The 2013 APAture festival concluded with a diverse evening of music, ranging from avant-garde jazz to metal to rap. The event took place at SUB/Mission in San Francisco. Featured artist Karl Evangelista opened the evening with a group that included Francis Wong, Margaret Rei Scampavia, Cory Wright, and Jordan Glenn.
[© 2013 Karen Ng/Kearny Street Workshop]
The music was a frenetic style of avant-garde jazz, which moved freely in and out of more conventionally harmonic sections. Many of the pieces were inspired by Evangelista’s own personal history and his Filipino heritage. It was also fun to see Francis Wong, whom I usually encounter in more rarefied venues, at punk club in the Mission.
[© 2013 Karen Ng/Kearny Street Workshop]
The Evangelista group was followed by something completely different both sonically and visually. Bestiary, a solo project of Rai Yin Hsu featured experimental noise guitar and a rather unique black-and-white suit.
There were a variety of long sounds processed through effects, with a few sharper elements as well.
Some of the evening’s entertainment happened in between the official musical acts, with our hosts Rupert Carangal Estanislao and Jennifer Chu keeping the crowd energized.
[© 2013 Karen Ng/Kearny Street Workshop]
Next up was The Residuals, a self-described “hardworking, Do-It-Yourself metal band.”
[© 2013 Karen Ng/Kearny Street Workshop]
As expected, they were quite loud, and Joshua Lykkeberg provided vocal fry. But the group, which also featured brothers Anand Jobanputra and Rohan Jobanputra was quite tight, with unisons and fast syncopations.
From metal we then moved to rap, with a set by Joal Vargas that focused on community issues as well as his experience as a teacher.
[© 2013 Karen Ng/Kearny Street Workshop]
The diversity of the evening continued with a cabaret style performance by Bellows, featuring chanteuse Kyle Casey Chu and Rachel Waterhouse on keyboards.
[© 2013 Karen Ng/Kearny Street Workshop]
After the fast energy of the previous two sets, the mellow and expressive style was welcome, and their stage presence was a lot of fun.
Bellows was followed by Little Sister, an East Bay rock trio featuring Erica Benton, MonBon and Nada Diaz.
[© 2013 Karen Ng/Kearny Street Workshop]
They had a contemporary rock sound that was quite moody and a bit melancholy at times, but they still had a warm stage presence. Benton and MonBon traded off guitar and bass duties during the course of the performance.
There was still more music to come in this rather long event. I unfortunately had to depart after Little Sister, but glad I had the opportunity to be there for most of it and hear such a cross section of music in the Bay Area.
(For a review of the APAture opening-night event and gallery show, please visit this link.)