photos by Chris La Putt

"Saw a very briefly reunited Cibo Matto play "Birthday Cake". #my1999dreamcometrue #soooooawesome" - St. Vincent

Cibo Matto fans (like Chris) may have been a bit disappointed at Le Poisson Rouge last night (12/6). That's because the semi-reunited group only played four songs at the show which was billed as "Yuka & Miho cover Cibo Matto". Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori were backed by Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman), Dougie Bowne, Doug Wieselman and Steven Bernstein (who also played the Bob Dylan event at the same venue one night earlier). After the four songs, a cake was brought out for Yuka who was celebrating her 50th birthday.

The show opened with a 15 minute noisy Nels Cline solo set followed by the Cibo Matto set, followed by a break before Floored by Four took the stage. As you know, Floored by Four is Mike Watt, Dougie Bowne, Yuka Honda, and Nels Cline. (there was more jamming after that - as Nels advertised there would be to the end the night - but Chris took off before the end).

The show was unofficially part of Wilco Week here in NYC which also saw Mikael Jorgensen playing with Yo La Tengo at Maxwell's last night while Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt and Pat Sansone were not far away in Tarrytown (Jeff, John and Pat played a variety of NYC and Hoboken shows on the three nights prior).

Doug Wieselman plays again tonight, 12/7, at the Stone.

More pictures from the LPR show, two videos and the Cibo Matto setlist below...

Continue reading "Cibo Matto sort of reunited, Yuka Honda, Nels Cline, Mike Watt & friends jammed @ LPR (pics, video, setlist)"

Floored by Four @ Summerstage (more by Paul Bachmann)

The December 6th show at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC:

• is a 50th birthday party for Cibo Matto's Yuka Honda who used to be married to Dougie Bowne who she has a long history of playing music with, used to date Sean Lennon who she frequently collaborates with, and who is now engaged or married to guitar wizard Nels Cline of Wilco (Wikipedia says their wedding was scheduled for late November in Japan, so if that's true, congratulations to them!)
• will feature a live performance by Floored by Four aka Mike Watt, Dougie Bowne, Yuka C. Honda, and Nels Cline. It will be their 2nd live show ever which means their first must have been that Summerstage show with M Ward
• will feature a Nels Cline solo set "+ friendly jamming after 10:30pm"
• will include a set titled "Yuka & Miho cover Cibo Matto" which I assume means a Cibo Matto show, but without any of Yuka and Cibo's other band members?

Whatever it is, the show is sure to be a good one. Tickets are still on sale.

Nels Cline will also be back at the same NYC venue on February 26th for "The Nels Cline Singers and ROVA perform 'The Celestial Septet'". Tickets are on sale for that too. All Nels dates below.

Will Nels Cline, Mike Watt, Yuka Honda, and/or Dougie Bowne play with Yo La Tengo at Maxwell's this week? I don't know, but it would be pretty cool.

Will Nels Cline's Wilco bandmate Jeff Tweedy play with Yo La Tengo at Maxwell's this week? Very likely.

Will Sean Lennon show up and play at all at LPR on 12/6? Maybe? Will Yuka Honda play with Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl aka The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger at Rockwood Music Hall on January 8th? Maybe?

Can Yuka Honda, Dougie Bowne, Sean Lennon, and Nels Cline all be in the same room and everything be completely normal? Apparently?

Oh, and speaking of turning 50, don't forget tickets to Henry Rollins' upcoming shows at Joe's Pub go on sale Friday at noon.

Enjoy some birthday cake, with all Nels Cline tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Yuka Honda turning 50 -- Floored by Four w/ Mike Watt & her spouse Nels Cline playing 2nd gig ever, Cibo Matto show too"

words by Andrew Frisicano, photos by Paul Bachmann

Saturday's balmy weather welcomed M. Ward to the Central Park SummerStage for one of the last stops on his tour behind his latest record Hold Time. Ward hits the road with Monsters of Folk this fall (a tour with two NYC stops), but at SummerStage the well-placed spotlight was all his (with not even his She & Him collaborator to be found).

He did share time with his band of skilled musicians, and many of his influences, to whom he paid musical tribute throughout the night. Ward opened with a solo acoustic rendition of "Sad, Sad Song," hitting the kick drum part out with his right hand. With the band on stage, M. Ward's smokey, paper-thin voice shared time with his golden riffs and the group's rich, early rock n' roll sound. That vibe - an early '60s kind of rockabilly swing - streamlined many of Ward's often idiosyncratic arrangements into a headliner-worthy set of hits.

Ward's unmistakable reference points along the way included Jerry Lee Lewis chops at the piano (where he sat for maybe half a dozen numbers) and Chuck Berry licks on guitar (with a cover of "Roll Over Beethoven" even). But maybe even more impressive than Ward's axe skill is his ability to cobble together a compelling 20-song set with very few lulls. All that in just under an hour. Add two encores, and the show still ended well before its 10pm curfew.

Floored By Four, in their debut performance, opened the evening with set of extended jams. Mike Watt casually walked along on bass, while Nels Cline, bold and upfront, ran his guitar through an array of effects that tweaked the sound in a number of novel ways. Keyboardist Yuka Honda layed down a harmonic foundation that at times veered into Twin Peaks territory. The group's set, like its members, walked the line between contemporary rock and more experimental forms. Perhaps most boldly, drummer Dougie Bowne ditched rock's inviolable constant beat at times, subbing unpredictable flurries of texture.

