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Over at the SF Jazz thread, a number of people recently who saw them at Yoshi's in a double bill with Sex Mob.
Those who attended said that Happy Apple carried the day...
From SDCSteve:
"Good double header tonight at Yoshi's San Francisco -- Happy Apple opening for Sex Mob. And my son and I got to meet Gerardo (my salsa maven), and to hang out with Surfer once again. We all had a chance to talk and catch up a bit on each other's lives during intermission, and during a little tour of the neighborhood following the show.
Sex Mob was fine, more raucous than their albums, and entertaining. I thought Tony Scherr on bass was particularly impressive tonight.
But Happy Apple was the real surprise of the evening, delivering a terrific set that seemed to range from edgy pointillism (I was thinking Warne Marsh meets Paul Motian) to swinging thrash rock (I was reminded of Ben Goldberg's New Klezmer Trio at times) -- and all that within each song. Dave King from The Bad Plus is the high energy drummer of the group, who also provides some pretty funny introductions for the songs. Michael Lewis shows an impressive and impassioned range of styles on tenor and alto; and Erik Fratzke on Fender bass often provides a kind of warm undercushion for the group, as well as the rhythmic punch you'd expect. An impressive set from a band I'd never heard of before. "
Surfer:
"I also thought Happy Apple was the better set. The quieter parts reminded me of the Gul albums, sort of reductionist soul. Too bad not many people have heard those albums outside of Scandinavia. I would make a comparison to Jimmy Giuffre's trios, but its not as emotionless as that. Discrete and truncated phrasing. The louder parts were typically skronky, they never seemed to lose steam, and had a very good group dynamic. I could have done without the bass and drum solos, they just never seem to get to point B. Speakign of the bass, its funny, you'd think as an electric instrument, the Fender bass would be more versatile than a stand-up acoustic bass, but it isnt, in fact its really hard to get away from its "sound" (as Steve said, a kind of warm, bouncy, chocolate sound). Despite the chops of Fratzke, I thought that "sound" straightjacketed his contributions somewhat. Dave King is a pretty funny and charismatic guy, as I said to Steve, he seems to have graduated from the Han Bennink school of hard knock knocks jokes. (see Steve, I made that quip better). Lewis was great. Refreshingly fun, more avant groups should have as much fun as these guys were having."
Last edited by Mike Schwartz; May-31st-2009 at 06:08 PM.
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