Howe Gelb.

Thrasher Magazine, March, 2004

HOWE GELB WALKED UP to the grandest of piani and (without hesitation or thought towards orientation) emptied his pockets of all tools musical into said piani's guts: Capo, harp, the thing that goes around your neck to hold your harp (this one tool was especially responsible for fucking up the largest expanse of strings), glass slide, and other wherewithalls. Was the slide that of glass or brass? Nobody rides for free, and the handwritten receipt on the hack of a GAMH flier wouldn't suffice for the expense-reportees. Not that we tried to report such expenses. Anyway. It was two months ago. The airstream's rivets have added rust to the rain trails by now.--SC

Howe had the Danes with him on this night His Portland show hosted some members of Calexico on the previous eve (I don't remember how many Catexicos. Didn't take notes. Howe Gelb. take notes? I do remember a specific quote: "Maybe you'll be lucky enough to find it again someday" We were talking about mini-discs and field recordings. Run it through the Neve, Excites it just a bit), but they were gone and Denmark had arrived. Marie Frank sang like a girl and Thoger T Lund played the rented stand-up thunderbroom. Anders Pedersen used a slide on his mandolin, but not the same slide that Howe had lost in the piani. Peter Dombernowsky beat on a box of perfect percussion. It's called a Cajon, but regardless, it's perfect.

The whole night was perfect. The sand blowing in my ears was perfect, Listening to Miles Davis play along, in key but out of time, was perfect. I mean, a lot of it wasn't like the best music you ever heard, but enough of it was.

In summation, you just can't accept romantics and their notions of internalized aural and melodical genius anymore. Everyone appreciates good fucking harmony. Things just keep getting more and more broke and we want to hem the dirt and grit about it all. So we do. Don't know why Howe's standing on the anchor, though. Enough about I. www.giantsand.com