Sunday, October 23, 2005

saint frinatra, xouba, goodwin, sunward

the patio at fonky fred's was still packed w/ppl from a live radio broadcast when we strolled up around 7 on friday night, and brian sharp and the rest o' the boys in saint frinatra rose to the occasion and played their best -- funny how that works. chris white had his electric upright on hand and dr. frank hailey pulled out some of his most exquisite pianistics on his 'riginal "cornwall's corner." the sometime saint frinatra riddim team of danny chacko and jozef bobola was in the house, but only danny played, even tho chris' wife brought up his trumpet and flute so he wouldn't have to sit out if the fiery youngster got up to play. one got the feeling it was 'cos jozef didn't wanna usurp chris' place on the stand. nice to see someone so talented who's also so humble.

speaking of occasional saint frinatra riddim boyzzz, bassist eric zukoski is part of a partnership that just opened xouba (pronounced "shoo-ba"), a latin-asian fusion restaurant with a "live and house music" policy, in arlington. eric's moved his trio there from my martini; they hold forth on thursday nights. maybe another oppo for fort worth jazz ppl to gig nearby. it's at 2301 n. collins st., arlington, phone 817-462-3777.

"goodwin acoustic" turned to be "goodwin without damien stewart," with daniel gomez and matt hembree plugging in electric axes at radically reduced volume. hearing them in this format highlighted just how crucial the drums are to the rawk. my sweetie and i wound up mentally filling in sticky d's sweet thunder. the best moments of the evening proved to be a previously-unreleased toon that tony diaz sung accompanied only by matt's bass (which sounded bindle-icious and could appear on goodwin's projected teaser-for-the-real-cd) and another newie that sounded like the perfect set-closer with or without drums.

daniel 'n' matt's old muffinhead bandmate dave karnes is now playing drums in sunward, a band fronted by ex-tabula rasa violinist doug kershaw. listening to their set and their cd, ladies and gentlemen, start your horses -- which doesn't have dave on it but does have curious cartoon cover art by bassist david perry -- the proximate models, i suppose, are the flaming lips and grandaddy. the sound's a lot, well, proggier than anything i'd ever imagine dave karnes being associated with, and i had to wonder about 1) the raccoon eye makeup worn by the gtrist and keyboard player, and 2) the single white spotlight shining on doug kershaw, rendering the chordal instrument players shadowy and the riddim boyzzz invisible. i'm sure wreck room soundman jon teague wouldn't have done that if he hadn't been instructed to. curioser and curioser.

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