Join The Club
Five years ago, Mike Rivard set out to create an ongoing experiment. What if his bassline could be the constant focal point, a musical lighthouse, where a rotating cast of allstars including John Medeski, DJ Logic, and the late Mark Sandman, could come together, listen, and be free to just go off to wherever they wanted to lead the music, creating a perfect balance of chaos and order. It seemed simple enough, but if there is one thing you learn from being engulfed in Club d’Elf music, it’s that simple in no way means basic. Rivard’s bass may be repetitive and linear, yet he shifts seamlessly from classic acoustic to industrial electric without ever rippling the manic world that swims above the surface of his bottomless low end.
In early 1998, Mike Rivard, or more commonly know as Micro, was playing bass in a number of Boston bands when he decided it was time to greatly increase the number of regular gigs he was playing. Involved in different projects, including Morphine leader Mark Sandman’s side project, The Hypnosonics, and the Either-Orchestra with John Medeski, Micro found many of his colleagues involved in their own situations, and he began formulating the idea of starting his own group. Although, rather than a set staff, or permanent roster, he decided that to utilize all of these musical resources and simultaneously create truly improvised music sessions, he would enlist himself as the sole member, and invite an assortment of various guests each night. He pitched the idea of a weekly night to his friends as the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA, and in February 98, Club d’Elf debuted.
Of course, with this sort of freeform undertaking, band staples like scheduling, songwriting, and most obviously, rehearsal time, were all elements of a “normal” band that wouldn’t necessarily be applicable. Though this unorthodox way of constructing an ensemble was perfect for Micro’s new project. “One of the philosophies I came away from with my time with Mark (Sandman) was, he used to always say ‘rehearsal is death,'” laughs Micro sitting on a bench outside the 1369 Coffeehouse in Cambridge. The ominous threat of rain doesn’t deter him from vividly recalling the formative early days of d’Elf. As I sip my coffee, he continues on about the numerous challenges he faced by eliminating the official band member element from the equation. “It’s a blessing and it’s a curse as well. The positive side of it is that it makes every show a unique event. We can do the same material one night and the next night with a different group of people, it’s entirely different. So the basic idea was that there would be kind of a core, which would basically be me and the drummer, and some of the other rhythm section people. And as people came in it would sort of be a remix.”
DJ d’Elf (remix)
The analogy of a remix is not used lightly, as Micro is passionate about both the technical and spiritual capabilities that a gifted DJ can bring to an improvised session. “I think of it as another instrument, and it really depends on the DJ. Certainly not all DJs are created equal and not all DJs can really interact in a live band setting, but we’ve been fortunate to hook up with some guys that are really in depth in that, like DJ logic.” With Logic’s rise in the scene the past few years, it’s hard to not see a show where he hasn’t either sat in with the band or probably will the night your there. His recent explosion is not surprising to Micro, who has been inviting Logic to d’Elf shows since the beginning. “We started playing with him through John Medeski. When John first came up to do a show with us, he brought Logic…and Logic just has a natural ability to find the little spots to add things, not overpower the music.” And it’s not only the music that they play or the beats they bring to a composition that Micro thrives on, but the cultural aspects that run deep in all they create. He explains, “through the records that they choose and the different sources they provide, they add this other layer to the music. It’s kind of a commentary on music in general.”
The Gift of Gnawa
In addition to DJ culture, like most bands, Club d’Elf draws influence from many outside sources, but by having musicians in the band that primarily play in other bands, they have a unique opportunity to really grow from within. Even in the beginning, their diverse backgrounds were changing the shape of d’Elf. Micro explains that back in the Hypnosonics days, he was opening his ears to Eastern music and it even eventually led to another band member and close friend. “Sandman had turned me onto some stuff. Gift of the Gnawa is a CD by Hassan Hakmoun that Mark turned me onto, and I started really getting into Gnawa music. I did a gig with Brahim [Fribgane], he was living in New York at the time, and we did a show at the Kitchen, and we had a really nice connection.” Shortly there after, Fribgane moved to Boston, and another d’Elf regular had been found.
A gifted percussion player, Fribgane is well versed in world music, and has not only added his own styles and cultural experiences to the band, but pushed the boundaries to create an even broader sound. Micro eagerly talks of the impact Fribgane has had on both his own playing and the bands. “Through him we started going more overtly in a North African direction. Incorporating a lot of the Moroccan elements. The thing that was really important about his contribution was that he taught us how to play it.” He continues, “there was always the appreciation there, I loved listening to it, and I would try to cop certain things, but through him it was as if the clouds had kind of parted. He’s such a great teacher, so through him we started learning a lot of traditional Gnawa music, and incorporating that with some of the other things we were into, like drum n bass and trance, and it just seemed like a really natural fit.” It was through the discovery of Moroccan music that led Micro to add the Sintir, a three string Morrocan instrument used in traditional Gnawa music to his ever-growing stage arsenal.
