On Sunday, the New York Times ran an article about Jim O’Rourke, an underground overachiever who, in addition to recording his own solo music, has played in Sonic Youth and Gastr Del Sol, and worked in various other capacities with Wilco, Joanna Newsom, and Superchunk.

His latest project is the new solo album The Visitor, a recording that, at times, features as many as 200 tracks of instruments.

As one might imagine, an album such as this would require quite an intricate mix, which is perhaps why The Visitor will only be available on CD and vinyl—no digital download.

Here’s part of the Ben Ratliff article from NYT:

He’s taking a stand against the sound quality of MP3s; he’s also taking a stand in favor of artists being able to control the medium and reception of their work.

“You can no longer use context as part of your work,” he said, glumly, “because it doesn’t matter what you do, somebody’s going to change the context of it. The confusion of creativity, making something, with this Internet idea of democratization …” he trailed off, disgusted. “It sounds like old-man stuff, but I think it’s disastrous for the possibilities of any art form.”

He’s not the first artist to attempt a download pushback. But is he a part of the vanguard or a dying breed?

Girls: “Hellhole Ratrace”
Band name aside, Girls isn’t offering up a whole lot that has to do with the female sex. Every spare measure of “Hellhole Ratrace,” is chock full of men. Wistful men. Melancholy men. Men feeling the great heartbreak. But, yeah, men all the same. “I don’t want to cry my whole life through/ I want to do some laughing, too,” mopes singer Christopher Owens. Strong men also cry, but this song, which stretches to almost 7 minutes, is positively bloated with tears.

Jonsi & Alex: “Boy 1904”
Sigur Ros front man Jonsi Brigisson and his partner Alex Somers have more streamlined approach to provoking elegiac thoughts. With it’s low drones, boys choir-style vocals, and field recording snippets, “Boy 1904,” from the duo’s upcoming ambient album Riceboy Sleeps, makes almost any activity performed during the songs duration feel sublime and cathartic. All that’s missing is a rain-streaked window to gaze out of.

Air: “Do The Joy”
Air isn’t big on substance, obviously, and “Do the Joy,” from its upcoming record Love 2 is appropriately ethereal. There are gossamer synths, fuzzy guitars, and the a voice that quietly murmurs, “Do the joy” over and over again, yet refrains from specifying exactly how ones does it. Conceptually, it’s a minor step down from, say, “Surfing on a Rocket.”

Ganglians: “Lost Words”
Remember that scene in Animal House where John Belushi rips the guitar out of a hippie’s hands and smashes it to bits against the wall? “Lost Words,” by Sacramento’s Ganglians, might insight a similar style of blind rage, at least for the hot tempered. Gilded in reedy falsettos and cascading waves of autumnal guitar, this is, ostensibly, a song about going to the grocery store.

Black Meteoric Star: “Death Tunnel”
A name can go a long way in techno. Were this song composed under a more upbeat moniker and given a title with a little more sunshine, it could easily be misconstrued as party music. But this is “Death Tunel,” by Black Meteoric star, and as such, the track’s pulsing sequenced synths suggest something more sinister. This is music for vintage-sci-fi dystopia and the darkest old-school Nintendo games.

Gang Gang Dance: “First Communion (TV on The Radio Remix)”
Less of a remix than a grudge-match between Manhattan and Brooklyn’s two most widely discussed art-rock bands. But there are no winners or losers here, just judiciously programmed 909s. TV on The Radio hurls itself into one of the better songs from Gang Gang Dance’s Saint Dymphna, stripping off some of the original’s lush synthesizers and locking down the tempo to a steady, if jittery, pulse. It’s hard to call it an improvement, but it’s hardly a throwaway.

Undoubtedly a swinging ensemble – but they opened their second set with a Latin-tinged riff tune that the band soon turned into a flat-out rocker. This turned out to be Wynton Marsalis‘ “Big Fat Hen,” the first in what Keys joked would be a set dedicated to “fowl. Our goose piece is coming up soon.” Actually, true to the festival, the theme was New Orleans, as evidenced by the next tune: an arrangement of “When the Saints Go Marching In” by big easy trumpeter Nicholas Payton (who will also appear at the festival). This second tune may already have been the highlight of the set, played as a midtempo hard-bop ballad, but with beautiful and unexpected harmonies added. Boyer, featured on the tune, delivered a cerebral solo that was both sensitive and muscular, Parecki following with a dancing, delicate piano submission.

