Dave Mahoney and Norm Ladd at quarries in Bloomington, Indiana, 1971 – photo by Kim Torgerson
The car was all packed and we were getting ready to leave when Noel emailed from the Little Theater. Due to almost a foot of snow they were planning on closing the café early and canceling the band for the night. They didn’t have to do that. We were ready and already looking forward to a quiet night, a situation where the band can sound especially good. Margaret Explosion is somewhere between the band in John Cassavetes’s “Too Late Blues” and the band that was playing on the Titanic when it went down. These are ideal conditions for us.
DisAppEar decorations on wall at the Little Theater Café
Like magic our new cd became available at CDBaby on the morning of yesterday’s release party. Scott Regan played a cut on his morning show and WRUR’s playlist showed the cover graphic from iTunes. We had our ducks in a row. Peggi and I hand painted some oversize cd covers and hung them over the grand piano. The place was packed but oddly the band was in a detached sort of mood. in the break Martin Edic suggested we “get wild” so we tried to accommodate him. If that piece sounds as good as I remember it I’ll post it here in a few days. Here’s one from the new cd.
Margaret Explosion self promo shot at Little Theater Café in Rochester, New York. Left to right; Bob Martin (guitar), Peggi Fournier (soprano sax), Jack Schaefer (bass clarinet), Ken Frank (upright bass), Paul Dodd (drums)
Here’s Jeff Spevak’s review from the Democrat & Chronicle: “The sound of “Disappear” is immediately recognizable. Margaret Explosion is a narcotic soundtrack, sinuous improvisation on original impulses. Peggi Fournier not so much plays the soprano sax as breathes it. Paul Dodd’s drums are notable not only for the precision of his carefully selected notes, but the notes that he seems to not play. Like bassist Ken Frank, Dodd’s often in a hypnotic state. Guitarist Bob Martin is one of the wondrous curiosities of the local scene. He sits with his instrument and a vast array of effects pedals and buttons at his feet, creating sounds with the drawn-out elegance of Bill Frisell.
Disappear includes work by two like-minded, frequent guests of the band, bass clarinetist Jack Schaefer and Pete LaBonne on grand piano. It’s ethereal stuff from a prolific group that never rehearses, just plays. And posting much of it — including the clatter of plates and utensils from Little Café patrons eating — on its web site free for your downloading.”
Please join the band on Wednesday evening 7:30-9:30PM as Margaret Explosion releases our first cd in five years. 12 songs recorded live at the Little Theatre Café in living stereo and packaged in a handprinted, limited edition sleeve. $10, includes shipping, available at MargaretExplosion.com. Here’s a song from the new cd.
“When We Were Young” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre on 11.20.13. Peggi Fournier – sax, Ken Frank – bass, Bob Martin – guitar, Jack Schaefer – bass clarinet, Paul Dodd – drums.
When We Were Young by Margaret Explosion3 Comments
Greenhouse Cafe on East Main Street near Winton Road in Rochester, New York
“Time keeps on slippin’ into the future.” It is amazing to me how long it takes for lyrics to hit me. I get the melody, the rhythm and the sound way before I hear what a singer is saying. I have no idea what most songs are about but they can get under my skin in a second.
At Friday’s mini Record Store Day I picked up a copy of the abbreviated “Basement Tapes Raw,” a two cd set of unvarnished treasures from the trove of demos recorded in my favorite Dylan period. Here we have perhaps the greatest lyricist of all time knocking out songs with a real band, rhythmic and rootsy and raw. Garth Hudson’s organ seals the deal. The Canadian band crystallized Americana in 1967 and lyric and sound carried equal musical weight.
This weekend we caught the second set of The High Fallin’, a group made up entirely of WXXI employees, at the Greenhouse Café on East Main. With viola, keyboards, Matthew Leonard’s guitar and an excellent choice of material, the Band’s “The Weight.”
Vintage furniture in the new Saxon Recording lounge
Silk screening is a very tactile experience. You can follow the directions and watch YouTube videos but when the ink hits the screen and precious paper is slid under it, the way you handle the squeegee determines whether you got clearly shaped letter forms or nasty blobs.
