AZ Day 3 - World Instruments, Wild Gas Stations, and Whimsical Bells
Today started with a trip to Press Coffee, a recommended cafe in a mall near my friend’s parents’ place. The coffee shop and the mall in general were a bit bougie, but the coffee was very strong and tasted great so I didn’t mind.
After fueling up, I went back to see all the continents' worth of musical instruments I didn’t get around to at Musical Instrument Museum yesterday. I also realized that I neglected in my last post to show off what a beautiful building the museum actually is with the wood paneling on one wing nicely complementing the more modern looking wing with a courtyard filled with trees and cacti tying the whole thing together.
I started by going back to the Asian galleries to photograph a few of my favorite items that my phone was dead for yesterday. The biggest highlight for me was a series of bamboo and reed crafted kazoos from the Philippines in the shape of more traditionally brass instruments. Naturally the one that excited me the most was the giant reed tuba, that I would have given anything to be able play. I ust can’t believe that people are able to make things like this that are son aesthetically convincing and still fully functional.
Another pleasing blend of form and function was this Burmese circle of tuned drums from Myanmar called a pat waing. I was impressed enough by the fact that all hand drums had different pitches, but the intricate metalwork patterns on the outside and wood patterns on the inside really sent this one over the top. You can check out what they sound like here.
The next gallery of instruments I checked out was from Oceania, including lots of aboriginal instruments from Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and the Pacific Islands (including Hawaii). It was a lot more scope than I expected, largely because I honestly didn’t realize how much farther the reach of Oceania extended beyond just Australia. Chalk that up to one more large gap in my geography and world history knowledge. One thing that makes this gallery impressive is that it exists at all, because the big history takeaway I got was that Christian missionaries really put in their best efforts to destroy their cultures and their music, but the people were able to withstand everything thrown at them and keep their traditions alive. My favorite piece here these two massive slit gongs from the small island nation of Vanuatu. I initially thought they were just large wooden sculptures, which would have been impressive enough, but I love that the slit down the middle actually turns them into giant drums used in important ceremonies.
After Oceania, I went to see the instruments of Central and South America. Here a lot of my favorite parts of the galleries were in the videos, including a Brazilian funk band and most excitingly for me a Colombian accordion duel. I did not know that accordions were a valid dueling option, but I think that would have made the Wild West a much wackier place to live in. In terms of actual instruments my favorites were: a Mexican Tuba carefully decorated with Mayan-inspired carvings; this excellent old wooden drum with spooky skulls carved along the base; and an Argentinian lute-like instrument called a m’bique that the little placard said was used “by young men to seduce women”.
Other highlights for me included and entire orchestra of instruments from Paraguay made out of 100% recycled materials so that children in poorer regions would not only have access to musical instruments but also learn how to make them themselves resourcefully; and some amazingly decorated ceremonial drums from Haiti. The Caribbean islands were grouped with the South American instruments, which I suppose is only partially geographically accurate, but it meant I got to see lots of videos of great reggae acts so I was happy.
In the hallways of the museum were some pieces of just straight up art that weren’t actually functional instruments. Luckily pieces like this wooden sculpture blending religious iconography and dio de los muertes skeletons in a wild celebration of Mexican history and musical traditions were pretty fantastic additions to the collection at large.
Logically after South and Central America came North America. I was really happy that this exhibit started with instruments from different Native American tribes from around the country. I was glad about this because a lot of museums separate Native American pieces from the American wing, which I never noticed until I saw a Native American artist talking about how ridiculous that is, so it always makes me happy to see when museums put a little bit more thought into their curation than that. The instruments themselves were also quite cool, covering wide ares of time and geography. There were giant beautiful wooden ceremonial drums from California; a collection of jazz instruments from the Phoenix Indian School Band and one of it’s most celebrated alumni, a jazz trombonist by the name of Russell Moore; masks and percussion used by ceremonial dancers from tribes throughout the Southwest, most strikingly a headdress made from an entire deer’s head; drums and costumes from an annual Pow-wow dance competition called the Big Drum; ankle rattles made out of turtle shells by Creek Indians from Oklahoma; and large ornate Totem Pole drums from the Pacific Northwest and the Arctic. One of the more interesting music history facts I learned was that a contingent of Eastern Native Americans became highly skilled at fiddle playing, even adopting it into their own musical traditions, after learning about the instrument from Canadian fur traders.
