Remembering Sandman

•July 3, 2009 • 1 Comment

On the anniversary of Mark Sandman’s passing from this earthly plane to a more ethereal one, my thoughts this day are on my fallen friend and comrade. I first met Mark around 1987…i wasn’t keeping much in the way of records back then, and there wasn’t this interweb thing. Alas, I have no hard drive to reference info off of other than my faulty memory. I was playing in the Either/Orchestra at the time, and Russ Gershon and Tom Halter from that band were also playing with Mark in his group Hypnosonics. Sandman seemed to have an unlimited amount of bands, including Treat her Right, which was his main focus at that point. Hypnosonics played when he had time off from that band, soon to sign with RCA, and allowed him to access musical ideas what didn’t fit with that group.

Hypnosonics played a kind of psychedelic, avant garde funk that was very rootsy and primitive, as minimal as could be. The drummer, Jay Hilt, played a wooden cymbal that was Mark’s creation. Though the band didn’t really sound like him, Sandman was a huge Prince fan, and his Black Album was a template for a lot of Mark’s explorations at this time. I should add that he was an incredibly hungry man, hungry for a widely varied array of musics that would probably surprise people who only know him for the Low Rock that Morphine would later create. He turned me onto a mind-expanding palette of sounds that still resonate and influence me to this day, including Hassan Hakmoun’s Gift Of The Gnawa and the Luv ‘n’ Haight compilation Evolution, which was filled with obscure funk and soul rare grooves from the 60’s & 70’s. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Russ recommended me to Mark for bassist in Hypnos (as we called the band…he named it after Hypnos, god of sleep, and later Morphine was named after the god of dreams) after the old bass player Vince started not showing up to gigs one too many times. I met Mark for an audition in his apartment on Williams St outside of Central Square, and entering it was like stepping into the realm of the guy with the coolest collection EVER. Place was a mess with LPs and cassettes falling off of shelves, and books, books, books everywhere. I was just awestruck at the immense pile of data that assaulted my senses (plus we had no doubt tasted of the muggles by this point), and the thing that really blew my mind was that he has listened to all of this…he had read all of these books. These weren’t just decorations or result of an obsessive collector who acquires things and then puts them behind glass and never accesses them. These were tools to him, just like the guitars and keyboards and 4 track cassette recorder and the myriad pile of gear that filled every corner and available space. That’s the way I remember it anyway, but like I said there is not data to go back and look at. I don’t even have any photos from that time.

The audition became a rehearsal pretty quickly, as he threw tunes and riffs at me which i tried my best to keep up with and document on my little Sony cassette recorder. I was fresh out of Berklee and even though i wasn’t perhaps as inclined to needless displays of technique as some who come from there are prone to, i was still as green as they come and in need of a proper education from someone who had been around as much as Mark had. He was about 10 years older than i but his knowledge and experience of the world gave him an even greater edge than a mere decade. He saw in me a kid worthy of playing in his band, but oh man, i had some learning to do.

One of the first things Mark instilled in me – or tried to (the lesson was re-taught every gig as he would turn around and yell at me) – was don’t fill. “Fills” are little breaks in the groove that musicians often throw in at the end of 4 bar phrases or multiples of 4. I had a tendency to take these opportunities to spin out some little variation that i thought was cool, but what in reality just breaks up the trance quality of the groove. When you really get into exploring what it is that makes a James Brown or Fela groove so deep and so compelling is that no one is filling. Everyone is just playing the same thing, over and over and over again. I was still prone to that jazz mentality that is prevalent at Berklee and other institutions that teaches us that playing the same thing repeatedly is boring and not creative. How wrong i was, and Mark was my first drill sergeant in the army of the groove. Trance by necessity requires repetition, and the little filigrees i was throwing out – as hip as i thought they were, and as much as i was trying to be like Bootsy or Jamerson – were not compatible with Mark’s aesthetic. And he let me know about it, over and over. It was painful, I’ll admit, and i rebelled and would often sulk and grumble with the other guys during breaks or after…”fucking Mark….blah blah gripe gripe….yelling at me….grumble moan….embarrassing me on stage…the nerve…” But it was one of the greatest lessons i learned, and i owe it all to him.