The set continued with a couple of traditional New Orleans-style Dixieland marches, albeit with whiffs of the modern; soulful takes on standards and Crescent City legends; and a cha-cha rendition of “Happy Birthday.” All contained meaty, fruitful solos from Keys, Boyer, and Parecki. Easily overlooked, however, was James King; the bassist was perhaps the most consistent person onstage, with a steady hand and relentlessly smart lines but only two extraordinary solos.

Keys and his quintet play Bohemian Caverns again tonight at 8:30 and 10:30; they’re phenomenal. Don’t miss them.

12:30 AM – YOUNG LIONS
Technically the Young Lions are a trio, featuring pianist Allyn Johnson, bassist Kris Funn, and drummer Quincy Phillips. Last night, however, Phillips was the only regular member to show up for the weekly late gig. He did bring a power trio with him, however: Ted Baker on tenor sax and Eric Wheeler on bass. They were frequently joined in their two-hour set by electric violinist Matvei Sigalov in music that is not designed for the last stop on the way home…this was high-octane jazz for the night owls who aren’t interested in sleep.

The Lions burned through a program of rhythm-heavy standards (including an inspired take on Sonny Rollins’ “Pent Up House”) and white hot jams, mostly unnamed. Baker showed off impossible chops, while Sigalov focused more on discrete melodic ideas; Wheeler employed fleet fingers, funky and folky dance grooves, and impressive technique. But there was never any doubt who was the star of the show. Phillips, with metal bead chains adorning his cymbals, led the band through ridiculously accomplished, endlessly imaginative lines, fills, solos, and games with time; his work on the snare all by itself constituted a show. And, during a fiendish spin of “The Sidewinder,” Phillips casually let the rhythm begin to fall apart for just a moment, only so he could flamboyantly catch it again just in time.

This was both a completely typical and thoroughly atypical Lions set, however. They deserve a review all to themselves, when the regular band is present; nonetheless, they’re worth checking out no matter who’s onstage. Before you know it, it’s well after 2:00 and you’re behind schedule.

Skate rock (Think Sublime’s genetic material crossed with that of Minor Threat) is a lot like milt. Some people get a mouthful of the creamy white stuff and think, “So this is fish sperm. Not bad!” Other people take a bite, move it around with their tongues, and then say to themselves, “Oh god, I just put fish balls in my mouth.” They panic. They look for a trash can, a napkin, maybe some condiments to amend the taste. They crunch up crackers and squirt cocktail sauce directly into their gaping, fishy maws.  When that doesn’t work, they spit what’s left into their hands and shove it in their pockets.

Likewise, when it comes to seeing West coast skate music live, you either like getting involuntarily spanked by drunk white chicks with neck tattoos, pierced tongues, and exposed muffin tops, and jostled by aggressive white dudes with melanoma, trap muscles that touch their ears, and tattoos denoting their area codes/favorite Stephen King villains–both sets drugged and boozed to the hilt–or you don’t. God help you if you ended up–perhaps by invite–at the 9:30 Club last night for the Jagermeister Tour without prior knowledge that you were entering White Trash Central.

My accomplice and I missed openers the Supervillains, who’ve come a long way since playing house parties in St. Cloud, Fla., and jettisoning their trombonist. Smally is still on sax and Dom is still on drums and vocals, though they brought in some guy named Skart who has dirty dreads and loves weed to sing about, well, his dreads and weed.  (Full disclaimer: I was five years behind the Supervillains at St. Cloud High School, and after catching them live my freshman year, joined the Shoehorns–a short-lived Christian ska band–on trumpet. The ska stuff wasn’t for me–I just couldn’t tongue my horn fast enough!–but I did have the privilege of dating the Shoehorns’ bassist and a diehard Supervillains groupie for an entire month, at the end of which she asked me to choose between her and my penny loafers. I chose the shoes. She dumped my ass.)

