Shows I saw March 2024

Drum Blast at Healing Force Records

Ok, this was Feb 17, but it was so rad I wanted to document it. This was three drummers:

• Louis Cole
• Justin Brown
• Roni Kaspi

Basically just doing a jam session. It was super fun to watch these folks trade beats back and forth. (I didn’t take any pics, will get better about this!)

Kontravoid at Lodge Room

Buzz Kull opened and he was fun to watch. Angry screaming dude over some beats with a lot of glitchy visuals projected behind him. Boring description, but it worked for me at the time!

Kontravoid was better than I expected. I was always 50/50 on him, but he put on a good show and I really enjoyed it. So I am now 70/30 on Kontravoid. Highlight was the backing video of him riding a jetski with the mask on (heavily processed of course). Very fun!

Failed to see Javier Santiago at Stowaway

We tried to see this, but the street that the Stowaway was shutdown because the cops were protecting some fancy dinner event that benefited the IDF. Bullshit! After having cops tell me to lie to other cops to get access to the road, we gave up.

Jermaine Paul Quintet

Luckily, Javier was playing with this quintet, so we didn’t miss him fully. This was a show at a space in Sherman Oaks. I forgot who drummed, but I remember really enjoying his work.

Ben Frost at Lodge Room

Totally floored by this show. I didn’t know what to expect. I’m more familar with his ambientish work. For this show, he was working with a guitar player. It seemed like the guitars could trigger percussion samples and Ben Frost was creating the sounds beneath the guitar/percussion combo. It was great! It was loud! It was awesome!

Mononeon at Lodge Room

Mononeon was super fun. His new songs are good, he had a lot of folks up on stage. At one point, there was like 4-6 backup singers.

Minaret Show @ Left Method

Opened with Luke Titus on drums and Elijah Fox on keys. Luke Titus is definitely in my top 5 list of drummers. I love his style and he can play really fast. I sometimes feel like I’m listening to drum and bass, but then I open my eyes and it’s a HUMAN BEING hitting the drums.

It closed with Henry Solomon, chiquitamagic, Billy Voltage doing a set with synths and saxophone. It worked out pretty well! There were some really cool moments during their set.

Been really enjoying the shows Minaret Records puts on. They are often at venues I’d otherwise never make it to. It feels like a scavenger hunt through a new city to me.

Tsutomu Nakai @ Zinc

Part of a series called ‘Guitar Masters’, which isn’t normally my thing, but I had a lot of fun at this show. Zinc Bar in NYC is a cool space. The drummer was really good. I enjoyed his solos quite a bit!

Hiromi’s Sonicwonder @ Blue Note

We made it to the famous Blue Note in NYC to see Hiromi Sonicwonder do their thing. Hiromi was great on keys. I really enjoyed the drummer, I liked that he gave space to be quiet during his solo.

Webb All Stars @ Baked Potato

I went to this to see Danny Carey hit the drums. I was not disappointed. It was great to see him drum in such a small space. You could see him listening the the music and see how focused he was on what he was doing. It was great. The Baked Potato is a really cool venue, looking forward to going back!