Concert Review: Daniel Johnston – Nov. 22, 2008

Daniel Johnston
Nov. 22, 2008
Good Folk Fest – Louisville, KY

What can you write after you’ve seen a legend?

You wouldn’t know very much about Daniel Johnston — underground icon, father of the lo-fi singer-songwriter movement, and outsider artist — by the way he shuffled onto the small stage recently at Louisville’s Mellwood Arts & Entertainment Center. Decked out in a Daniel Johnston T-shirt, dark sweatpants and Converse, Johnston quietly set up a music stand with lyrics and fidgeted briefly with his acoustic guitar, bottle of Mountain Dew always nearby, unassuming in his last-minute preparation. The entourage that helped him cut through the thick crowd of camera-wielding fans, musicians, misfits and well-wishers consisted only of his sister.

The music and the art, then, are left to tell the story.

The set, as many might have anticipated, was short — four songs and less than 15 minutes, all told – but far, far, far from unfulfilling. Like Johnston’s ever-growing catalog, the solo acoustic offerings flashed moments of brilliance from the un- and under-stated: the way a chorus suggested a more elaborate pop-rock refrain, the way an awkwardly strummed guitar stood in for an orchestra, the way one voice spoke for many. (For Johnston completists, here’s the set list that’s been floating around the Internet: “Mean Girls Give Pleasure,” “There Is A Sense of Humor Way Beyond Friendship,” “Mask,” and “Freedom.”)

But there’s something indescribable about seeing Johnston perform live. While his records and the live performances you can catch on YouTube can transmit a kind of isolation and loneliness, he comes off as even more vulnerable and naked in person. His hands shake between songs, causing him to spill the aforementioned Mountain Dew. He nervously fumbles as he tries to tell a dark joke. (Johnston said he was sentenced to death in a dream for attempting suicide.) He keeps the on-stage patter to a minimum, instead choosing to speak through the drawings he sketches for fans before and after the live sets. To sit in an audience and take it in isn’t eavesdropping or idol worship; it’s something closer to voyeurism, the subject somehow unaware they’re being aesthetically picked apart even as they take part in the analysis.

There’s also a magic, a kind of unspoken, communal conversation built around seeing a performer whose audience knows all the words and the chord changes. The cameras flash, the smiles grow wider, the applause is never anything less than exuberant. Since Johnston’s touring schedule is far from hectic, you’re always somehow aware of the magnitude of what you’re seeing. I can’t say what it must have been like to catch a three-song Johnston set in Austin 20-odd years ago but, if his recent sojourn into Louisville is any indication, it must have been fascinating. This was.

Concert Review: Sam Phillips – Sept. 12, 2008

Sam Phillips
Club Café – Pittsburgh, PA
Sept. 12, 2008

And now, 150 words on Sam Phillips’ first performance in Pittsburgh in 15 years:

Spellbinding. Opening song on electric guitar, solitary at first, distortion filtered through a cloud of gauze. An evening of shuffling acoustics and plaintive ballads, odes to sadness, tear it all down. Later, a cappella alongside piano from a warbling tape recorder.

Songs from Fan Dance and A Boot and A Shoe brilliantly accompanied by grungy guitars, Stroh violin, keys, squeezebox, parade drum, slapdash kit. One song dissolves into a perfectly timed cacophony of junk percussion, Phillips abandoning her guitar for wood-on-metal.

Opening from Shay, a local artist, but closing with pre-announced encore, appeal to an intimate audience, “One Day Late.” Thunderous applause.

Mesmerizing takes on familiar standards; the entire set sways with rain and wind outside, songs about heartbreak, fame, nostalgia. Delivery of the words sensual, like ribbons of smoke floating in mid-air, suspended. The breaks between songs peppered with jokes, dead-pan, a conversation ended too soon.

Captivating. Brilliant.

Special thanks to Bonnie Pfister and Rege Behe.

Reviewer Spotlight: Calexico – Spoke

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2007

Knowing that this Tucson ensemble’s loyal following tend to break into fits of breathless poetry about desert horizons or sand-choked nights could lead the uninitiated to believe Joey Burns and John Convertino stepped fully formed out of some Arizona mirage one summer afternoon.

