The Aristocrats
Anfiteatro Hotel Fontane Bianche, Cassibile (SR), Italy
Oct. 14, 2012
About one month ago, I happened to find the itinerary of The Aristocrats’ imminent
European tour waiting for me in my e-mail inbox. I had a look, just in
case, ’cause one never knows, though I have to admit that I was not very
optimistic ’bout my chances of having the group play a date so near to
me that I could make it, but – guess what? – such a date existed. So I
had a look on the Web, made a couple of calls, sent a few e-mails, bought
my ticket, done. Hooray! (Well, here I have to admit I embellished my tale
a tiny bit, taking out a few minor glitches, but life is not really intended
to be all fun and games…)
My puzzlement that a trio such as The Aristocrats could really play at the
Anfiteatro dell’Hotel Fontane Bianche in sunny Cassibile (SR) vanished
as soon as I could place the event inside the appropriate framework: the
concert’s promoter was, in fact, the local branch of a national music school,
the event going hand-in-hand with an afternoon "clinic"
to be held by Guthrie Govan, the group’s guitarist.
In a way, I’m sorry I didn’t attend the "clinic". Impeccably
professional (when I met him at the hotel reception, the group’s bass player,
Bryan Beller, told me that the night before they had come back to their
hotel very late, this being due to their concert in Sardinia running late,
and so they were all pretty tired), Govan met the pupils on time,
and he immediately started telling a series of anecdotes accompanied by
musical fragments played on guitar. But while I was having fun listening
to a few arpeggios from songs featured on Abbey Road (talking ’bout The
Beatles’ album, of course) it suddenly dawned on me that I had not paid
for the "clinic", so I left the hotel lobby, where I sat, and
had the chance to listen to it all.
While I was busy doing nothing in the hotel’s garden, I thought about how the
spreading of the "American model" – paying money in order to
acquire a specific kind of "abilities" (something that detractors
of this model sometimes refer to as "acquiring specific motional skills")
– has worked in favour of the birth of a "parallel world" where
the laws of consumption as they are currently represented in The Top Forty
appear to be suspended. Sure, other problems have appeared to replace those
that prevailed before, with the musical instrument now seen as a mere "gym" tool
(which in a way makes a lot of sense, the
"quantitative" dimension being a lot easier to measure and grade
than an aleatoric definition such as "artistic creativity"), and
the artist’s remuneration scheme based on the endorsement model – something
that in order to work properly needs a substantial following, which is likely
to entail the stressing of the above-mentioned "gym" side, most
students being by definition "immature".
(Those who’d like to read more about some interesting
"side effects" of this scheme are invited to read the tale told
by famed drummer Bill Bruford in his interesting autobiography, not surprisingly
titled Bill Bruford: The Autobiography, published
in 2009 by Jawbone Press.)
It’s a world I know nothing about, as it’s clearly showed by the circumstance
that, before listening to the album by The Aristocrats I had never even
heard of Guthrie Govan, my familiarity with the work of the group’s drummer,
Marco Minnemann, being confined to his collaboration with Mike Keneally.
Funny thing, the opposite was true for people I talked to at the concert,
and also for some friends who like "fusion" music who I talked
to on the phone, a few days after I bought my concert ticket.
Talking about what kind of music The Aristocrats really play can have interesting
results. I’d call it "fusion" – which is quite surprising for
me, since I usually really dislike
"fusion", most specimens sounding to me quite repulsive. (I still
remember – having attended a whole series of "fusion" concerts,
about fifteen years ago – the precise moment I said "never again!".)
But things change. In my opinion, the music played by The Aristocrats could
be filed under "rock", but I’m quite sure a fan of "today’s
rock" would argue against this, since there are too many items that
were once part of rock music, or at least of some of its streams – such as
odd time signatures, long solos, type of intervals, prodigious playing skills
– which have not been part of rock for a long time. The paradoxical consequence
is that The Aristocrats, a group whose music shows abundant traces of both
"progressive" and "metal" (and whose harmonic language
sounds more "jazz" than "classical" to me), are nowadays
filed under "fusion".
