Giants Among Us: The Andy Statman Trio

Last night I took a friend to hear the Andy Statman Trio give their 603rd performance at the Charles Street Synagogue in the West Village in NYC.  “What kind of venue is this?” she asked, incredulously, as we walked through the narrow doorway into a tiny room strewn with books, papers, helf-empty wine bottles and a random collection of mismatched chairs and tables. It made me recall the first time I came here to hear Andy and the guys, over ten years ago -- as I walked in, a man approached me -- presumably, I thought, to ask me for my ticket.  “Have some pickled herring!” he said with gusto, as he thrust a jar of fish toward me. “They're delicious!”  

This is not your typical music venue, nor is Andy Statman your typical bandleader.  While his music is thrilling, virtuosic, courageous and deeply moving, he himself shuns the spotlight.  Performing in the area reserved as the “stage” (really just a small rectangle of floor lit by a couple of floor lamps), Andy performs standing and turned away from the audience.  It is not a form of disrespect for those in attendance, nor is it some sort of statement borrowed from the Miles Davis school of cool. I haven’t asked Andy why he makes that choice because it seems rather obvious-- he wants the focus to be on the music, not on him, and -- practically speaking-- he wants to engage with the people he is making music with, which is easier done when looking directly at them.  Makes sense.

The fact that the performance was taking place in a synagogue is not what made it a spiritual experience for those of us lucky enough to be in attendance.  Once they began to play, the band  took us on an inward journey, transporting us from the somewhat disheveled basement corridor we sat in to majestic vistas of pure feeling and soul.  

Andy Statman is the sort of performer I aspire to be.  He is a facilitator of an experience, no more, no less.  He puts the focus where it should be -- on the music -- so that superficial concerns fall immediately away.  He is generous in his deference to the other two members of his trio, the endlessly daring, muscular upright bassist Jim Whitney (who I've been lucky enough to perform with myself many times over the years), and the always inventive, playful, tasty drummer Larry Eagle.  There is no artifice to what these guys do, no wall between them and the audience, no ego.  They  put themselves in the service of the music, and we are all the richer for it.  The music is absolutely spellbinding.

Go to the little synagogue in the West Village and see for yourself. And if there's any pickled herring to be had that night, try some -- they're delicious.

THIS GUY

The first time I went to hear Ethan Lipton, I had the experience not uncommon to those of us lucky enough to be aware of this man's particular genius -- I felt as though I were seeing an old friend who'd been away for too long.  The kind of friend I'd been through things with, shared hard times, celebrated good ones, laughed at things with until I was gasping for breath.  The kind of friend who understands, who makes me feel that, somehow,  everything is going to be okay.

Ethan Lipton is that kind of artist -- generous, smart, funny, off-the-wall absurd, right on time. His excellent band includes my pal Ian Riggs on bass, who appears on my LOOK AT ALL THIS! and BASEMENT TAPES albums, and sings my song "Pictures" better than I do. Also in the band are the equally fine sax/wind man Vito Dieterle and guitarist Eben Levy. Together, they make up Ethan Lipton + His Orchestra, and you should really make a point of going to hear them.

In fact, there's no time like the present, if you're in the NYC area. Ethan and the boys have just opened their new show NO PLACE TO GO at Joe's Pub for an extended run.  It's a timely, insightful, funny and sad take on urban life. Go see it.  Trust me. You'll be glad you did.

Read more about it in the Old Gray Lady.

You can also read more about my thoughts on Ethan Lipton on the Huffington Post here.

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ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

The Wooster Group and Richard Maxwell's New York City Players recently joined forces to produce something called "EARLY PLAYS," which finished its run today at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn. 

No spectacular brilliant explosion ensued. In fact, there wasn't a spark of life to be felt . Instead, the production resounded with a dull, clanking thud, as these two once-proud, now-dead hulks-- individually adrift, nearly run aground, their respective cargoes nothing more than carrion -- clanged into one another, their paths crossing, it would seem, not out of any great vision but simply out of their shared, respective,  jaw-dropping inertia.

Is this the same Wooster Group that once put on shows that felt like the wildest, smartest, most original live theater in the land?  Is this the same Richard Maxwell who once jabbed a bracing and welcome finger into the eye of serious theater?

The answer is yes, I think. They're still the same, and that's the problem, so much so that they've become entirely irrelevant, veering past the point of self-parody into simple irrelevance.  The joy is gone, the thrill, the adventure, the fun.  Instead, we're left with by-the-numbers brands, as stultifying and insulting to our humanity and intelligence as a GAP or HOME DEPOT.  You can now go to a Wooster Group or Richard Maxwell piece and know exactly what you're going to get, the same way, every single time. 

