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new monsoon | 08.08.03 | San Francisco, CA
Pardon the cheap headline but when a meteorological metaphor fits then it must be predicted. San Francisco's new monsoon is a gathering cumulus just breaking over the dawn sky. The colorful polyglot stuffed into the Boom Boom Room were lucky enough to hear their happy thunderclap as Friday turned to Saturday and time lost it's steely grip in the slippery, percolated notes that fell during a few lucky hours.
By Larry Fox |
new monsoon is comprised of Rajiv Parikh (tabla, percussion, backing vocals), Marty Ylitalo (drums, didgeridoo), Brian Carey (congas, timbales, percussion), Heath Carlisle (lead vocals, bass, guitar), Bo Carper (acoustic guitar, banjo, dobro), Phil Ferlino (piano, organ, guitar, backing vocals) and Jeff Miller (electric guitar, backing vocals). Together they make a sound that's equal parts summer breeze '70s radio fare, genre hopping exoticism, spacey bluegrass and high voltage electric jazz. It's Ravi Shankar improvising with Dickey Betts on "Blue Sky" in a return to forever. Like their liner notes, I listed the trio of percussionists first. Whatever else is happening, there's always a density. That's their bent-u of drummers drumming, a crooked line in the sand that stands strong, clear, even proud behind the rest of the band. Carey, Parikh and Ylitalo form a musical cornstarch, thickening the flavors, unifying the ingredients into something savory. They are what keep the wandering imagination of the songwriters from feeling aimless. They are the cornerstones of this building made of sound and blood and bone and steel and wood.
This gig is being billed as a Post-Panic affair, and to capitalize on the surging musico crowd in SF for a weekend of Widespread joys at the Warfield they won't go on until midnight. While it's lovely to journey late into the good night, they needn't have bothered. The small club on Fillmore Street is shoehorn tight long before Mr. Bell and the boys have left their own stage across town. In addition to the dreadlocks and Cosmo Girls one finds at most Bay Area shows, there's a smattering of Zima chugging dancefloor guerillas and inquisitive locals drawn in by a faint fragrance drifting on the wind. It smells like something is happening and being part of something is something indeed.
By Larry Fox |
Three songs in, I get to talking with a gawky blonde lad with a Georgia drawl. Like myself, this is his first time seeing the group live. He lives around the corner and just had a feeling that he should come in tonight. No preconceptions, no conditions, nothing to keep the music at bay. I tell him he has a Zen beginner's mind and that I'm jealous of that. This elicits a blank stare followed by an earthy laugh. Even if he doesn't know how lucky he is to greet music with that kind of freshness I can still appreciate the glow coming off him as the band surges with an undeniably physicality. From the first note struck, they claim the room. There's an uncluttered urgency to their playing, a need to express this thing inside them. They're a transitive mongoose gone Rikki-Tikki-Tave on the dark things, a purposeful positivity taking shape before one's eyes. It's mammalian, alive with the smell of muscle and fur, a life force that must be reckoned with.
The sizeable crowd stays captive of this strange power until the 4 am bells are ringing. And not just a standing audience either. Dripping sweat, winded enough to give up our chattering but still spinning, shuffling and bobbing gently into the hours just before morning. Touring the country has tempered them. They understand what is required to motivate people and offer it up by the fistful. Being human their collective energy dips around 3 am and the improvisation takes on an amorphous quality. Then, as they meander a bit, a wave of love crashes on the lip of the stage and they brightened visibly. Each round of applause, each guttural bellow gives them a push. It ain't easy playing nearly four hours and I'm inclined to offer some slack if their tail is wagging less vigorously by the end. Everyone who's stayed until the house lights rise knows they've participated in a neat ritual.
Aided throughout the evening by fine futuristic wind player Cecil "P-Nut" Daniels, the covers are especially sassy. War's "Cisco Kid" is re-imagined as a Peter Tosh-esque vehicle with heavy propulsion from the drummers leaving a smoke trail in your mind. Later, a very different take on Traffic's epic "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" proves just the thing to punch our tickets for the last few miles. new monsoon hears a positive thread that had never occurred to me before. Guess I'm just too used to Winwood's world-weary vocals and somnambulant grand piano. Their version is coaxed from upright ivories. The florid bravado makes me think of the Crusaders fab mid-seventies records and the arrangement is akin to hearing Sylvester's version of Neil's "Southern Man." One scratches their head the first time and can only take it in without making too many judgments. It's different for sure but beyond that I'd want to hear it a few more times before venturing more.
What else to say about this first encounter with new monsoon? I could tell you that Heath and Jeff make wonderfully goofy 'rock faces' that rival even RANA. Or I could mention how they can leap from a flamenco-inflected instrumental to a hard blue rock reminiscent of Derek and the Dominoes without stumbling. I might mention that keyboard player Phil Ferlino reminds me of Chucho Valdes, still my call for the greatest living pianist. Still, I could tell you how Jeff Miller possesses all the characteristics of a guitar hero the kids will crow about or that his playing has a spiritual oomph that's expansive and not a little hypnotic. Maybe I should mention their warm harmonies or how Heath Carlisle sings like a wizard and a true star. Oh it's hard to know just what to say to get a point across.
Before he leaves, my new pal with the southern accent stops to say, "They’re gonna make it. Oh yeah, these guys are gonna make it." He makes it sound like a statement of fact more than starry-eyed praise. I'll throw in my own prediction that in a few years time there'll be some new San Francisco treat playing a Post-Monsoon show while the winds blow and the precipitation falls at the big hall Bill Graham built across the street. It's new monsoon season and we can leave our umbrellas at home.
Dennis Cook
JamBase | East Bay
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