Bent Knee touring activity, June 2016

[100423]

Not as horrible as it could have been for Kansas City on a Monday night. Not at all! <happy>

Everyone was into it and demanded an encore even though they were starting to tear down.

[Phlakaton]

30-ish I would say.



Glad you like it!

HA. Come back when you see Thinking Plague with 2 other people... your son and one guy from town. Oh... Stop Motion Orchestra was there too - but they opened. THAT - is too few.

[100423]

HA. Come back when you see Thinking Plague with 2 other people... your son and one guy from town. Oh... Stop Motion Orchestra was there too - but they opened. THAT - is too few.

Yeah, that is a shame. I would have loved to have been there to boost the audience by 25%.

[Phlakaton]

Yeah, that is a shame. I would have loved to have been there to boost the audience by 25%.

25% === LOL Yup... I was pretty upset at the show about the turnout - BUT - I could never complain about having virtually a private TP show! My son and I were in heaven.

Ok... sorry for derailing the thread. Back to Bent Knee

[rcarlberg]

What the hell did Steve do to Leonardo??

Dear Friends in Music
Here is a band that You all should know about, the Cuneiform recording artist BENT KNEE.

"Highly enjoyable complex, breathtaking music that might very well be a bit ahead of its time, but thrills audiences everywhere."

"Globally-Acclaimed Rockers, Bent Knee, Create Say So, a World-Class Album Brimming with Catchy, Captivating Songs That Channel the Best from Rock s Spectrum, from Pop to the Avant Garde."

BENT KNEE is a genre-​defying art-rock collective from Boston, and one of the most exciting non-instrumental progressive bands that i've heard in a very long time. Fiercely innovative, the band bridges the gap between the experi​mental and the familiar, merging texture and style into music that’s moving, addictive, and unapol​ogetic​ally original. Combining immense depth and musicality with enthralling melody and grand arrang​ement, Bent Knee is High Art For The Masses.

They are on the great Cuneiform Records, run by one of my dearest friends in the music business, the one and the very only Steve Feigenbaum (my Soft-Machine-Brother-In-Music). And with so much joy I would like to share my excitement about this fabulous sextet, a bunch of great gals and guys still in mid 20s, tremendously talented, and invite You to explore their, in my opinion, out-of-the-ordinary and exceptionally great music. Quoting another dear friend for many years, the world-class music journalist Anil Prasad of Innerviews: "Lead singer Courtney Swain’s acrobatic, multi-octave vocals are immediately arresting. Guitarist Ben Levin morphs between spectral melodicism and extreme, dissonant sonics – sometimes within a single verse or passage. Bassist Jessica Kion and drummer Gavin Wallace-Ailsworth deliver deep, thunderous grooves, full of engaging, intriguing ornamentation. Violinist Chris Baum’s driving overlays and atmospheres further take the band’s sound into wild territory. And all of it is processed in real-time to emphasize the right details at the right moment by sound designer and producer Vince Welch." One of the most buzzed eclectic bands in the moment, and I am truly convinced, - they will have a bright future.

Bent Knee is one of the most important bands to come along in years. It's rare for a group to be so adventurous, mercurial and provocative, yet still craft songs that are so accessible and addictive. They also offer one of the most engaging and exciting live experiences on the road today. If you're a serious music lover, this band is a must-hear. Their music explores dark subject matter, focusing on the emergence of personal demons, unwanted situations and the difficulty of conquering them. Yet, when they perform the material live, the show is full of energy and humor. The band possesses a real physical presence, interacting with one another viscerally, creating a communal vibe that’s hard to resist."
- Anil Prasad, Innerviews

"Across its body of work, the Boston-based sextet taps into cabaret, ’70s piano-based folk, chamber pop, industrial rock, metal, prog rock and more. (…) The shared aesthetic of playing what they want, regardless of trends or precedent, binds the band members. But it also can be a welcoming call to music fans who savor the very special."
- Jim Fusilli, The Wall Street Journal

Courtney Swain is one of my favorite female singer today, and Bent Knee conquered me as no other non-instrumental band today.

Enjoy! And support….

Leonardo/MoonJune
New York

[Sunlight Caller]

Leonardo is spot on though, a quite brilliant new band. My only wish is that I could get to see them too.

[Baribrotzer]

My only wish is that I could get to see them too.

They have a European booking agency, which suggests that they're trying to get over there. So keep checking their website, contact them to see if they're planning to go over, talk to venues, try to help make it happen.

[Steve F.]

They have 3 European shows booked in July and they're listed on Cuneiform's tour page. None of them are near London though.

[Baribrotzer]

They have 3 European shows booked in July and they're listed on Cuneiform's tour page. None of them are near London though.

