonderful gig at Local 269 in the East Village (formerly Meow Mix) with the Brazilian singer Mossa Bildner...she is a really creative free vocalist with operatic influences thrown into the mix, and we did a set that partook of my space and electronic guitar textures fully, the joint was full with old friends like Charles Blass and his lovely new (and very enceinte) girlfriend and it was really appreciative crowd, the tape of the show sounds great...
In the middle of all this frenetic activity 2 albums came out on the Knitting Factory label on March 16th, distributed by Sony/Red...the first, Chase the Devil, an album of spiritual roots music with the vocalist Dean Bowman, garnered some nice reviews out of the box, from Dave DiMartino at Yahoo.com, and in Blurt Magazine....there was also a great feature on my work at Fender.com...wonder of wonders. NPR made our version of "Hinay Ma Tov" Song of the Day a couple weeks ago...
The second album to be released was a re-issue of my celebrated 2001 album "The Edge of Heaven"...replete with bonus tracks, including a live version of the title track with the virtuoso pipa player/singer Min Xiao-Fen recorded at the Quebec City Summer Festival where we received a standing ovation after performing the entire album outdoors in front of a crowd of a couple thousand folks..the re-release scored a nice review in the Gapplegate Guitar and Bass blog...
Flash!!
Just confirmed to play the European premiere of my Spanish "Dracula" project at the Transylvania Film Festival in Cluj Romania at the end of May...
and immediately thereafter I will head out to LA to perform "An Evening with Gary Lucas Solo Acoustic" at the legendary McCabe's in Santa Monica on June 5th...with my special guest my pal Scott Goldman, an excellent guitarist, sitting in on a number or two
To celebrate spring, I recently filmed a new video down by the riverside here in the West Village with my pal Dusty Wright at the helm, an unreleased solo acoustic track performed specially for his One-Take series played on my 1926 National Steel entitled "Q & A"...
Enjoy!!
Love
xxGary
ps If you're around NYC go and get yourself to a performance of 'FELA!' immediately, I just saw it for the fourth time last week, and it was tighter than ever and even more thrilling and empowering and uplifitng.
ps x 2 Franz Wright just gave me the okay to lay the poem on you that he laid on me at my show in Boston referred to above, he says it will probably close his next book of poetry due out in 2011 from Knopf...
Dig it:
SONG
Wysteria rain, where is your childmother? This must be the last bee on
earth. So, you find no more grandeur or mystery here? Perhaps you ne-
glected to bring any. Heckling sparrows, vast electron cloud of gnats on
windless water. Night blue volume in a language no one reads . . . Are
we tired yet? Are you finished debating the blind who insist that light
doesn’t exist, and have proof of it? Nobody’s alone, God is alone. If you
liked being born you’ll love dying.
Franz Wright
and what can I possibly add to that?
(Music)
Which is to say:
Stay tuned for a future live collaboration...
GL
A total gentleman, I was honoured to have Charlie as a friend and supporter...Charlie invited me as a guest on his long-running BBC radio program several times, first time with Peter Stampfel when we over in the UK doing a Du-Tels tour at the end of 2001...next after my "Edge of Heaven" 30's Chinese pop album came out in 2002, I was his guest that time at a special party for all his longtime London fans broadcast live from The Kashmir Club off Baker Street on the occasion of his 30th anniversary BBC show, on a bill with his other special guests the wonderful Fado singer Mariza, Nick Lowe, and Nick Hornsby...I remember performing "The Mad World" on that one (one of the late lamented long gone John Peel's favoreets too, JP broadcast the studio version of that particular edge 'o heaven nugget on one of his last shows in fact)...