The next gallery was all about local Phoenix musicians, most notably Alice Cooper, who I had not realized was a local boy. Cooper’s theatrical stage presence lent itself well to a museum exhibit because they could show off his costumes an props as well as his instruments. The other locals to get their own display were the creators of a public access children’s variety show called the Wallace and Ladmo Show. The show was known for its tragically talented cast of local comedians and musicians who managed to produce the beloved show for 35 years and helped birth the genre of comedy rock with spot on parodies of contemporary music inspiring the likes of Weird Al and young Alice Cooper among others, and winning several daytime Emmys all while never quite breaking through into the mainstream. It’s a bit sad that they never really made it much farther than they did, but they were really in it for the love of the game and the hundreds of children they made happy which is sweet.
Up next was a gallery tracing the evolution of guitars in American guitars used in Rock, Roots, and Blues music. Some of the big ticket items here were Johnny Ramone’s guitar, a ridiculous three necked guitar that had belonged to Steve Vai, one of the first fifty guitars ever built by Les Paul, and Richenbacher A-22 steel guitar and amplifier from 1934 making it one of it not the oldest electrified string instruments still in its original condition.
On the periphery of this group, I was excited to see an original Hammond B-3 Electric Organ, a beautiful specimen responsible for some of the greatest funk, soul, and reggae rhythms and solos ever committed to wax and vinyl.
Up next was a display of earlier folk string instruments pre-dating the electric guitar, including banjos, mandolins, and zithers showcasing an impressive amount of craft and wood-working skill using really simple tools and materials. My favorite piece here was a gigantic mandolin bass that had such a small sound hole for such a fat body.
The next display was an interesting one about American Klezmer music that sprung up in Jewish communities in the Mid-West and East Coast. I feel like US Jewish experience doesn’t really enter popular culture until the 20th century, but Jewish immigrants have been here since the beginning so it was nice to see them getting their dues. I’ve always liked klezmer because it’s oddly similar to reggae in a fun bit of co-evolution in two totally different parts of the world. Plus the alpine painting on the drum head was a really lush piece of artwork.
The next wall featured two historical displays. One was about the roots of the blues featuring early folk instruments like jugs and home-made cigar box guitars, as well as a collage of signed harmonicas from bluesmen through the ages. The other highlighted women in Jazz and featured instruments from various talented women, though the showstopping items here were Ella Fitzgerald’s gown and vocal charts. The vocal charts in particular really struck me because they provide a unique visualization of just how complex and impressive the things Ella was able to with her voice really were.
The next few displays featured notable instruments belonging to famous players. On the Rock side, you had a unique drum kit custom built for Tim Alexander of Primus and probably more excitingly psychedelically painted drums that once belonged to Keith Moon.
In terms of the wind section the famous horns were: one from 1919 that belonged to Louis Armstrong’s teacher; one of Dizzy Gillespie’s signature upturned-bell trumpets; a miniature trumpet played by jazz musician Clyde McCoy, a descendent of the same McCoys from the Hatfield-McCoy fued; and one case just filled with Trumpet oddities including a double belled trumpet and a gargantuan Liberty Bass Trumpet described as “a tuba in trumpet form”.
The next few galleries were about the actual art of building instruments, which was really fascinating though I’ll admit I didn’t spend as much time watching these videos as I could have because I knew I would be meeting my friend’s parents for dinner and I still had whole continents to get through. One display was a small scale recreation of a Martin Guitar workshop, featuring these beauties at every stage of assembly. Martins are still widely considered one of the best acoustic guitar makers in the world, and they’re actually credited with first developing that “dreadnought” shape that has since become synonymous with the instrument. It’s always amazing to me that something we think of as so artistic and lyrical as music, requires such precisely measured and carefully constructed vessels to actually make it. It was a cool peek at the man behind the curtain. The other guitar making display was all about the art of inlaying from simple fret markers to complex body designs using mother of pearl. This explains the guitar being placed near a bag of oyster shells which when I first saw it was truly baffling.
All the mother of pearl art was impressive to me, but this piece by an inlay artist and guitar maker named Grit Laskin, entitled Night Dive really stole the show. There’s a whole scene going down the length of the neck of fisherman out at night and children playfully jumping off the boats. The colors, distinct characters, and water effects carefully done with mother of pearl completely blew my mind. I don’t know how you could even stand to play something so beautiful.
