Music Blog

While I'm generally not one to subscribe to the applause-o-meter of an audience, Thursday night's Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra concert started with a quieter-than-usual opening clap level and escalated with each performance into a rousing standing ovation by the concert's conclusion. Guest conductor Andreas Delfs and the RPO certainly woke up the audience with rousing and colorful performances of Smetana, Persichetti, and Dvořak.

Every RPO season sees several guest conductors, and next season the orchestra will be led exclusively by guests at the podium. As someone who attends nearly every RPO concert, what has become particularly interesting is that each guest conductor elicits a different sound from the orchestra. Last night's Dvořak performance had me thinking back to guest conductor Matthias Bamert's RPO sound for the Franck "Symphony in d-minor" in October 2012, and the Persichetti performance had me thinking back to guest conductor Jeff Tyzik's RPO sound for "Spirits of Tuol Sleng" from his "Images" suite in November of last year.

With the right conductor, the RPO has a way of pouring itself into works with complex shapes and seemingly abstract wanderings, and delivering authentic interpretations with emotional impact. Last night, Delfs' interpretation of the Persichetti was nothing short of brilliant. The "Concerto for English Horn and String Orchestra, Op. 137" was haunting and sad, filled with strange intervals, improvisation-like note runs, and a persistent character that refused to yield to a happy, major resolution of all of its woes.

Highlighted on the English horn was RPO musician Anna Steltenpohl, who was the perfect compliment to Persichetti's notes and Delfs' interpretation. Steltenpohl's technical abilities were vast. She made every note important, constantly projecting, even the lowest tones and in the most pianissimo dynamic.

The RPO string section is routinely great. Combined with Delfs at the baton and Steltenpohl at the English horn in Persichetti's complex work, audience members seriously had to think about canceling Delfs outbound flight to leave Rochester.

The big work of the night was Antonin Dvořak's "Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88," a work in four movements that totaled approximately 36 minutes. We really are getting spoiled at the amount of Dvořak played by the RPO, and at this level of quality. Even so, I actually cheered in my seat at the performance of the first movement, the "Allegro con brio" (briskly, with brilliance/sparkle). Every tempo transition was smooth and natural. Every phrase was finished before moving on into the next one. The color and style brought forth the meaning of the work.

The second movement, the "Adagio," did not quite reach its potential, but I'll bet it will Saturday night. Thursday night, it came off a bit robust for the beauty of its melody and did not seem to have a clear relationship to the first movement. But then, after the trumpets sounded four repeated notes and the orchestra took the rest, there was the sound of the entrance of the orchestra that I wanted at the beginning of the movement. Indeed, this entrance literally enhanced the earlier beauty created at the opening of the program during Smetana's "The Mouldau," No. 2 from Má vlast (My Homeland).

The ends of the second and third movements ("Allegretto grazioso") needed to be as clean as the other endings. The first few bars of the third movement seemed unsettled as to tempo. But these details aside, as soon as the glorious sounds of the trumpets opened the fourth movement, the "Allegro ma non troppo," Delfs and the RPO delivered in great form, building to a dramatic conclusion of a concert well worth attending.

The RPO will repeat the program Saturday, March 23, at 8 p.m. at Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, 60 Gibbs St. Tickets cost $15-$82. For more information call 454-2100 or visit the RPO website.

The Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival today announced another headliner for its 2013 edition. Guitar Circus featuring Peter Frampton and Robert Cray will take place Friday, June 28, at Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, Gibbs Street. Tickets to the 7:30 p.m. show will cost $70-$125 (plus service charges) and will go on sale Friday, March 22, exclusively at rochesterjazz.com.

Guitar Circus joins already-announced headliners Willie Nelson and Family (which has already sold out), Pink Martini, David Byrne & St. Vincent, Roger Hodgson of Supertramp, and Bob James and David Sanborn with Steve Gadd.

