(updated on 10/20/11 for Chicago additions)
Longtime readers already know that I’ve got a sweet spot in my heart (er, ears) for Steve Kimock. That’s especially true when Steve — in one of his many and varied musical projects — links up with funky-ass bassman, Bobby Vega. I documented one of my favorite Kimock & Vega projects a while back with a podcast called KVHW ‘Down in the Wetlands’, touting some of my favorite cuts from KVHW (Kimock, Vega, Hurtz, and White) shows from the late 90s (which I highly recommend checking out if you’re at all interested in Kimock’s sound). Unfortunately, after that project disbanded around 2000-2001, catching Steve with Bobby on bass duties became a bit of a rarity…especially out here on the East Coast.
So you can imagine how stoked I was to hear the news that Steve will be reuniting with Bobby and a few other interesting friends for some shows this fall in Denver, Cali, Chicago and Brooklyn. Here are all the deets…
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Last week, I posted about Steve Kimock’s Wednesday-night NYC residency at Sullivan Hall, and as promised, I was able to hit the second show of the residency this week. Steve’s crew for week two featured Marco Benevento on keys and circuit-bending toys, Marc Friedman on bass, and Adam Deitch manning the drum kit, altogether a stunning mix of solid NYC talent for what amounted to be a killer show.
Overall, the tone of the show was loose and fun, with Steve pushing the boundaries of these “NY youngsters” and testing their improvisational chops. Songs were really just used as vehicles for the improvisation, and nearly every “song” they played took on that open-ended jamming approach, moving way beyond the structure of the tune. Of course, with musicians this skilled and adept at improv, that’s definitely where the real magic happens, and that seemed to be the main purpose of the night. Given the looseness of the songs they played, it was clear that these guys had barely rehearsed together and that approach was entirely on purpose; they wanted it to be totally fresh. READ MORE
This past weekend featured three of the best Phish shows I’ve ever been fortunate enough to witness, but there’s one event that got pretty overshadowed by all the madness on the Boardwalk. There were two after-parties booked at the Trump Plaza next door to the Boardwalk Hall where Phish was booked, the first being a Karl Denson after-show following the Friday night sets and the second being a Marco Bevenento & Friends after-show the morning following Phish’s “Get the Led Out” concert. Our crew made it to the Marco show, something we wouldn’t miss given the stellar lineup he had planned backing him up; it was none other than Marc Friedman from the Slip and Surprise Me Mr. Davis and local boy Billy Martin from MMW.
After the opener of “Greenpoint,” always my favorite, the band tore through a set of Marco originals and jazz-wank standards and played to a posh-ass nightclub in a Donald Trump themed hotel. Even my bottled water had Trump’s face on it — Trump Ice — and the show was a ridiculously good time by all standards I could ever apply. My buddy Mike Kochan got some amazing shots from the show, too. Read on for his full set…
