This past weekend the group Slumgum came to Seattle as part of their album release tour. Slumgum is a quartet that plays a blend of free and composed elements that give them a really individual sound, sometimes delicate and other times in your face, sometimes long waves of sounds and other times precise rhythms, sometimes loose improvisations and other times intricate composed melodies. The result is a style that is a lot of things all at once, and a really creative band that works as a team to bring a creative experience to the listener without losing interest or energy. They’re awesome.
My old roommate and friend Jon Armstrong, who graciously offered up his residence to all of us in Hardcoretet when we played with Slumgum in L.A. a while back, is the saxophonist in Slumgum, and it was wonderful to get the chance to catch up with him as well as talk to Trevor, Dave, and Rory a little bit about the band. As it always happens with these kinds of conversations, I end up going Chris Farley on myself (“stupid, STUPID!”) 5 minutes after or the next day thinking of what I should have said or asked and wondering why the heck I said whatever it was I said. And, of course, there was so much more I wanted to cover, but I guess I also didn’t want to corner them in an hour-long music conversation; another time, I suppose.
That’s it for now. I’m planning on changing up the blogging a bit here. Past posts have been fairly long, which has set up kind of a self-imposed pressure to only write if I can write extensively, and those longer posts can often be intimidating reading as well. I’m hoping that with shorter entries from here on out, I can write more often and with more variety, and you will enjoy the site a little more too.
Stay tuned!
Art