Music City’s Always Been Good To Him, But Irving Plaza’s a Bitch
I saw Bobby Bare Jr. and a sampling of the Young Criminals Starvation League open for the Old 97’s last Thursday. Bobby didn’t fare too well with the crowd (Who would have? That audience wanted the Old 97’s, and they wanted them right away). The way the songs were reworked for a trio – excising those wonderful Stax horns – made it sound, at times, like generic “hard country,” and Bobby’s vocals were too low in the mix, so the audience missed some good lines.
He did win over a few with some funny jokes and that terrific cover of the Smiths’ “What Difference Does It Make?” Once again, I urge you to run out and buy BBJ’s latest record, “From The End of Your Leash,” from the good folks at Bloodshot Records.
The Old 97’s barreled through a typically entertaining set that clocked in just under two hours. I was reminded once again of how annoying I find the typical Old 97’s fan, who spend a good deal of most shows patting themselves on the back for being cool enough to be “in the know” of this clever little alt.country quartet from Dallas. Of course, they are ahead of the curve, but that doesn’t justify becoming a bunch of yodelling assholes.
From the End of Your Leash
I finally reached one of my goals for this website and got my first batch of free CDs for review, thanks to the good people at Bloodshot Records. Don’t think any less of my journalistic integrity if I wind up only writing positive reviews. I’ve long been a fan of the record label and its stable of clever and nervy alt.country artists.
Perhaps the best record that I missed in 2004, “From the End of Your Leash” features the outsized sounds and ambitions of Bobby Bare Jr.’s Young Criminals’ Starvation League. A smart-ass songwriter in the finest Nashville tradition (his pop has dozens of Top 40 country hits to his credit), Bare Jr. is not afraid to let his masterful arrangements – complete with Stax horns and lovely harmony from Carey Kotsionis – compete with his frequently witty lyrics.
“Hey, brother, could I borrow your girlfriend?” he asks in the album’s opening line. “I promise not to ask her to stay.” Elsewhere, he tips his hat to his hometown, where “You don’t even have to sing on key / Producers with computers can fix it all in Nashville, Tennessee,” and plays at puppy love on the title track: “I look cute at the end of your leash / Your adorable beast / As I salivate on your shoes.”
I had the pleasure of seeing him live at Bloodshot’s BBQ at the Union Pool in Willamsburg, during the last CMJ. With his shock of curly hair and large rockstar sunglasses, he cuts a figure not unlike a young Bob Dylan. His warm personality, good humor and unique voice (the prettiest steel-wool-on-chalkboard you’ve ever heard) easily distracted the audience from free hot dogs and Rheingold for 50 minutes.
Bobby Bare Jr. will return to NYC on June 9, when he opens for alt.country’s ultimate smart-asses, the Old 97’s, at Irving Plaza. That’ll be the hot ticket for smart new music.
The good folks at Bloodshot also provided me with an advance copy of the newest Waco Brothers’ disc, “Freedom and Weep,” due out in August. It’s a much more straight-ahead rock-n-roll sound than their last disc, and it’s something to look forward to.
A Brief Return to the Twentieth Century: Gang of Four at Irving Plaza
The Gang of Four returned to New York in great style and form last night, showing no signs of their two-decade gap in performing. They were tight and sharp and ready to take over the world. Darting across stage and frequently switching places, Andy Gill’s jagged guitars sounded every bit as dangerous as they do on those old records while Jon King punctuated his singing by wildly flailing his arms like some sort of spastic messiah.
It felt a bit like a socialist church (the crazy, speaking-in-tongues, big-tent revival kind) as the crowd (a wonderful mix of old-timers and kids) screamed along with lines like “The change will do you good!” and “To Hell with poverty!!!”
The set list was mostly restricted to songs from their first two albums, the only ones that all four original members played on, although the late, Joseph Conrad-quoting “We Live As We Dream, Alone” was a welcome surprise. I understand the band will be re-recording some of their old classics for release on iTunes and perhaps some sort of modified petroleum product (they don’t own their original masters, so this would be the way to make a proper profit for their trouble). This is not unwelcome, but new material would be well worth the wait. This is one reunion that only serves to enhance the band’s legacy.
Brooklyn’s own Radio 4 is opening for the entire national tour. They’re a great band, but their sound is awfully, ah, inspired by Gang of Four, and I feared that they wouldn’t compare well side-by-side, but they acquitted themselves nicely.
Gimme Free
Free shows are for the unemployed. This fact used to piss me off…when I had a job. Two years ago, I remember leaving work early and racing all the way downtown to see one of my favorite bands, Spoon, play a free show at Castle Clinton, only to be among the hundreds of fans who were beaten to the punch by the reserve army of the unemployed. I finally made up for that day by seeing Spoon play a terrific free show at the Virgin record store yesterday.
Spoon are, to my mind, the band of the decade. They are exactly the sort of band that rock geeks long for: a tight little band, a sympathetic voice, a distinctive sound, a little mystery and lyrics that you sing along to before you even know what they are. I first read about the band in Camden Joy’s review of their record company kiss-off single. It was the best bit of rock criticism this side of Lester Bangs, perfectly encapsulating all of the unfulfilled promise of rock in the 90’s and pinning all of our rock geek hopes on this little Austin band that had just been unceremoniously dumped from their corporate record label. Who could resist that? I tracked the record that Elektra thought wasn’t good enough. It was great, all jagged guitars, congested vocals and pure power pop.
A funny thing happened when the band reappeared on the indie Merge record label. Their sound changed; it matured, expanded and hollowed out. The piano replaced the guitar as the dominant instrument. Drum and bass hooks anchored the songs. Guitars only punctuated open holes in the songs, which better allowed the listener to hear Britt Daniels’ quarter-life crisis lyrics. The songs are all rising action; unresolved tension waiting for a climax that might not come for three more songs.
Spoon makes records; complete, perfect statements that are meant to be heard in unison. (Daniels sighed and mumbled about the “iPod generation” yesterday when a pretty indie princess yelled out for tracks “4 and 11.”) Each new one feels like an instant classic, with evocative titles like “Girls Can Tell” and “Kill The Moonlight,” crisp, minimalist cover art and never a band shot (which is always a cool statement, but more so when the lead singer is a conventionally handsome gent).
Spoon’s latest record, “Gimme Fiction,” was released yesterday. It feels like a minor classic. Daniels’ has expanded his lyrical touchstones from post-adolescent angst to include some mythology and has thrown more guitar noise into the mix. Unlike the last two records, this one contains two or three songs that seem distinctly like filler, but it also adds a number of songs that will become a beloved part the band’s repertoire for years. “I Turn My Camera On” is sexy disco rock. “The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine” is fun and bouncy, and “I Summon You” is an insistent and lovely ballad. “Sister Jack,” which was an acoustic ballad when Britt Daniel played a solo warm-up show at Maxwell’s last year, is now a power pop rave-up, the album’s clear climax. It’s one of the year’s best.