you have now entered the blues dream box.

there are four collections of material. live at regatta

bar, allston home for wayward cats, beer or fire and —.

The first collection is live and plagued by issues with

equipment. Something about guitar amplifiers. Amps myst-

eriously stop making noise for some reason. Musically odd.

Unpleasant, really. I believe this is purposeful. The amp

not working is a classic bit.

Elemental free jazz bursts. I was told the genre, by the

drummer Floppy Tim, is “clown jazz”. It then came out la-

ter in conversation, pointed out by another party, that

John Zorn is the Father of clown jazz. I then related my

experiences of purchasing a record, released by Tzaddik,

consisting entirely of duck noises made with various ho-

rn mouthpieces. I wasn’t amused and, contrary to popular

belief, all art exists to amuse me.

Despite my initial concerns at the end of the 12 minute

track the music comes together in a suspiciously well p-

erformed number. This triggered the thought that surely

the equipment malfunction was a bit. There is a definite

air of mindfuck to the whole affair. Which is to be exp-

ected from a dream box and blue clowns.

The ensemble is drums, bass and guitar. Voices are inco-

rporated throughout the collection and are occasionally

central to a given tune which is incredibly distasteful

and brings to mind horrendous and traumatic images of the

ferocious cat people. “Satin Doll” comes to mind. Again,

it is clearly a rouse because the song gets weirder as you

progress.

The ensemble is efficient and complementary. The guitar

noise, at times, is expertly manipulated so it is able to

replicate the sound of a trumpet. Put another way, though

limited, the ensemble is capable of producing extensively

detailed sonic plains. Other times the cat people appear

and start telling me stories.

Take what you like, leave what you don’t like.