Citing influences is often an excuse for people to trot out names that on close inspection bear no resemblance to the playing of the person calling upon that hallowed individual or band. I’ve been guilty of it, and i got humbled once by Dave Holland when i was studying with him, when he casually remarked that he didn’t hear any of so and so’s playing in my own after i had name-checked a famous bass player. I realized then that the only way you can really call someone an influence is to immerse yourself in their world – in the case of a musician, in their sound. You need to transcribe and learn how to play what they do, put on their shoes and walk around in them. For over 10 years i had the good fortune to immerse myself in Mark’s sound, in his world. And he, along with Mr Holland and later my Club d’Elf band mate Brahim Fribgane, became part of the Big 3 in my hierarchy of musical influences.

He was like a big brother to me as well as a mentor and band mate. He reluctantly let me take CDs from his collection (I never gave him Gift of the Gnawa back and still have his copy…sorry, Mark) and would invite me over to listen to music. And play. There seemed to be a non-stop recording session going on at his house, especially once he moved to Norfolk St and Hi-N-Dry was born. The Tascam multi-track cassette recorder (he had graduated to 8 tracks by now) was always on, always recording, Kyle. Always recording. A dizzying array of local players were in and out and at all times, as he would ask for the groove du jour.

It would be a disservice to deify the man, for as anyone who worked closely with him found out, and found out pretty quick: Mark had a dark side. One of the best ways to call that dark side forth was to engage him in the “writers conversation”. Sandman was a practitioner of the age-old artistic philosophy of the master not sharing credit w/ the apprentice. When you went in and did something in his realm, he owned it, plain and simple. And after a while i started to get uppity and brought the subject up, and He…Shut…Me…Down. And looking back i can sympathize. I have since learned what it’s like to have a band member over-estimate the essential nature of their contribution and feel that they have written something that they did not really. I know this is what Mark felt, and he could prove it in his own way, in that just about every song he ever wrote he performed in multiple versions, with multiple bands. “You think your part is essential to this song? Well, here’s another version that doesn’t have it and it’s still the song.” It’s a lot easier to do that when your songs mostly consist of one chord. So yeah, best not get to talking about writers credit if you wanted to stay 0n good terms with Sandman.

We had our falling outs about that, but it was impossible to stay away from the guy. He had that…charisma. He had charm like you have never experienced.  I’m not gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but i have to admit that he was just a very sexy man, and it was intoxicating just to be around him. Exhilarating. To be liked by Mark and invited into his realm was just about the coolest thing, and to be treated like an equal in the creation of music (as long as, you know, you don’t expect your name attached to it) was…the best. I would call him up, usually to bug him about when he was going to book some more Hypnos gigs (Morphine had begun by this point and we was often away touring the world for long periods), and he would laugh that wry laugh of his, and then pause. He was the king of the pause, often accompanied by the sound of him inhaling on his cigarette or just taking a deep breath. And you would wait for it…and then out would come some snippet of zen hipsterism that just summed everything up as perfectly as you could ever hope for.

One time i was on the phone with him after he had just gotten back from Brazil, and finally he said, “Rivard…(sucking in sound)…(exhale)…why don’t you come over?” (Mark never traveled to your house. You came to his). And of course i was down for it, and told him that i was just going to jump in the shower and i’d be right over. He laughed when i said this, and i couldn’t figure out why at the moment. I arrived about an hour later and he smiled and showed me the latest episode of his on-going Twinemen comic, in which one of the characters was using a shower like a means of transportation. That’s what he did: he used all of the information coming into him – from friends, from records he was listening to, from art he was checking out – and put it into his work, but he added something that transformed it and made it identifiably Sandmanian. I can see that more clearly now, and understand his perspective on his territory and how threatened he was when others impinged upon it. For as much as i value what i added to the music, it was Mark who really gave everything he touched validity and brought it into a place of timeless beauty.

The day he died was one of the hardest days i have experienced, right up with there with the passing of my mother. Jerome Deupree gave the call, and my wife at the time, Dyann, took the call. I was devastated, as were all of his friends. It just simply seemed impossible that he could be gone. Though if he had to go, what better way than to have his bass feeding back through an SVT while the sound washed over him as his soul began it’s journey into the next world. It seemed like such a fitting end, like the finale to some dark fairy tale, with the noble death of the king. We all gathered some days later for a memorial concert out in front of the Middle East, battling torrential rains. There was a sense of solidarity and community that i don’t think i had ever experienced until that moment. He had touched us all so deeply, bringing together a village of people that all revolved around his commanding center axis. But now he was gone.