Not near, but still a lot closer to London than the US is. The Milan and the Breitenbach am Herzberg gigs look like either one is just a few hours flight away, and could easily be done as an overnighter. Of course, real life intrudes, and that still may not be practical for Chris.

[zombywoof]

Wow - that's an intense tour! Is this band a full-time gig for anybody or is this a 'side' project from their day jobs?

They all teach. Skype lessons, too.

[NogbadTheBad]

They are nominated in the Vanguard category in the annual Prog magazine awards. Quite surprised to see a relatively new & small US band nominated. Guess they are getting some good press.

[Steve F.]

They all teach. Skype lessons, too.

shhhh. Stuckeys, dude. Follow the script.

Next you'll be telling people that The Alphabet Business Concern are actually a right nice bunch of blokes. SHHHHHHEEEEEEEESSSSSH!

How the hell am I supposed to start a bunch of fun untruths with someone like you around, huh?

[Phlakaton]

shhhh. Stuckeys, dude. Follow the script.

Next you'll be telling people that The Alphabet Business Concern are actually a right nice bunch of blokes. SHHHHHHEEEEEEEESSSSSH!

How the hell am I supposed to start a bunch of fun untruths with someone like you around, huh?

But they are some nice peoples at ABC... at least from my tiny exchange with "them." I am being watched now though... Nothing nasty has happened to me yet BUT - that might be the plan - soften people up and then hit em when they're nice and docile.

[Baribrotzer]

Next you'll be telling people that The Alphabet Business Concern are actually a right nice bunch of blokes. SHHHHHHEEEEEEEESSSSSH!

The Alphabet Business Concern? Aren't they the recently devised parent company of Google? I know, I know, Google started out with the unofficial motto of "Don't be evil". But I understand they've had to stop trying so hard to live up to that when they got so big that the line between "evil" and "self-interested but not evil" became impossibly gray.

[Sunlight Caller]

They have 3 European shows booked in July and they're listed on Cuneiform's tour page. None of them are near London though.

Great to see that they are getting gigs overseas. Sadly circumstances make a flight to Europe unlikely for me, but I'm really encouraged that their profile is rising. That can only be good for future opportunities.


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[zombywoof]

How the hell am I supposed to start a bunch of fun untruths with someone like you around, huh?

[Mike D]

I saw them last night in Vancouver. What a great band and great music. I met Jessica. She's a very nice young woman and a great bass player. I told her that next time I see the band I expect it to be in a much larger venue. I hope it happens for them.

It would have been good for them to go on 3rd instead of 4th. They would have had a much larger audience. As it was, they played to 30 or so people.

[Haruspex Carnage]

To be honest all this band does is make me wish Sleepytime Gorilla Museum were back.

[chalkpie]

To be honest all this band does is make me wish Sleepytime Gorilla Museum were back.

I miss them to death too, but I'm not seeing the correlation here?

[Baribrotzer]

I miss them to death too, but I'm not seeing the correlation here?

Well, just in that they're an excellent, relatively young progressive band who tour like mo-fos. In Bent Knee's case, the touring is so low-level that all six of them jam themselves into the guitarist's parents' worn-out, dented Honda Odyssey minivan, and drive cross-country. They have to take pot-luck on a borrowed bass amp and drum kit at each gig because the bassist and drummer have no room to carry their own instruments. And this is their fifth or sixth time doing it.

Incidentally, Bent Knee are big SGM fans, or at least some of them are.

[Haruspex Carnage]

I miss them to death too, but I'm not seeing the correlation here?

Really? You don't hear it in the vocals and the discordance/dissonance? Which i think again SGM do a fuck-ton better and more tastefully...every time the singer sings loudly it comes out of seemingly nowhere and makes my brain explode.

[zombywoof]

The similarity between SGM and BK comes down to a shared interest in texture - though in Bent Knee's case, not in lieu of song based material.

No one asked, but Bent Knee don't make me miss SGM at all. SGM were a great band, but Bent Knee have surpassed them and become one of my favorite bands of all time.


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[Haruspex Carnage]

The similarity between SGM and BK comes down to a shared interest in texture - though in Bent Knee's case, not in lieu of song based material.

No one asked, but Bent Knee don't make me miss SGM at all. SGM were a great band, but Bent Knee have surpassed them and become one of my favorite bands of all time.


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Yeah, no. IMO. Bent Knee are to me like taking SGM and rather than making it interesting, with solid songs, give it an indie rock slap...shrug, they don't do it for me i guess.

[NogbadTheBad]

I miss SGM, hopefully FSE will become active soon.

[Steve F.]

Anyone looking for the new SGM in Bent Knee is certain to be disappointed. Not even sure why you think that there is a line to be drawn between them.

I don't. Not even a little bit.