The above-mentioned Anfiteatro is a low-ceiling room placed in the hotel basement
that sits about four hundred. To me, on this night, it appeared to be about
half-full. The stage is high enough to let one see the players clearly
(but from where I sat I couldn’t see their feet). As it was to be expected
– the majority of those who attended the afternoon
"clinic" also attending the concert – for the most part people
were quite young, with just a few in their late-twenties; there were also
a couple of parents with their sons.
In my review of the group’s music on the album, I talked about "an ‘idealized
version’ of a concert", something which was confirmed to me by the
concert itself. What I’d like to stress is the
"modern" side of the trio’s music as performed live, the music
possessing all the sheen of the recording studio, with the different sections
of the compositions – and they’re quite diverse – "dressed" by
very different sounds and performing techniques. This multi-coloured side
of the group’s compositions finds its acoustic counterpart in those devices
that
"acoustic science", though commerce, has put at our disposal, this
being the element that most separates this kind of modern "fusion"
(?) from the types that came before, where electric (many times semi-acoustic)
guitars, well-mannered amplifiers, and a few pedals added just a bit of colour
to those "variations on a theme" based on stock "jazz"
scales.
To me, guitarist Guthrie Govan is the main ingredient for the success of the
music of the trio. Minnemann and Beller, it goes without saying, are a
very versatile rhythm section (the latter being also a fine writer), and
those "parallel" adventures cultivated by Beller add a lot when
it comes to making some moments more interesting than I expected. But it’s
Govan’s versatility, starting with his touch, that makes this music – both
in concert and on the album – sound so polychromatic, successfully avoiding
the ennui that for a long time I regarded as being an unavoidable part
of the
"genre".
Sure, once in a while I still caught myself having a look at my watch, and
at times the "high energy" approach of the music of the group
seemed to turn into a cage, making a track like Beller’s Flatlands – which
would be perfect to run with a movie’s end credits – sound like "a
courageous experiment". It has also to be said that what the audience appeared to like the most were the "showy" solos (a "positive compensation" scheme which for a musician is not exactly devoid of risks), starting with the drum solo,
where Minnemann’s
"realistic" behaviour reminded me of Jon Hiseman’s, in his Tempest
period. Sure, this is nothing new – remember those "showbiz" violin
solos Ray Shulman played in concert? – but sometimes I got the impression
that Minnemann is already too well-versed in those "enthusiasm-building
techniques", as it was clearly showed by some cheap, tacky jokes he
made (which, it has to be said, a large part of the audience greeted with
laughter). There was nothing to surpass the highly celebrated "foglia
di fica"
by Peter Gabriel in the course of the concert played by Genesis in Rome when
promoting their album Selling England By The Pound, but I believe that it’s
not really necessary to share Robert Fripp’s austere look on life in order
to say that some questionable jokes can demean not just the musician who’s
telling the jokes, but also the music that’s played.
I
was ready to bet on the concert starting the same way as the album, Minnemann’s
Boing!… I’m In The Back being a vivacious, communicative number. Instead,
the group started with Govan’s Bad Asteroid, here performed with all those
various timbres and genres, as on the album. Then the group played a fine
rendition of Beller’s Greasy Wheel, from his solo albums Thanks In Advance
and Wednesday Night Live. Then it was time for Boing!… I’m In The Back,
which they played con brio, with (what to me sounded like) more than a
few "traces of Beck" on Govan’s fingerboard. Then it was time
for the elegant tango titled Furtive Jack.
I
think that at some point in the concert the group played Get It Like That
– the notes I took under the room’s lights were not very clear – still
sounding very much influenced by Narada Michael Walden, and there was a
long drum solo.
Beller
announced a change of pace after the mayhem, the trio giving a good
rendition of Flatlands. Musically inconsistent just like on the album,
Minnemann’s Blues Fuckers is maybe the number whose performance the audience
greeted with the greatest amount of applause. There was also a fine performance
of I Want A Parrot by Govan, featuring, as usual, a great variety of styles
and a great instrumental performance by Beller, whose See You Next Tuesday
the group then played, with more verve than on the album.
In
closing, the group performed "Hotel Kandisky" (this being the
wrong title, it’s a piece by Minnemann that I don’t know), "Erotic
Planet"
by Govan (ditto), and Beller’s Sweaty Knockers, which was practically perfect.
Beppe Colli
© Beppe Colli 2012
CloudsandClocks.net | Oct. 18, 2012
