2013 concerts wish list

Posted on by
Reply

A year ago I made some kind of wish list of artists I was hoping to see play live in 2012. Unsurprisingly, my hit rate was very low, with only two of my 12 wishes (Peter Hammill and Tindersticks) being fulfilled. I can’t really complain, though, since I did see a slew of great shows this year (see Concerts of 2012).

Ever the optimist, here are 15 artists I would like to see in 2013. Once again, these are all artists who tour on a regular basis and whom I have not seen for a good long time (in a few cases, never). Most of them are repeated from the previous list, and there are some new names as well. Dead Can Dance have dropped off the list because, even though I didn’t see them this year, they are coming to Vienna in 2013.

1. Okkervil River

2. Gillian Welch

3. Kathleen Edwards

4. The Hold Steady

5. Home Service

6. The Dirty Three

7. Einstürzende Neubauten seen, 27 June 2015

8. Spiritualized

9. Cowboy Junkies

10. Richard Youngs seen, 12 February 2017

11. Lucinda Williams

12. Van der Graaf Generator seen, 16 June 2013

13. Richard Thompson

14. Six Organs of Admittance

15. Low seen, 15 February 2019

Concerts of 2012

Posted on by
6

Here’s some kind of list of the most memorable concerts I attended this year. (By the way, you won’t find a list of albums of the year here. I hardly ever listen to recorded music any more; increasingly, music to me means live music.)

It’s been an excellent year for my kind of music in Vienna, and shows by The Walkabouts, Tindersticks, Shearwater, The Cherry Thing and Bruce Springsteen might all have made the top ten on a different day. I was also gutted to miss, for one reason or another (work, illness, domestic commitments) many shows which I was looking forward to, including those by Brötzmann/Lonberg-Holm/Nilssen-Love, Death in June, Broken Heart Collector, Bulbul/Tumido, The Thing, Kern & Quehenberger, Sonore, Nadja, Josephine Foster, Double Tandem, Kurzmann/Zerang/Gustafsson, Glen Hansard and A Silver Mt Zion, not to mention the entire Konfrontationen festival.

A few of the concerts listed here have links to the reviews I wrote at the time, but most of them do not. This is partly because I haven’t had time to write those reviews, but mostly because it’s getting harder and harder to keep this blog going, to the point where I’m considering giving it up altogether. Very few people read these pages, and of those who do, only a few bother to leave comments. Those people, and they know who they are, have my eternal gratitude; but it’s rather disheartening not to be making more of an impression on the wider world.

In chronological order, then:

1. Philip Glass: Einstein on the Beach, Barbican Centre, London
2. Codeine, Szene Wien, Vienna
3. Peter Brötzmann’s Full Blast, Chelsea, Vienna
4. Anthony Braxton, Jazzatelier, Ulrichsberg
5. Peter Hammill, Porgy & Bess, Vienna
6. The Thing, Blue Tomato, Vienna
7. Marilyn Crispell/Eddie Prévost/Harrison Smith, Blue Tomato, Vienna
8. Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, Martinschlössl, Vienna
9. Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Arena, Vienna
10. Swans, Arena, Vienna

Marilyn Crispell/Harrison Smith/Eddie Prévost, Vienna Blue Tomato, 4 November 2012

Posted on by
Reply

The Blue Tomato in Vienna is thirty years old this year, an anniversary well worth celebrating. Ken Vandermark has described it as one of the best jazz clubs in the world, and who am I to disagree, especially given the number of incredible gigs I’ve seen there over the years. Going there with Jandek to see The Thing was an especially memorable occasion, but there have been many others. My first visit to the Tomato was for the legendary (and now, it seems, defunct) duo of Peter Brötzmann and Han Bennink in 2007, and most of my evenings there since have included one or more of Brötzmann, Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson and Paal Nilssen-Love in some combination or other. Here was something very different, though: to mark the 30th birthday celebrations, and also the tenth anniversary of the Soundgrube piano festival, a trio featuring pianist Marilyn Crispell in collaboration with AMM percussionist Eddie Prévost and British saxophonist Harrison Smith.

Continue reading →

Ultravox, Vienna Gasometer, 30 October 2012

Posted on by
3

There were not too many people dropping the name of Ultravox in 1979, but Gary Numan was certainly one of them, and that’s how I first became aware of the group at the age of 12. Always refreshingly candid about his influences, Numan readily acknowledged the debt the two Tubeway Army albums owed to John Foxx’s terminally unfashionable synth-punk unit. Since I was both a fanatical Numan fan and a fervent Smash Hits reader, Ultravox didn’t escape my notice for long, even though they were actually dormant at the time.

