Thursday, September 17, 2015

Vandengroef




Vandengroef flew back to Cat's Art MusikCircus and that was after two months down with a whacked wing.   It's not bad enough the Van is hurt but the guitar is sitting in the rack just begging for a little love.  Only Van can hear her but Van hears her loud and clear. For two months nothing can be done ... until tonight.


Vandengroef gets right away into refractive groovulosity and at first that was just a whimsical expression for music to cool to describe but it might even have actual meaning.  Groovulosity isn't really a word anyway so we can make it mean anything we want and what we want is 'the mellifluosity of the groove.'  Refraction only means waves like sound or light bounce when they go through something and they move in a different direction as a result.

Therefore refractive groovulosity is when Van finds the groove and it enters the prestidigitational process within Van's mind of many paths and mirrors. The new groovulosity is then refracted in multiple different directions by those many paths and mirrors and thus it travels n-dimensions of the physical and metaphysical realms to reach us.

See, you thought it didn't mean anything.


There were a few bumps and it's pointless to say cables are evil. There are three primary purposes to all music cables:

- Trip you
- Electrocute you
- Cause ground loops to ruin your hippie sound

Any purpose other than those three which a cable may serve is purely secondary.

So it was exceptionally cool see / hear Van back on the Circus stage, wing all fixed, and playing that refractive groovulosity.


Vandengroef said he is getting the feel for the Circus and you can feel that in his music.   There were two shows to start out that got his equipment all set and ever since he gets more and more comfortable with playing there and getting it that it really is just right to play whatever you like at the Circus.  He doesn't have to say he feels better as you can tell it through the music.

Vandengroef doesn't come out to dazzle you as his thinking is similar to mine in that I will take a musical journey and I hope you will want to come along.  I'm not going to compare our music and the reason I mention myself at all is that Phoenix will be in Singapore on April 9 so Cat asked if I would like to play instead.  Sure enough so Vandengroef and I talked with both of us saying we would be happy to open but I insisted he is the guest so it's his call.  So, Vandengroef will open on April 9 and I will play the second set.  That's a month away but it's cool to anticipate.

Pyro was mentioned and I don't know if it was made clear enough last night so here again: if you have bombs, definitely bring them!  The only concern with pyro is that aerials will usually blow off higher than the circus tent will permit.  If you want to get nuts with pyro, it might be best to do it on the other ground-level stage at the Circus as there is no roof on it.

What makes Vandengroef musically interesting is the way he plays with rhythms and he's using any sound he thinks is right to give a subtlety that draws you into it.   He uses an RC50 looper, the same as mine, but, as with most instruments, there are many ways to do it and he doesn't use his in the same way as I use mine.   Maybe some think these loopers are musical fluff but Phoenix uses one also.  When she does "Mack the Knife," she's using a looper to play the piano and the ukelele at the same time.  There's no need in this context to write a monologue on the musical value of a looper but use of them by solo artists is much more common than you might think and a looper gives a soloist freedoms never possible before.


Vandengroef makes a cool vibe for dancing, dreaming, traveling ... but ... alas ... I do not have a picture of Cat and I dancing as we busted the dance ball.  That sounds perverse but it really isn't and we haven't fixed it yet because it works for everyone else.  The only perversity is that it fails for the woman who provided it and that's just not fair.  We will get it fixed.

All of us talked for a while after the set as jsmn had come about halfway through the show.  Vandengroef was feeling good from how the set had gone over and was looking forward to checking out the recording as his concern is the same as mine: did the audience hear the same thing I was hearing.  Many times listening to the recording of a set is a painful discipline but I suspect Vandengroef will be pleased with what was captured last night.  It was a great set musically and a pleasant chat after so the vibe was cool throughout.

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