The festival will run June 21-29 in multiple venues throughout Rochester's East End. The full festival line-up will be announced on Tuesday, March 26. Club Passes are still available to this year's festival, and cost $194 plus service charges.

Several other major concerts were announced in the past week. Make sure to update your calendars with the following:

HIP/HOP/RAP: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Sunday, April 28. RIT Gordon Field House, 1 Lomb Memorial Dr. $17-$41. 8 p.m. rittickets.com

SKA: Streetlight Manifesto Thursday, June 20. Water Street Music Hall, 204 N. Water St.  $17.50-$20. 8 p.m. 352-5600. waterstreetmusic.com

POP/ROCK: Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth Saturday, July 27. CMAC, 3355 Marvin Sands Drive, Canandaigua. $20-$39.50. 7 p.m. 758-5330

HIP-HOP/R'N'B: Kings of the Mic Tour: LL Cool J w/Ice Cube, Public Enemy, De La Soul Saturday, June 22. CMAC, 3355 Marvin Sands Drive, Canandaigua. Details TBD; on sale 3/22. cmacevents.com.

In what both feels like a week that has flown by, but also managed to squeeze every last drop out of and packed a mini-lifetime into each day, I've reached the end of my first SXSW. It was a blast, and I already know I want to return next year, hopefully a little wiser (pack less clothes, bring spoons, and stay downtown close to the convention center). I'm pretty sure each day of SXSW takes a total of one year off my overall life span, but it's been worth it.

I was really gunning for my finale night of the festival as it included a lineup of some of my favorite musicians playing in the game right now. One of them, The Mighty Stef, just added shows in Austin, but sadly, they were out of the main scope of the festival by several miles, and nowhere near my hotel or the shuttle drop offs. That was my planned first band for the day, but with SXSW, sometime you got to roll with the punches.

The rest of the night was devoted to the Revival Tour stage, which had a killer line up of musicians on it. For those of you unfamiliar, the Revival Tour was started in 2008 by Chuck Ragan, and is a group effort acoustic tour that pulls in different artist every year. It's a rare treat in the music world; musicians will take turns playing each other's songs, there's no real headliner, and most importantly, it shows the camaraderie between the musicians themselves. The line up varies date by date (so make sure you know who is playing each one; mileage may vary) but the tour has really become a counter-culture community of great times and music.

First up (Well, after a quick few songs by the Revival Tour Ensemble) was San Diego's The Drowning Men. These guys are hit or miss with me, playing a fiery organ driven alt-rock deal that softly laps at you, just like the seas themselves. It's eerie and hauntingly melodic, and catchy, and the group has some really solid tracks, but its set focused on the slower side of its catalog tonight, and despite having the theremin present, never got to use it.

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• Willie Clark
• Joywave performed as part of 2013's SXSW Music Festival.

Next up was Austin Lucas, who was one of the more country leaning names on the showcase. He had a very Nashville-esque voice, (via Indiana, his home state), pulling in that twang thang, and he had some compelling guitar riffs as well. At times there seemed to be an odd disconnect between his singing and the guitar parts though, but he kept mentioning that the guitar cable was phasing in and out, so it could have been that. He pulled out a slower song from an upcoming album (not sure the name of it) that was a real heart-string puller, and his songs creep up on you and hit you in the gut. I grabbed a CD to check out some more of his stuff.

Ring master, circus leader, and master of ceremonies for the Revival Tour, Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music) tends to steal the Revival Tour shows for me personally, (at least he also did the last time the tour hit Rochester back in 2008, and I've been waiting to see it again since), and his gruff growling vocals combined with Jon Gaunt's fiddling and Joe Ginsberg's upright bass create a great folk punk trio that has put out some truly great albums the past few years. When Ragan sweats, it's bullets of passion running down his face, Some sound problems with the violin threw off a note run or two, and it wasn't the best set I've seen Ragan and co. perform, but it's still a good time.

