MUSIC

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Asylum Street Spankers

The Asylum Street Spankers of Austin revisited their roots at Iota on Thursday, the latest stop on a tour that includes founding member Guy Forsyth.

The singer/songwriter/guitarist recalled how he and the Spanker known as Wammo first bonded: "We had a similar love for old songs and getting intoxicated." Although Forsyth left the group many years ago for solo work, the Spankers' ethos hasn't changed. The seven-piece ensemble offered up a bounty of covers from the early 20th century, appealing originals and mischievously ingenious reworkings, including a mad hillbilly romp through Nine Inch Nails' "Closer," replete with barnyard noises and pantomime best left to a sick imagination (or to the imagination of Sick, the group's fiddler and the frontman on the dirty ditty.)

A few songs earlier, Christina Marrs sang lead on a passionate, credible "When I've Gone the Last Mile of the Way." Such is the Spankers' thematic range, and it's a testament to their stagecraft -- when technical problems persisted -- that they shushed the tightly packed bar and offered, as was once their custom, a show without "demon electricity."

There followed a children's song, "Boogers" ("You think this song is over/But it's snot"), sharp political commentary with "Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV" and Marrs's room-shaking "Shave 'Em Dry." Their instrumental wizardry ranged from Nevada Newman's nimbly picked acoustic guitar to Wammo's dueling kazoo and harmonica, and Marrs's musical saw. In short: Plugged or unplugged, there was power aplenty onstage.

-- Pamela Murray Winters

Ernie Andrews

Among the many things the East Coast Jazz Festival does well every year is team student ensembles with veteran musicians who are willing to share their wisdom. When the 15th edition of the festival got underway Thursday night, 78-year-old balladeer Ernie Andrews joked to the audience at the Doubletree Hotel in Rockville about his qualifications: "I've been their age, but they ain't been mine." He then told members of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts Jazz Ensemble that those who play good music before they play anything else can "always come back home."

The Ellington ensemble is well versed in good music, thanks largely to band director Davey Yarborough. Prior to Andrews's arrival onstage, Yarborough led his young charges through a colorfully arranged series of standards -- Duke Ellington's "C Jam Blues," Cole Porter's "Love for Sale" and Sonny Rollins's "St. Thomas." Celebrating fulgent swing, churning Latin beats and joyous calypso spirit, the performances were clearly tailored to showcase the group's distinctive instrumentation, with its vibes and strings -- and featured several gifted musicians, including violinist-vocalist Integriti Reeves.

When Andrews, dapper and urbane, joined in, his baritone showed itself to be warmly robust after all these years. His duet with Reeves on "God Bless the Child" was, not surprisingly, the evening's biggest crowd pleaser.

Upcoming performances at the festival, which runs through Monday afternoon, will feature Andrews and fellow vocalists Vanessa Rubin, Giacomo Gates and Ronnie Wells, guitarist Russell Malone, reedmen Frank Morgan and David "Fathead" Newman, plus a tribute to the late bassist Keter Betts.

-- Mike Joyce

Oriental Music Ensemble

If you listen to the Oriental Music Ensemble expecting to hear the strains of Asia, you'll be surprised.

The Palestinian quartet from Jerusalem, whose name refers to the Middle East rather than Far East, brought music from Tunisia, Egypt and Iraq, as well as from its own culture, to the Freer Gallery on Thursday night as part of its first U.S. tour.

Each player in this tight and lively band excelled at his craft. It was amazing to hear percussionist Yousif Hbeisch make so much of a simple riqq (tambourine), daff (frame drum) and tabla. Using the tips and flats of his fingers, his open palm and heel of his hand, Hbeisch produced an impressive range of pitches and timbres.

Ibrahim Attari was graceful and delicate as his fingers fluttered over his qanun (zither) like a deft typist. Ud (lute) player Ahmad al-Khatib at times jammed as fervently and indulgently as an electric guitarist, and at other times nimbly skimmed the fingerboard. And Suhail Khoury smoothly parsed out melodies on his nay (flute); his airy approach to the clarinet had the instrument sounding as gossamer as a butterfly's wings.

The gently undulating performances showed the range -- and the similarities -- of classical and popular music from various areas of the Mideast. The blue notes in "Solaf," by Iraqi composer Ghanem Haddad, gave that piece a boogie-woogie groove. With Khoury playing the clarinet, catchy Ottoman tunes by Kawthar Hanem (the program's only female composer) had a foot in the klezmer tradition. And the most moving passages and inspired improvisations of the evening occurred in compositions by Khoury and al-Khatib, written during a stay in a political prison and a siege, respectively.

-- Gail Wein

In Flames

Veteran metal act In Flames was forged more than a decade ago in Gothenburg, the same Swedish town that gave the world Abba and the Volvo. Headlining a sold-out bill at the 9:30 club on Thursday, In Flames showed influences of both the pop group and the auto (albeit a supercharged, finely tuned and unmufflered version of the latter).

"Trigger" was a typical In Flames tune, with subtly poppy Sex Pistols-like guitar riffs played fast enough to get you a ticket on the autobahn and with a precision only a machine could best. Like so many Nordic musical acts, In Flames writes all its lyrics in English, or some sort of alien version of the language in which syntax and sense are optional. From their fan-favorite "Episode 666": "Their dead-smile lips turn on their TV/While urban gravestones scrape the skies."

But gibberish can be quite entertaining when shrieked at the volume and velocity that vocalist Anders Fridn usually favors. Some provincial hard-core listeners have torched In Flames for the creep of Americanization in some of the band's more recent material. The quintet's "Touch of Red" and "My Sweet Shadow" could leave a taste of Korn, and the keyboards and industrial sounds coming out of mohawked drummer Daniel Svensson's double-bass kit gave "Cloud Connected" a Nine Inch Nails feel. But it clearly didn't bother fans who packed the club's floor and spent much of the 90-minute set smashing into each other or hopping up and down.

A domestic act, Orlando's Trivium, preceded In Flames with a 45-minute set. The band, for all its songs about death, violent death or really violent death, was most notable for frontman Matt Heafy's looks. He may have cussed like Bob Knight and fingered screeching solos on his Space Age-looking guitar (a model he endorses) as if born to shred. But for all his efforts, Heafy's hunkiness made him seem like a Disney version of a heavy-metal star.

-- Dave McKenna