This is my inaugural essay post under this auspice, and an extension of what I was trying to do with a blog I was running for 2 years. (R.I.P. “What Do We Have For Entertainment?”)

My wish, is to come crashing into RTH’s bedroom, shouting “You have to listen to this!”

I’d like to introduce drummer Jonathan Kane by way of 3 interwoven genres that appear in his music. I’ve laid out some notes on paper, in which drone, the blues, and New York No Wave funnel into each other, kinda like an upside down delta, in fact.

[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/02-I-Looked-At-The-Sun.mp3|titles=Jonathan Kane: I Looked At The Sun]

Which is appropriate, since Kane’s music (and I prefer to think of him as a bandleader, rather than the mere and often derogatory the drummer. Same way I think of Charles Mingus) draws so much from the delta blues perpetual motion boogie of John Lee Hooker, and the minimal chord structures and hypnotic vamp of Mississippi Fred McDowell. The latter’s blues, from the north hill country of his name-state, is marked particularly for sticking to the I chord rather than making the change to the IV or the V. Sometimes this blues will stick to dwelling on the IV chord. The harmonic shift gives a suspended sound, a minimalist drone.

[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/1-09-Wandering-Blues.mp3|titles=John Lee Hooker: Wandering Blues] [audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/15-I-Looked-At-the-Sun.mp3|titles=Mississippi Fred McDowell: I Looked At the Sun]

Perhaps the blues could be considered a minimalist form. Regional, rustic, but with close ties to the minimalist compositions of the downtown New York scene of the ’60s: La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich (see also: John Cale). The constant harmonies, steady drone, lock-groove, and gradual transformation are not a million miles away from the boogie of ZZ Top’s La Grange. Continue reading »