XPoNential 2008 Quick Notes

[reldnahkram]

The Brakes had a keyboard player who doubled on trumpet. And the notes didn't quite seem to match the fingerings. Then he started playing keyboards with his left hand, and it all made sense. I've tried, once or twice, to play piano and trumpet at the same time, but I really can't think in the different keys necessary to make it work. I suspect it's doable with a C trumpet.

There was something absurd about activating the color-changing rotating overhead lights for Dar Williams's solo set - in broad daylight. Overall, I enjoyed the set perhaps more than I have other shows of hers recently - it was shorter, and thus some of the "hits" didn't get played, which made the ones that were (Babysitter and Spring St. early in the set, Iowa by request in the middle, Out There at the end) more special.

Chuck Prophet's band was probably the tightest band I've ever seen, and possibly the tightest band I've ever heard. They were that good. I'm pretty sure the show will be posted to NPR, and I'm definitely listening again.

Somewhere along the way I wandered into the green organic tent, where along side the solar energy display and the environmentally-friendly building materials there was a company demoing their "herbal infused water". In small plastic disposable cups.

Alejandro Escovedo was a disappointment. I thought the sound was really muddy and everything blurred together. Knowing the new album or the back catalog that songs came from might have helped.

Beth Orton was good, although at that point my feet and lower back were hurting so much from standing for 5.5 hours on bricks wearing sneakers with no support that I couldn't really appreciate it. The hits were very good, but I didn't know the rest well enough to really get into it given my physical condition (the lack of sleep might also have been a factor, probably contributing mostly to my physical discomfort).

Comments

[wayman.livejournal.com]

Most keyboards allow you to set the pitch up or down by half-steps (or even just a sliding scale). He could have just pitched the keyboard down a whole step to Bb, no?

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

Probably, but then you have to transpose the whole tune. By the time you do that, plus factor in transposing multiple keyboards and making sure they're all untransposed at the end of the song, easier just to get a C horn.

[wayman.livejournal.com]

I conceptualize most music by scale tones (movable do, not fixed pitch), so for me, reading in one key and playing in another is--depending on the keys...--sort of normal. (If it's got more than three sharps/flats, odds are I can't read it fast enough anyway.) But note that I also play a lot of diatonic fixed-key instruments, so this was a particularly handy knack to develop. Not so important for all those folks with chromatic instruments (who don't tend to have multiple versions of the same instrument in different fixed keys).

So yeah, your way is easier :-)

[uncleamos]

Chuck Prophet link(s)?

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16110733

Is all of his stuff on NPR. Yesterday's show is not up, I'll link it when it is.

[reldnahkram.livejournal.com]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7raIAJTxeqA

Prophet on Letterman. Isn't quite as good a performance, but that may be the compression more than anything else. The horns and chimes were not part of the band Friday night.

The keyboard player is his wife, and his introduction Friday night included a line about loving a guy who has his wife in the band, unless her name is Linda.