I missed writing yesterday so now I have a lot to catch up on; one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, an idiot story, and the end of the world. See what happens when you miss a day?
Friday night I went to see Hawktail. This was my first time seeing them as a quartet. I had seen them as the trio, Haas Kowert Tice; that’s Brittany Haas – fiddle, Paul Kowert – upright bass, and Jordan Tice – guitar. They have now added Dominick Leslie – mandolin. As a trio they gave one of the greatest concerts I’ve been to and now they’ve done it again as a quartet. The show was at National Sawdust in Williamsburg. It’s not just a concert venue, the other time I was there it was to see a run-through of Jean Rohe’s one woman show about Odysseus. It has great sound and a weird look. It would make an excellent TARDIS control room.
Williamsburg has enough interesting restaurants that I decided to eat in the neighborhood. I decided on Radegast Hall and Biergarten. As you should know that wasn’t for the beer. I went for the wurst reason, Argentinian bratwurst. I had been there only once before, for music, but remembered the wursts and was eager to try it again. I was disappointed. My brat was overcooked and not as good as the Brooklyn Banger cheddar bratwurst I make myself. It was good, but not special. I’ll give the place another shot and try a different sausage next time.
I still had time after that so I went for ice cream. I googled to see what was in the neighborhood and found a place I’ve never been to,
Gelateria Goyishe Gentile (gen-till-ee). Forget Ample Hills, forget Oddfellows, this is the by far the best ice cream in Brooklyn. It’s in competition with Cones and Davey’s for the best ice cream in the city, maybe the world. I had a mix of milk and dark chocolate; I like to keep things simple. They both had perfect texture and incredible richness. It wasn’t cheap but was worth the trip to Williamsburg all by itself. I even loved the Italian woman with the thick accent who served it. She was charming. Hell, I want to go back there right now.
That put me in a great state of mind for the concert. It was a five-minute walk to National Sawdust. I was the first one there. That should not surprise anyone. Doors opened late as sound check ran long. The door looks like it’s part of the wall until it’s opened. I had to ask where it was, I was standing right by it. I told you the venue was weird, in the best possible way.
I didn’t know if anyone I knew would be there but I suspected I’d see friends. One of the early arrivals was Hannah Read, she was back in the US for a pitstop. Judging from her Instagram she’s always galivanting around Great Britain. She’s a Scottish musician so that’s not so unexpected. I didn’t see any other friends till the show started but once it did I saw Duncan and Lily; they are musicians too. After the show I saw Amy, she hosts house concerts. I miss my Brooklyn peeps. I’d run into all of them frequently when I lived there.
Hawktail, well Haas Kowert Tice, was the first band I called chamber folk. They mainly do instrumentals in the folk idiom that have classical complexity. Only Jordan would write atonal Americana, at least the only one that would write good atonal Americana. My reaction to their music is visual. The best analogy I can think of is those three-dimensional puzzles where you combine four intricately shaped pieces into a cube. That’s what their music is. The parts have no obvious connections to each other, at least obvious to this layman, but form a perfect whole. Most virtuosi impress you by playing fast. Each of them can do that but more impressive to me is how they can add a simple line that brings the tune to a new level. I listen to them with the same parts of brain I appreciate Bach with. Even though I can see now I find myself closing my eyes for long segments and letting the music take me to new worlds, a dimension of not just sight and sound, but of mind. The music creates space around it and the listener explores it. You can listen to it as background music, I’m doing that now, but when you give it your full attention you are rewarded. They are nonfungible. No other band delivers what they do. As I was waiting for the show to start I looked at Instagram and saw that Maria was at the Chocolate Room in Brooklyn. She’s in Harpeth Rising, the band that affects me the most similarly to Hawktail and that describe themselves as chamber folk. I wish I had known she was in town; I’d love to hear her reaction to the band.
The reason I didn’t write about this yesterday is that Carey and Barbara took me to see Gotterdammerung at the Metropolitan Opera. I love Opera, my favorite composer is Wagner. My favorite works of his are the Ring Cycle. My favorite part of the Ring Cycle is Gotterdammerung. I haven’t seen Siegfried live so the final word is not in on that. It does have a dragon going for it.
