Go easy on dem eels

Along with about 30 other people packed into a small room above the Ethiopian restaurant Abyssinia in West Philly, last night I got to dig the hot freebop jams of Yells at Eels, Dennis Gonzalez' trio with his homegrown rhythm section of sons Aaron (doublebass) and Stefan (drumkit). The Texans are on a tour wrapping up its US segment with a hit at the Vision fest tomorrow (with guest Oliver Lake) and resuming next week in Portugal. While not advanced players, at a mere 24 and 19 years of age Aaron and Stefan are certainly advanced for their years, which is exactly what you'd expect with a singular maelstrom of artistic immersion like Dennis Gonzalez for a dad! They worked a fierce, elastic, and exuberant groove while Dennis nursed some relaxed tunes with his trademark style of melody informed by Mexican and Hispano-American music. I would've preferred to hear him take things further out in the solos, but there was some smoke coming off his horn and he blew it with the confidence to take some unexpected and satisfying phrasal detours. What really set the gig apart, though, was the playful, lighthearted vibe and Dennis' eminently endearing personality, which was enthusiastically welcomed by the rather atypical audience.

It was a refreshing context for a jazz gig, with only a half-dozen of us regulars on the creative jazz scene flanked by a decidedly tattoo-heavy assemblage of young people generally signifying themselves as a free-floating punk demographic. I didn't recognize any of them and it turns out the place is basically an established neighborhood hang and it was a matter of accidental good fortune that the Texans got such a fun-loving and receptive audience for their foray into Philly. I suppose that's the way live music culture usually works though, a touring band testing their wares on the locals who'd be hanging out at some bar or another regardless of whether any particular music was happening. While I can theoretically speculate it's some kind of social norm, it certainly is a change of pace from my usual universe of avant-garde music where the audience studiously selects certain musicians to bestow their attention upon based on comically refined aesthetic biases.

Therein lies the twist that makes the evening well worthy of Bags blogging. These good-spirited youth bearing no affiliation with jazz culture couldn't've been a better match for the Gonzalez clan. You see, Aaron and Stefan separately maintain a grindcore duo called Akkolyte that had its own gigs on the tour interspersed with Yells at Eels'. In fact, they brought a trace of their hardcore/grindcore energy to their dad's jazz, which was a welcome flavor to my ears. So somehow the locals got wind of the lads' dual-identity and invited them to do an impromptu Akkolyte set at a squatter-esque residence afterwards. Delighted by this opportunity to get the full Gonzalez experience, I joined many in the crowd who made their way over to the somewhat less savory nearby neighborhood and the house they'd dubbed "the drive-by house" in dry recognition of the many bullets that fly on the block.

(Curiously enough, that's Yanni Papadopoulos happily lounging in the background. He's the brilliant guitarist of Philadelphia's long-running jazz-metal group Stinking Lizaveta and an equally unlikely person as me to have been in these crusty environs.)

Aside from my early days as a metal aficionado, aggressive rock music has been a rather peripheral interest for me and I typically revel in the glories of Minor Threat, Snapcase, Napalm Death, etc as an occasional diversion to my vastly more consuming interests in avant-jazz, free improv, avant-prog, etc. I've never felt much kinship with the social culture of aggressive rock music, and it has been an extremely rare exception that I've subjected myself to its live performance and attendant excesses in volume, scuzzy vibe, etc. Thankfully Akkolyte had such a minimum of equipment to use in the cramped basement that playing too loud wasn't even an option, and I really enjoyed their prog- and jazz- informed blasts of grindcore. I will say, however, that while there are plenty of bass/drum duos for whom this bare bones instrumentation is fully sufficient (besides Ruins and Lightning Bolt I believe there are a number of hardcore/grindcore bands who pull this off), to my ears it sounded like they really needed another instrument to complete the musical package, guitar being the obvious choice, but in my fantasy world an accordion or Fender Rhodes would be even better.

It was a rather charming contrast I observed between the jazz gig and this 2:00am session in a basement (with an economical ceiling height of about six feet) packed with what are technically known as crusty punks (pictured below). As pleasant and refreshing as it was to rub elbows in this milieu, I wouldn't want to make a regular habit of witnessing live-action vomiting, drunken moshing, and incredibly uninspired drunken banter by kids generally around the border of the legal drinking age.

I offer my warmest salute to Dennis, Aaron, and Stefan and their open-minded creative lives, and I should note that Dennis cheerfully disabused me of my rather plausible theory that his sons were the very "eels" in "Dennis Gonzalez Yells at Eels". Alas, the phrase turns out to have a more prosaic origin.

~Michael Anton Parker