picture shows Fast 'N' Bulbous (photo: Lars Klove)

 

Two consecutive nites down at The Knitting Factory. Two returns to musical alternatives that are still growing out of the late 1960s and early '70s Californian scene. For the first, we find the Ya Ho Wha 13, not a combo that's been much unearthed since the time, at least amongst my own flock. Now, they're back together again, or at least some small percentage of the original Source Foundation commune are reunited. A threesome, in fact, although it seems that these may well be the original trio that essentially made up the band. All reality-facets are mystically obscured. The original Source leader was Father Yod, who transcended up to a different plane back in 1975, but the players now onstage just might be Djin Aquarian (guitar), Sunflower Aquarian (bass) and Octavious Aquarian (drums). The collective made nine albums, and always used to record their improvisations in the early morn hours, following meditation sessions. If we disregard their spiritual sectness, the evidence of tonite's music alone suggests a direct powercore rock approach, after Hendrix, but largely concentrating on the instrumental angle. The Ya Ho Wha sound isn't stalled in the psychedelic era, but has a sonic repertory that suggests a strong maintenance of their record collections down the decades. The being who's presumably Sunflower Aquarian is responsible for much of the sheer muscle in their sound. His bass playing's extremely physical, driving home a headbanging riff-jaggedness, and he manages to retain that magical sound on the instrument that didn't seem to survive past the 1970s: a chunky, percussive, pure-low rumble. The being known as Djin streams out guitar solos on his amplified acoustic, but there's a slight yearning for a fully electrified axe to be deployed here, although he does gain the advantage of added string sensitivity. Their music is not quite blues-based, but it's not particularly jazzy either, and not often overtly psychedelic. Ultimately, they build a style that's many things, yet not entirely anything fixed. There's one part of the set where they start chanting the band's name, reminding the audience that this is a band with a mission. Ya Ho Wha invited everyone to their meditation session the following day, but it's not clear how many of us beery noiseniks attended, in the end.

This event used two floors, to ensure a swift flow of its supporting cast, a motley representation of Stateside rock improv, post-hippy collectives. Also on the main stage, Harlem's No-Neck Blues Band don't exactly essay many twelve-bar structures. There's no downhome content in sight. The pair that seem to be their 'leaders' are actually the least overtly talented, with most of the musical interest stemming from the background others, on various permutations of bass, keyboards and percussion. They operate a ritual invocation where the worst elements are its flat-shriek vocals and half-assed percussion, its best qualities being in a general ebbing and flowing of riffs, pulses and melodic snatches. Then, down to the Tap Room: unfortunately, singer-guitarist Tom Greenwood (one of the Jackie-O Motherfucker founders) has ditched his improvisatory tendencies for this gig, revealing his folksy troubadour side. It's adequate, but the songs lack individuality, and his voice is a dull drone. Also, downstairs, opening the evening, Brooklyn's Spectre Folk sound better in the recorded realm, where guitars spangle into infinity, and the tracks extend into a similar distance. Somehow, this trio sound more commonplace in the flesh.

A day later, it's Captain Beefheart's party and, oh dear, he hasn't arrived. And he's normally such a sociable fellow. Everyone assumes that he's still living out in the Mojave Desert, like trailer trash, of the deeply spiritual kind. This evening of homage is (very well) organised by guitarist Gary Lucas, who was a member of Beefheart's final Magic Band line-up, back in the late 1970s and very early '80s, before its leader retired into a life of painting and relative media solitude. Lucas has done much to uphold the spirit of Don Van Vliet, both on an abstract level, and literally by continuing to perform his songs. He's doing so now, by fronting Fast 'N' Bulbous, one of the most complex manifestations of the tribute band concept that we'll surely ever witness. It's like Lucas is the soloist, and he's in dialogue with a horn section that handles most of the riffing parts, turning the Cap'n's compositions into jazz convolutions, sans vocals. Who could possibly handle the vocals anyway? Well, actually, John French handles the words rather authentically when fronting the revived Magic Band. Fast'n'Bulbous open the evening with a short'n'stomping set, just to warm folks up, then a continuous slide show of Beefheart's paintings begins its parade, as the evening's readers and speakers start to seek the stage. Lucas has pulled together an impressive crew to read out Van Vliet's songs and poems, or maybe just proffer anecdotes or appraisals. Here's Lee Ranaldo, from Sonic Youth, there's Alan Vega, half of Suicide, but you have to be a card-carrying American (or even New Yorker) to grasp the significance of the writer and promoter types who turn out to be mostly very expressive orators. Obviously, they have a head start with Beefheart's scalpel pen-strokes succinctly evoking life's absolute essence. By the end, the quality dips, and so does our attention, which was strikingly strong for most of the duration. Surely, the Knitting Factory has never been this hushed. But the strangest moment is stored for the end, as a message from David Lynch is beamed in, as if he's our benign spiritual leader. Well, he is, of course. And who's surprised that he's a Beefheart follower?

The summit is fully scaled when Fast'n'Bulbous re-take the stage for a longer set. There are even fewer Beefheart tributary bands than there are Frank Zappa reproducers. This bunch don't hesitate to drown themselves in full Magic Band complexity, following the wavy path of Suction Prints, in all its riff-switch, huff-juddering majesty. They also head back to the earliest, bluesiest days, trawling through the contents of the Safe As Milk and Spotlight Kid albums, and of course, Trout Mask Replica. Lucas enjoys much string-spillage soloing, but the horn guys also get to erupt at length, particularly during the second set. Their emissions are more in the jazz tradition than the reed-rages of Van Vliet, but they're still pretty free in their guttural gruffness.

Even after these two substantial nights, The Knitting Factory continued to revel in a particularly vibrant run of tilted rock'n'roll dates. Straight outta Nottingham (but now residing in Portland, Oregon), singer/guitarist (and sometime drum pummeller) Scout Niblett prefers to perform in near-darkness, like some vampiric recluse, not accustomed to stage-life. She seems uncertain, until striking up the next song. Raging raw emotion shouts out of her gullet, whilst sludge-chords resound from her low-hung axe, following the Nirvana (and thence PJ Harvey) school of quiet-then-loud, loud-then-quiet, but nevertheless imposing her own unpredictabilities on this dynamic. So fragile, and softly-spoken, in her little dress, but then she bellows with fraught confrontationalism, her words stripped down to pointed essentials. So young, yet so gnarled up inside, already.

Older, but still gnarled inside too, is Gordon Gano, of Violent Femmes fame. He's like a twisted version of Country Joe McDonald, and indeed, his teaming with The Ryan Brothers tends to heighten the hillbilly/gospel aspects that were always close to the surface throughout his career. He's burning with energy, pointed with wit, and that ultra-distinctive vocal whine/drawl is satisfactorily in place. The next night, rockabilly veteran Wanda Jackson combines old-fashioned showbiz personableness with a gut-twangin' rock'n'roll authenticity, significantly powered by her excellent band, The Lustre Kings. She's been recording and performing for nigh on fifty years, but it doesn't show. By that, I mean that she still channels the fire of youth, not that she hasn't yet learnt her craft..!

Pittsburgh's Don Caballero fall into the 'crucially influential' category, rather than having any massive commercial success. Their language is a largely instrumental mathematical rock, distantly related to the strafed anti-chords of Robert Fripp and any guitarist who's ever worked in Beefheart's Magic Band. We can spend much of their set marvelling at how densely interwoven, how intricately piled-up are their string-dynamics, even though only two axeman are clearly visible (at their feet presumably lie an undergrowth of instant sampling pedals). It's cerebrally requiring of effort, but so flowingly delivered that an involved manifestation of headbanging is quite acceptable as the audience can be both immersed in the music and thoughtlessly twitching with a natural duality. The drums underline all of the above, with Damon Che adopting an equally mixed attitude of goofy camaraderie and aloof irony.