Though we missed my hometown act, we made it just in time to catch Las Vegas rapper Big B perform “White Trash Life.” When he asked the crowd, “Where my white trash hoes at?”, nearly every guy in the club raised his hand in the air and then pointed down at the nearest female. I didn’t hear the part about the hoes, so I just waved my hands for the hell of it, which earned me a wary stink-eye or two from a group of dudes in fitted black ball caps and Tapout muscle tees.

Next up was Authority Zero, a Latin- and ska-tinged punk band from Mesa, Arizona, that’s been doing this whole music thing for, like, 15 years, with almost no one noticing (which explains why it’s constantly losing members to the Air Force and other Fuck-It-Time-To-Grow-Up jobs). After running through a catalogue of maniacal punk numbers, the band played “One More Minute,” the Sublime-ish alt-rock radio hit from 2002’s A Passage in Time, but declined to launch into their anti-Iraq War cover of Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio.” The highlight of the set was Jason DeVore’s rapid-fire vocals and stage monkery on nearly every song, which earned him mad props from Pennywise’s Jim Lindberg, who is too old to jump around and likes to sing really, really slowly.

Which brings us to Pennywise, the wizened grandfathers wise godfathers of California skate punk. Aside from a guest appearance by Minor Threat bassist/guitarist Brian Baker and a ballsy rendition of “Bro Hymn” (Next to Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” it is THE rev-em-up sports song), I was more interested in Lindberg’s between-song banter than guitarist Fletcher Dragge’s oversized and overamped three-chord chest-breakers. Unlike DeVore, who’s consistently espoused an anti-authoritarian political philosophy since 1994, Lindberg is all over the place. At the beginning of Pennywise’s set, he said he approved of Obama “so far,” and that he was definitely preferable to the “last eight years of bullshit.” Later in the set, however, he gave a shout-out to the military’s work in Iraq and Afghanistan, and encouraged the crowd to give a big hand to the men and women of the armed services who are “over there, kicking ass to keep us safe and free,” despite the fact the Iraq War is the bulk of George W. Bush’s political legacy, and  hands-down the stinkiest bullshit from the last eight years.

In between those pronouncements, Dragge and Lindberg riffed on white collar drones and “emo boys who wear their sisters’ pants.” Perhaps the sloppy mix of anarchism and hypermasculine nationalism is a West coast thing, but it just seemed so…not punk. A drone’s a drone, whether it’s sporting Brooks Brothers and a Blackberry or camouflage and an M-16. Then again, the no-neck crowd might have gone apeshit–and not in a good way–if Lindberg had openly criticized the military. The band’s one attempt at inspiring political activism came when Dragge announced–not two songs before “Fuck Authority” from 2001’s Land of the Free?–”This song is for one of you fuckers, hopefully you’ll make it into the White House.” Isn’t saying “Fuck the government, unless we’re the government,” kind of like, I don’t know, Ronald Reagan famously arguing “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem”?

Hawaii dub-rockers Pepper went on last, wandering onto the stage covered in sweat and wearing nothing but board shorts, and did their best to disperse the angry white-dude vibes by shouting “Poonani,” and “If you fight now, you can’t fuck later,” and flashing the triangle/vagina sign. The feel-good members of the crowd quickly caught on, bobbing their heads like a flock of pigeons and shouting “I love pussy!” while the dudes in Tapout shirts left for the curb outside to suck down some nicotine and compare choke holds. The set’s only downfall was that it was loud enough to harsh my buzz.

Photos after the jump….

Tracing the global proliferation of dubstep’s subsonic frequencies over the past few years, it makes some sense that Dutch DJ Martijn Deykers (aka Martyn) was lumped in with the genre as it spilled from South London’s FWD>> dancefloor. The chest-caving bass and shuffling riddims exhibited on Martyn’s string of 12″s and remixes in 2007 and 2008 did share common ground with the London crowd, and catapulted him to international acclaim.

