Wishful Thinking

At first this list was a post I wrote way back before I decided to stick with the original purpose of this thing. I’m only listing gigs because dance-wise my list would just read Rosas/Cynthia Loemij and Padmini Chettur.

Some gigs I would like to see, in no particular order (except for the first one)

Juliana Hatfield. A long shot, to say the least. I didn’t go to London when she toured there two years ago. I should have. She’s my favorite artist, and has been for a long time. Her music means a awful lot to me. I’m toying with the idea of going to Boston to see her. I would need to get some time off at the right time, which never happened so far, but that’s my idea of a dream vacation. Probably won’t happen, for a bunch of reasons.

King Kong Ding Dong. Now that’s a long shot. It probably won’t happen unless I cross the pond. They’re from Philadelphia and don’t seem to have ever toured very far. My best shot would be if they opened for another band, but would I even know about it? Heya is one of my favorite songs ever, one that made me order their EP the second time I heard it, that was before they had any kind of distro, and I still feel bad about how the price barely covered the shipping. I’ve been spreading the word since, to no avail.

Radio Eris. Another Philadelphia band, one I did get to see but in pretty bad conditions. Like a last minute venue change to a small bar basement and many technical problems. I liked it anyway, thanks in a large part to their charismatic vocalist, and would like to get a better opportunity. Then again, they have a place called Eris Temple back home, one more reason to plan a side trip to Philadelphia if I ever get to go back to Boston.

Blue Shift. I was expecting to hear her but she broke her bow and had to cancel. She might come back next spring, I sure hope I hear about it and get to hear her.

Fieldwork. Tyshawn Sorey and Vijay Iyer. That would be enough to get me interested — I don’t know anything about Steve Lehman: no dis, just ignorance. But I heard a few tracks on The Long Rally and now I’m extremely interested.

Jen Shyu. Of course I’d be game for a Steve Coleman gig anytime, with or without five elements. But I love her voice and would very much like to hear her in a different setting, hopefully one where she’d have more of a leading role.

DJ ALF. Another long shot, one with a WFMU connection. The good news if that any show featuring him would probably feature a bunch of other interesting people. The bad news is that his coming over here is the longest shot of this list.

Laura Cantrell. Of course I first knew her as a WFMU DJ, but she turned out to be a talented musician as well. At least I love her work. That’s an unlikely one, as there’s not much of a market in France for country music. Yeah, I do like country. Some of it at least, and that’s because her show dispelled my previous misconceptions. There’s a ton of archived shows here, and she has a every-other-week web-only show on the schedule.

People like us. Another WFMU DJ, but her career as a recording artist is much longer. There’s a ton of her stuff for free download on her site, go check it out. I kinda hoped she would be playing at Sonic Protest, but it didn’t happen. I hope she comes to Paris some day, and I hope I’ll know about it in time to go see her.

Jonathan Kane. A household name in some circles, I was very late in finding out about him. I’d very much like to fill that now glaring hole in my gig going.

Circle. I missed them once, and have been kicking myself ever since. I never got another opportunity, and that sucks. I don’t know them that well, just from the radio. But I’ve found myself checking the playlist quite often to find out they were responsible. And kicking myself again.

Paris. Even if he tours around here, I will probably not hear about it. I guess I need to get new connections in different places. He’s been consistently good for a while now, so that could be a great gig. OK, I first heard about him through PE, who would probably be my first choice, but the places they play in are just too big. But Paris would not be settling for less to me.

Tim Berne. To be truthful, maybe I should say Tom Rainey. He’s my favorite drummer these days. Tim Berne was on my original list but when I got to hear him but Rainey was the one who blew my mind.

Afrirampo. I miss them a lot, it’s been so long. I still haven’t ordered their latest records in the hope they would tour around here — their distro sticking to Japanese was a factor as well. Oni and Pika, please come back!

Oneida. It’s been a very long time since they last came to Paris. Either that or I was out of the loop again. Anyway I really like the relentlesness of their drummer, and they really seem to be nice people, which doesn’t hurt.

Holly Golightly. I saw her once, and not in the best setting. I really love her voice, and that signature sound of hers. At first it seems it’s just a throwback act, but on closer inspection it’s not that at all. I think she reaches a kind of timelessness by being in several eras at the same time.