I was Charlie's guest a third time a year or two later when my second album with Dutch lutist Jozef Van Wissem "The Universe of Absence" had just come out, Jos wasn't there but I got Charlie to spin a track or two from our album and also performed live some of the music from Jacques Tati's "Mon Oncle" and "M. Hulot's Holiday" on the programme...always enjoyed playing Radio Ping Pong with Charlie which was kind of a variant of Stump the Band; you'd serve a volley of sounds in his direction and he'd lob a fast one back at ya, first time on with Peter I brought several choice cuts to share with him and his listening audience (which encompassed folks all over the globe) including Sun Ra and Yochanon's "The Sun Man Speaks", Bob Dylan and The Band's gorgeous Basement Tape outtake "Banks of the Royal Canal", also Beefheart's "Diddy Wah Diddy"....may not have all been his cuppa (particularly the last track) but I wasn't about to pull my punches either, which he obviously appreciated :-)...Charlie will go down with Peel as amongst the most influential UK DJ's ever to enlighten the populace/slam dance cosmopolis (do the worm on necropolis)...He was a sweet and gracious guy who nearly single-handedly invented the genre of World Music as we know it today, as well as writing such influential tomes as his masterful early rock treatise "The Sound of the City" (which I remember laying on Adrian Sherwood at his house in East London at the same time as I played him Walter Gibbons' incredible mix of Arthur Russell's "Let's Go Swimming" which I had vetted for release moonlighting as the A&R guy for the little Indie label that could, Upside Records in NYC...check out the latest MOJO for more on Arthur... and Tim Lawrence's cool new biography, "Hold On To Your Dreams")...
Just heard about Mike Zwerin passing too (oh nooooooooo), James Campbell wrote a touching obit in The Guardian....very creative trumpeter/trombonist who played with Miles circa "Birth of the Cool" live, also Archie Shepp ("The Magic of Ju-Ju") and many other greats, and a fantastic writer who wrote some wonderful books about this and that, esp. one about the Swing Era in Germany during the reign of the Nazis...also over many years wrote a must-read column for the International Herald Tribune profiling musicians passing through his home base of Paris, he wrote on me in fact after my friend British expat/Paris resident/mover and shaker Karel Beer introduced us...you can read the full piece here...He was an acerbic funny sensitive and hip Jewish intellectual, and I will really miss the guy...another light going out...
A lot of water under the bridge since my last posting almost 2 months ago, I have been terribly busy needless to say but would like to catch up now for all my dear readers...
February 12th went to see Jane Birkin perform a wonderful show at Florence Gould Hall here, I have a soft spot for Jane ever since hearing and purchasing while still in high school Serge Gainsbourg's 1969 duet with his then wife Jane on the infamous "Je T'aime Moi Non Plus" which came out in the States as a single on Fontana...a single which served me in good stead a few years later when I curated the celebrated Porno Night at Yale for the Yale Film Society, of which I was a director, "Je T'Aime" was part of the warmup music I played from the projection booth as folks filed into Linsley-Chittenden 101 before we got down to the serious bizness of projecting "Deep Throat" (which we did non-stop for a record 40 plus shows over one weekend)...I also was happily subjected to a playing of her fantastic "Arabesque" album all night long a few years ago for a similar number of spins on a from dusk till dawn drive from Moscow to St. Petersburg courtesy my guy Andrey Borisov, Exotica Records label boss who put out my "Coming Clean" album over there...and she was in fine form in NYC on this wintry night, she looked radiant in a kind of Patti Smith "Horses" ensemble replete with loosened tie and white shirt (a tie, she made sure to point out to the adoring crowd," that hangs nearly all the way down to my, uh..."--gazing southward... "my shoes!"), and she was in excellent voice throughout the show, hall was packed to the rafters despite an inexplicable media blackout of notices for the show in the local press, she referenced the recent success of her daughter Charlotte and also spent a long time speaking out on behalf of jailed Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi... ran into super gamine-esque avant-film maker Marie Losier, who has just about finished up a new documentary about my friend Genesis P. Orridge, and turns out she is a big JB fan...I love Jane--she's still got it...
Another fun night out in Manhattan Caroline and I went off to hear the Bang On a Can All-Stars, the crackerjack new music ensemble who were doing all sorts of new premieres at Merkin Hall under the broadcast aegis of John Schaefer's New Sounds ...the hall was packed for some outstanding playing by my pal Mark Stewart (not the On-U sound rabble rouser, rather the NY session guitarist) and I heard some intriguing new work including a bright shiny piece by the guitarist from trendy band 'o the mo' Dirty Projectors that sounded like tinker toys being assembled with chattering marimba to the fore, and several lovely film and music pieces commissioned specially for the ensemble ending with a swirling minimalist aural swirligig of a piece by Michael Nyman cued to a rapidfire film of old Noo Yawk...