Spoke, released before the incredible The Black Light, proves that assumption incorrect, offering a richer, more nuanced storyline. Recorded when Burns and Convertino’s collaboration was a Giant Sand side project in the truest sense of the word, this 19-song disc finds the group’s core members offering raw, understated songs as they work to find a sound distinct from Howe Gelb. They do not wander long.

All the later templates are here: the acoustic border ballad (“Point Vicente,” “Sanchez”), the open-road driving song (“Glimpse”), the European polka-hall exercise (“Mazurra”).

We also get some of the group’s most heart-wrenching work (the spare “Stinging Nettle,” the cello-assisted “Removed”), as well as odd outtakes like the Friends of Dean Martinez-tinged surf romp “Scout.”

The record can feel casual and slightly off-hand (only four songs break three minutes; three don’t reach 60 seconds) but it’s also amazingly complete. At roughly 44 minutes, Spoke doesn’t waste a moment and few tracks – even interludes – could have been cut from the mix.

It’s a record that demonstrates why Calexico deserves the audience it amassed through later successes, and one that still resonates, even as Burns and Convertino continue to evolve.

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be:: Music from the Motion Picture The Map of Sex and Love; Richard Buckner, Since; Seam, The Pace Is Glacial; June of 44, Engine Takes to the Water; Low, Things We Lost In The Fire

Reviewer Spotlight: The Melvins – Gluey Porch Treatments

Originally published in Punk Planet March/April 2007

I was, admittedly, in grade school in 1986 when Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover and Matt Lukin drove from Washington to California to record their first full-length record.

By the time I did hear it, some five or six years later, the group was being courted by the majors (thank you, Kurt Cobain) but Gluey Porch Treatments had not achieved the sacred status of a founding document. Instead, it languished in bizarre anonymity at the end of a Boner Records pressing of 1989’s Ozma.

Though Ipecac has since championed The Melvins’ early work, Gluey Porch Treatments still doesn’t get the respect it’s due. Why?

Well, you could chalk it up, some might argue, to the fact that few of these songs ever surface at live shows (“I couldn’t tell you what’s even on this thing if I had a gun to my head,” Osborne wrote in the 1999 reissue.)

The record, though, introduces listeners to parts of why The Melvins’ two-decade run has been worth following. There’s the menacing lurch of “Eye Flys,” the stop-and-start wallop of “Echo Head/Don’t Piece Me” and “Flex With You,” sludgy punk-metal hybrids like “Big as a Mountain.” “Exact Paperbacks,” a precursor to “Honey Bucket,” could have served as a grunge template back in the day.

Even songs whose running time doesn’t break 60 seconds – the classic title track or the blistering “Glow God” – are tough to shake from memory. So, why try to forget?

And ever the infinite loop: Tom Waits, Orphans; Lesser Birds of Paradise, Space Between; Calexico, The Black Light; Do Make Say Think, Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn; Vexed, The Good Fight.

Top 10 Records I Reviewed (Or Should Have Reviewed) In 2006

Originally published in Punk Planet January/February 2007

1. Clogs – Lantern

An almost sublime offering from a quartet that blurs the line between classical composition and post-rock experimentalism without cranking out songs that feel over-cooked or over-analyzed. The hushed silences from the audience that watched them open up for Rachel’s in New York City in 2006 said it all: this sound engulfs you.

2. Bonnie “Prince” Billy – The Letting Go

Will Oldham adds another gem to the Palace stable with what might be his finest outing in years, a 12-song set marrying the studio-refined precisions of Sings Greatest Palace Music with the tender acoustic refrains that have captivated listeners from Days In The Wake right up through Master and Everyone.

3. STNNNG – Dignified Sissy

An incredible disc from a group that doesn’t write songs as much as it plots explosions. Blistering, borderline-apocalyptic punk with lyrics as bizarrely literate as they are incendiary. You must find this record.

4. The Lesser Birds of Paradise – Space Between

Mark Janka and company follow up String of Bees with a disc that’s even more fragile and aching than its predecessor. If the whispered folk of “I Envy The Photons” doesn’t break your heart, Tim Joyce’s piano-laced take on “You Are My Sunshine” definitely will.

5. Don Caballero – World Class Listening Problem

You know the storyline: thunderous Pittsburgh math-rock outfit releases critically lauded catalog, goes silent during lengthy hiatus, reunites with new record with only one original member. The result? An unexpected return to form. It’s no Don Caballero 2, sure, but it’s pretty damn good.