Gotterdammerung is over four hours long so it stars early, 11:00 for the matinee. The plan was to meet Carey in the lobby at 10:30. I was bad and had to rush out of the house to make the D train, or so I thought. The train just sat in the station and left late. Then it went very slowly in Manhattan so I got there about 10 minutes late. When I got on the train I pulled my phone out to entertain myself on the trip down, one problem. I had forgotten my phone. I had no time to go back and get it. This was a huge problem as my plan for the evening I was going to the Common Ground Coffeehouse in Hastings. My train ticket was on my phone. More importantly the address and Carter’s phone number were on the phone. I thought I’d have time to take the train to Hastings after the show but when I arrived at the opera I discovered that though the opera is four hours the running time with intermissions was over five and a half. I was not going to have the time I thought I’d have to walk to the venue. I wouldn’t even have time to stop at home to get my phone and then take the train to Hastings and have Carter send someone to pick me up. During the first intermission I tried to call Carter on Carey’s phone. To get his number I logged on to my Google account. I couldn’t. Because I was on a phone that wasn’t my own I needed to verify that it was me and the only way available to do that is for them to send a text to my phone. You see the flaw in that plan. In the end I texted Carter when I got home and told him what happened and that I couldn’t make it. I feel bad not just because I missed Amber Rubarth, but because I was supposed to do the merch. I hate letting a friend down. All this because I forgot my phone and didn’t check to see how long the opera was with intermissions. Why? Because I’m an idiot. I told you there’s be an idiot story.
My seat wasn’t with Carey and Barbara, it was with our friend Charles. The problem is that Charles and I haven’t seen each other in 20 years and didn’t recognize each other and Carey didn’t think to mention it to us that we’d be seated together. I found out during the first intermission. There are two. We played catch up then.
We didn’t get to talk before the intermission because not only did I get there late Carey decided to wait for me in the densest part of the crowd going in. I couldn’t find him. I know that he does things like that and looked for him in different places in the lobby, including the crush by the entrance where I could only see the people standing right next to me. Not surprisingly we didn’t see each other. This was not because I was blind, I’m not anymore. I even took off my hood and baseball cap to make myself more visible to him. Finally with two minutes to go he went to look for me. Once he was out in the open we found each other.
Gotterdammerung (The Twilight of the Gods) was magnificent though strangely lacking in gods. While Wotan and company are all over the other parts of the Ring Cycle the finale is more personal. It was originally going to be called the Death of Siegfried. After leaving Brünnhilde in the safety of her ring of fire Siegfried is given a potion that makes him forget her. He then agrees to win Brünnhilde for his friend Günther and to marry Günther’s sister Gutrune. I always have trouble with the names as I know the story best from the Norse originals and think of them as Sigurd, Brynhildr, Gunter and Gudrun. Siegfried puts on the magical Tarnhelm to make him look like Günther and braves the fire to reach Brünnhilde who by divine decree has to marry whoever reaches her though the fire. It sounds like the plot of a comedy but is one of the great tragedies as the two destined lovers, Brünnhilde and Siegfried are kept from each other and Brünnhilde feels betrayed when she discovers the subterfuge as she doesn’t know of the potion. This is all due to the machinations of the piece’s villain Hagen. This all leads to Hagan killing Siegfried, Brünnhilde climbing on his funeral pyre, and the fire reaching up to Asgard where it kindles the wood of the dead world ash Yggdrasil, which is all around Valhalla, the hall of the gods, triggering Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods. Got it? The very personal story leads to the end of the world. Wagner wrote the perfect music for the destruction. When the universe burns this is what should be played. The world ends with a bang, not a whimper.
The crowd, including me gave the performance a standing ovation. Then to my surprise most of them left. Have they never seen a Marvel movie? They missed the arrival of Thanos’s ship in the post-credit sequence. It sets up Ring Cycle: Infinity War.
If I had raced from the opera I could have made the train to Hastings but the only way I could get to the Common Ground was to find a cab that knew where it was. I don’t remember ever seeing a cab at the Hastings station. I couldn’t just call an Uber as I didn’t have my phone. So I punted and went to dinner with my friends. Denying myself that pleasure would not help Carter. I had a bison burger because that’s what I order at the Flame, the nearby diner on 9th Ave.
Tomorrow’s plan is to see an early showing of Avenger’s Endgame, then to get half-priced bagels at Bagel Bob’s and a few things at Trader Joe’s. Tonight I’m watching Game of Thrones. Sandwiched between Gotterdammerung and Avengers: Endgame that’s an epic stretch.
Wise Madness 