On the same theme of construction and deconstruction, there was a whole gallery showing the the process of building a Steinway piano. For sheer scope, complexity, and preciseness of measures, these really impressed me and I especially don’t know how they figured out how to do all this in 1853 when the Steinway & Sons company started. Sometimes I wonder why some brands have such glowing reputations, but when you look at the finished product, that thing really is a work of art.
Before crossing over the Atlantic to the European instruments, there was one instrument from the Great White North that really stood out to me: this positively goofy little percussion device from Newfoundland called an Ugly Stick. Between this little guy and free health care, Canada really feels like a much more whimsical place than here sometimes.
The first entry into the instruments of Europe made me happy, because it was a display of traditional instruments from Ireland. When I was taking language courses over there, there was a pub in our small sea-side town where all the students would go every night after class, and they always had live trad music filling the place. I have such fond memories of knocking back the Guinesses and trying to sing along to old songs in a language most of us had only a moderate grasp of. It was really pleasant having those memories pop back up, and also very exciting to see a little badhran (an Irish hand drum) signed by almost every member of the Chieftains.
The rest of the European gallery was generally grouped by regions, with the UK, Nordic, Germanic, French, Slavic, Dutch, and Spanish countries all getting their own displays. In general instruments ranged from early folk instruments, largely made from cheap woods and animal parts, to ornately decorated and finely crafted pieces of musical machinery. I’d say the thing that surprised me the most here was that so many other countries have similar cultural equivalents to bagpipes as I always think of that as such a uniquely Scottish thing. It makes sense though, because, while the Scots and the Celts probably experimented with the instrument a bit more than most, the actual idea of using an air filled bladder of some sort (at least early on, using real bladders) to expel air through a tube is actually one of the simpler instruments to make with easy to find materials. I just never thought of it before.
The highlights of the European wing for me were: a Slovak Bagpipe called a dudy that use finely carved wooden bellows to generate the air but still feature a goat’s stomach and horns as well as carved wooden’s goat head for stylization; some absolutely incredible and bizarre multi-belled trumpets from the German based Martin Instrument Company that were just fascinating; a long curved bugle-like horn from Denmark dating back to the Bronze age (!); a wood carved lyra from Crete with the headstock carved to look like a little man playing a smaller lyra; an English hunting horn made from elephant’s ivory with richly detailed hunting scenes carved into (I don’t like the killing of elephants just for ivory but I can’t help thinking it’s such a beautiful material); and an instrument from the Netherlands called a Naturhoorn that looked a bit like a small tuba but with a lovely floral pattern painted on the inside of the bell. Other great things I learned from this exhibit was the fact that one tradition during Slavic weddings is to sing “teasing songs” at the bride and groom which is a lot of fun.
Besides the bagpipes, two interesting instruments that showed up across so many different cultures that they got their own displays were harmonicas and accordions. If you could only pick two families of instruments to give whole displays to, I was glad it was these two because there was so many bizarre variations that I just loved looking at including harmonicas amplified by little bell shaped protrusions like trumpets and a standing accordion that almost looks like a water fountain.
Lastly in this wing, there was a display about Roma street festivals complete with costumes, percussions, and piccolos. I was really happy this got included, because the Roma are such a large culture with a rich musical background but no country to really call their own, so I wasn’t sure if they would get a much deserved shout out or not.
After Europe, I moved in to the African wing of the museum. This wing featured hundreds of instruments, some going back several centuries and others that were quite modern. One thing that became very clear to me was how sort of arbitrary the borderlines are in Africa, and that they were clearly made by colonial power because the instruments were largely grouped by cultures and tribes whose geographic placement doesn’t really map all that well onto the countries that we’ve made. Of course there are historical reasons for these borders, and obviously other cultures could totally coexist perfectly fine, but I have to think that if Africa had been able to divide up its land without any outside interference the borders might look a bit different. All that being said, I was glad that the entrance of the wing provided a map of Africa with different ethnolinguistic groups highlighted in regions where they were most prevalent. It was a very helpful visualization for someone like me, who never really learned much African history beyond ancient Egypt and Apartheid (oh, it’s only the continent with the most human history on it we don’t need to teach that in our public schools).
The wing was largely divided by general regions though some larger countries did get their own displays. I started with East Africa, with most of these instruments coming from Mali, Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast, and Nigeria. Some of the highlights for me were different string instruments ranging from higher registered lutes to big ol’ basses made out of wood, calfskin, and gourds. There’s something very pleasant to me about the shape of a gourd as a body for string instrument, but also something very elegant about how effective it is as a sort of built in resonator.
