My friend and former flame Tippy who thought Patrick and I would make a good couple before we were, is an amazing musician.
I am going to his cd release party- are you in?
;-)
MUSIC Tippy Agogo Agogo continues to move ahead with Creep Forward CAROLYN NIKODYM / carolyn@vueweekly.com Talking to sometimes local musician Tippy Agogo, you can imagine that when he was in school, his teachers probably had their hands full. Like his music, his conversation is hard to pin down.
He’d say it was “scatological,” but that’s too self-deprecating for what is really going on. You get the sense that he has just got a lot of plates in the air. He’ll definitely be able to land them all safely, but you’re just going to have to be patient because he’s going to do it with style.
It’s that very sense that seems to guide his music career. His just-waiting-to-be-released Creep Forward (CD release party is Mar 5) has musical ideas that run the gamut from crunchy guitar to notes more classical, from quirky percussion to vocal beats. Some plates of ideas take mere minutes to find safe landing, while others take three times that length to become fully realized.
“I look at music as peaks and valleys,” Agogo explains. “And it’s like you’re travelling through a landscape. That’s basically how I approached this album.” Agogo started his solo career over 20 years ago, with his first release Soul-O-Works in 1986. Creep Forward, he says, is like a continuation of that first record. (Aren’t they all, in the grand scheme of things?)
Recorded in a number of different studios, with a number of different sound engineers, the record was all sewn up and mastered by Darryl Neudorf (producer of Neko Case, the New Pornographers, etc). Like Agogo’s past works, Creep Forward takes its audience on a journey both internal and external, taking in influences from around the globe.
The album also has a host of musical guests—from the more usual suspects Bill Bourne and Tim Folkmann to Ryan Moore (of Dutch dub band Twilight Circus) and Rodney Orpheus (of UK goth groups Cassandra Complex and Sisters of Mercy). A few who have “played the game,” but who have also eked out their very own place in it.
Agogo has never really played the music-industry game. Yeah, he gets gigs, does the festival circuit, releases records and that stuff, but that’s about the extent of it. He designs sound for dance, theatre and film in the city and beyond, as well as teaches workshops around the world. And just last year, he and Bill Bourne were hosting the Nerkelwerks jams at the Wunderbar.
“I think I take him to an area that he doesn’t normally go to and he definitely takes me to an area that I haven’t been to before, so it’s almost like playing with Pat Metheny sometimes,” he says. “I come from the punk-rock school, and ethnic, global music school. It’s kind of weird. It’s all over the map. Like no two songs are the same and I pre-date what you call the iPod. My albums are like an iPod—there’s so many different styles.”
“And then my shows are kind of like that too,” he continues. “There’s no one style that I ever stuck with. It’s been partly the problem with my career, but it’s just the way that I am, and that’s just the way it has to be.” V
Wed, Mar 5 (8 pm) Tippy Agogo With Bill Bourne, Madagascar Slim, Michelle Joseph, John Armstrong, Tim Folkmann, Scott Cook New City, $10 (advance), $12 (door) |
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