We kept our front door ajar while we knocked out one hundred cardboard cd covers. We were expecting Pete and Shelley but they never showed. We came up with all sorts of reasons why they might be late but none were convincing. We were pulling the last prints when Shelley came down the stairs. They had been sitting in the car for two hours while we were cranking the tunes. Patsy Cline was playing when they walked in.
Dave Anderson had the first of the “Disappear” CDs ready for us so we swung by Saxon Recording on our way downtown. He was working on some tracks with Ed Downey and Chris Reeg when I walked in. We popped one in the car player and were on the second track when we pulled up to the Little for the Margaret Explosion gig. Here’s a track with Pete from his last visit.
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Disappear silkscreen for Margaret Explosion cd art
When my father downsized I grabbed his old silkscreen frames. We had taken an adult ed class together maybe thirty years ago at Boces in Fairport and we learned the basics. The chemicals were nasty at the time, oil based ink and some wicked solvent to wash the screen with. We did stencil like stuff and split fountain fills but we didn’t do any photo silkscreen.
Peggi bought a Speedball Diazo photo silkscreen kit at Rochester Art Supply with the intention of printing the covers of the new Margaret Explosion cd ourselves. We watched a bunch of YouTube videos and came up with this graphic. We ran a transparency print of it at Staples and converted our basement bathroom into a darkroom. We coated the screen, let it dry and exposed the shit out of it with a 500 watt photo food bulb. We think we overexposed the first try because the letters got clogged and wouldn’t let ink pass.
I bought a 250 watt bulb at Rowe Photo and we gave it another try. We got the little red safe light and the photo flood light all tanged up in the dark and broke our red bulb but we washed the screen out after a ten minute exposure and the screen seems to have taken the image.
Funny thing about the title song. It never made it on the cd. It actually wasn’t even recorded until the the cd tunes had been picked but was always the working title. And now we have the title song but it’s not on the album.
“Disappear” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre on 10.22.14. Peggi Fournier – sax, Ken Frank – bass, Bob Martin – guitar, Jack Schaefer – bass clarinet. Paul Dodd – drums.
Margaret Explosion gigs can sometimes be strange. The band itself is strange. We have no songs or setlist. We will the moment into the form of a song. We go where the music takes us and we trust that. The tune below, our last song in the second set of last week’s performance at the Little Theater, is dedicated to Sam Lowery who passed away a few days before the gig (I wrote about Sam, aka I.D., a few days back).
There was a pretty good crowd last week, we made the bonus, but when we finished the song there was no applause. Even our clunkers get a polite applause. I like to think the song was moving enough to have silenced the chatter for a moment. A success. A tribute to Sam Lowery.
Listen to Rapper’s Funeral by Margaret Explosion1 Comment
Joe McPhee’s Trio X at Bop Shop in Rochester, New York 2014
For years I would enter Joe McPhee’s name in one one of those questionnaires that they used to pass out at Jazz Fest. “Who would you like to see at the Jazz Fest?” He only lives in Poughkeepsie for Christ’s sake. I’d put Ornette Coleman’s name in there too but I never expected that to happen. Joe McPhee is too good for Jazz Fest.
Joe brought his “Trio X” to the Bop Shop on Sunday night and we had front row seats. Jay Rosen is often described as a drummer’s drummer and there is good reason for that. I loved watching him play but mostly I loved how he supported and propelled the songs. Bass player, Dominic Duval, was home sick but his son held down the post in fine fashion. His bowed duet with Joe was especially beautiful.
Joe did a solo sax gig a while back in the Village Gate where he did a version of “God Bless The Child” that just blew us away. Joe’s stuff is full of soul and blues and there is a direct link to the Negro spirtuals. He plays music that can change the world. His last tune last night, a song he wrote years ago as a tribute to Ornette, was dedicated to his ailing bass player and to the ailing Ornette. Joe played a white plastic sax on the song.
