by Brian Weidy
In my first ever visit to The Stone in Manhattan's East Village, I found myself lost; literally—I could not find the venue. Sure enough, though, on the corner of 2nd and Avenue C, a nondescript door was plainly marked with the lowercase lettering of "the stone." When they eventually let us in, we were treated to the venue's sparse decor: no more than 75 or so folding chairs and the band's instrument setup. For tonight's show, Yuka Honda brought together a collection of fantastic musicians to play a 45-minute set of mostly improvised music.
Before the show, I had asked the drummer, Miles Arntzen of EMEFE, Superhuman Happiness and Antibalas, what to expect from tonight, and his reply fit the tone perfectly: "To be honest I have no clue!! Something cool though." Once the band had begun to play, after some small technical glitches at the beginning, they slowly cooked up a foot-stomping rhythm. The keyboards and other electronics from Honda and Jared Samuel (also of Superhuman Happiness), as well as the snaking baselines from Sean Lennon, laid a nice foundation for Stuart Bogie's saxophone wails. About 15 minutes into this improvisation, the band hit a collective peak as they amplified in volume, with Arntzen's pounding bass drum and powerful hi-hat hits complimenting Bogie's horn stabs and Honda's specially made Yamaha kaossilator-esque device.
About a half hour into the set, Samuel began to clap in rhythm with the song. Lennon then set down his bass and began to clap at a different rhythm, followed by Honda, Arntzen and, finally, Stuart Bogie joined in after setting down his sax. They cummulatively created a surreal environment wherein all five people were clapping at different times, creating a Cyro Baptista-type of sound. After clapping for a few minutes, one by one they began to snap. Finally, they picked up their instruments and Eden Rice came out to sing a song to cap off this whirlwind evening.
When I spoke to Stuart Bogie after the show, he perfectly described the evening as the "soft rock of experimental music." The intimate atmosphere of The Stone—coupled with the experimental, yet controlled music coming from the stage—created the perfect environment, and made me yearn to come back to John Zorn's playground very soon.