The last few nights of Mike Gordon’s solo tour
proved to be particularly eventful. On Thursday, Gordon hosted an event
billed Mike Gordon’s Magic Hat Summer Variety Show at Chicago’s Park
West. The multi-part performance turned out to be a recreation of the
story that inspired “Andelmans' Yard,” one of The Green Sparrow’s
standout tracks. Gordon and his band used the tune as the evening’s
structural nuts-and-bolts, segueing in and out of the “Andelmans' Yard”
throughout his two electric and one acoustic sets. A number of other
colorful characters also took the stage with Gordon throughout his
fairy tale, including stilt dancers, spinners, jugglers, acrobatic
dancers and a plate spinner. The show also featured a shadow puppet
show and an appearance by Chicago hula hoop instructor Dizzy Lizzy.
“Andelmans’ Yard” is one of the few songs on The Green Sparrow that finds Gordon playing most instruments himself.
“It took two straight months of working every day, all day on weekdays, and it came together in a really organic way,” Gordon said about the song in
a recent site interview. ”A lot of the parts were got at by jamming on
a given instrument and then picking out my favorite parts and writing
them in. So even though I was a perfectionist for two months, it had an
organic sound and in the end the combination just sounded right to me.
I realized there’s no way I would rerecord it because it wouldn’t sound
as good. We tried as we did on ‘Another Door’ to add real drums,
instead of the synthetic drums of which there is more than one track.
The real drummers did a great job but we ended up liking the fake drums
more.”
The festivities continued Friday at Cleveland’s Beachland Ballroom when
Gordon invited out his opening act Freekbass for C and C Music
Factory’s “Things that Make you go Hmm” and Phish’s “Meat.” Though the
sit-in marked the first time the musicians have shared the stage, the
former Phish bassist appears on Freekbass’ Junkyard Waltz along with
Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Buckethead, Jen Durkin and Mike Dillon,
among others.
On Saturday Gordon reunited with Phish at Brad Sands' wedding
and, last night, the bassist closed out his solo tour with an
appearance at Boston’s Paradise. Gordon’s percussionist Craig Myers
opened the evening with his other band Rubblebucket and later brought
out Rubblebucket bandleader/trumpeter Alex Toth, Rubblebucket/John
Browns Body’s saxophonist Kalmia Traver and Easy Star All-Stars
saxophonist Jenny Hill for Gordon’s "Radar Blip." The improvisational
vehicle finds Gordon teaching the audience a variety of hand signals
which they can then use to decide which musician leads the band’s jams
at any given moment. In addition, the bassist’s Ramble Dove associate
Neil Cleary, whose brother Tom plays keyboards in Gordon’s band, sang
on “I Got Loaded.”
Though Gordon is currently off the road, Freekbass will appear
at Lakewood, OH’s Winchester Music Hall and Erie, PA’s Docksider’s this
weekend, while Rubblebucket will appear at State College, PA’s Zeno’s
this Thursday.
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