For real craftsmanship though, the bigger highlights here were the carved drums and percussion instruments. When I say they had every shape and size imaginable, I really mean it. Their were drums carved like people, animals, abstract shapes, and even entire scenes from mythology, ranging from small hand drums to huge ceremonial toms. I’d seen a lot of artfully made instruments in this museum, but this might have been one of the densest regional collections of instruments that skewed almost more into being works of art that also happened to be functional instruments. I was beyond impressed. I was also very excited to learn that the Lobi people in what is now Burkina Faso are apparently widely celebrated for having a culture rich in virtuoso xylophone players. They also use special regional variants of xylophones with gourds at the bottom of the reeds, creating a kind of guitar-like reverb effect. Watching a virtuoso in action is always kind of mesmerizing, but it’s such an unexpected sound coming from such an unexpected instrument it’s really better to just see it in action here.
My personal favorite of all these art drums was this beautiful wood carving of a mother holding a baby extending up into a big calfskin drum. I’d say it was at least four feet tall and the scope and detail in the carving was phenomenal.
Up next, I moved a bit inland for instruments coming from Central Africa, including the countries of Rwana, Burundi, Cameroon, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Again the more decorative drums really stole the show, particularly some pieces from the Bamileke people in Cameroon that featured astonishing beadwork covering the largely wood and iron insturments and sculptures that added amazing colors and textures. They were really otherworldly. I also really liked a harp from the DRC that featured a headstock with several different heads carved on for a neat spooky effect.
Next we moved up to North Africa, with instruments from northern Mali, Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt. These instruments were cool because of the blending of older traditionally North African artistic and musical practices blending with Islamic influences that have been an important cultural part of that region since the 7th century. In terms of Islamic and Arabic influence, the addition of intricate inlaid religious designs and decorations to the already impressive woodworking in the region made for some really stunning specimens. I also liked in terms of older traditions that there is a lute-like instrument called the imzad belonging to the Tuareg people of Algeria that is traditionally only played by women. I liked learning that because I think the further back you go in history, there’s a tendency to think of women as singers and dancer and men as instrumentalists so it’s always interesting to see some cultures flipping that paradigm.
In terms of personal favorites, I was all about the different lutes and harps. To the left is a cool example of how traditional instrument designs are continued into the modern and electric age, in the middle is a lute that demonstrates something I learned quickly in that just because an instrument might look plain on the front it could still have incredible designs on the back, and to the right is impressive harp that was actually made in the US but based on archeological finds from ancient Egypt trying to replicate ancient designs and color combinations.
From North Africa, I actually took a quick trip back to Asia to look at instruments from Middle Eastern countries that I had missed yesterday. From Iraq and Iran, there were several amazingly carved string instruments that actually didn’t have any inlaying in them. The intricate designs and different colors were actually just generated from really careful wood carving which just about blew my mind. I would wager that might have been true of some of the other instruments I’ve mentioned but this was when I really became aware of the distinction. My favorite instrument here (bottom left) did have some inlaid mother of pearl for luster, but I was still impressed with the carving element here because the tuning keys all looked like little minarets and it was awesome.
I found the instruments from Israel to be really cool for the way they blended in Jewish religious and cultural symbolism with more a-religious middle eastern stylistic flourishes common to the region. In particular there was a lute-like instrument that had possibly the most intricate designs I had seen so far, which seemed very similar to designs used in Islamic countries but with for the addition of two small Stars of David near the headboard. It was a very impressive piece of craftsman. There was also one instrument that was a drum that was also conveniently used to grind coffee beans in a surprising two birds one stone arrangement, and some horns made from real animal horns that I thought had really fascinating sheens to them.
After my sojourn to the Middle East, I went to see the rest of the African instruments I had missed including pieces more pieces from central Africa and more Southern African countries with countries including Sudan, Gabon, the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa (quite a spread geographically). The highlights for me were: guitars made from recycled materials (including Castrol oil cans) from South Africa; some wood carved instruments from the Luba people (predominantly in the DRC) including a fascinating instrument called the musical bow which is looks like a piece of wood with a single string but the musician places one end in their mouth and hums through it while plucking the string to create a dazzling array of sounds (see here); a large collection of great traditional wood sculptures that had been donated to the museum despite not actually being inherently music-related; and some Sudanese lyres that are a sort of hybrid string instrument and bass drum that also feature amazing beadwork and designs that make them look like really surprised faces much to my delight.