Sure he’s adding equipment, but when your band doesn’t have any fulltime employees aside from yourself, you also have to constantly add musicians. With such an unusual ground rule established for a band, I was extremely curious how he goes about finding the right people to give d’Elf it’s ironically signature sound. It’s repetitive beats, but again, it’s not simple, and not any guitar player can just jump into a session that is based on little structure. The music is a constantly evolving relationship between the close knit players, and Micro perks up quickly, knowing exactly what complex mix of qualities he seeks. “That combination of respect, and patience and the ability to lay out and not overpower, but at the same time the ability to just go for it. When it’s their time, and there’s a space for them to make a statement, to just lead the music down another corridor. it’s a hard balance, ’cause on one hand you don’t want someone to come in and overpower things and just play all the time, but you don’t want somebody so timid that they’re not really going to take charge and direct things. And I’m really fortunate to have found a lot of musicians who have that ability to listen, create space, and also take charge.”
Chaos and Order
By the time my coffee was a cool puddle at the bottom of my cup, we had discussed simplicity and the used the word minimalism more than most contemporary art critics. What I found interesting was that these artistic factors weren’t recently adopted concepts that he was spouting off, but sincere values in both his life and his playing, blurring the lines of where one ended and the other began. Talking about his late friend, he explains, “Mark’s thing was all about minimalism. Stripping away as much as he could, and leaving the essentials. Even his instrument, he took away strings. He played a two string slide bass, and that’s all he needed. I have to say, he’s really been one of the big influences on me musically. Mark was always trying to get me to play less, and simplify my stuff, and not fill so much. At the time I was young and when you’re a younger musician you have more to prove, and as you get older, and more experienced, you learn what is really necessary and what is not. Especially with bass, and leaving space, it opens up the whole sonic spectrum of the other instruments to go through. So I just started adopting a minimalist approach in terms of my own playing.” With him bringing it up on his own, I felt it a safe time to ask him who else he considers influential, and he answers, “him and Dave Holland, Brahim and maybe Medeski, have influenced me the most, in terms of people that I know or interacted with.”
“Being influenced by DJ culture, and looping and sort of the remix culture I started making my lines more repetitive. It’s all about kind of the trance music aspects, where you repeat, you keep something going rather than continually changing it and improvising on it.” Micro doesn’t consider this style to be techno, or dance tracks, this is a pure expression of minimalism. Harnessing those energies and maintaining a steady foundaton for his cyclical roster of players, I ask him about being the control group surrounded by variables, to which he replies “for our music it seems to work better to have the bass, the low end and that repetitive cyclic nature and chaos can kind of come on top of that. And that’s what happens when guests come in, and people play and improvise over the music.” He smiles, and adds proudly “I kind of provide this bottom end foundation, like a lighthouse or a beacon, where people can know, listening to that, what’s going on and be free enough to just go off to wherever they want. That’s what I really enjoy about the music we do, that balance between chaos and order.”
Parallels can certainly be drawn between d’Elf’s musical approach and spirituality, but I settled for an indirect reference to Mike Gordon’s Rising Low whole Zen thing. Micro’s a bass player too, and would have been an ideal addition to that documentary, so it seemed appropriate, and sure enough, he drew a verbal picture of the mental state of a bass player, similar to many given in that film. He starts, “it’s like meditation, and when I practice, that’s what I do. I basically practice how to play things over and over again. It’s like an athlete practicing the high jump over and over again to develop the muscle and the stamina, and the mental capacity. When you’re playing a repetitive phrase, especially if you’re an improvising jazz musician, there’s a sense that ‘oh, I gotta change this, I’m playing this too much, it’s boring, I gotta go onto something else,’ but you have to get beyond that. You have to train your brain to just settle down and not be overcome by extraneous things.” And he concludes in agreement, that indeed, “it’s like a Zen practice. Instead of focusing on a dot on a wall, or a mantra, it’s a musical phrase. It’s all about getting into that state, where you kind of take yourself out, so that you’re both present and you’re outside of it as well, outside looking in.”
Making The album
This July, Micro will hit the five year mark since he sarted working on the Club d’Elf studio album. Sure, when everyone in your band is busy working on their own band, these things take time, but he adds adamantly, “that’s what happens when you don’t have a label. So I’ve been doing it myself, and financing it.” Understandably a bit overwhelmed with the process at hand, specifically making a record in true d’Elf fashion, he adds, “you’ve got like thirty musicians [on the album], and it was a really complicated undertaking, I can’t believe that I was so crazy to do something like this. Every song has like a dozen people on it.” Only his subtle smile indicates how much he thoroughly enjoyed the struggle of finishing it.
With close to thirty musicians on the new record; including Medeski, Sandman and Logic, as well as Mister Rourke, DJ C, Gerry Leonard and Duke Levine, it’s been quite a process to get it completed, but also to even get it started. Without a band, and a rule of no rehearsals, songs had to be somewhat constructed at least to give it a basic structure. Micro breaks the songwriting process down as “some of the stuff on the record is pretty arranged, with an A section, B section, bridge, melody and such, but some of the other music might be just like a bass line, might just be a groove, or melody line. And the way that I’m composing lately is not so much thinking of each tune as a standalone unit, but rather compositional units that I’ll string together within the course of a set, like a DJ, creating a continuous set. Like using this tune, and finding something the same tempo and segues. So we might do a song, and just do one section and not go to the next section and it’ll lead us down someplace else and we’ll do a different song or free improvisation. It’s almost like musical Lego blocks.”