The commaraderie between Cline and Watt was evident as they joked around and cued chord changes with a head nod and a smile. (They've played together before in groups that include Watt's Black Gang and Banyan.) A clear highlight of their set was the closing jam, "Maggot Brain," a song periodically revisited by Watt and last on his solo debut Ball-hog or Tugboat?. The tune's opening incantation, delivered from Watt (who also sang the band's second number) set the stage for Cline's searing lead. His nickel-plated, sunset tone cut through several layers of crowd and foreshadowed (possibly surpassed) the guitar mastery to come.

More pictures, and a bunch of videos, below...

Continue reading "M Ward & Floored By Four @ Central Park Summerstage -pics"

by Andrew Frisicano

'Michelle' Watt w/ Black Fag 1/29/09...

Mike Watt is a musician seemingly without ego. He'll share a stage with anyone, and does - his upcoming dates have the bassist in no less than half a dozen settings. As you can see above, Watt even sat in on guest vocals with SoCal's Black Fag ('An absolutely FABULOUS tribute to Black Flag'). The group writes...

For those who haven't heard, Black Fag has extended an open invitation to all former members of Black Flag to join us on stage for a song of their choice at any of our shows.

The only requirement: they must perform in drag!

Mike Watt was never an official member of Black Flag, but his musical history is so intertwined with Black Flag's that we consider him an honorary member, so when we found out he'd be on the bill that night we contacted him to see if he would want to be the first to accept our invitation.

See a video of Watt + Black Fag taking on "Police Story," below.

Mike Watt was recently in NYC for the "Double Nickels on the Dime" 25th Anniversary Party at the Bowery Poetry Club on Saturday, July 25th. At the variety-style show he played a selection of the band's songs on bass and did poetic reading (appropriate in light of the venue) of Minutemen lyrics. See videos of both below.

This Saturday, August 1st, he'll be debuting Floored By Four, his band with Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, Cibo Matto multi-instrumentalist Yuka Honda and ex-Lounge Lizard/"downtown" drummer Dougie Bowne. M. Ward headlines.

Nels is another musician who gets around quite a bit. Last night (July 30th) he was at the Stone in a trio called The BBC with Tim Berne on saxophone and Jim Black on drums (check out their initials for a clue about the name ).

"...Cline had a neat trick wherein he looped a watery guitar part through his electronic setup, and then used an octave pedal to get a distorted bass sound out of his guitar that he proceeded to play live over the loop. At other times, he went from solo line noodling to crunchy, unpredictable time-signature riffing that still kept heads bobbin'. There was flow there. Occasionally he had a scratch palette like Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, but instead of Bomb Squad-style guitar turntablism, it was spazzy like Christian Marclay. Meantime, Berne mostly kept to a subtle supporting role, coming out front most nakedly during the quiet interludes of the hour-long piece. Hopefully someone recorded this beast of a thing." [The Awl]

On August 4th, he'll be playing with NYC violinist Jenny Scheinman's Mischief and Mayhem, as a quartet with Jim Black (again) on drums and Matt Penman on bass. Tickets for that are still on sale.

The show will be your last chance to catch Cline on his current run of NYC engagements. It'll also be your last chance to catch Scheinman for a while, as she'll be taking a break to have a child (that's due a little more than a month after the gig). Best wishes to her!

Check out the above-mentioned Watt videos, all Watt/Cline tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Mike Watt w / Black Fag, Bowery Poetry, Summerstage Saturday, Nels Cline & a very pregnant Jenny Scheinman"

Jeff Tweedy @ Beacon High School (more by Eric Townsend)

"Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy gave fans a scare Saturday night at the recently refurbished Fox Theater in Pomona when he declared, 12 songs into the band's set, that the Chicago-based act was "approaching the end of an era," and promised more details later.

Those aren't words to be taken lightly for Wilco followers. Depending on who's doing the counting, the group has had as many as six different eras since releasing its country-obsessed 1995 debut, "A.M." Yet its audience has remained loyal through a host of lineup changes, Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt being the only constants in Wilco's career.

While the comment raised concerns about a future without, say, the participation of local guitar slinger Nels Cline or rhythmic contortionist Glenn Kotche, the truth turned out to be nothing so worrisome. After 45 minutes, Tweedy revealed only that multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone was turning 40." [LA Times]

The 25-song setlist from Saturday night's show is below.

"Due to production changes, field tickets have just been released" for Wilco's upcoming show at Keyspan Park in Brooklyn. Yo La Tengo is opening.

Nels Cline has three non-Wilco NYC shows coming up. One of those shows is the previously-mentioned M. Ward Central Park Summerstage gig where Nels will play in a band with Mike Watt, Yuka Honda, Dougie Bowne. That foursome is called Floored by Four, and according to Mr Watt, they "plan to record a album the two days before the gig." Add it to the list. All Nels dates below...

Continue reading "Wilco played the Fox Theater (setlist), more NYC tix released, Nels Cline & Mike Watt are Floored by Four"