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Monday, October 6, 2008
Scars on Broadway scrap tour, including Emo’s
Maybe they’re tired of being asked when System of a Down is getting back together. Scars on Broadway, featuring System’s guitarist Daron Malakian and drummer John Dolmayan, has canceled its entire North American tour because Malakian decided
“his heart wasn’t into touring at this time,” according to a statement Monday. The band was slated to play Emo’s Nov. 25.
There are no plans to reschedule. All tickets will be refunded at point of purchase.
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Review: Eliot Fisk
Surely I was not the only member of the Austin Classical Guitar Society’s audience who sighed sadly upon learning that the advertised duo recital by Eliot Fisk and Angel Romero had become a solo recital by Fisk due to Romero’s temporary inability to travel. These two artists sharing the stage would surely have given us an engaging, exciting performance.
To be sure, a Fisk solo recital isn’t slumming in any sense. He brought his usual kind of program featuring newer compositions for the guitar, numerous of his transcriptions for guitar, and a substantial dessert course of four encores. He constantly stretches himself and his instrument technically, employing what look like painful fingerings on the fret board and exploring ways to sustain more voices and produce more sound—significantly expanding the instrument’s expressive possibilities.
And yet I had to notice, as in Fisk’s previous visit that I attended, wildly fast tempos became unsteady and led to wrong or smudged notes. These plagued the four Scarlatti sonatas, originally for harpsichord but well suited to guitar, possibly betraying rushed preparation. It was with George Rochberg’s “American Bouquet” that closed the first half that Fisk really seemed to get the music in his hands and succeeded in bringing to life the suite mostly made up of arrangements of American popular songs, ending with a delightfully raucous blues.
The Spanish composers populating the announced second half (mostly Albéniz and Granados) received more of Fisk’s exuberant, highly colored treatment, with the occasional smudged note and—inexplicably—chords out of tune. HUNH?!
The one announced encore was a sonata movement by Torroba, and I recognized the Prelude from Bach’s Partita in E major for violin. To the end, I had difficulty weighing Fisk’s brilliant artistry against boo-boos that aren’t tolerated from anyone else.
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Musicmania Top 10 for the week ending Oct. 5
Z-Ro ‘Crack’ (Rap-A-Lot)
T.I. ‘Paper Trail’ (Atlantic)
Young Jeezy ‘Recession’ (Def Jam)
Slim Thug ‘Back By Blockular Demand’ (Koch)
Big Pokey ‘Evacuation Notice’ (Koch)
ABN ‘It Is What It Is Screwed’ (Rap-A-Lot)
Game ‘LAX’ (Geffen)
Jazmin Sullivan ‘Fearless’ (J Records)
Robin Thicke ‘Something Else’ (Star Trak)
Big Kountry King ‘My Turn To Eat’ (Grand Hustle)