I then ran over to catch a few songs from Rochester's own Joywave. Big props to the boys for getting down to SXSW this year (the only Rochester act to do so as far as I know), and for pulling in quite a crowd as well. Equipment problems seem to be the theme of the day though, as the band had to mess with mics that weren't working, causing its set to start behind schedule. Now, the dance pop that Joywave brings to the table is far, far from my normal cup of tea, so it wasn't really my thing and didn't win me over, but apparently enough people are drinking it up to bring them this far, and it's great for Rochester's scene to see a local band getting national exposure at a festival of this scope, and pull in crowds half way across the country. Good for them.

Then it was back to Cedar Street to catch who is possibly one of my favorite musicians making music right now: London, England's Frank Turner. Similarly to a lot of the guys on the Revival Tour bill, Turner got his start in the English punk band Million Dead before going down the solo folk punk road, and it feels like he hasn't stopped touring or putting out albums since.

Now, Turner started his portion of the evening apologizing, and giving excuses for what he was prepping to be a less than perfect performance: He's been sick all week and was already really drunk, and you could hear the tiredness, and coarseness, in his voice (He even missed of a few of his own lyrics, and ended up pulling out mostly covers).

It fit with the spirit of the evening, but, I was disappointed because this was one of several of Turner's appearances at SXSW, and I had saved him for last, thinking it would be the full band. Not that there's anything wrong with just Turner, it's just a different show: A solo musician playing slower, stripped down, and more intimate versions of his songs, as opposed to the explosive rock show he puts on with the Sleeping Souls. So I was disappointed on that front, even if it was a nice opportunity to see Turner back to his roots as a solo artist.

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• Willie Clark
• Frank Turner performed as part of 2013's SXSW Music Festival.

But, if you haven't listened to Frank Turner, you should. I staked my professional reputation on him years ago, and since then he's played the opening ceremony for the Olympics and headlined the massive Wembley Stadium in London, so I guess I get to keep my job, and he's earned one night of drunken laid back fun, to say the least.

After Turner's set the whole Revival Tour ensemble returned to stage for a few more songs and the customary closing with "Revival Road." I got goosebumps just seeing such a cross work of musicians on stage, all having a good time, and playing music with each other just for the love of it. Which really, is the way that it should always be, isn't it?

First up for Friday at South by Southwest was Buffalo's own Lemuria (Upstate New York, represent!). I feel like I've been trying for years to get into this band, mostly because I really really dig its name (It was in "Golden Sun!") and yet I've never quite been able to make the jump. I wanted to give the group the opportunity to convince me live, to hopefully push me over that ledge into fandom. But sadly, it just wasn't so.

For a group that has been playing and touring this long (it formed in 2004) the live offering at SXSW just wasn't that impressive. I don't care what type of rock band you consider yourself, but if after three songs into your set people are just standing around slightly bobbing their heads, something is amiss. Lead singer and guitar player Sheena Ozzella's vocals softly layered themselves over the rest of the band, but were laid back and floaty. I wasn't impressed. But at least I tried, and I'll have to start looking up bands called Atlantis, I suppose.

Next up was Austin's Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. Two saxophones and a trumpet rounded out the brass/reed end of this sextet, with Joe Lewis himself taking lead guitar and vocals, and drums and bass completing the bears.

The group had several problems. The horn section, which was woefully underused, was overpowered and hard to hear for almost all of the set, drowned out by the electric guitar and rhythm section. They also seemed to be sticking around for small flourishes here and there, and what resulted was a trio- albeit a solid trio- on one side of the stage (guitar/vocals, bass, drums), while the others felt like a whole other band just standing there. It wasn't cohesive in performance or style; like two puzzle pieces that weren't fitting together.

Lewis's guitar playing was the highlight, along with the quite tight bass playing. But the very, very funk-inspired sound was far, far away from the punk-inspired blues-meets-rock sound the band's bio led me to believe the group would sound like, so things ended on a sour, not honey-sweet, note.

