Last Thursday, I got a chance to catch Erik Friedlander’s fantastic one-man cello show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It was the best musical storytelling I’ve experienced in awhile — he performed a number of richly textured pieces from his solo album Block Ice & Propane while displaying his father’s photographs (currently exhibited) of America from the 1950s to the present.
Friedlander told the story of traveling across the country in a camper as his father completed photo shoots throughout the summer. With masterful, guitar-style plucking, he drifted through folk, soul, and other quintessentially American sounds, imbuing each of the photographs with history and character. With his performance, Friedlander ably introduced me to something I’ve never really felt before — an authentic sense of our national character.
If Friedlander ever comes to your town to perform, I’d highly recommend checking it out.
tech activist, nerd, gamer