But billing Martyn simply as a dubstep DJ doesn’t do justice to the depth and agility of his music, either. His debut album, Great Lengths, highlights the diversity and innovation of his sound, synthesizing a rich history of electronic music from house, techno, reggae, and drum and bass. The record has finally been given a proper release this week on his own 3024 records — a label that he runs with artist and graphic designer Erosie. Though the label’s name is a tribute to his home area code in Rotterdam, Martyn relocated to the D.C. area last August, living among the Virginia “suburbia” he alluded to on a 12″ single last year.

I caught up with the man himself last month to chat about moving to the U.S., the new record, and the inaccuracies of being caught up in the dubstep craze. Follow the jump for the interview, and be sure to check out Great Lengths, out now in CD, vinyl, and digital format, along with a brand new split 12″ with fellow Dutch producer 2562 on Tectonic records.

Washington City Paper: What’s been the biggest difference so far adjusting to life in the States versus life in Holland?

Martijn Deykers: Oh, wow. Everything’s different [laughs]. The size, I guess. That was what appealed to me a lot when I first came to the U.S. — everything is just so big here. It sounds a bit dull, but when you’re used to living in a far smaller country — I think Holland is about the same size as Maryland — you can imagine how things are far more stretched out here.

I guess also the people. There are a quite a lot of differences culturally, and the way that music is perceived here as well. It’s totally different from any European country I know. So far it’s been really interesting to see what the differences are, you know?

WCP: Given that musical discrepancy, what are some of the main differences you’ve noticed about how audiences in general receive electronic music here as opposed to Europe?

MD: Well electronic music here is just not as present as it is in Europe. Like, if you go to a clothing store in Europe — any clothing store — they will always play house or techno on the speakers. And over here, everything is more or less either hip-hop based, or rock-based. Electronic sounds are, I wouldn’t say “alien” to people here, but maybe they’re just less used to it? And when you look at certain club scenes or anything, it’s just a lot smaller than it is back in Europe.

Then again, I must say that the people here are very, very loyal. Once you play in a certain city and you’ve done a good job, then people will come back the next time, you know? They’re very faithful to you. That’s what I like. It’s the same for bands I guess. Back in Holland, they always say if you’re an aspiring rock band and you’re playing the US for the first time, you always have to go back three, four times and play all these little clubs to really make a name for yourself. And I guess it’s the same for electronic music — you really have to put in the hard work here.

WCP: Have you been to any electronic/dance nights in D.C. since you’ve moved to the area?

MD: I used to go Club Five back in the day when there was a drum and bass night there. And I went to Nation. Recently, I’ve been to Gallery in Silver Spring [for Loda], and really enjoyed that — it was a really nice vibe, a nice club and nice people. I’m just picking and choosing a little bit because I do try to stay away from clubs as much as I can, since I play so many gigs. Once I have a weekend off, I really want to have a weekend off and not be in a club, you know?

WCP: You often get cited for incorporating styles from dubstep, house, techno, drum and bass, and reggae, but you like to transcend that by saying that you make “Martyn music.” But what would you denote as the common elements that construct your sound?

MD: I guess it’s all about the history. I was always influenced by a lot of house and techno music from back in the day, when I first started out going to clubs and stuff. And then later I got involved in drum and bass and started DJing, doing events, and all that, and I guess the sounds that interested me from those eras, I try to bring them in to a new perspective — I try to make it sound new again. So I guess it’s a translation of all my influences over the years. I don’t know … it’s also physical. I’ve always been interested in bass and bass lines, probably from my drum and bass days. So a common factor in a lot of my tracks is that they have a lot of bass, and are carried by bass. And from Detroit techno, which is all about strings, atmosphere and futurism. I guess those two things combined with what’s actually of the moment, like dubstep, and instrumental hip hop — that’s what makes up the Martyn sound.

WCP: Well you often get categorized as a dubstep artist, even though you incorporate all these different styles. What does the word dubstep mean to you?