Similar to the ones from the Oceania exhibit, there was also one more giant slit gong but this one looked more like a small bear and I loved it.
Back in the hallway as I made my way to the downstairs galleries (yeah all of that was all just one floor), there was another really impressive piece of art: a gorgeous harp with brightly colored birds carved into it by a Jamaican sculptor whose name was unfortunately a little too blurry for me to read in the photo I took. There’s something really dreamlike about their use of not-quite-straight lines and the little bird on top of the headstock is a nice touch.
One of the largest galleries on the first floor was the Artist Gallery which featured instruments, outfits, and memorabilia from notable artists. Artists on display spanned a variety of styles and decades including Elvis, John Lennon, Johnny Cash and June Carter, Tito Puente, Leonard Bernstein, Maroon 5, Roy Orbison, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and many others. One of the most interesting finds here belonged to an artist named Wu Man, who previously was not on my radar. She’s a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, among other groups, and is widely considered to be the foremost player of the traditional Chinese string instrument, the pipa, in the world. Watching the recordings of her, she’s almost seems supernaturally gifted, she’s that good. I was also struck by the fact that whereas some of the rock and jazz guys were real outsized personalities in the way that they dressed, she just looked like such a normal person. It’s totally surreal that you could just walk past someone who’s the best musician in the world at their instrument and not even realize.
The next gallery was dedicated to mechanical instruments including vintage music boxes and self-playing instruments from the 19th and 20th centuries. I’ve seen similar collections in different museums around the country, but I always love seeing these things because they’re both really impressive feats of early engineering (including very similar programming that would inform early computer science oddly enough) as well as being aesthetically really lovely. One type of instrument I hadn’t seen before that was in this gallery was a self playing trumpet that operated on a single notched paper roll like a player piano. I just hadn’t even realized that kind of thing was possible.
The star of the show and perhaps the whole museum though was the Apollonia Orchetrion a truly massive automated dance organ that spanned 25 feet in length and weighs over 2 tons! Somehow it didn’t catch on as a major household item. Still it featured a huge pipe organ, two accordions, an entire automated drum kit, beautiful refurbished artwork, and a dazzling light display all fully, automated. It’s probably best just to see it in action here.
Lastly there was a gallery of instruments available for visitors to play and experiment with. I loved that this was an option, but I also felt kind of bad wanting to play the same instruments as some much younger kids and not wanting to rush them since this gallery felt more designed for them to use up their excess energy. I did however get some quality time playing a theramin, which was both too strange and too complicated for the younger kids so that made me really happy. For some strange reason this gallery didn’t include any of the Steinways or Stradivarius.
After I think finally seeing almost everything the MIM had to offer, I made my way to meet Kathryn’s parents for lunch. They were excited to take me to a local Scottsdale establishment called The Thumb. I call it an establishment, because it doesn’t really fit neatly into any boxes being an eccentric and wonderful blend of part gas station, part restaurant, part art gallery, and part gift shop. I think the owners were going for a vibe similar to old eye-catching Rt. 66 Rest Stops, and they executed it with loads of wit and wonders. Plus they actually had decent gas prices which is truly a special thing. In terms of the art and oddities inside, my favorite pieces were little toy elephants made out of recycled materials and a darkly comic pig statue labeled with “BACON”.
As good as the cheap gas and funky art was, there was a reason we were meeting there for lunch. This is no cheap gas station deli, they have a fully stocked BBQ restaurant that is widely celebrated and has been featured on both local and national TV. Before moving to Arizona, my friend’s family lived in Louisville for quite some time, so they’ve got some pretty good BBQ to stack this up against and it passed their approval so I knew I was for a treat. I ordered something called a Brisket Stack because it sounded amazing, and it was featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and when it comes to greasy goodness that is something I trust Guy Fieri with. The meal is perfectly tender smoked brisket on a bed of flat crispy hash brown and cheese pancakes with a fried egg on top with the whole thing drizzled in a tangy chipotle aioli. It was heaven for my taste buds and probably hell for my arteries, but I loved every bit of it. As an added bonus, the restaurant had a whole counter set up with a DIY barbecue sauce bar filled with several different flavors to go with. I liked the memphis style sauce the most, but it was nice having a variety to work with. I can see why this place made such a big impression on my friend’s family, because there’s really nothing else quite like it.