Not gone entirely. He came to me in a dream a short time after he died. Like a David Lynch movie – like the scene in The Elephant Man, where John Merrick’s mother appears in space, in the clouds – Mark came to me in a white, white space devoid of sound. I could see in his eyes that he was dead, and i wept like a child. I cried and cried, telling how much i loved him, as he smiled that wry smile of his, and played his 2 string bass. The sound erupted out of the silence and he looked me in the eyes and i felt that he was passing something on to me. I’ve always been an avid dreamer, and this one stands as one The Big Ones. He came to me again recently, but this one was weird, with him still alive and having faked the whole thing (the same thing another friend dreamt about him, recently too) in a kind of Truman Show way, where he was both Jim Carrey and Ed Harris.

I miss him so much. Today i think of him and toast his memory, and later, along with some other mutual friends & Orchestra Morphine alumni – Russ, Tom & Christian McNeill, and my cohorts in Club d’Elf, Dean Johnston & Paul Schulthies and other guests, will pay tribute to the man with a set of his music. Mark always said “rehearsal is death”, so we’ve kept true to his philosophy, and though it won’t be the most tight set of music ever performed, it will be done from the heart. If you’re in Union Square in Somerville this evening, don’t be surprised if you hear the strains of Buena or Wishing Well or The Night coming out the doors of Precinct. Thanks for the music, Mark. Thanks for teaching me what I needed to learn, and for being my friend. I love you, man.

Club d’Elf on Earth Day…and the return of Brahim Fribgane

•April 15, 2009 • Leave a Comment

Greetings and Salutations,

Sometimes you just got to lead with some Jack Handey, because that’s the way it just has to be:

Why do people in ship mutinies always ask for “better treatment”? I’d ask for a pinball machine, because with all that rocking back and forth you’d probably be able to get a lot of free games.” – Jack Handey

Ah, now where were we? We’ve all made it this far, with only 1345 days left until the winter solstice of 2012 and the collapse of this time vector into something as-yet-to-determined, so pause for a murmured “well done”. Yeah, yeah, end of time scenarios are always bogus and cause for a good laugh, and this one probably, too. But…we’re not taking any chances. Not that we’re, you know, out stocking up on water & canned goods (though maybe…we…should….be….nah, it’s sunny outside and there’s people playing out there!), but the idea that There May Not Be All The Time In The World Left has given us, your friendly alien band Club d’Elf, a little fire under our rump to finish this dang studio project we’ve been on about for some time now. Yay! (pause for collective silence. Cue crickets.)

Now wait a second, yes we’ve been the boys who have cried wolfman before, and yes, Now I Understand did take 8 years, but we’ve gotten better! At least a little bit. And hey, this is TWO friggin’ discs we’re talking about here. So, c’mon. Wait til you hear this shit, folks. This is some Pre-Apocalyptic, ride-the-snake music and it’s going to cause you to…do things. We won’t say what. I had hoped to have the sneak preview sample ready to unveil when i came up at you this time, but…next time. (”oooowwwwwwoooooo……wolfman!) Seriously. So, yes the world is getting crazier and crazier every day but rather than panic & freak-out, we are tying up loose ends, and channeling all of our energy into this project of mad hope and surreal, face-pelt-gathering fun, in the cause of Just Fucking Doing It. Because when the world is running down, you just got to start Jack Handey-ing shit, and go with the “doing something positive matters”-type optimism, and if it doesn’t, at least our pockets are full of arrowheads – thanks!

Alright, now that micro’s obligatory weird opening is done with (and notice how i’m capitalizing shit….just trying to be a better person, man), what we have coming up this week is a show tomorrow night that sees the return of Brahim Fribgane – in town for some details related to the completion of disc #1: the Moroccan suite. And who should also be returning, also for said reason, is none other than the King of Beaver (um, because he lives in Beaver now…Beaver, PA), Erik Kerr. Dave Fiucznski is also along for the ride tomorrow night, casting a double-necked shadow of goodness. And maybe evil, too. Because it’s all about the play of opposites…dark and light. It’s sunny out, so right now we’re focusing on the light and thinking about those whales we saw on the cape recently. Yep, every note some bass player plays tomorrow night is going to explode like air from a blowhole, man. And then on Sunday…Earth Day, w/ D’Elf playing at one of our favorite spots, Tyrone Farm, perched right on the edge of the last dark place on the east coast. An early gig, one that that whole family can go to, like Mister Rourke’s, who will all be there. Seems like the weather is going to be nice, so…nice.

