Two shows in a small world
Roger’s been steadily building a small pool of rock en español songs on which we’ve jammed a number of times but have never had the opportunity to play live. If you’re reading this blog you already know I will play whatever gig I’m offered, but the prospect of sharing the stage with both Tall Can and Ted Washington at a benefit for Palestine had me specially excited.
We pulled up and loaded in exactly on time to see Tall Can take the stage with Adrian aka Bourdain Cobain aka Bob aka tie.game.rivalry aka baby.brother aka terry k aka Rivalry aka YEAH BOB. This was the second chance I’ve had to catch Tall Can performing since his release (and maybe just his second show? I don’t think he’s had any since his show at FeeLit.) but you’d never know he’d left the stage; he’s fallen right back into performing like he was born to do, as if he spent the last few years doing whatever the rap version of P90X might entail.
If the above flyer didn’t make it clear this event featured approximately 900 performers alternating sets of poetry and music. Our host and MC Chieftain took the stage between Tall Can’s set and ours, and once we’d set up we played a little improvised accompaniment behind his final poem, during which he shouted out Adrian Arancibia, whose poetry provided the narrative texture to Territory Games.
I have no idea if people were into our set at all but playing with Roger is always a joy. He’s been hoping to expand this group into a full band lineup but of course, you know drummers.
Always a pleasure to see Tony at a show, especially when he pulls up rocking the hyperflexual Air Palestines:
Some time after the semester we’re finally going to meet up and talk about this movie…
After the set we kicked it with Tall Can and Lewis outside for a minute. The three of us (plus Nathan!) will return to Aztlan Libre on December 13th as TALL:SHADOW for the exhibition of Tall Can’s Chicano Park mural photography:
Despite being a near-constant presence in the neighborhood I must admit this was my first time actually popping into Aztlan Libre, but obviously it’s home:
And with that I was off to La Mesa to meet up with the Territory Games crew. As with every other show this week we never had time to meet for a rehearsal, so it was great finally getting to meet my bandmates on the record, Kyle Bayquen on bass and Ivan Trujillo and Jose Solares on horns, both up from Ensenada. My two shows in a day made for a fun little excursion; Kyle came to the Jazz Lounge with a migraine and immediately afterwards had to drive from La Mesa to a second gig in Oceanside.
We squeezed in a quick run-through of some of the more intricate tunes during soundcheck before regrouping for green room pizza, and despite the lack of practice I felt we executed the music pretty damn well; I at least didn’t totally eat shit on some of the tunes that gave me the most trouble during the recording (not gonna names but a cursory listen through the album will probably make those readily apparent) and, freed from the strictures of overdubbing, I had the chance to rip a couple solos under the spotlight. That’s rock ‘n’ roll, babey.
Lauren Leigh, who sang on one version of the album’s title track, couldn’t make the show, but Adrian rolled out to read his poems “All These Entanglements,” “And Yet They Travel,” and a third (new to me) over the slow version of “Your House Is Standing and It Is Beautiful,” so of course I had to tell him he got a shoutout at the earlier show that day.
The beloved JFRE Coad of (Aspects of) Physics and everyone’s favorite bartender at the Whistle Op passed away just a few days before the show, so in his honor we cut the complex, polyrhythmic “Slack Theory II” to play another piece of Nathan’s, the complex, polyrhythmic “Parameters I,” which he had written previously in tribute to JFRE’s Physics bandmate Jason Soares. Nathan delivered a brief but very touching speech before the tune; JFRE and the rest of Physics were a few years older than Nathan and made up the old guard of San Diego’s DIY experimental music scene when he was a teenager, so despite their scant extant recordings their crew held sway over Nathan much the same way his music has over me. Being asked to play in this band already felt like an honor, but to carry forward a legacy of thoughtful, progressively-minded music in such a manner deepened it considerably.
It means more than I can put into words to have been asked to sit in with this band. Nathan’s been an inspiration to me for a very long time and I feel deeply privileged to take part in the leadup to his 50th birthday. Many more records on the way, though if you missed the first semester there’s still time to catch up:
HOTFOOT (still pulling for it) records again this Friday and Nathan, Tall Can and I will reconvene at Aztlan Libre on the 13th for the aforementioned Tall:Shadow set. Be there or never again drive the seven.
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