Both the Woosters and Maxwell have their gimmicks, their back of tricks, their aesthetics, and boy oh boy,  are they tired.  Maxwell should not be allowed to direct other people's plays and piss all over them with his hackneyed, droll imperative that his actors must speak their lines flat, without inflection or conviction.  I have news for Mr. Maxwell -- the fact that no one likes what he does as a director (except, apparently, a few critics and the grant awarders) does not make him some sort of misunderstood genius.  That people regularly walk out of his productions (as more than half the house did, nightly, when his adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV played at BAM a few years back), does not mean he's ahead of his time.  It means that audiences see right through the banality he's forcing us to experience, and we're not amused. In fact, we can't really understand why this idiocy has been accepted into the pantheon of great downtown art, why we've paid good money to see it, and why we're not at home doing something more useful with our time like rearranging our sock drawers.  Maxwell's schtick is interesting or funny or only mildly-irritating for a few  minutes, but to be asked to sit and listen to Shakespeare or O'Neill read this way for an entire evening is beyond the pale.  What if a chamber orchestra took a Brahms or Beethoven sonata, and played the entire piece intentionally out of tune, without dynamics or feeling? Who would sit for that?  Who wouldn't ask for for their money back, and start throwing rotten fruit?

I remember the first time I went to see The Wooster Group as a fresh-faced college kid twenty years ago.  I remember the palpable, scorching charisma and uncanny presence of Kate Valk, Willem Dafoe, et al -- none of them seeming quite human -- like we were watching some Bizarro species from a parallel universe, and man was it fun . I remember the razor-sharp precision of the actors' movements, the "we've got a secret and we're not going to share it" feeling of the way they spoke, the expressions on their faces, the mystery of how they were able to make everything that happened in their performances seem simultaneously insouciant and effortless and also intensely choreographed and unfathomably intentional.  How do they do that? What IS this?  This is the greatest thing I've ever seen! They were marionettes, they were a cult, they were so outside that they made us hate the very idea of inside. We wanted to join them. We wanted to be them.  Being at a Wooster Group performance was like watching our dreams played out in front of us. And just like the experience of dreaming, we could neither explain nor actively participate in the narrative.  We were simply along for the ride and we didn't want to wake up.

Now...now. The same techniques are there in the performances, The same weirdness, the same jerky-cool mannerisms, but the life has been completely drained out.  EARLY PLAYS is not directed by Elizabeth  LeCompte, but I'll go ahead and lump in other recent Wooster productions with my heartache.  Watching a couple of the Wooster stalwarts here doing their same old same old is like watching a pair of once-unhittable aces still relying on their fastballs as hitter after hitter take them out of the park.  They've got to make adjustments, they've got to reinvent themselves, or they're finished.  Insisting on remaining power pitchers when a new younger, stronger, smarter crop of batters has come up is not a pretty spectacle.

* * *

It seems almost beside the point that EARLY PLAYS is based on four early plays by Eugene O'Neill. It doesn't matter. O'Neill's voice is not heard here, and one wonders whether the poster for the show doesn't, in some way, acknowledge this, the orange band with the names of the perpetrators of this particular crime pasted smack over O'Neill's mouth, as if to announce the show's sadistic intent to squash and nullify the playwright's own words.

* * *

This is a production of unrelenting fatuousness.  There is no generosity of spirit here, no art, no life.  Nothing is being communicated, except perhaps the unwholesome, revolting notion that the practitioners involved are somehow more clever or more smart than we are. They're not.  The artist's task is to be the seer, not the seen -- to lead us, boldly, into the unknown; to communicate and commiserate with us about what's out there -- to interpret it for us, to wrestle with it for us, to lift us up, collectively, through this struggle.  To reveal us to ourselves.

No such thing happens here. It's all about them -- the performers, the director, the Wooster Group/Richard Maxwell brands -- and nothing about us.  Can we be blamed for turning away in disgust and disappointment?  We are not present in the proceedings -- in fact, we're not even taken into account. We can't recognize anything of ourselves in here because there IS nothing of ourselves to be seen or heard.  It's all about them, like being locked in a room with some blowhard who's so self-absorbed he doesn't even notice that he's talking twice as loud as anyone else in the room, that he's spilling his drink on you and projecting spittle in your face as he goes on in the obnoxious monolgue that HE thinks of as conversation, not noticing that people are inching away and looking at him with increasing incredulity.  Jesus, you think, what's wrong with this guy?, as you fantasize about the day -- hopefully soon -- when someone just rears back and gives him what he has coming to him.

