Carlo Wolff » Entertainment

Stimulated

Carlo — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:31:48 +0000

I just started Week Two of mental stimulation marked by seeing six movies at the dazzling Cleveland International Film Festival, a great, too-short concert by John Zorn’s Masada Sextet (here’s my preview) and, this morning, reading “Atomic Age,” Martin Benjamin’s first, long-overdue book of photography.

Karen and I went to the film festival for the first time in it must be 10 years last week, and didn’t hit a clunker. Here’s what we saw: “The Ape” (Swedish); “House of Branching Love” (Finnish); “A Matter of Size” (Israeli); “Fire in the Heartland” (U.S.); “Desert of Forbidden Art” (U.S.); “Marwencol” (U.S.) Each time we went downtown was more fun. The festival was packed, the standby lines long. Here’s a brief rundown of the flicks:

—“The Ape”: Intellectually fascinating study of paranoia and trauma that never resolved, remaining ambiguous and disturbing. The point of view was riveting.

—“House”: Bawdy, funny sex comedy about tribulations and rewards of marriage. Entertaining as hell and ultimately uplifting. The actor who played Wolfi could be a major star.

—“Fire”: About the May 4, 1970 National Guard shootings at Kent State. Well-documented and profoundly sad, it evoked the politics of the ‘60s with minimum preachiness and suggested there still are stories to uncover about that seminal incident.

—“Matter”: Emotionally my favorite flick, it’s a comedy about four giant misfits in a small Israeli village who channel their creativity into becoming sumo wrestlers. It’s a whole new way of seeing fat, too. A blast.

—“Desert”: A documentary about suppressed Soviet-era Modernist art in a museum in Uzbekistan. Great art, amazing story.

—“Marwencol”: From rural, upstate New York comes this documentary about a guy beaten nearly senseless whose “recovery” consists of creating a World War II-inspired community in his backyard, populated by dolls. The most provocative movie I saw, it makes you rethink your notions of art and “wellness.”

Saturday night, I saw John Zorn’s Masada Sextet at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Saxophonist Zorn, who channels what he calls Radical Jewish Culture, and his five co-conspirators played only a little over an hour, but how and what they played! Great, often romantic music with a Sephardic, Spanish coloration; even one highly abstract piece was a kick, because Zorn and Co. so enjoy each other and their shared discipline.

The film festival and Zorn show were breaths of fresh air in a community that often feels ingrown. Seeing crowds downtown was invigorating. Hearing Zorn’s music was similarly mind-expanding. Cleveland felt like an open city this past week. Maybe it’s spring rearing its desired head.

Today I got Martin Benjamin’s “Atomic Age” in the mail. I worked with Marty in Albany in the ‘70s and ‘80s at rock and roll shows, and he’s the best photographer I’ve ever worked with (dig into his website and you’ll find a picture of me—with more hair and way bigger glasses). His book—infrared photos of his wife; shots from irradiated sites; glimpses of remote cultures; startling closeups of what look like perfect strangers—is an event. Like words, but in different ways, images can move and shape and change the world. Marty’s certainly do.

Rock lives

Carlo — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:00:36 +0000

In rock ‘n’ roll, comebacks are by no means a sure bet. Some bands never go away, even when they should, like the Stones and the Who. Some go acoustic and minimal, like Ray Davies of the Kinks. Others devolve into their leader, like Roky Erickson, whose 13th Floor Elevators yielded the barbed-wire breakup song, “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” in 1966, a semimajor hit featuring Erickson’s barbaric yawp and a surging rhythm bed that presaged heavy metal in its power and punk in its simplicity.

I saw Erickson at the Beachland Ballroom last night, after catching him Nov. 14 at a Janis Joplin tribute in which he sang “You’re Gonna” and “Ooh! My Soul,” a Little Richard number perfectly suited to his primal scream. Could Erickson sustain a whole set? No problem. He was fabulous.

Not only did he end with “You’re Gonna” (no encore despite wild applause, whistles and the usual hoots), he stomped through a gang of other numbers from his work in Elevators and Roky Erickson and the Aliens, and he was fierce. This was hellfire rock ‘n’ roll snatched from the abyss and delivered by a master. In the beginning, the rock word was Sun Records. The second generation was the British Invasion and the American response spearheaded by the Beatles, the Byrds, Dylan—and misfits like Erickson, a leonine phoenix who works idiosyncratic hard rock as if he’d invented it. He’s on a brief tour with Okkervil River, a startlingly good young band from Austin, the liberal oasis in secessionist Texas, where Erickson made his first mark nearly 50 years ago. I can’t wait for “True Love Cast Out All Evil,” his first album of new material in more than 10 years. It’s due out April 20.

The show was cool for other reasons. Not only was it a highlight of the Beachland’s 10th anniversary, it also featured two talented Cleveland bands: Living Stereo, a sharp, new wave quartet with complex songs and stage presence to burn, and the Alarm Clocks, a Byrds- and Petty-influenced guitar band of chops, seasoning and occasionally interesting texture. Living Stereo was a hard act to follow (especially for an opener), the Clocks a nice bridge that got better as the mix settled in. Erickson, however, dominated as soon as he took the stage.

