Undead Music Festival: Tonic Reunion at Le Poisson Rouge

Sex Mob

Last Wednesday and into the wee morning hours of Thursday,

Jon and I went to see the Undead Music Festival's Tonic Reunion Concert

at Le Poisson Rouge.

It was like we were in college or young or something crazy.

Here's a sample of Sex Mob,

which is the only band that I really wanted to see.

Apparently, I've seen them before at 

the Miles Davis Tribute Festival in 2001.

I don't remember them 

since there were a million musicians at that festival,

but they were awesome on Thursday night.

Obviously, my cell phone's recording can't do it justice,

so you should check out their songs on Grooveshark or YouTube.

Elysian Fields

Here's the schedule:

LE POISSON ROUGE / TONIC REUNION SHOWCASE:6 p.m. - Doors 6:45 - Heather Greene & Ursa Minor (Heather Greene, Mino, Michelle Casillas, Rob Jost, Robert DiPietro, & Tony Scherr)7:45 - Jamie Saft's New Zion Trio 8:15 - The Refuseniks with John Hollenbeck, Ted Reichman & Reuben Radding9:00 - Dougie Bowne's Peninsula with Chris Speed, Jamie Saft, Michael Leonhart & Hilliard Greene9:30 - Short Tonic Documentary9:40 - Billy Martin Improv with Erik Friedlander, Marcus Rojas & Calvin Weston10:20 - Yuka C. Honda's EUCADEMIX with Miho Hatori, Eden Rice, Jared Samuel & Michael Leonhart11:00 - White Out w/ Bill Nace11:30 - Elysian Fields 12:00 - Steven Bernstein's Sex Mob12:30 - Ben Perowsky's Moodswing Orchestra with Michael Blake, TK Wonder1:00 - G. Calvin Weston, Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Vernon Reid

The 9:00 group started at 9:30, 

and everything else just started later thereafter.

Dougie Bowne's Peninsula, etc. was good,

but I couldn't really dig it as much as Jon did.

The Tonic Documentary broke in the middle of showing it,

but basically, the guy who owned Tonic is putting together a documentary

about Tonic and how it was a great haven for musicians

to try new things without having to go to the bowels of Brooklyn/other suburbs.

Why did Tonic close down?

Yuppie neighbors and rent, of course.

Billy Martin Improv was awesome.

I have a huge crush on Martin, Medeski & Wood,

but for whatever reason Jon doesn't want to ever take me to their concerts.

Yuka C. Honda is part of Cibo Matto,

who is the only band I recognized that was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I heart Cibo Matto and Buffy.

They did a beautiful version of "Le Vie En Rose".

White Out had a really short set.

I think the woman in this band was dancing strangely to the Dougie Bowne band.

I think a lot of the older people in the room were high.

And used to be hippies.

Elysian Fields came on around midnight.

The singer joked that at Tonic,

they'd be slated to go on so late

that they hardly had anyone to play for anymore.

Their set was good and short,

but kind of soothing.

Sex Mob came on around one a.m.

They brought the energy back.

It was unusual how the whole room suddenly became so awake and alive.

None of the previous bands managed to do that.

Overall, as a venue Le Poisson Rogue wasn't too crowded 

for this festival of awesome jazz.

We managed to find a place to sit and eat and drink for hours 

without having to sit on floor by the stage or against a wall.

The room was small enough,

so the acoustics were good,

but since we sat somewhat toward the back of the room,

there were A LOT of people talking.

And you can hear them all talking over the music,

which was kind of annoying.

Though we were curious about the later bands,

we were resolved to show up at work the next day

with some wits about us,

so we went home and slept

to go to work the next day.

Responsibilities.

They're so not jazzy.