SHOWS

Thursday April 16, 2009

Lizard Lounge, 1667 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138. 9:30 pm – 1:30 am. 2 sets. $10. 21+. 617-​547-​0759/​1228. Featuring Brahim Fribgane (oud, perc & voice), Dave Fiuczynski (guitar), Paul Schultheis (Rhodes & Moog), Mike Rivard (bass & sintir), Vicente Lebron (congas & perc) & Erik Kerr (drums), w/ Dean Johnston (drums) & more!

Sunday April 19, 2009

Earth Day Show! Tyrone Farm, 89 Tyrone Rd. Pomfret Center, CT 06259. 3pm. 2 sets. $15. All Ages! info@​tyronefarm.​com.​ 
w/ Randy Roos (guitar), Paul Schultheis (Rhodes & Moog), Mister Rourke (turntables), Mike Rivard (bass & sintir) & Dean Johnston (drums).

 

Friday April 24, 2009  

NEiA Cyberarts Festival w/ Club d’Elf, Vadalna Tribal Dance Co & New England Institute of Art Web Design & Interactive Media (WDIM) students led by Chris Florio @ Arts in the Armory, 191 Highland Avenue, Somerville, MA. Club d’Elf (w/ Mister Rourke – turntables, Dave Tronzo – slide guitar, Mike Rivard – bass & sintir & Dean Johnston – drums) & the Vadalna Tribal Dance Company led by Shakti Rowan will collaborate with visual artists, programmers, animators and interactive designers from the Art Institute to create real time interaction between the performers and an arsenal of digital technology. Chris Florio. 7:30pm. $7 (free with a student ID). Advance Tickets.

 

Upcoming shows @Lizard Lounge: 5.22.09, 6.05.09 & 6.19.09.

 

11TH ANNIVERSARY POSTER

We are a little nervous that this insane, don’t-look-it-in-the-eye-darling CD project will put us in the poor house, but…No! That’s not going to happen! Right? Because everyone will buy this sucker, right? Or at least download it for free. NO! Don’t do that! See, we haven’t wanted to ride this band wagon of “fan-funded” recordings, not that we don’t think that’s a good idea (it is just a little bit…cringeful though), but rather who the fuck has money to give to some little band that plays music no one knows what to call, just so that their vision of a world where people dance naked in the woods and grandmothers eyes are SO big can come to musical fruition, as filtered through a lens of moroccan trance and funky dub? Who? Probably not you. Yeah, it just didn’t seem right in these times of economic frown to do that.

So instead we’ve gotten resourceful and down-sizzle, with the sale of an upright bass financing the last round of the recording sessions, and the sale of our 11th Anniversary commemorative poster – hopefully – financing the mastering and all the myriad other stuff that comes after. Here’s where you come in: the artist known as A. Minor, has come up with a real beaut, which we debuted last time. We now have about 50 copies left, all autographed by both artist and the band. However, typical of the bass-akward way we run things here at D’Elf HQ, we don’t actually have them available online…just yet. But soon they shall be, like, next time! And they will be available at our shows until then. So think about purchasing one, OK? This will not only help us out – A LOT – it will also be a collector’s item. In this day and age of 1’s and 0’s this is something “real” that you can put your hands on and use to roll up and smack that strange insect that is crawling up the wall – what IS that THING?!

D’ELF RELATED SHOWS

Sat April 18, 2009

Grand Fatilla @ Amazing Things Art Center, 160 Hollis St, Framingham, MA 01702 8 – 10 pm. $15. All Ages.  Tickets available with credit card by phone Tues – Sat Noon – 6pm : 508-405-ARTS. Grand Fatilla is Roberto Cassan (accordion), Matt Glover (elec mandolin), Mike Rivard (double bass), & Fabio Pirozzolo (perc & voice). Modern Global Music on shuffle…Argentine Tangos, Italian Tarantellas, Turkish Sufi sacred songs, Irish reels, Moroccan trance, Bulgarian dance music, and music from composers Hermeto Pascoal & Astor Piazzola. Also originals from the band members. 