After the show Peggi told him how much she like the Ornette piece and he said, “We wouldn’t be able to do his stuff if it wasn’t for Ornette.”
Old friends and a huge hip-hop contingent packed Miller Funeral Home last night for Sam Lowery‘s calling hours. We’ve known his parents since the Scorgie’s days but we weren’t familiar with Sam’s music. And we had never heard of the genre, “battling.” Peggi asked Pat, Sam’s dad, if his son played any instruments and Pat said his son would say, “Why take all that time to learn an instrument when I have all this stuff at my fingertips.” In the clips I found this morning on YouTube it didn’t look like Sam, aka I.D., even needed beats or backing tracks. He had a confident, authoritative voice, a great sense of humor, surefooted confidence and literate lyrics.
As I was looking for I.D. tracks this morning a beefed up deer sauntered across our yard. It might have been one of the two bucks we saw battling in the creek last week. They were head butting, crashing into one another with their racks, and making an awful racket. The brawl finished with one of them in the water and the other took off after a doe. It was raw and real like I.D.
“I just want my listeners to stay true and Imma continue giving you shit you can relate to Thank you” – I.D.
Trees changing color off Hoffman Road in Rochester, New York
I met Alice in Fred Lipp’s Advanced Painting class where she would often be working on abstracted versions of Maine landscapes. She’s living in one of those landscapes now and when we visited our conversation often turned to art and Fred’s class. She told us that one of the things she misses is overhearing Fred’s advice to another painter, someone working in a different medium and manner on a different subject, advice that was applicable to her at that moment.
I had this experience last night as Fred was talking to my father. He was comparing the beautiful little watercolors in his sketchbook to the sheet my father was working on, one that got away from him. The sketches, which Fred was calling finished paintings, captured fleeting moments with expression and confidence. The big sheet had been carefully planned and worked up with the sketch as a reference and my father said he felt as though he was just coloring it in. This is one of Fred’s favorite topics and was my father setting him up for another “painting should be an adventure, not the execution of a plan” raps. It’s a topic that bears repeated revisiting. This time I heard Fred say that you want to see the questioning in the final piece. I love that concept and intend utilize it in my own work.
We sent this song (one recorded live at the Little Theatre) over to Saxon Recording on East Main where Dave Anderson applied his digital/analog mastering tools to the file. The cover graphic is a photo of a Robert Irwin piece in the Albright Knox collection. Stop out tonight and hear the questioning.
The Empty Hearts at Sticky Lips in Rochester, New York
Nothing gets in the way of painting class so I didn’t even check the start time for the Empty Hearts gig at Sticky Lips. We just got in the car after class and headed out to the club/BarBQ joint. I expected the place to be packed for the free, warm-up gig for the bands’ upcoming tour in support of their debut album. The band had been rehearsing in Andy Babiuk’s practice space for the last week in Rochester.
More people were leaving than arriving when we showed up and the place was jammed but kinda quiet so we made a beeline for the bar. We ordered two Southern Tier 2XIPA’s and headed toward the stage just in time to grab this shot of the roadies packing up the gear. And this isn’t any ordinairy gear, this is all vintage gear or state of the art gear as would be the case with Andy’s pedigree. Guys were taking cell phone pictures of the the teardrop bass and Gibson SG that Elliot Easton apparently never touched. He played his Les Paul all night through the Marshall stack above. Someone pointed out that Andy’s bass amp, an Ampeg, was sporting a Vox grill cloth.
I stopped in the bathroom before leaving and ran into Wally Palmer, the lead singer. I had not seen him in person since New Math played a gig with the Romantics in 1978. Olga said the show was great and it took her back to the Scorgies days. In fact there were more Ramones shirts here than you could shake a stick at. Olga’s brother, Victor, the former Chesterfield Kings road manager, drove up from Philly. He told us Clem Burke has his own drum roadie. There was pretty good vibe in the room. I wish we had seen the show. When we talked to Andy we acted as though we had. I know it was a good one.