Over lunch, I asked for some recommendations for things to do in the area that afternoon. Of the suggestions I got, the one that jumped out at me the most was a place called Cosanti. Cosanti was the studio and workshop of experimental architect and artist, Paolo Soleri. Soleri pioneered in something he called “arcology”, a portmanteau of archeology and ecology, because he wanted to create homes that pushed the boundaries of current archeological aesthetics while also being environmentally sustainable. He used a lot of circular shapes and earth-based concretes in his constructions to maximize natural lighting and heat exchange to minimize the unnecessary use of fossil fuels for those purposes. An entire arcological community designed by Soleri was actually designed on a plot of land further North in Arizona called Arcosanti, but Cosanti, down in Paradise Valley near Phoenix, features some of his earliest designed arcological buildings as well as a foundry that produced a lot of different bells and sculptures designed by Soleri that he would sell to help fund his archeological experiments. I didn’t tour the whole compound, but the areas I saw were just incredible. The buildings had much more naturalistic shapes and designs than traditional buildings, with certain rooms echoing shapes like those of mushrooms or vertebrae. It almost looked like they had just sort of sprung up from the ground.
The star of the show here were Soleri windchimes and bells that were the bread and butter of the studio. Soleri himself died in 2013, but the current artists and craftsmen working still have the casts he made to create new replicas of his pieces as well as a few remaining originals and some newer designs made with the same style and spirit. These were really impressive, with some pieces being made from clay while others were made of bronze, and fired in such a way that they somehow looked old and new all at the same time. That unusual aesthetic was also helped by Soleri’s artistic style that seemed like a mix between prehistoric art and more modernist cubist style representations. They had bells in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and the fact that he could do all this while also trying to build a utopian society was pretty unbelievable.
The gift shop also had some fine jewelry including rings, necklaces, and bracelets featuring some of the more abstract designs from the bells and windchimes made even more finely out of more delicate materials. They were waaayy out of my price range (and not really my personal style) but they were really beautiful.
After Cosanit, I kept the experimental architecture tour going by seeing a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (who as it happens was one of Paolo Serenti’s teachers) for his son, David. The house is one of the last houses designed by Wright to be used as residence of someone in his family. I got there a little too late to take any tour of the inside, but honestly just getting a good look at was still pretty jaw dropping. It was like a modern art castle with turrets and railings that almost seem to defy gravity. I can’t imagine actually living in a place like that though, because I’d be so scared of ruining anything.
After all that man made splendor, I took in some natural beauty by driving up to see the Camelback Mountains, named (long before the water bottle brand) because of their resemblance to the two humps of a bactrian camel. I didn’t actually do any hiking because I couldn’t for the life of me find the right trailhead my GPS was trying to send me to so I eventually just kinda gave up. I was just glad to get a good view of the mountains.
And the view from the top of the mountains (or at least the nearest street to the top of the mountains) wasn’t too shabby either:
Despite not actually climbing any mountains, I was still pretty tired at this point in the day so I decided to re-up on some caffeine. At my friend’s parents’ suggestion, I went to 5th avenue back in Scottsdale which is a really trendy shopping area. They had a Cartel Coffee Lab, a local chain that I had visited in Tuscon, where I posted up for a bit, enjoyed some coffee, and got some writing done. It was a great, cozy space with good strong coffee. You couldn’t really ask for much better. After I got my coffee, I just sort of walked around the area enjoying the sights particularly a fountain in the middle of the shopping plaza with big horse sculptures seeming to jump right out of it.
After I finished my coffee it was time to head to the night’s open mic. It was at a place called the Woodshed, which was a fun sports bar with great weird woodchuck art all over the place which I really enjoyed. They also had really cheap beer, which was an added bonus because I ended up getting there quite a bit early. I would have been a bit early anyway, but it also turned out that this week they were actually having a brief comedy showcase before the open mic featuring some comics from Tuscon.
Before the showcase, I hung out on the bar’s patio drinking and talking shop with some of the other comics who got there early. While we were talking, there was one older guy drinking with us who was not a comic, but when he found out we were comics he went in to some of the filthiest jokes I have ever heard. I’ll put some of the more printable ones below, and if they’re shocking just think about what I did censor out. It’s tough because me and the other comics did laugh, but in more of “I can’t believe this guy is saying this to us” kind of way. I think that can be viewed as encouragement or worse agreement though if the person saying offensive stuff lacks self-awareness, but it’s just sort of my natural reaction to discomfort to laugh.