 

Monday April 20, 2009 (420, dude)

Scarecrow Mobius @ Outpost 186, 186 1/2 Hampshire Street, Inman Square, Cambridge, MA. 8:00 $10 or b/o.  zeitgeist-outpost.com. Featuring Dave Bryant (Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time)– keyboards,  James Merenda – alto saxophone,  Mike Rivard – bass,  James Kamal Jones (Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time) – drums.

 

Wed April 29, 2009

Rakalam Bob Moses & Heart Breath (Stan Strickland, Andrew Urbana, Tupac Mantilla Gomez & Rakalam) @ Johnny D’s, 17 Holland St, Somerville, MA 02144. 617-776-2004. $10. 10 pm (Eric Dahlman’s Little Mystery @8:30).

Thursday April 3o, 2009

Giant Kings (Chris Cote – Singing, Duke Levine – Guitar, Kevin Barry – Lap Steel & Guitar, Marty Ballou – Bass,  Andy Plaisted – Drums,  Paul  Ahlstrand – Tenor Sax, Mark Earley – Bari Sax) @ Precinct, Union Square, Somerville, MA. 10 pm. Free.

 

Friday May 1, 2009

Either/Orchestra at the Regattabar, Cambridge, MA. 7:30 pm. Tickets: $16.  All Ages.  Tom Halter, Dan Rosenthal – trumpets, Joel Yennior – trombone, Godwin Louis – alto saxophone, flute, Russ Gershon – bandleader, tenor & soprano saxophones, Charlie Kohlhase – baritone saxophone, Rafael Alcala – piano, Rick McLaughlin – bass Pablo Bencid – drums, Vicente Lebron – congas, percussion.

 

Sunday May 3, 2009

Natraj @Brighton Allston Congregational Church, 404 Washington St.,Brighton, MA 02135. 3:00PM. $10 (general admission), $5 (students, seniors), free (low income). For tickets and information, call (617) 254-4046. Natraj: Phil Scarff – soprano saxophone, Mike Rivard – string bass, Jerry Leake – tabla and multipercussion, Bertram Lehmann – drums and percussion.

 

MISC RAMBLINGS AND STUFF

Can you believe that it has taken this long for the senate race in Minnesota to be decided, but  your humble narrator (and former Minnesotan) did a nice legs-up-and-clicking-together when he heard the news yesterday that a judge yesterday ruled  Al Franken the winner – finally. It’s embarrassing to see a fellow Minnesotan acting like a dick. C’mon, Norm. Hang that shit up.

It may have been mentioned earlier…something about notes and blowholes…and i know i’ve gone on this “gotta stay inspired” rant before, but you know, you just gotta. I got a big dose of Inspirado the other day when watching  whales at sunset on the cape, and damn, that shit is going to come out, is all i’m saying. Just don’t stand too close to the stage.

That poster i was talking about – the one you’re going to buy to support The Cause Of Finishing the Studio Project (Zontar demands it!), right? well,  the artist what drawn it – A Minor- has a couple of new animations up on youtube: New animation #1 &  #2. Music by Sun Ra. Nice.

Poet and author  Michael Brownstein has a new piece on Reality Sandwich about how maybe we shouldn’t be too starry-eyed about the new pres. Call him an old curmudgeon, but he’s got some good points. But we still love Obama, sorry.

Awhile back a Facebook was created for Club d’Elf by a nice guy named Stu, and maybe you’ve noticed it by now. I’ve been so busy i haven’t really had a chance to do anything about it (and i will admit, i’ve only checked it out once, awhile ago), but the time is coming. I have avoided it until now because i just don’t want to end up like the cat “…looking up the cheerleader whose shapely legs fired your imagination in geometry class, whose smile could heat the gymnasium, whose jojoba-enriched hair you smelled when you broke into her locker and pulled some strands from her brush, dropping it in a Ziplock baggie, taking it home to fashion an effigy for your hair-doll shrine.” You know? But i do wish to promote this little band, so look out for more involvement on this tip. But not that much, because it is kind of idiotic and we should all be outside….dancing naked in the sun. Or watching those who are.

 

We love us some Christopher Walken, and thanks to Brian for reminding us of this clip:

Other stuff that has caught my eye of late: & Carbon Atoms in Action Jazz musicians & the FBI.

And this looks like fun…

Molten Iron Throwing

 

 That’s it for now, folks. Thanks for your support, and remember: “I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its eggs in my brain, because later you might think you’re having a good idea but it’s just eggs hatching.” – Jack Handey
-Micro