March came in like a lion and then it was off to Holland to perform at the Cross-Linx Festival in Eindhoven and Utrecht with a wonderful conglomeration of Dutch avant, rock and classical musicians--
Josef Van Wissem, Frank Veenstra, and GL, Cross-Linx Festival Utrecht Holland, 3/4/10
Gary and Jozef Van Wissem rock out at the Cross-Linx Festival, Musiekcentrum Vrendenburg, Utrecht Holland 3/4/10
Click to enlarge
including my old friend and collaborator ace lutist Jozef Van Wissem, the great graphic artist and music experimentalist Rik Van Iersel, Colin from Kyteman, hot Dutch band of the moment, DJ DNA from great Dutch rap-rock ensemble Urban Dance Squad, Dutch madman/vocal improvisor Jaap Blonk, festival organizer/guitarist/singer Frank Veenstra, the fetching Heet Brood girls and a host of other wacky musicians...Theo Van Rock was engineering too (ex-Rollins Band)...we wowed the crowds at both halls we performed our hour long set at, and the whole shebang got a rave review in the Dutch national newspaper De Volkskrant...I finished my sojourn in lovely Holland with a stay in Amsterdam with my old friend Flip Nagler who heads up NGN Films...he made a documentary on my back in the 90's entitled "Guitar Unbound" for the Dutch Arts Channel Kunst -Kanaal...and he is making a new updated one on me currently...had a nice lunch with Lieven Bertels, artistic director of the Holland Festival, who initiated my "J'Accuse" collaboration at the Holland Festival last summer with Reza Namavar and Ensemble Kameleon ... and had pannekoeken with stroop waffel sirop (mmmmmmm) with Co de Kloet, my friend the Zappa/Beefheart expert who initiated a commission I received from the Dutch national radio NPS a couple years ago collaborating on a score for the last lengthy interview with Don Van Vliet, entitled "I Have a Cat"...I finished my stay by giving a masterclass solo acoustic performance for the Musik Conservatorum at their new Music Matrix Performance Space which was organized by my guy Dawa Records label chief Jack Pisters, you can see a link to clips from this performance up on my new solo acoustic page, elegantly designed by my wonderful webmaster Tanya Weiman...
Rik's American Cafe: Gary at dinner at Rik Van Iersel's house, Eindhoven Holland 3/1/10
l to r: Erik Vanderberge, Agnes De Haan, GL, Joshua Van Iersel, Teun Jansen, Theo Van Rock, Rik Van Iersel, Frank Veenstra, and Nathanael Boelen
Click to enlarge
I headed to Munich directly afterwards to catch some of the TNT Theater Company's latest productions at Amerika Haus courtesy my friend Steve Aaronson, the troupe's executive producer and also head of Costa Rica's gourmet coffee and chocolate consortium Cafe Britt (for a taste thrill par excellence, try their white chocolate coffee beans)--saw some great plays including a compelling 4 person "Don Quixote" in Spanish, an Edgar Allen Poe triptych, and "The Picture of Dorian Grey" expertly recast and staged by UK director ex-pat Paul Stebbings...Munchen was fun as always and Steve and I and his Israeli friend Hadra did some cool sight-seeing including skating out to the perimeter of a frozen Alpine lake amongst breath-taking wintry scenic views, and a visit to the monumental Nymphenburg Palace, not unakin to The Hermitage in Saint Petersburg for sheer bravado of scope and design, housing some of the rarest treasures of antiquity and more... one of the best things there was the Hall of Beauties where I found festooned some of the fairest members of the court of King Ludwig of Bavaria (and his son Mad King Ludwig)--including a portrait of the actual über-groupie Lola Montez, famed Irish turn-of-the century courtesan who ensnared King Ludwig Of Bavaria in her clutches (amongst other luminaries...including Franz Liszt)...