I wish I’d caught Pere Ubu the night before, when the storied and fractious underground Cleveland band recreated “The Modern Dance,” its 1978 breakthrough. Friends tell me the house was nearly full, the energy level high, Ubu mainman David Thomas in relatively high spirits. A frazzled-looking, withdrawn Thomas was at the Erickson show. He looked thin and weary, a shadow of his former self. I hope he enjoyed the Erickson revival as much as I did.

Leonard Cohen: in the zone

Carlo — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:52:17 +0000

The cover of Cohen's newest live disk.

Weird to think of “Leonard Cohen Live in London” alongside “Allman Brothers at Fillmore East,” but both are paradigms of the live album, capturing artists at the peak of their powers. Cohen’s was recorded in 2008 when he was 73, near the start of his nearly two-year-long tour; the American leg this fall was his first U.S. go-round in 15 years. Recorded with startling and warm fidelity, this set lasts more than three hours, covers the Canadian poet’s repertoire dating to the mid-‘60s, and finds the man in glorious instrumental company. Sharon Robinson, his long-time collaborator, shines on “Boogie Street” and Cohen turns “Democracy” and “First We Take Manhattan” into dark disco anthems, also investing such chestnuts as “So Long, Marianne” and the ravishing “Suzanne” with vigorous, autumnal color. Over the years, Cohen’s voice, which early in his singular career was so affectless he couldn’t convey the full import of his words, has become a deeply expressive baritone, and his lyrics, which dwell on sin and salvation, paradise and Armageddon, have become ever more meaningful. At 75, Cohen, that stylish mystic, is in the zone, the Clint Eastwood of rock ‘n’ roll.

For more Leonard Cohen music, click here.

Audio CD (March 31, 2009)
Original Release Date: March 31, 2009
Number of Discs: 2
Format: Live
Label: Sony
ASIN: B001RTP3YQ

Jewish music

Carlo — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:10:44 +0000

I keep running into other lucky ones who attended the Leonard Cohen concert at the Allen Theatre in Cleveland Oct. 25; we all stand in awe (here’s my preview). In more than three hours, Cohen and his amazing troupe of cosmic musicians rekindled my belief, that I’d thought retro, in pop as conveyor of truth. Not that Cohen was dour; far from it. He skipped, he bowed—often beginning his songs as a supplicant, he as frequently ended them a cocky commander—he clearly enjoyed himself. And the songs—“So Long, Marianne,” “Suzanne” (done sturdy and dark), “First We Take Manhattan” (this coulda been a disco hit), the stunning “Waiting for a Miracle”—are among the best.

Leonard Cohen: The mystic as fashion plate.

Cohen’s was one of two concerts (here’s John Soeder’s spot-on review from the Plain Dealer) I saw in the last week by Jewish musicians. Cohen’s was one of the best I’ve ever seen, and that covers hundreds of shows.

The other was by Sophie Milman, a 26-year-old Russian Jew who grew up in Israel and now lives in Toronto. A tiny blonde bombshell whose contralto-alto embodies the airy and the husky, she’s a true torch singer. Milman fronts an excellent band (Diego Rivera stood out on sax), scats like Sarah, and takes over Joni Mitchell’s “Be Cool” for her own smoldering purposes. (Here’s my preview from Cleveland Jewish News). The hottest Canadian import since Diana Krall, Milman is set to explode. Some paintings fell off the wall of Nighttown during her first set; might that have been a sign?

This pictures Sophie's newest disk.

Remembering the latest king

Carlo — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:40:49 +0000

When I called Michael Jackson a has-been on my Facebook page, some people were pissed. All I meant was that since the mid-’90s, the most interesting thing about Jackson, who died June 25, was his dysfunction. Weird-looking, for sure; mysterious and shape-shifting psychologically and otherwise. The child molestation charges he was cleared of, the marriages that didn’t work, the kids in the shadows, the hassles with his family are what grabbed us from the mid-‘90s on more than his music, though that lasts, and the best of it is as good as pop gets.

It seems that when you call an icon a has-been—you could argue that that was true of Elvis after his initial burst in the mid-‘50s, and of the solo careers of Beatles Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and, particularly, the lightweight, charming Ringo—you threaten people’s memories. I remember dancing to Michael Jackson; how couldn’t you? I remember being a kid intoxicated by Elvis, and as a young man dancing and romancing to the Beatles. I even recall being moved by U2, whose inspirations have seemed largely formulaic for the past 15 years. Just because a band is still commercial doesn’t make it creative.

Michael Jackson will rule the news for about a week—tomorrow’s papers are sure to feature lengthy, heady editorial about his meaning—and then return to the tabloids, his natural home these past 15-plus years. Now, when I think of him, I think of his genius, his moves, his singular spirit. Too bad that’s clouded by the soap opera he generated that defined, and then ended, his life.