I'm not sure what it is about Indiana, but the second Indiana-based band I've hit this week also stands as one of the best sets of the festival: Bloomington Indiana's Murder By Death. The dark, gritty, folk-rock band shares home-state status with Reverend Peyton, to the point where I might have to just start telling upcoming musicians to drink water from Indiana.

I was a little worried about its set though, as the band was playing in the same warehouse I saw Fidlar earlier in the festival. The space is a giant, empty, echo-ridden chamber of sonic death for anybody hoping to play any kind of musical sound and have it be enjoyed.

My fears were pretty much unfounded, though, as every part of this brooding, dark, melodic group sounded amazing. I've seen the group before a few years back, but either my memory is off, or the group has improved significantly: I don't remember it being this damned good. Everything sounded great live, and even the cello was cutting through the din and audible almost every time I focused on it. That's a hard frequency range from which to stand out. The group has even added a new key/mandolin/accordion player since I saw it last, which hits even more near and dear to my instrumental heart. Several of the members were playing with borrowed gear (instruments didn't arrive on time, it seemed), so it really was an up-against-the-odds set. But it didn't stop the band any, and you couldn't notice at all.

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• Willie Clark
• Murder by Death performed as part of the 2013 SXSW music festival.

As if being down instruments wasn't enough drama, before Murder By Death's last song, a stage-crew member came out and told the band it was over time, and then attempted to start dismantling the drum mics. Frontman Adam Turla asked for a few minutes to finish the set, before the sound guy came over the PA and started yelling - obscenely - to the crew to get off the stage and let the band finish. He didn't seem intent to, but Turla started hitting the chords of the final song and went about playing anyways. Can't stop death, people. You just can't.

From death and decay I then headed to dance on the devil's dance floor with Santa Cruz, California-based The Devil Makes Three. This was some old-timey saloon music, and guitarist Pete Bernhard has a voice that acted like a time machine: it transported the listener into a modern country-western tale.

The sparse instrumentation (guitar, string bass, banjo) did lead to the songs bleeding into each other a bit, and they all tended to follow that boom-chank recipe a little too closely (and all were a little under the tempo I would have liked for a live performance). But it sounded great, and the band has a lock on the sonic palette on which it's working. Bernhard's vocals felt like a perfectly bottled-up example of period singing, to the point where anytime he passed the mic, it paled in comparison.

I had to cut my time with the Devil short, though, as overlapping sets were crazy Friday and I wanted to at least catch a bit of chiptune band Anamanaguchi. For some reason, even given my huge Nintendo nerddom, I've never hitched on to the chiptune wagon, but perhaps it's finally time for me to pay attention.

It's funny, because the first comparison that came to mind listening to these guys was, "Think 'Scott Pilgrim' rock music." And it turns out the group actually did do the soundtrack for the "Pilgrim" graphic novels. Who knew? (It also did work on the "Bit.Trip Runner" soundtrack, for you gaming nerds out there). Anamanaguchi also takes home the award for being the first band at SXSW I've seen all week to have people crowd surf during its set. It was an even more impressive feat given that it was a small room, and a large portion of the crowd had to hold up the few surfers.

I tried to figure exactly out how the band was pulling off everything live. I know it uses synthesizers and runs stuff through old NES systems and Game Boys, but one song featured a vocal track that nobody was singing, and I couldn't figure out if the band was sampling, or using a backing track or what. I also couldn't see a Game Boy from where I was standing, so anybody that wants to help me out and help explain the complexities of live chip-tune performance at some point, I'm all ears. I hope as much of it as possible was done live, but it still got people up and moving, so maybe the how isn't as important. When you think about it, chiptune could very well turn out to be my generation's classical or jazz: the genre is less about the lyrics and more about the melody and composition. And I mean, hey, who can say no to rocking out on a Game Boy?

Phew. Busy night with a lot of great stuff. Believe it or not, we've reached the penultimate page of our journey -- there's only one night left for SXSW, and it's a string of some of the artists I've been most looking forward to this whole festival. One last night, one last blog, so away we go!