Portrait of Lola Montez hanging in Nymphenburg Palace Hall of Beauties, Munich
Click to enlarge
Have a cuppa...Gary at Cafe Gitane in the Jane Hotel NYC, 3/13/10
photo by Honey Twigg Aldrich | Click to enlarge
Back to NYC for a few days then off again to start a another European solo acoustic tour, my preferred mode for playing out these days...Paris was simply lovely, and ensconced in my favorite Terrass Hotel on Saturday night March 20th I met my old friends the photographers lovely Laura Brunelliere and US expat Mark Lyon for dinner and then off to Centre Pompidou where my dear friend legendary filmmaker cinematographer Albert Maysles ("Gimme Shelter", "Grey Gardens", et Al.) was being feted over a month long retrospective of his works, Al was there and was in fine form doing a Q & A after a screening of his and his brother David's seminal documentary "Salesman" ("Biblebelts worn from here and after all were born in the know"--Van Dyke Parks "Public Domain")...full confession: I scored the Academy Award-nominated Maysles Films/HBO documentary "Lalee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton" in 2000 and really got to know this great American artist...good news is that HBO have agreed to release "Lalee's Kin" by popular demand to the home DVD market in a couple months, it won't be available in stores but you will be able to order a custom burn of the film on DVD directly from Amazon.com ...meanwhile you can enjoy these clips from the film featuring my score here...
Gary and his friend legendary filmmaker/cinematographer Albert Maysles ("Gimme Shelter", "Grey Gardens") at his month long retrospective at Centre Pompidou Paris 3/20/10
photo by Mark Lyon | Click to enlarge
Later that night I went to the Sunside Jazz Club near the Beaubourg where I've performed three or four times previously to catch a few numbers by the ensemble of my pal Daniel Yvinec, the great acoustic bassist and the director of the Orchestre National Du Jazz, he released a cool album last year featuring his arrangements of songs by Robert Wyatt with performances by luminaries like my friend Yael Naim, Daniel sat in with me a couple days later when I performed solo acoustic at Le Point Ephemere, a fantastic new club near the legendary Hotel Du Nord off the Quai de Valmy, we played a duo of "Our Love is Here to Stay" and then an acoustic "Grace" where we joined by the gorgeous chanteuse/actrice Melissa Mars, Melissa was fresh off of an endless tour gracing stages all over France performing a leading role in the hit musical "Mozart L'Opera Rock", and she sang a really powerful version of the well-known Buckley/Lucas song and also a tres charmante version of a song we co-wrote, "Angel" which was featured on her last album for French Universal...
my friend the great French singer/songwriter Silvain Vanot also sat in and did a beautiful rendition of my song "Jericho" as well as opening the night with an amazing set from his crack band which featured the legendary Henry Cow bassist John Greaves who currently resides in France...and my old friend saxophonist/composer Renaud Pion jumped on stage with his enormous baritone sax and let 'er rip for an incendiary "One Man's Meat"...what a great night!...inda house were old French friends and fans including Yael Naim and David Donatien, filmmaker Marie Bordaz, jazz singer Minnie Picoux, beautiful scenemaker mover and shaker Cheyenne Schiavone, French music journalist/legend Gilles Tordjmann, impresario UK expat Karel Beer, old friends Julien Simon and Nick Healing and his lovely wife, and all the way from Taipei my dear friends the artist Jacques Picoux and his partner Christophe Tseng (Gong Li's manager)...
Outside Le Point Ephemere in Paris after Gary's solo show 3/22/10, l to r: Renaud Pion, Daniel Yvinec, GL, David Donatien, and Yael Naim
Melissa Mars rocks out performing "Grace" with Gary and Daniel Yvinec at Gary's solo show at Le Point Ephemere Paris, 3/22/10
Superb French saxophonist Renaud Pion whips it out for "Dance of Destiny", Le Point Ephemere Paris, 3/22/10
The great French singer/songwriter Silvain Vanot after performing Gary's song "Jericho" at Le Point Ephemere, Paris 3/22/10
photos by Mark Lyon | Click to enlarge
Next day it was off by train to Lausanne where I had a lovely concert at the Le Lezard Bleu, which as packed to gills with Swiss fans, and where I was joined onstage for a number by my old friend Swiss avant-guitarist Gerald Zbinden, who I met some years ago playing the SKIF Festival ni St. Petersburg which resulted in us making an album together in Lausanne actually, "Down the Rabbit Hole" which garnered all sorts of amazing reviews when released last year...the kids dug my set to death, I did many encores, the club staff was incredible and I made some amazing new friends,including American Corinne Rubin, who showed up at my show in Boston a couple weeks later...I stayed the night in Gerald's chalet in Gruyere and then took the train to Zurich where I flew to lovely Dresden, one of my favorite places to play in Germany to play the 6th Jazzwelt Festival courtesy of my guy Steffen Wilde of Subtone Concerts...that night I had a concert at the Theater Schauburg, a beautiful old Art Deco theater where I performed a double bill of "Sounds of the Surreal" and also a solo acoustic set...the gig got a rave review in the Dresdner Neuste Nachrichten newspaper...next day I went exploring the Old Town with members of NYC avant-jazz ensemble Gutbucket who were also in to play the festival, a shimmering nearly summery day found us outdoors in several cafes and I also took them on a grilled bratwurst hunt (success!), we visited the nearby historische museum, which housed an incredible display of medieval weaponry and armour...and then that night I sat in at the new Jazz Club Tonne (played the old one years ago, housed in an old keller/bunker--hell I've played 5 or 6 times in Dresden in joints like the Scheune and the Star Club) with Dutch vocalese avant-gardist Jaap Blonk and really tore it up...
