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CERAMIC DOG - TOUR 2023
JUNE
7 – Toronto, ON – The Great Hall *
8 – Detroit, MI – Marble Bar
9 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall †
10 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue † ^
11 – Madison, WI – Madison Jazz Festival @ High Noon Saloon †
13 – Indianapolis, IN – Toby Theater †
14 – Nashville, TN – 3rd & Lindsley †
15 – Atlanta, GA – Center Stage †
16 – Asheville, NC – Grey Eagle †
17 – Winston-Salem, NC – The Ramkat †
18 – Brooklyn, NY – Union Pool Summer Thunder (Free Show)
30 – Gexto, Spain – Gexto Jazz
JULY
1 – Rotterdam, Netherlands – Lantaren Venster
4 – Copenhagen, Denmark - Musik Loppen
6 – Braga, Portugal – TBA
7 – Lisbon, Portugal - TBA
8 – Warsaw, Poland – Pardon, To Tu
10 – München, Germany – Muffatwerk
11 – Forli, Italy – Lupo 340
12 – Rome, Italy - Casa del Jazz
* w/ Andy Moor (of The Ex), Adversarial Networks
† w/ The Bad Plus
^ w/Special Guest Alan Sparhawk (of Low)
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With Connection, Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog have pushed their long-brewing tension between traditional pop songcraft and avantgarde improvisational music to the breaking point, bridging their customary genre-agnostic approach with elements of glam boogie, minimalist disco, psychedelic boogaloo, garage-punk-against-the-machine agitprop, and so much more. Recorded at Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn, NY, and mixed by Ben Greenberg (Danny Elfman, Depeche Mode, Show Me the Body) the album sees Ribot – whose prodigious, impossible-to-categorize body of work as bandleader and musician spans no wave and jazz, Brazilian and Cuban music, roots and avant-garde and protest songs (often at the same time) alongside legendary collaborations with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, The Lounge Lizards, John Zorn, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Caetano Veloso, and Laurie Anderson (to name but a few) – continuing to utilize Ceramic Dog as the vessel for his distinctive stream-of-consciousness songwriting, penning three out of the album’s four vocal tracks including the groove-infected “Ecstasy” (showcasing Anthony Coleman’s slinky Farfisa and longtime friend and associate Syd Straw behind the mic). From the anthemic manifesto “Soldiers in the Army of Love” to the unhinged ranting of “Heart Attack” and indescribable “No Name,” Ceramic Dog unleash a fury of complex time signatures, blues abstraction, and free-blowing energy to create their most unapologetically audacious collection thus far, their one-of-a-kind daring evidenced by the unlikely cover of Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz’s “That’s Entertainment,” written especially for the 1953 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical film The Band Wagon but here, in Ribot and Co’s hands, deconstructs Hollywood cliches while simultaneously winking at both the post-punk and post-Cultural Revolution iterations of the Gang of Four. Fueled by what Ribot calls “several bolts of creative lightning,” Connections stands as a vibrant, odd, and in many ways definitive milestone in what is truly a singular creative journey for Marc Ribot and Ceramic Dog, its zeitgeist-busting sound and vision not only affirming their place in the musical universe but raising the stakes for whatever comes next.
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PRAISE FOR MARC RIBOT’S CERAMIC DOG
“Marc Ribot isn't trying to comfort anyone.”
– NPR
“When it comes to Ceramic Dog, his agit-punk trio
with Shahzad Ismaily and Ches Smith, Ribot mostly eschews nuance
in favor of aggressive funk, deconstructed flamenco, and scathing punk.”
– AQUARIUM DRUNKARD
“These guys are pissed, yet without a hint of sexist strut or blues-boy self-pity.
Ceramic Dog’s songs converge toward the same goal: demolishing your musical illusions.”
– ROBERT CHRISTGAU, CONSUMER GUIDE
“Marc Ribot can morph into any style and still come out sounding only like himself, which is central to the jazz aesthetic…He’s a guitarist and artist who takes music wherever the muse goes, diving into jazz, punk, blues, downtown, inside, outside, all sides, avant-garde, and spoken word. He’s the ‘beyond’ in DownBeat’s tagline,
‘Jazz, Blues & Beyond.’ That’s especially true with his longtime trio Ceramic Dog.”
– DOWNBEAT
“His Ceramic Dog trio with bassist/multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily
and percussionist/drummer Ches Smith is as much of a sonic vehicle for
Ribot’s dry, wry lyrics and sandpaper-y vocals as it is for his
reverberating skronk and fuzztoned twang-bar noodlings.”
– JAZZTIMES
“Marc Ribot and Ceramic Dog will never take the easy way out, even during the best of times.
– POPMATTERS
“Pugilistic, stylistically expansive… grounded by Ribot's mutative, buzzy guitar lines
and the band's taut, often humorous lyrics piping with literate rage.”
– ALLMUSIC
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MARC RIBOT’S CERAMIC DOG
CONNECTION
(Knockwurst Records)
Release Date: Friday, July 14
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