MD: Well that’s a tough one, because I don’t really consider myself dubstep at all [laughs]. I mean, I use a lot of influences out of dubstep, but to me, dubstep is more a sound from South London — a really dubby sort of approach to music that’s all around, that comes from bass science and just trying to get as much bass into your music as you can. And the rhythms are quite slow and reggae influenced. But it’s difficult, because if I would say “reggae-influenced,” and “bass-heavy,” that wouldn’t necessarily be a good definition of dubstep. There are a lot of other things that come into play, like old garage or two-step, so it’s just a weird combination of a lot of the music from 2000 to now.

WCP: You mentioned how dubstep is rooted in South London, but especially in the last couple years, artists such as yourself that live outside of London and the UK are being heralded as dubstep. How do you feel about the whole dubstep movement, and do you think it’s become a positive dialogue between international artists?

MD: I think all these people have listened to whatever came from South London and have given their own interpretation to it. Even an American artist like Flying Lotus, who has really not much to do with dubstep at all, he listens to the music, and takes ideas from the music, and puts it in his own. I think that’s a pretty interesting dialogue, because you can see people giving their own take on that music.

Then on the other hand, you also have people try to copy whatever is going on in London, and they’re classified as dubstep artists as well. Which could be a good thing, but if they’re not bringing anything new to the table, then it’s not interesting anymore. So it’s a bit of both. There are a couple artists, especially in the US, that I know listen to dubstep and are influenced by dubstep, and you just know that they’ve gotten the hunch of it, so to say. And I think that’s really interesting, as long as people bring their own vibe to the table.

WCP: On your new record, you feature two different vocal guest spots — aside from the samples — with Spaceape and dBridge. Have you worked with vocalists before, or was it a new experience to add original vocals to your tracks?

MD: I have done remixes with full vocals, so I knew a little bit about how to work with them, the whole songwriting thing was a new experience for me. Obviously, they did a lot of that work for me, because I didn’t want to just write the lyrics and melody and just have them sing it, so they did give me a lot of input on what the music should sound like, and what the vocals would be like, what the themes were.

I also did a lot of songwriting myself that didn’t make it to the album, just because I wanted to see what the whole process was, so I had to teach myself in those couple months I had to write the whole album. So I had to experiment with how to write choruses and verses and how to arrange things like that. Because electronic music is not really based around a song structure, so I had to try and make that work for me. It was a good experience, and I’ll be using a lot more vocals in the future, just because it’s nice to have some songwriting ability as well. Apart from just making a really cool loop that goes for five minutes and heats up the dancefloor. That’s cool too, but it’s nice to be able to do both.

WCP: So you were experimenting with songwriting? Did you write any original lyrics for your tracks?

MD: Yes. I mean, I’m a terrible singer. But I did write full lyrics for a track, and recorded all the vocals and stuff. And it didn’t really make the album, not because it wasn’t very good, but more because it didn’t really fit into the story of the album. So it’s something that’s been shelved for now. But it’s also something that even if the original track doesn’t come out in one form or another, at least I still have that experience and learned a lot from it. And on the album there are a couple tracks without beats and basslines — just sound structures. And that was something that I had played with before, but never really took very seriously, because if you make singles, then there isn’t much space for soundscapes or anything like that, because people won’t buy it, because they can’t play it. So for this album, I thought now was a good opportunity to make some sort of composition, and it took me a long time to get that right, but at least it taught me a lot — it’s also something you can take as a “musical luggage,” because every time you make something new, it makes you a better musician.

WCP: Great Lengths does seem to follow a clear progression. Is there a message, story, or anything in particular that you’re trying to convey throughout the album?

MD: It’s no so much a message, but I think it touches on all sorts of themes and emotions that I’ve experienced over the last year: the whole process of moving from one continent to the other, traveling, a lot of the other stuff that has to do with musical ideas as well. The whole songwriting process: putting music that’s not necessarily dancefloor-oriented. All these things are coming back in the album. It’s not like the album is a real story, apart from the fact that the order from the tracks is kind of how I’d build up my DJ set. For instance I had a lot of tracks at the end, right before I finished the album, and I made a DJ set at my house with all the tracks, and tried to be really intuitive on which tracks should be where. So in that sense it does have a little bit of a story.