Radegast Does The Right Thing

Radegast Hall in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is not a music venue, per se.  It's a beer garden and restaurant that also happens to feature live music two or three times a week.  There is no cover charge for the music, and the place is most certainly not a concert setting; the house does not own a sound system and -- despite the cavernous environs -- there isn't really much room to actually sit and watch a band there, unless you're lucky enough to snag one of the dozen or so stools at the bar (there is, however, some room for dancing, which is not only allowed, but encouraged).   The music is not the featured attraction for patrons; it's there to provide atmosphere while you sit and drink artisinal beer and eat delicious food (more on that in a moment).

Given the above, it may come as a surprise that not only do I perform here once a month, but it has actually become one of my favorite gigs in town.

I've been playing here with some aggregation of my Biting Fish band, under the radar, for the last year or so -- usually on a Wednesday or a Thursday night. We do three sets, with short breaks, from 9pm until midnight.  Recently, these practically anonymous neighborhood hits in this unassuming neighborhood spot have been a forum for some of the most exciting, adventurous music I've been privileged to be a part of in a good long time.  In fact, a few weeks ago, on a night when the band included Skye Steele on violin, Scott Barkan on guitar, Kenny Bentley on tuba and Dave Berger on drums, the music reached such heights of expression and bravery that, at times,  I was nearly moved to tears.  It happened again just the other night  with the same band, minus Skye and plus Andrae Murchison on trombone. 

I've been ruminating a bit about why this is, and I think I can safely identify at least one key reason.  I think, like most things, it starts at the top.  I've known Ivan Kohut, the kindly owner, for over a decade now, since the days when he worked the Arts Nights at Europa Club in Greenpoint, presented by the sadly now-defunct New York Arts and Innovations, a terrific organization headed by Marian Zak and his family.  Ivan still likes to remind me of the time that Mr. Zak honored my quartet by having us play a party for the then-President of Poland. 

Ivan is a man of great integrity and good business sense.  He treats the musicians who play at Radegast with respect, it contributes to the quality of the music. Ivan could probably get some schlubs to come in and play for tips if he wanted to.  He could opt not to feed the musicians and/or make them pay for their drinks.  After all, he's running an eating and drinking establishment, not a music venue.

Ivan could also dumb down his food menu.  Have you ever eaten at Radegast?  "A beer hall??", you may aslk.  Let me tell you something -- the food at Radegast is outrageously good, way better than it needs to be.  The menu changes regularly, the chefs in the kitchen use fresh, delicious ingredients creatively (right now they have a winter squash gnocchi that matches anything I've eaten at much spendier, foodie-obsessive joints in the city, and a vegetarian hot borscht that is equally out of this world).

So, yes, could Ivan be forgiven if he chose to lavish less care and attention on the food being offered to people who -- let's face it -- are going to his place to drink beer?  Sure he could.  Could he be forgiven for not paying much mind to the quality of entertainment he's providing for free to the same beer-drinking crew who -- let's face it -- aren't even really there to hear music in the first place? Of course he could.  But he doesn't, and that's what makes him special as a venue owner, and what makes Radegast the delightful, exceptional surprise that it is.

There are beloved music venues in NYC that do not treat their musicians half as well as Ivan treats the people who perform at Radegast.  Those venues shall remain nameless, but Radegast deserves to be named.  If you're local, I urge you to come out and support what's going on here. As of now, I'm there once a month, but I'm starting to wish it were even more often than that. My next Radegast "show" is on Thursday, February 16. Come on over -- you'l be glad you did!

 Photos by Rod Bachar

FOOD THOUGHTS: Vaandag (NYC)

As anyone who knows me well will tell you, I get excited by food.

I spend at least as much time thinking about it -- ethically, nutritionally, aesthetically, culturally -- as I do eating it.  So, why not write about it?  I've been writing here about other non-musical passions for years now (film, theater, books, comics), so indulge me if you may -- I'm going to try writing about food.  I have absolutely no qualifications for same, other than the fact that I love it, I eat out at least once a day in one of the greatest food cities in the world, and I travel a lot for work (which offers even more opportunities for amazing and unusual food experiences than I have here in NYC).  So, let's start with...

