It was the first Saturday of the month again last night, and so I made my way over to the Bus Palladium to check out Nicolas Ullmann’s Kararocké. There are open mics that happen once a month that I forget about because they are only once a month; the Kararocké is one that I never forget about, but rather wait for impatiently. Last night again brought its fun and surprises, and personal thoughts about the crossing of paths through life….
Three years ago at Earle Holmes’s open mic at the Truskel I saw a fabulous group called Gush, and I had a great, wide-ranging conversation with one or two of the musicians about pop and rock music over the generations. These guys, like a few other groups in recent years – Natas Loves You, Fleet Foxes – make use of vocal harmonies and have revived that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sound – among other ’60s groups.
Gush has gone on to have a pretty good career, playing some very interesting and big venues, and they just returned from Japan. So anyway, after half the band appeared on stage last night at the Bus Palladium, I went up to the singer – who had just done a very convincing Stones song – and he immediately recognize me – although he could not remember precisely where or when we had met.
That was cool, but it was not the only such meeting last night, or crossing of paths. There was also, for instance, another of the performers, Sigalit Rossignol, whom I first saw last year sometime at the Anthracite open mic – where singers also sing with backing by a house band – and who I have seen performer nowhere else.
And then there was the star of the previous Kararocké, the riotous man from the Philippines, who calls himself Bong Jovi, and who really milks the crowd – after what appears to have been years’ worth of playing in karaokes around the world.
At least one of the Burnin’ Jacks was there, and a few other familiar faces. So what all of this means, and got me to thinking, was just how the musical world sometimes criss-crosses, blends in, faces resurface, careers grow, fade, and there is a kind of web that develops, and we all gravitate eventually to the same musical poles.
Now, what does all that mean? Fuck all! (But I wanted to see if I could find some kind of theme to write about another Kararocké…. Shaggy dog story? Maybe….)