Review: Stick Men at The Grey Eagle
A few days before I headed to see Stick Men, I happened to strike up a musical conversation with my brother-in-law. He’s a good drummer, and the topic had turned to our favorite rhythm sections. When I mentioned the progressive, technical grooves of Dream Theater, he grinned and shook his head.
“Sometimes, there’s just too much prog,” he said.
“There’s no such thing as too much prog!” I replied.
We agreed to disagree, but we would have had a lot more to argue about had he also been at The Grey Eagle on Feb. 28. Founded by two members of the seminal King Crimson, Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto, Stick Men embodied the prog rock ethos of edge-pushing excess.
Consider Levin’s instrument and the band’s namesake: the Chapman Stick. With 12 strings that cover a range both deeper than a standard bass and higher than a standard guitar, the electrified Stick is played with both hands tapping. Like a piano, the instrument can cover melody, chordal rhythm, and basslines all at the same time; extremely broad possibilities are available to the musician at every turn.
Levin was joined by Markus Reuter, a German phenom playing an eight-string guitar of his own design. An evolution of the Chapman Stick, his “Touch Guitar” is also primarily tapping-based and capable of fluid melody/rhythm combinations on a single instrument.
Mastelotto’s drum kit was practically a traditional instrument by comparison. But even he extended his options through an array of electronic pads and samplers, able to trigger loops or odd synthy sounds by a hit of the stick.
(While I’m on the subject of instruments, it’s worth shouting out the switchboard-like modular contraption of opening act We Are Ants To Them. Solo artist André Cholmondeley, emerging with a shock of white hair like a synth wizard Guy Fieri, drew a half-hour of experimental electronic blurbles from his elaborate setup.)
All of this is to say that Stick Men often sounds like a lot more than three musicians. Indeed, the trio wasn’t afraid to tackle a number of King Crimson covers, such as “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic” and “Level Five,” even though that band once toured as a septet. The wide ranges of both Levin’s Stick and Reuter’s custom instruments allowed each of their hands to occupy a distinct part of the spectrum, making it seem like four different guitarists and bassists were at work.
The band’s own compositions continue the King Crimson tradition of complex, polyrhythmic partwriting, pieces that spur listeners to feats of mental math as they try to decode a time signature or figure out how different melodies sync up. The trio certainly has a self-awareness about how wonky this all is — prior to “Mantra,” for example, a grinning Levin led the audience in an intentionally baffling counting exercise — but they’re not apologizing for the difficulty.
The choice of complexity does come with certain limitations, chief among them speed. While Levin and Reuter both got some flashy solo opportunities, for the most part they stayed in a range of moderate tempos, focused more on the interactions of their lines than on the rush of body-moving energy.
At times, especially given the seated arrangement of the show, I got the feeling I was watching classical chamber music or small-combo jazz instead of a rock concert. And Mastelotto appeared to be holding back with his drum work, recognizing the need for clarity so his bandmates’ wiggly parts could sound clear.
But at their best, Stick Men presented the audience with intricately constructed musical puzzle boxes, carved of exotic grooves and carefully honed technique. Is that too much prog? Not for this guy.
(Photo by Joel Barrios)