Dave Liebman Group at Lovin Cup in Rochester, New York
We’d seen heard Dave Liebman at the Jazz Fest in 2003 and 2008. He is always a musical delight. On Saturday at the Lovin’ Cup he had the same bass player as the other shows but this time he was playing with an additional horn player (alto sax player, clarinet and flute), Matt Vashlishan, a former Eastman student. He wrote some especially beautiful tunes for the band and the horns were great together. Dave continues to teach and he keeps his ears open. His piano player and drummer are young and gifted. Their two sets, finishing with Coltrane’s “India,” covered some rich terrain.
Liebman played with Miles on some of my favorite lps, “On The Corner” and “”Get Up With It,” so I would follow him anywhere.
El Destructo Sun Ra painting at Record Archive in Rochester. New York
The Ramp Gallery at Record Archive is an awkward space for art but no more more so than the sloping Guggenheim in NYC. The intense yellow walls could take the life out of most paintings. The store itself is an awkward space for anything visual. Everything in there screams or gets lost. El Destructo easily overcame the challenge with a sensational display of recent paintings, many of them versions of paintings he has sold in the past like the three Bride paintings in this show. The Sun Ra painting above already had a sold sticker on it when we got there.
We had already been to another record store last night. We had stopped in the Bop Shop to pick up tickets to Dave Leibman’s show at the Lovin’ Cup and I couldn’t help but notice the difference in the vibe. You want hang out out at the Archive, and shop, and listen to music. You want to browse and get distracted and laugh. The new lounge area in the back is like something out of a dream. You could picture Bobby Darin coming out from behind a curtain and taking the stage. And the wall of forty-five boxes is especially inviting.
Marshall Allen, who played with Sun Ra for almost fifty years, has released an incredible collection of Sun Ra music. The two cd set has a few extras for those that have it all and the songs have been remastered but Allen did a great job of selecting the tunes. A far better round-up than Evidence’s “Greatest Hits” collection. This in more like “Mind Blowing Hits” but the songs are as comfortable as hanging out at the Archive.
One of my mother’s hobbies was arranging the furniture in our house. She has a great eye and good taste and the rearrangements were often startling in their inventiveness. Sometimes they only lasted a few days. Noel, the cafe manager at the Little Theater, sent us an email last night Informing us that Margaret Explosion would be playing at the other end of the room. Apparently they’ve moved the grand piano and the whole space has been reoriented. Tonight I plan to set my drums up close enough to the dishwasher’s room to be able to incorporate the the pots and pans in my kit.
Listen to Ode To Joy by Margaret Explosion. The cover graphic is by the German Expressionist, Ernst Barlach.Leave a comment
Coast Guard station at Charlotte in Rochester New York
In my parents’ day the circus use to pull into town on the train and stop right bend the Armory on East Main. Two nights ago, when we passed the place on the way to the Little they were padding old metal heads down on the front steps. Judas Priest was in the house. Last night it was the rapper, Nas and tonight my nephews will be there for Bassnectar.
Duane posted a 1978 photo today on fb that he took of my old drum set, a long exposure penlight portrait. I wish I still had that Slingerland set. I sold it to buy a louder set while I was in New Math. David Accorso, who was touring with Julio Iglesias at the time, came down to my basement and he picked up the rack mount tom and tapped it with his fingers. He smiled and said, “Ooo, these are some nice tubs,” and he handed me the cash. The small set was many ply and heavy. I bought a bigger, black Pearl set. The bass drum delaminated in no time. Maybe that was because I would stand on it during our set.
Crowd at Naples Grape Fest before Margaret Explosion start
Someone named Mike booked Margaret Explosion for this years Naples Grape Fest. We were a litle worried about the lengendairy traffic jams that happen in that vineyard laden valley but he said he would give us a secret route and a prime parking space. We were to play a one hour and fifteen set but we had to be there an hour ahead of time. We’re used to waltzing in at the last minute with just enough time to set up and get started.