Gary at La Java (named after Serge Gainsbourg's "La Javanaise"), Lausanne Switzerland, 3/23/10
Gary grows extra fingers for the 6th Jazz Welten Festival, Theater Schauburg, Dresden 3/24/10
Outside Kino Schauburg in Dresden before performing "Sounds of he Surreal" and a solo acoustic concert, 3/24/10
Click to enlarge
Net day I flew to Marseille--what a spectacular city, I always love to perform there!! The club co-directors Olivier Maurel and Chantal Vasseur really made me feel quite at home at their amazing avant-music venue "L'embobineuse" with spectacular home cooked meals, I had a lovely set with a guest appearance on sax by Francois Billard, the legendary French leader of Barricade, the prog rock bank which also boasted my old friend the late French avant-composer Hector Zazou in the lineup--and spent the night at Chantal's enchanting chalet by the sea overlooking the harbor of Marseille...wow, some view :-) The next night saw a fantastic prog metal band called Drone Juice, three young guys who brought something vital and new to a form I have found incredibly trite over the last few years--ooh la la, happy to report the live music scene in Marseille is alive and kicking...
View of Marseille harbor from Chantal Vasseur's pad, 3/27/10
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Home again home again and wasnt home for very long before my dear fried the great Spanish spoken word artist Bruno Galindo came to town and we gave a stellar duo performance at the BAM Cafe...Bruno is one of my favorite collaborators in the world, we first got together a few years ago for a spectacular show in the major city park of Mexico City, Casa del Lago, under a tent in the midst of a thunder and lightning storm, I credit him with first bringing me into the Latin American scene which resulted in debut gigs for me in Brazil, Colombia and Cuba in the last year...the night before we went on the legendary Bob Fass' WBAI show "Radio Unnameable" and shpritzed acoustic for a couple hours, the BAM show next night had me roll out the electronics and the joint was packed and magic was in the air and the whole affair was Spanish by Spanish film makers Caroline Conejero and her friends, in the house were amazing Russian artists Valera and Natasha Cherkashin who have done an incredible exhibition and also published a series of art photo collages of underground metro stations all over the world, I had lunch at the White Horse with them a few days later and we are planning a big collaboration soon stay tuned...
Russian artists Natasha and Valera Cherkashin and GL, BAM Cafe Brooklyn, 4/2/10
Natasha Cherkashin, Spanish poet Bruno Galindo, film maker Caroline Conejero, and GL at BAM Cafe 4/2/10
Click to enlarge
Back home and I played at a screening of my pal Sebastian Doggart's new documentary "American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi" in the screening room of the Tribeca Grand Hotel, I contributed music to the score of this hard-hitting look at Condoleeza Rice (the second installment of Sebastian's obsessive triology which started with "Courting Condi")...at the after-party, attended by many of Sebastian's friends and colleagues as well as his lovely girlfriend Emily Kunstler,
I performed solo acoustic and was joined on "Grave" by lovely singer Alexandra Lash...