Luckily unlike the drunk old guy outside, the comedy showcase featured some really funny jokes and some very strong performers. It was a special showcase highlighting all female performers (and one guy in drag), and they did not make the drive up from Tucson without bringing their A games. The host Steena Salido started things off with great energy and kept the whole showcase moving at a breezy enjoyable pace with no real dips in momentum to speak of. My favorite performer of the showcase was a woman named Roxy Merrari (who had lived in Boston for a few years so we got to talk about how much we both loved seeing shows at the Middle East). She did a lot of jokes about being a single mom but she gave more traditionally wholesome family material a nice dark, absurdist edge. My favorite line of hers was “Do you ever use Tinder to just get a babysitter?”
Other highlights from the showcase:
Steena: I thought I was pulling out my headphones, and I accidentally pulled out a hoop earring.
Sindil Hansen - I switched careers to comedy and I make more money now. I’ve made $20.
Mo Urban - I had a guy say to me “You’d have to be a real bitch to not think I was a nice guy” Seriously?
I think having a strong showcase actually got the crowd more on board for comedy in general so even though the mic started fairly late (after 10) there was actually a pretty decent sized and solidly attentive crowd for a sports bar. This particular mic also had a nice touch of one guy on the side of the stage with a keyboard who would improvise intro and outro music for each performer so that also helped keep the energy up during the night.
My favorite performer of the mic was Dustin Hadlock who again did a set that really rode the line between brilliant and insane. I don’t know if he had come out with planned material, but once he knew he had the guy with the keyboard he instead spent most of his set improvising a long story song in a flawless Randy Newman impression. He would keep making you think the song was about to end, and then launch into a new verse. It was totally surreal and bizarre but I loved every second of it.
Other highlights from the mic:
John Mooda- A man punched me for looking at his daughter. I’m sorry but I think a 72 year old can make her own decisions
Ben Anderson- I walk into a house and I say “this better be some crown molding!”
Britney Hanrahan- This girl was so ghetto, she laugh with her tongue out.
Avery Jhingree- I lost my hamster so I made sure to double check… inside my anus!
My own set went really well, and I think I for sure benefited from the general good boost in energy all the other comics gave the night because I went up at around 11-ish so no matter how I did I would’ve understood if a crowd on a Wednesday wasn’t into it. I was pleasantly surprised, and it gave an overall solid day a solid close.
Favorite Random Sightings: Skin Laundry (I believe it was a cosmetic shop but it sounds like it was named by Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs); Bug Warrior; Lip Lady; Corn Beef Eatery; Spiritually Bold (nice message, odd bumper sticker)
Regional Observations: I can’t really get a grasp of how big Phoenix is, because it feels like a giant city, but also Tempe, Scottsdale, and all the other surrounding towns feel like they’re all part of it, so I’m not sure where Phoenix-proper begins and ends.
Albums Listened To: Saturation II by BROCKHAMPTON; Saturation III by BROCKHAMPTON (I just can’t believe they dropped three albums in the same year, and they were not just good but great. I also give them a ton of credit for some of their members being unabashedly gay in their lyrics which is still pretty uncommon in mainstream hip hop); Scepter Studio Sessions by the Velvet Underground (early demos of a lot of the songs that would end up being on their seminal debut album)
People’s Favorite Jokes of the Day:
What’s the difference between a crack dealer and prostitute? A prostitute can wash her crack and sell it again
A guy goes to a bar and every night he sees this guy called Big Chief going home with a different beautiful girl. He asks him, “Big Chief, what’s your secret?” Big Chief looks at him, grins, and says, “Before I have sex, I whack my member against the bed post three times like this. Whack, Whack, Whack. After that I can go all night.” “That really works?" the man asks. “Try and find out,” the Chief says. That night when the man goes home he decides to try out the trick. He whacks himself three times against the bed post, and his wife wakes up and says “Chief is that you?”
Songs of the Day:
They call themselves a Boyband, and the energy and dance moves are there, but the live strings, tight verses, and pointed commentary in the outfits really make them stand out head and shoulders above the pack
the kids yelling along are a little distracting at the beginning, but it shows how hard they’re connecting
A newspaper asked Lou Reed why he did heroin and he said “It’s more fun than playing checkers”
Bonus Virtuoso Performance: