Fri 3/13/98
Knitting Factory
Vernon Reid, Elliott Sharp, David Torn

Review thanks to Andre Cholmondeley

what a show! 3 of me very fave iconoclast string wranglers in a nice, small room with impeccable sound...

they did 2 pieces, one about 55mins, the other under 10 mins. Hope it all comes out someday - the first piece was a journey thru a lot of textures and moods... - amazing how in the genre, sideby side - individuality shines thru -

elliott # tended to stay rhythmic, setting up loops of his tapped neck, kinda stickish at times, occas. he would slide in a pedal steel note cascade..... torn made those mystery loops, sometimes they wouldn't hit ya for a while!!, and that distorto - tone! nothin like it (he's a shredder in torn clothing)- he also caused some cool random feedback to exist, with tha cool little mic-to-amp trick....vernon started out with a little, clean bluesy line, in general he jumped all around, from soundgarden VG8 ostinato crunch chords to a beautiful, bluesy interlude, while DT painted a cloud... VR also kicked in a tiny amount of triggered synth - or guitar/vg8 that sounded synthlike, whatever.. DT kicked the oud out at one point - whew!!!
what an exquisite instro!! the fretless wonder of it all...... musically, a quick journey to the desert ensued, with vernon goofing behind his back, until DT caught on and joined in the laughter...!! Elliott seemed a bit serious thru it all ( maybe that's his expression, he's actually very funny) while DT and VR especially, cracked up and had a grand ol' time....

what i like the most was that nothing got old - they really listened to each other - ideas were supportive and would change just at the right time... and everyone was 'featured' with out it being a selfconscious MY TURN!MY TURN!! kinda thingie...

left to right we had DT, VR, E#. DT with his beautious Klein and infamous rack (mostly a large mixer) plus of course the echoplex, vortex and i forget what else...and unique pedalboard - incl. all kindsa little goodies, delays, autowah, TC flange(?) and rivera amp, mebbe a fender too, not sure. etc Vernon used & abused one o' his many Hamer axes - w/built in roland GK-2A pickup, he had a VG-8 and a roland multiFX (the real cool one with the screen and the exp-pedal)-plus some kinda sequence driving ensoniq - the ASR-X (??) E# had his cool custom many stringed guitar-bass, a mac laptop which provided some sickness d & b grooves - he played thru a fender amp, plus a few delay pedals, boomerang, etc. also on his watch was a nice pedal steel.....

so there ya have it - wish ya coulda been there.....can't wait for april 18 - DT returns with the mighty B.L.U.E. - Bruford Levin Upper Extremities.... 2 shows!!! be there, i will! i will! (check www.papabear.com for info on
this new CD)
did anyone tape the audio off the net???

andre' of the east

** check out the new site for the zappa tribute band i play guitar in..
PROJECT/OBJECT
it is http://www.jswd.net/projectobject