DKD and FTBB in RVA tomorrow

Fight the Big Bull and David Karsten Daniels come together tomorrow night at The Camel. It’s a big deal. Here’s why.

July 7, 2010; 6:00 AM • by Dean Christesen

You may have heard of this super collaboration between our own Fight the Big Bull and San Francisco’s David Karsten Daniels. They did an album together on FatCat Records called I Mean To Live Here Still and are performing in celebration at The Camel tomorrow night.

There’s not much more I can say to express the importance of this album and the performance tomorrow, so I’m letting the Internet do the work. Below you’ll find a compilation of some links that have to do with the album and other things that you should know. Side note: the indie and rock blogospheres are huge. Jazz needs to step it up, WWW-wise.

Background

RVANews | David Karsten Daniels & Fight the Big Bull: Thoreau-ly invested – I spoke with FTBB’s Matt White about the process of writing the music and recording the album, and he dropped a few bombs about how it really went down.

A Blog Supreme/NPR Jazz | David Karsten Daniels Meets Fight The Big Bull – ABS puts it in perspective. This album is surrounded by other interesting projects by the band, including their second release on Clean Feed Records, their Megafaun/Justin Vernon live collaboration in North Carolina in September (more on that below), and the Karl Blau-produced album in the fall.

Wikisource | Henry David Thoreau poems – Learn the words.

Reviews

musicOMH – “As you’d expect from such cross breeding of well-established genres, the album feels old fashioned and yet highly original at the same time.” “The album is an intriguing coming together of musicians successfully transcending their musical boundaries, firing invention and beauty in random directions. It shouldn’t work, but it certainly does. No bull.”

Bearded Magazine – “Rustic at its heart, I Mean to Live Here Still finds Daniels and Fight the Big Bull crafting some genuinely moving and luxuriously textured vignettes, peppered with soaring harmonies and a raft of duelling components which seem to work together fantastically well, possibly against the odds.”

Alarm Press – “Fight the Big Bull’s work is crucial but unobtrusive, weaving flourishes and accents in and out without feeling forced.” “Behind the creative lead of guitarist/composer Matt White, that natural accompaniment reflects a band coming into its own and growing more and more comfortable with others.”

NPR | First Listen – “You could approximate it as lush orchestral pop in the tradition of Van Dyke Parks or Randy Newman — if those folks had a house horn section with which to indulge their weirdest weirdnesses.”

Style Weekly – “The Big Bull has been together long enough to develop an intuitive, loose-limbed collegiality, and the counterbalance of its roiling complexity and Daniels’ heartfelt, timeless delivery of Thoreau’s blank verse give the recording a winning organic integrity.”

NPR All Songs Considered | The Best In New Hip-Hop, Jazz, Metal And Noise – Listen to the show to hear NPR’s music critics talk about the album.

Videos

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/11718974[/vimeo]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEqndv4CW-g[/youtube]

Other Fight the Big Bull happenings

RVANews | Deep Dish: Matt White on Fight The Big Bull’s New Record – I Mean To Live Here Still is FTBB’s second album to come out in 2010. Matt and I (but mostly Matt) talked over the first one, All Is Gladness In The Kingdom, and he gave some incredible insight into the compositions and trumpeter Steven Bernstein’s time in Richmond.

A Blog Supreme/NPR Jazz | The Best Jazz of Early 2010 – Patrick Jarenwattananon calls FTBB’s latest album without a collaborator one of 2010’s best jazz albums so far and writes, “A post-modern jazz band with plenty of good ideas and a love for anything you could possibly call Southern music.”

The Herald-Sun | Duke Performances announces 2010-11 schedule – Fight the Big Bull will perform at Duke University in September with Megafaun and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. They’re performing thrice and recording each time (as well as the several days of rehearsing that precede the concerts) to be released as an album. Later in the series, The Bad Plus will perform Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.” This is serious.

The Jazz Session | #180: Matt White of Fight the Big Bull – The Jazz Session’s Jason Crane talked to Matt about the Clean Feed release for his great podcast.