Continue reading →

Radian, Vienna Gartenbaukino, 27 September 2012; Bulbul, Vienna Rhiz, 27 September 2012

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been a while since I managed to catch two concerts in one evening (festivals don’t count, obviously), so I was very pleased to be able to see Radian at the Gartenbaukino and then Bulbul at the Rhiz a couple of hours later. The double-header was a breeze to pull off, in fact, thanks not only to the perpetually late start time at the Rhiz but also to the fortuitous route of the number 2 tram, which runs directly from one venue to the other.

Continue reading →

Anthony Braxton Falling River Music Quartet, Ulrichsberg Jazzatelier, 11 October 2012

Posted on by
Reply

Anthony Braxton has proven to be a rather elusive character for me to pin down, physically as well as musically. He hasn’t played in Vienna since the first time I saw him, at Porgy & Bess in 2007, when I was admittedly not too familiar with his music. There have been occasional European concerts since then, but until last week I had only caught one of them, a 2008 show in Krakow which necessitated a 600-mile round trip. Braxton’s recent gig in the small Upper Austrian town of Ulrichsberg, near the border with the Czech Republic, wasn’t quite as arduous to get to, but reaching it had its own challenges, principally concerning when and when not to get off buses.

Continue reading →

Peter Evans/Agusti Fernandez/Mats Gustafsson, Vienna Porgy & Bess, 16 September 2012

Posted on by
Reply

Four days after my last visit to Porgy & Bess for the second evening of the Franz Hautzinger residency, I was back there again – and so, funnily enough, was Mats Gustafsson, this time in a trio with Peter Evans on trumpet and Agusti Fernandez on piano. I’ve never been a huge fan of the trumpet, and having been underwhelmed by the rather queasy sound of Hautzinger I was quite prepared not to like Evans either. But the man was a revelation. Standing shoulder to shoulder, the trumpeter and saxophonist united in a jaw-dropping tour de force of fierce blowing and jumpy, agitated motifs.

Continue reading →

Portrait Franz Hautzinger: What’s This Jazz Today?, Vienna Porgy & Bess, 12 September 2012

Posted on by
Reply

Here was a quintessentially Viennese event: a three-night residency at the city’s premier jazz club, dedicated to the formidable improvising trumpeter and card-carrying member of the Reductionist school, Franz Hautzinger. The list of people joining Hautzinger for these gigs read like a who’s who of the Vienna free jazz/avant/improv nexus: Siewert, Gustafsson, Stangl, dieb13, Brandlmayr, Quehenberger (what, no Didi Kern?). Although I was previously unfamiliar with Hautzinger’s work, the presence of the aforementioned Siewert and Gustafsson was more than enough to tempt me out for the second of the three evenings, quixotically billed as What’s This Jazz Today?

Continue reading →

Larsen with “Little” Annie, Vienna Rhiz, 10 September 2012

Posted on by
2

I was very much looking forward to seeing Italian post-rock outfit Larsen in the intimate confines of the Rhiz. Their 2005 album Play was a work of considerable imaginative power, while I had very much enjoyed their set at the 2007 Donaufestival weekend curated by David Tibet. So there was every reason to expect another evening of engrossing instrumental music. Unfortunately, however, the group had brought along their occasional collaborator “Little” Annie Anxiety as guest vocalist. Larsen themselves were superb, especially in the way their multilayered compositions began with the merest hint of anticipation and gradually developed into brilliant, controlled explosions of noise. Sadly, though, I found “Little” Annie’s vocal contributions to be dullsville and her stage presence irritatingly shambolic.

Letter to The Wire, May 2012

Posted on by
Reply

As a resident of Vienna and regular visitor to the Donaufestival, I’d like to comment on Jennifer Lucy Allan’s piece (The Wire 338). Jennifer is spot on regarding the various “madcap art projects” in which the festival specializes, but sadly its music programming has become increasingly uninspired in recent years. Since the high water mark of 2007, which saw an unparalleled gathering of key figures from the industrial underground (Current 93, Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle and many more), each subsequent year’s line-up has led to feelings of bafflement and even stronger ones of déjà vu. Fans of Cocorosie, Antony, Laurie Anderson and Rhys Chatham will no doubt enjoy this year’s performances by those artists just as much as they did when the same people appeared two or three years ago, while fans of Ben Frost will be wondering why he is absent in 2012 having appeared both last year and the year before. I wouldn’t dispute the Donaufestival’s status as a prime showcase for oddball performance art, but when this year’s headlining acts include names like Hercules & Love Affair and Pantha du Prince (who?), it’s clear that director Tomas Zierhofer-Kin’s contacts book is looking rather thin.