I left the Moon Hooch show at the Teragram Ballroom on March 23 with a whole host of thoughts, feelings and emotions—from ringing ears and a blown mind, to a rudimentary understanding of what exactly “cave music” is. More than anything, though, I left with a question: What if?
See, my brothers used to play the flute, and not without a hefty helping of reluctance. In much the same way that I later came to play (and subsequently, regrettably give up) piano, my parents, at least partly at my grandmother’s behest, cudgeled my brother into taking up the flute. There was a tradition of music in my family that, if not professional, was a step above recreational, and that the older generations hoped to uphold in mine.
Thing is, when my brother aged out of relatively obedient childhood and into rebellious adolescence, he became a bona fide metalhead. His teenage self had all the markings of that archetype. Liberty spikes supported by gobs of hair wax. Choke collars with spikes jutting out. A closet that turned into a black hole, with Doc Martens and Dickies doing the heavy lifting. And, of course, as much angst and head-banging neck pain as one kid could stand. Being a flautist didn’t exactly fit that description. But my parents desperately wanted it to. So, in a last-ditch attempt to show my brother that playing flute could be cool, too, they surprised him with…a Jethro Tull CD. Somehow, he was still unconvinced after listening to “Bungle in the Jungle” and “Aqualung”.
But what if those songs had struck a chord with my brother? Or he’d found some way to make the flute metal? What if my parents had tried something similar with me, pushing Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Billy Joel as examples to follow forward from classical music? Better yet, what if we had seen these artists use classical instruments to make rock music live and in concert? Had I been a fledgling saxophonist on the brink of bailing, a night spent at a Moon Hooch show may well have tipped me toward a more sincere pursuit of excellence with the instrument I already had in-hand.
For the better part of two hours on a Friday night, the Brooklyn-based trio of Wenzl McGowen, Mike Wilbur, and James Muschler transformed the simple 600-person venue into a hopping grotto party. The younger-skewing crowd got down to the dubstep-inspired vibes of “Tubes” and “Mega Tubes”, moshed to the horn-made, arpeggiated drum-and-bass of “Number 10” and “Booty House”, swayed to the speedy jazz of “Red Sky” and bounced to the house-style beats of “Number 9” and “Song for Miguel”.
The tidy trio had plenty of help from synthesizers to fashion their jazzy parts into a cohesive whole that would fit in just fine at Electric Daisy Carnival. But at the music’s core was Moon Hooch’s eye-opening variety of saxophones and erstwhile attachments. Wilbur and McGowen, looking like metalheads en route to a Pantera show, took their turns on tenor sax when they weren’t busy trotting out other options from their arsenal—soprano and bass saxes for Mike, a baritone sax and a man-sized contrabass clarinet for Wenzi. At one point, McGowen whipped out a contraption comprised of multiple traffic cones to deepen his bass, as if in search of the “brown noise.”
Truth be told, Moon Hooch’s complete palate was much more colorful than that. They combined the seeming extremes of Earth-shaking bass and ethereal ambiance with such clarity and conviction as to evoke a concert in a cavern. Hence, the term “cave music,” which Moon Hooch invented to describe its ground-breaking sound.
Forget about simply surviving with more traditional arrangements involving vocals, guitars and keys. This particular three-piece—born of the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and bred busking on New York City subway platforms—has at once flipped musical convention on its head and combined disparate sects of the soundscape to create something wholly unique and captivating.
There will always be envelopes to push because there will always be hybrids to explore, as old-world instruments find new applications in emerging genres. To that end, Moon Hooch is Exhibit A. It’s a potential torch-bearer to teach a youthful fanbase, a symbol that tells young musicians the only limits to an instrument’s efficacy are the ones we allow ourselves to build in our minds.
And the question we should be asking isn’t “what if?”, but rather “what else?”
Watch some clips from the performance below via Instagram. For a full list of Moon Hooch’s upcoming shows, head to the band’s website. You can also watch Moon Hooch’s new video for “Acid Mountain” here.