 I've wandered past VANDAAG any number of times since it opened last summer, admired what I could see through the large plate glass windows, thought about the day's menu, with its uncomfortable (for me) mix of creativity and delicious-sounding combinations of fresh, local ingredients combined with a puzzling preponderance of dead animals in almost every dish.  I've always passed by.  Sam Sifton's review in The Times last fall did nothing to change my mind. (Truth be told, although he constantly evoked my ire with his constant near-fetishization of said dead animal flesh, I tried never to miss one of Mr. Sifton's columns and miss his food writing dearly).

Last month, I walked by once again, but something was different. It was daytime, just about noon on a Saturday. The sun was flowing into the restaurant's welcoming interior, and the menu featured brunch, with a number of appetizing, unusual, and vegetarian-friendly items.  Even though I was en route to Momofuku Noodle Bar, my at the time go-to food destination in the East Village (that's since changed, more on that another time), something made me deicde to give Vandaag a shot.

I was immediately glad I did.  While I don't have much of a vocabulary when it comes to interior design (see Sifton's review, linked above, for a good description), suffice it to say that the place certainly has an elegant, Scandanavian feeling to it -- clean, austere, simple, airy, a lot of light and wood.  It reminded me of many of the restaurants I ate in when I was lucky enough to visited Stockholm a few years back.  There's nothing fussy here, nothing cute, nothing smacking of anything remotely like the "speakeasy" vibe that's currently played-out everywhere (it seems) in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Neatly laid out on the bar were the sections of the day's New York Times (including the Sunday supplements).  What a fabulous, underrated service that is to customers who, like me, enjoy the ritual of dining alone on a regular basis as a kind of public solitude.  I eagerly borrowed a couple of sections for my table, and sat down with the menu.

I ordered and ate two things, both astoundingly well-prepared and delicious.  The smoked mackerel scramble was, essentially, what it sounds like, with a few beautiful touches -- accompanying the fluffy scrambled eggs (at least three, I would guess) and the tasty bits of smoked fish were a couple of dollops of yogurt, onions, green peppercorns and fresh dill. This was all served in its own skillet, with a giant piece of the house's hot, toasted, buttered, "Red Ale Bread" -- perhaps the best piece of toast I've ever had, outside of the garlic toast at Tequila Bar in Uzhgorod, Ukraine.

I also ordered the Hete Bliksem, or "Hot Lightning," just because it looked so extraordinary on the menu.  While I am a 99% of the time pescatarian -- and even then, only if the fish is wild, and only once in a while, so let's call it a 75% of the time vegetarian -- I will make exceptions every once in a while if the dead animal being served is an essential part of a dish that I want to try, and if said dead animal is local and free range.  VANDAAG's "Hot Lightning" is described as crisp fingerling potatoes with bacon, apple and stroop syrup.  A dash of hot pepper makes it hot, and the syrup makes it sweet.  It sounded like something fantastic that I had to try on this Saturday early afternoon to accompany my smoked mackerel, and I wanted to honor the chef by ordering it as envisioned which, in this case, meant eating a little bit of bacon. I went for it, and I have to say that the dish is indeed extraordinary and worth getting, but next time I will not feel the slightest compunction about asking them to hold the bacon; while the intensity of the hot pepper and sweet syrup complement the crisp potatoes in an exotic, unexpected way, they completely overwhelm the flavor of the pork, rendering it into little tasteless bits of chewy flesh added for -- what, exactly?  Texture? I don't think so.  More likely to appease the foodie masses who happen to be in love with all things pork at this moment (see: bacon vodka, bacon chocolate, bacon ice cream, ad nauseum indeed).

* * *

I've been back to VANDAAG several times since, and have continued to sample the menu (it changes daily), including the excellent seasonal pickle pot; the outlandishly good roasted chestnut soup (my friend and musical cohort Russell Farhang correctly compared the taste of it to fallen leaves on a chilly, sunny autumn afternoon); the decadent French Toast with pine, cranberry and stroop syrup; and the roasted sunchoke omelet (the only near-miss for me, but that may be simply because I'm neither an omelet guy or an artichoke guy; so why did I order it? I don't know).  I couldn't help but feel that the Stroop Wafel, a small, thin caramel-filled treat, would be even better served warm.

The service is always excellent, and the experience being there in the daytime is just delightful.  I do wish that they'd opt for better music, but I'm aware that this is a disease most eating establishments have -- they simply don't know how to leave a patron's ears alone.  If I'm with someone, I want to talk quietly between bites.  If I'm alone, I want to read.  Either way, I do not need nor want any thumping music, thank you.

I have yet to dine at VANDAAG in the evening, but it's absolutely become one of my favorite daytime places to eat in the East Village. If you're in the neighborhood, stop in. I might just see you there!