This Is My Condition

"This is my condition."

The statement, delivered after two minutes of scraping metal, raging percussion and excruciating feedback, is both funny and disturbing.

Demented one-man-band Craig Comstock, a.k.a. This Is My Condition, makes quite a racket. I witnessed him clear out the Jackpot Saloon in Lawrence during my first encounter with him a couple years ago. The rockers there to see The Hold Steady couldn't handle his fierce raging. It was quite an accomplishment. Only the bravest among Plastic Sax readers should dare watch this video of a typical TIMC performance.

Comstock calls his music "hardcore classical," and he'd probably disavow any connection to jazz. But it's jazz to me. I'll allow his deconstruction of Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz" to serve as Exhibit A in my case (MP3 hosted at TINC's site). It embodies a couple of jazz's best attributes- unpredictability and ingenuity.

This is my condition, too.

(Original photo taken by Plastic Sax on 8/03/07 at the Westport Beach Club.)