WCP: With the recent hype that you’ve been getting with your music lately, did that put any kind of pressure on you while making the new album?

MD: No, not really. I’ve always been doing my own thing anyway, regardless of how many people were taking notice. I’ve always been quite stubborn when it comes to that. Even making this album there wasn’t really any pressure from people saying “you really gotta make an album, it’s a good career move.” I just came and said, “OK, I’m ready to make this album,” and as soon as I was ready, I started making it.

And I could even say, now that the album’s done and it will be released, that it’s time for another turn around, you know? To see if I can take it in a new direction again, just to keep it interesting for myself, and keep it interesting for other people as well.

WCP: Any idea what that direction will be?

MD: No. [laughs] It’s just stuff that presents itself. As my DJ sets progress over time, incorporating other music, they go in different directions, and so does my own stuff. So I don’t know, we’ll see. I’ll just have to play it by ear and see what comes out.

I recently flew across the country to watch a New York musician play a series of concerts in San Francisco. If that doesn’t seem to make much sense, consider that downtown legend John Zorn, a recent recipient of the half-a-million-bucks Macarthur “Genius” grant, almost never plays live except in New York City and Europe. But last week, he did a six-night residency at Yoshi’s in San Francisco, showcasing a different band each night, all but one playing material from his Masada songbook of tunes based on traditional Jewish scales and melodies.

I caught the last three shows: Bar Kokhba, The Dreamers and Electric Masada. Last Friday was Bar Kokhba, a sextet with violin, cello and guitar doing most of the melodic work with bass, drums and percussion backing. Two sets: the early set contained material from Zorn’s Masada Book 1 – the first 200 songs he wrote in the series – while the late set contained Book 2 material, drawing from some 300 songs Zorn wrote in a more recent burst of insane creativity. On record, I find the Book 1 material incredibly compelling (particularly as represented on the 3-disc set 50th Birthday Celebration Volume 11), while the Book 2 material is much more middle-of-the-road, the kind of the stuff you could play at a dinner party without offending anyone whatsoever. Live, though, it all got flipped.

My (very lengthy) full thoughts after the jump.

The first set of Bar Kokhba’s Book 1 material was great, but hardly transcendent, as if the musicians had played these compositions so many times that it was all becoming a bit rote. The newer pieces played during the second set, on the other hand, came across passionately, with violinist Mark Feldman and cellist Erik Friedlander (who is playing next month at An Die Musik in Baltimore with his own combo) deserving of special mention. Bar Kokhba’s interpretations of Zorn’s songbook are flowingly melodic, thanks largely to the contributions of these two musicians, whose sensitive soloing made the new material – almost soporific on record – come to shimmering life. During one of Feldman’s especially delicate solos, the cavernous club was completely silent except for one awed concertgoer whose amazed, whispered “…fuck…” pretty much summed it all up.

After Bar Kokhba, the black sheep of the residency came to play on Saturday. The Dreamers are an odd ensemble – and the only one of the residency not playing Masada material – whose self-titled 2008 record struck me as a rather unexciting mix of surf, rock and roll, jam-band music and jazz. After Bar Kokhba surprised me so pleasantly with their second set on Friday, I went in hoping that The Dreamers would prove a similar revelation. Sadly, it was not to be – the live set sounded louder and more intense than the album versions (including on some pieces the group did from The Gift, a similar album released on Zorn’s Tzadik label in the late 1990s), but just making the songs louder and more intense didn’t make them any more compelling. My tablemates seemed similarly unimpressed, and from the folks I talked to who attended all six nights, there seemed to be a general consensus that this was the weakest of them.

But Zorn was not to leave on a down note. Sunday night’s closing show was Electric Masada, an eight-piece band whose interpretations of the Masada songbook sound like a cross between Miles Davis post-Bitches Brew, strident free jazz, twitchy avant-rock, and the spacy, psychedelic jams of bands like Circle. Electric Masada weave a dense tapestry of sound, with each instrumentalist usually sticking to a general role: Marc Ribot on guitar, Jamie Saft on keyboards and Zorn on sax provide the main melody lines, Trevor Dunn on bass gives the music its most steady pulse, and Kenny Wolleson and Joey Baron on drums, Cyro Baptista on percussion and Ikue Mori on laptop electronics provide an avalanche of rhythm and miscellaneous noisemaking that ensure that even during the quiet moments there are always several layers of sound for the listener to process.

