The We Are Local project is an experiment in collaborative ethnography about social media and social media practices. Unlike other blogs written by multiple authors, We Are Local’s contributors are documenting how social media impacts their day-to-day lives by documenting in as much detail as possible how they use or do not use social media in their social lives. There are no experts of social media at We Are Local. Our claim is simply this: the best way to make claims about the larger implications of social media and culture is to document and understand the relationship between the two on a micro-level and extrapolate from there.
Chicago has an incredible underground avant-garde jazz scene with an unbelievably incomplete online presence. The best, and often only, way to learn about a lot of the great shows going on around town is to hit up the magical Now Is Chicago Music Calendar. Even their listings, however, are incomplete and often just wrong. I went to see Chicago experimental rock staples Zelienople last night based on a Now Is listing and the band was scheduled to come on half an hour later than had been listed, with different supporting acts.
The way things turn out, a tuned-in Chicagoan usually ends up hearing about the best gigs and coolest venues by word of mouth. It was by word of mouth that I ended up seeing the David Boykin Expanse at the Hyde Park Quaker House last night. I mentioned I had found the Zelienople event on Now Is to my good friend Andy, and he suggested that if I was in Hyde Park anyway we should go to see David Boykin on 57th Street later in the night. Andy had heard about David Boykin but never seen him live.
When we got to the Quaker House we were greeted warmly by Iccha Devi Ra, a.k.a. The Reluctant Vegetarian (Facebook & Web). I had never even heard of her before, but she has been hosting concerts and invite-only dinner parties at the Quaker House and Backstory Cafe for the better part of the last year. She has an amazing presence and made me feel right at home in a very small crowd of strangers. The show was totally casual and friendly–when David Boykin announced some of his sillier song titles we all laughed together, and occasional shouts of “Oh My!” and “Oww!” accompanied the rocking solos.
The actual band was something else. Alex Wing on electric bass and guitar, Jayve Montgomery sat in the back messing with a projector that displayed warped video of the band on the ceiling, scratching on a turntable and beat boxing; two drummers, a pianist and a double bassist whose names I have already forgotten (sorry!) rounded out the ensemble while David Boykin stood up front shouting out time signatures and keys in between KILLING solos on the tenor sax and rapping. Everybody was great, and Boykin absolutely brought the house down with his playing and his rhymes.
David Boykin plays in several different ensembles, and all of his releases come out under the name “Sonic Healing Ministries.” SHM is a sort of spiritual project. Ensembles ranging in size from 3 to 10 meet and play over an hour of ambient soundscape using every instrument available. The inset of the recording I bought (SHM 001) lists floor, maple syrup tins, kitchen bowls, and bumble ball alongside bible harp and sousaphone. Here’s the mission statement:
SALVATION IS FREE… MUSIC
Everything in existence on the physical plane, all energy/matter, vibrates at a particular frequency that defines it.
Love is the force that harmonizes this myriad of frequencies and binds everything together into a functioning whole.
Creative music, spiritual jazz, avant garde jazz, experimental music, improvised music, etc., is a sonic representation of this love. It is a unified expression and celebration of each individuated experience of creation simultaneously. It is a reverberation of the macrocosmic sound.
Check out the videos below to feel the love! In the first see DB’s rap and hear some killer solos; in the second see the joy of the Sonic Healing Ministries (check out the little girl loving it around 24:00). If you see his name anywhere in Chicago, walk in and experience it for yourself!
[PNW POP] BOAT | Listen while drinking a tallboy of Rainier followed by a mug of french press
Three big releases from three of the more popular indie groups (Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors, and Animal Collective) have taken up a lot of space in |unintentionally| squeezing out some of the more catchy, chord driven, jump on your bed tunes that have seen releases in 2009. Seattle’s BOAT falls under that such category - their lyrics relate simple tales of hurling down Interstate 5, struggling to find coffee on We Want It! We Want It!, and generally dealing the rainy climate on God Save The Man, Who Isn’t All That Super. BOAT hint at Pavement influences with their slacker ‘tudes, yet a more appropriate comparison aligns them with the likes of The Unicorns. Indeed, BOAT’s (Do The) Magic Centipede comes off as a striking companion to I Was Born (A Unicorn), parenthesis included although, sadly, the drinks to help coax you into singing along are not.