Repetition and DJ influence run rampant on the album. His pulsating beats create the lifeline of the twelve track release pulsating the cohesive work like a pumping vein. Yet, Micro is quick to point out that d’Elf music, and specifically the album may be trance based, but not necessarily the rave tent trance you quickly identify with. “When people say trance music now they think of the electronic version of it as opposed to the ancient systems of trance music that you would find in Morocco and different parts of the Middle East. We kind of draw from those sources for inspiration as well as more modern electronic sources, and take these elements and use them as our little tools, or parts of our vocabulary. It’s like having a conversation.” And when I ask about technical aspects of the music, incorporating those contemporary elements to old world styles, he responds “I have a JamMan sampler so when I’m playing, I’ll sample a phrase and I’ll play that back triggering with my foot while I play something else…I think anything is game at this point. It’s music, and why limit yourself. If something is available, you know, if I want to play with a distortion pedal, I’ll do it, if I want to play with a bow, I will…I just want to get all the bass sounds I hear in my head.”
Shopping The Album
Five years is a long time in the music industry, and taking that length of time to make one album is almost unheard of. But the saga really continues when you have to begin the process of presenting that record to labels in order for it to be picked up, properly marketed, distributed and eventually heard by the masses. And we’re not done yet. Add to the fact that this isn’t a rock record, far from a pop record, and not even quite jazz, which has never been an easy sell in any age even if it were, and the puzzle gets even more complex. Oh yeah, then remember that this isn’t even a real band, and you start to gain somewhat of an understanding as to what sort of year this has been for our friend Micro. As he brings the record around, he is repeatedly reminded that “everybody’s just really scared right now. I mean, the record industry as we know it may cease to exist in a few years.”
The plight of the industry may be unknown, but the record was going to face adversity even in the best of climates, and Micro agrees. “I wanted to sort of showcase the array or style and the places that we go, so there’s some stuff on here that’s really kind of hardcore electronic, and some stuff that’s more jazz oriented, some stuff that’s more acoustic, Moroccan sounding. And from a marketing standpoint I think that’s kind of the kiss of death (laughs). [The industry] just wants something they can just stick in a well defined category and people wont have to think too much about it. He continues sincerely, “the essence of what we do is really the live experience. I try to play sets continuously without a lot of breaks in between songs and that’s really the joy for us, is to find ways of connecting really disparate elements. Going from this song into that song, and you have this whole kind of blank, map ends here (laughs), and to create a continuous event like a DJ set, and it’s kind of hard to convey that to a mass audience, cause what we do is based on time. With trance music it’s not like you are going to go right into trance at the beginning of the song. It’s all about time and the entrainment of the brain, so you sort of have to be in for the long haul to get what we do, and spend some time with us and the music and your own consciousness and see where things lead you.”
Club MFA
On July 2nd, Club d’Elf will be showcasing their unique approach at a most unique venue; The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Joining Micro at this particular show will be longtime friends Medeski, Fribgane, Erik Kerr on drums and relative newcomer (that’s over a year in d’Elf talk) Dave Tronzo on slide guitar. Like any d’Elf event, things aren’t exactly set in stone. “Maybe we’ll break it up into like acoustic set one and then electric set two, or maybe we’ll combine each set, but I definitely want to do some of the more traditional things that we do. Like the Moroccan stuff. On the one hand I think it’s important to have material prepared. I’ll think of the musicians that are going to be playing at any one show, and I’ll think ‘ok, this song is geared for that guy, and this guy, he knows that one,’ but I don’t also try to go in with too much of an agenda. I kind of see where anyone of the guys is on a particular night. ‘Cause you have to be ready to kind of bail (laughs), you know, have a firm understanding and a clear roadmap, but also the ability to just steer the car off, like ‘hey, there’s a nice dirt road, lets go down there’.”
Finishing up, and seeing that the rain was not far off, I reiterated back to my original questions about not rehearsing or practicing at all. It seemed to me that those techniques may work in a smoky bar at 2am with your regular audience, and the drinks flowing downstairs at the Lizard Lounge, but how did he expect to wing a show at the MFA? With the confidence only a seasoned poker player can convey, he assured me “everybodys kind of veterans at this point. Tronzo is kind of the new guy, and he’s been playing with us since last July. John’s been playing since the beginning, Brahim’s an old timer, then Erik and I…so we kind of draw upon all of our experiences. They’ve all played the material, so at this point it’s like a game of cards…you know the rules, you know how to draw a hand, but it’s always new. Every game is new, so we just kind of take the elements we’re familiar with, toss them in the air and see how they fall.”
Deal me in…
For all info related to d’Elf, see www.clubdelf.com.