For all but one of the bands that played during Zorn’s six-night residency, Zorn played the role of conductor, using a diverse array of hand signals to direct his handpicked musicians in their interpretations of his songs. If he seemed a bit control-freakish, especially for a musician most often cubbyholed into the jazz world, the results spoke for themselves. Electric Masada was the clearest example of the effectiveness of his methods: with Zorn gesticulating wildly at his band throughout the performance, the band was fluid when it was supposed to be fluid and tight when it was navigating tricky passages full of free-meter playing and spastic time changes. The most enjoyable pieces were Zorn’s more avant-garde ones, which showed off not only the band’s ability to plow through fiendishly knotty stop-and-go passages but also Zorn’s compositional humor. His juxtaposition of fiercely amelodic, almost show-offy “look how tricky this is” sections with passages of bewitching lyricism, smashed together haphazardly within the confines of a single song, brought appreciative laughter from the audience as well as amazed applause.

The individual highlights of the evening frequently came from Zorn’s own contributions on sax. Of the six nights at Yoshi’s, Zorn played only two of them, conducting three more (he was absent for the opening set, Secret Chiefs 3). His playing with Electric Masada made me deeply regret missing the acoustic Masada quartet, which played the Thursday before. Simply put, Zorn is one of the most powerful saxophonists I have ever heard, possessing a mastery of the instrument that made absurd feats of musicianship seem routine. In fact, even while in the midst of some of his most aggressive blowing of the night, he would take one hand off his instrument to urge other musicians onward, never missing a beat in his own playing.

The tough thing about writing about an ensemble like Electric Masada is that all the musicians deserve individual plaudits; however, I’ll just single out one more contributor: Marc Ribot, whose guitar solos ran the gamut from bluesy to all-out noise to beautifully straightforward interpretations of Zorn’s Jewish melodies. Electric Masada is in many ways built around Ribot’s contributions, and while the whole band was stunningly good, Ribot and Zorn together put Sunday night’s performance over the top.

Masada-related bands have only come to D.C. a few times in the past few years: Masada String Trio (Feldman, Friedlander and Greg Cohen on bass) played here four or five years ago; Rashanim, a young band that released an album of rocked-up Masada tunes, played the Washington Jewish Music Festival in 2006; and Feldman played some Book 2 songs in a duo with pianist Sylvie Courvoisier at Twins Jazz in 2007. Here’s hoping that the deliriously positive reception of Zorn’s residency in San Francisco means he might actually play some more shows in the States soon.

So I’m-a sittin’ here fighting off a head cold and watching a little Life on Mars, when comes a commercial break. What snaps me to attention are the fingerpickings of late Takoma Park native and primitive guitarist John Fahey—to be specific “In Christ There Is No East or West” (the ‘67 version, pretty sure).

It was the backing track for a Vaseline ad. Not the good-ole petroleum jelly, but whatever high-tech lotion they’re slinging these days.

May Blind Joe Death’s heirs enjoy their royalties, and their smooth, supple skin.

Johansson recorded Buckley’s single for the soundtrack to He’s Just Not That Into You, the film based on the Oprah-discovered-and-hocked self-help book for hopeless hangers-on by Greg Behrendt. (Johansson also stars in the film, along with Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore and Ben Affleck.) As expected, bloggers, Buckley-philes and even Buckley-haters at Pitchfork ripped into the track (which can be streamed via Stereogum). The main complaint: Johansson’s vocal range is tragically terrestrial compared to Buckley’s gymnastic chords. Johansson can do soft and cigarette-smoky, no problem. But mastering the face- and heart-melting Buckleyan Willowy Wail? Not a snowball’s chance.

Nice try, Scarl. But please-step away from the mic and let the Buckley discography rest in peace.