Four of us drove down in the same car, our car. We let Bob drive and Ken sat in the front seat. Margaret and I sat in the back with all the equipment. Of course Ken didn’t bring his double bass and I had to take my bass drum apart to put both my snare and my seat inside the drum to save space. We stayed out of the wine tasting tents and strolled the grounds before our set. Peggi bought some fresh squeezed lemonade and I found a coffee stand. One vendor was selling giant dog bones and another had flooring samples. We played between Amanda Lee Peers, fresh from her debut on “The Voice,” and a Zydeco band. We left as they were being introduced. We listened to a recording of the gig on the way home. Both it and the scenery were out-a-sight.
Mathew Shipp and Michael Bisio performing at the Bop Shop in Rochester, New York
Was Matthew Shipp’s performance at the Bop Shop part of the Fringe Fest or did it just blow away any of the other performances that we didn’t see Friday night? Shipp is amazing. His duo, with Michael Bisio on bass, played for an hour and a half straight. That is, no breaks at all. Melodic pieces overlapped one another and morphed into something else before your eyes. I had mine closed for maximum effect.
HiTechs 45s at Record Archive in Rochester, New York
We stopped in Record Archive over the weekend where they were celebrating their “Almost Fortieth Year Anniversary” with live performances by bands, food trucks of every stripe and 20 percent off everything in the store. We caught Anonymous Willpower and we came home with a few used singles. We were talking to Dick Storms in the far corner of their huge space and he pointed to some boxes of Archive Records 45s up on the top shelf. Hi-Techs‘ “Screamin’ You Head” was among them.
We were laughing about the old times and co-owner Alayna joined the conversation. They cooked up an idea to get the bands from those days back together in some form or another to celebrate the long defunct, in-house label. That would be a hoot. I found this old photo I took of Dick as we signed the contract for the second and last Hi-Techs single, “Screamin’ You Head.” Bob Martin is in the picture because we had already formed a new band, Personal Effects. Dwight Glodell produced this single.
Hi-Techs “Screamin’ You Head,” A side of Archive Records 45 recorded by Dwight Glodell at CSE Audio 1981.
Listen to Screamin’ You Head by Hi-Techs2 Comments
T-shirt in shop window in Culver Road Armory, Rochester, New York
When Peggi was teaching Spanish at Pittsford Sutherland High School she would use our Abba “Gracias Por La Musica” album in her class. Their enunciation was very clear. The Swedish group did many different vocal versions of their songs and had incredible diction in each language. Think of any of their English songs and you can hear their spot-on, percussive pronunciation. Mamma Mia. Funny that Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s daughter was a foreign exchange student, living here in Rochester and going to Sutherland High School at that time.
We are still big Abba fans and we just finished back to back Abba movies. The first, made as they toured Australia in the seventies is a bad movie with sensational concert footage. 1999’s “The Winner Takes It All” has many of the videos for the original songs, some footage from the “Mamma Mia” musical (which only makes you die for the original versions), and some great interviews with the band.
Benny got his first accordion at six. Their songs are rich with cabaret, classical and folk roots and they were influenced by Brian Wilson and Phil Spector. I can’t decide what my favorite song is. “Chiquitta,” “Fernando,” “Knowing Me, Knowing You?” All triumphs. Long live Abba!
Saint Josephats Ukrainian church on East Ridge Road in Rochester, New York
The Barcus Berry pick-up that Peggi uses on her sax started acting up last night. It made a horrendous noise at the most inopportune time and pretty much forced Peggi to take care of it first thing today. She made an appointment to see Chuck in the back room (Rob Storms old nest) of Sound Source and he spent about an hour with her and only charged fifteen bucks. Peggi reports the space has been completely straightened up since he retired. No more Fudgsicles or non-sequitors. No more 3D viewings of Rob’s high school band.
When she got home I took off for House of Guitars to return the cymbal that Bruce let me take home to try. I had stopped in there on my bike and rode home with it under my arm. It almost fit with my kit but I felt like I could find a better match if I brought my existing cymbals up there. I tried every one in the place and finally settled on an old Zildjian that someone had traded in. Bruce had gone home to dinner by that time and the kid that was upstairs didn’t know how much to charge me so I said I’d stop back tomorrow.