Then I hopped up to Boston for a solo acoustic concert at The Magic Room, run by my friend Des Desmond who was a founding member of the legendary Beantown band The Bentmen...the show was the major music pick in the Boston Phoenix that week, and you can read an interview by my pal Steve Beeber ("The Heebie Jeebie's at CBGB's"--great book) here...the show, replete with spectacular projections on me/behind me courtesy of Steve Grise, was one of my best performances ever, and in the house was my pal the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Franz Wright and his lovely wife, Franz laid a hand written poem on me that he had brought specially for my show (he rarely goes out, the hermit--READ THIS MAN!!) which I've carried around with me in my wallet like a condom ever since...I'm tempted to quote from it, hell, I am tempted to transcribe the whole thing right here, but I daren't without checking with the guy...oh well...keep watching this space!! Also in attendance was my artist friend Don Shambroom, whom I know since my days at Yale, and who has created some powerful new work...
My aim is true: The Magic Room, Boston 4/10/10
Punch the Clock: Gary at The Magic Room, Boston 4/10/10
The Magic Room, Boston, 4/10/10
The Magic Room, Boston, 4/10/10
The Magic Room, Boston, 4/10/10
Pulitzer prize winning poet Franz Wright, The Magic Room's Des Desmond, GL at The Magic Room, Boston 4/10/10
photos by Catherine Rogers | Click to enlarge
Coming home, baby... I did a wonderful gig at Local 269 in the East Village (formerly Meow Mix) with the Brazilian singer Mossa Bildner...she is a really creative free vocalist with operatic influences thrown into the mix, and we did a set that partook of my space and electronic guitar textures fully, the joint was full with old friends like Charles Blass and his lovely new (and very enceinte) girlfriend and it was really appreciative crowd, the tape of the show sounds great...
In the middle of all this frenetic activity 2 albums came out on the Knitting Factory label on March 16th, distributed by Sony/Red...the first, Chase the Devil, an album of spiritual roots music with the vocalist Dean Bowman, garnered some nice reviews out of the box, from Dave DiMartino at Yahoo.com, and in Blurt Magazine....there was also a great feature on my work at Fender.com...wonder of wonders. NPR made our version of "Hinay Ma Tov" Song of the Day a couple weeks ago...
The second album to be released was a re-issue of my celebrated 2001 album "The Edge of Heaven"...replete with bonus tracks, including a live version of the title track with the virtuoso pipa player/singer Min Xiao-Fen recorded at the Quebec City Summer Festival where we received a standing ovation after performing the entire album outdoors in front of a crowd of a couple thousand folks..the re-release scored a nice review in the Gapplegate Guitar and Bass blog...
Flash!!
Just confirmed to play the European premiere of my Spanish "Dracula" project at the Transylvania Film Festival in Cluj Romania at the end of May...
and immediately thereafter I will head out to LA to perform "An Evening with Gary Lucas Solo Acoustic" at the legendary McCabe's in Santa Monica on June 5th...with my special guest my pal Scott Goldman, an excellent guitarist, sitting in on a number or two
To celebrate spring, I recently filmed a new video down by the riverside here in the West Village with my pal Dusty Wright at the helm, an unreleased solo acoustic track performed specially for his One-Take series played on my 1926 National Steel entitled "Q & A"...
Enjoy!!
Love
xxGary
ps If you're around NYC go and get yourself to a performance of 'FELA!' immediately, I just saw it for the fourth time last week, and it was tighter than ever and even more thrilling and empowering and uplifitng.
ps x 2 Franz Wright just gave me the okay to lay the poem on you that he laid on me at my show in Boston referred to above, he says it will probably close his next book of poetry due out in 2011 from Knopf...
Dig it:
SONG
Wysteria rain, where is your childmother? This must be the last bee on
earth. So, you find no more grandeur or mystery here? Perhaps you ne-
glected to bring any. Heckling sparrows, vast electron cloud of gnats on
windless water. Night blue volume in a language no one reads . . . Are
we tired yet? Are you finished debating the blind who insist that light
doesn’t exist, and have proof of it? Nobody’s alone, God is alone. If you
liked being born you’ll love dying.
Franz Wright
and what can I possibly add to that?
(Music)
Which is to say:
Stay tuned for a future live collaboration...
GL
posted by Gary Lucas at 9:50 PM
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