6. Calexico - Garden Ruin

I know, I know, it’s not The Black Light. Then again, what is? Joe Burns and John Convertino crank up the radio-readiness on their desert rock and Latin-tinged acoustic ballads and the outcome still captivates you.

7. Tris McCall & The New Jack Trippers - I’m Assuming You’re All In Bands

Synth-pop as satire and social commentary. Jersey native Tris McCall toys with a rougher-around-the-edges live sound to punch holes in Brooklyn’s hipster scene. If you swear this record’s not about you, it just might be.

8. Jack Endino – Permanent Fatal Error

This Skin Yard alumnus/Seattle studio guru’s first solo outing in years is all the proof you’ll need that the Pacific Northwest still understands the vitality of grungy guitars and distortion-drenched choruses.

9. The Sea, Like Lead – S/T

A quietly released EP that could be one of the year’s better debuts: a three-song demo whose long-form post-rock exercises call to mind early June of 44 and the tangled eruptions of A Minor Forest.

10. The Vanities – Coma Kiss

A local band comes into its own. After a few records and a few years, this studio-polished quartet – part At The Drive In, part Mr. Bungle, part Nirvana – sounds like it’s teetering on the big time. Catch them before the cover price at the door climbs skyward along with them.

Reviewer Spotlight: The Jesus Lizard – Liar

Originally published in Punk Planet September/October 2006

The Jesus Lizard’s third full-length, released some 14 years ago, simply is without rival.

A pummeling, explosive record, it’s one of those rare discs that connects those who’ve discovered it. We all remember the blood-curdling thrill of being ripped out of our seats by the jackhammer rumble of the album-opening “Boilermaker” and the roiling force of “Rope.” We talk about the first time we bounced off a wall to the catchy hooks of “Puss” or roared with David Yow to the throat-tearing refrains of “The Art of Self Defense” or “Dancing Naked Ladies.” Not a single song, in the midst of all that fury, was out of place, each track a vicious bark from an uncaged beast.

All ten songs hit their mark and tear it to shreds. Even now, the group’s tightly wound form of attack — the ear-splitting punk roar undercut with David Wm. Sims’ and Mac McNeilly’s bluesy percussive swagger or Duane Denison’s jazzy guitar figures — continues to inspire young musicians, as well it should. But nobody’s managed to replicate Yow’s strange stage presence.

And nobody’s created a sequel to Liar.

I’ll calm down when I’m shaken: Clogs — Lantern, Carrie Yury — Mutter, The For Carnation — S/T, Fugazi — The Argument, Race Against Space — untitled demo

Reviewer Spotlight: Don Caballero – Don Caballero 2

Originally published in Punk Planet July/August 2006

Don Caballero – Don Caballero 2

Some musicians may stumble upon moments of inspiration — even flashes of genuine brilliance — during faux-improvisations in studio cocoons but few bands have mastered the art of making their most groundbreaking and choreographed songs sound as instinctive and downright effortless as Pittsburgh’s Don Caballero.

Their second full-length outing, which is now more than 10 years old, is a monument to that craft, a set of explosive compositions where dense patterns of bass and guitar are feverishly pounded into your ears with Damon Che’s inimitable, octopus-armed percussion.

The disc’s been called a math-rock classic and a potent hybrid of jazz structures and post-punk dynamics. The inventive and blistering guitar work, it must be said, has provided Ian Williams no shortage of disciples.

But the disc, whose eight songs run some 59 minutes, is better described through the images its frenetic instrumental passages may call to mind — everything from the incessant pounding of industrial factories and the liberating rush of flight to the crunching thunder of collapsing buildings.

When was the last time you heard a band whose records made you feel like a witness to some sort of grand collision?
Sounds heard when not daydreaming about the long-overdue Scratch Acid reunion: Giant Sand – Chore of Enchantment, David Grubbs – Two Soundtracks For Angela Bulloch, A Minor Forest – Flemish Altruism (Constituent Parts 1993-1996), Cheer-Accident – Dumb Ask, Tin Hat Trio – Memory Is An Elephant.

Reviewer Spotlight: Cheer-Accident – Enduring The American Dream

Originally published in Punk Planet May/June 2006

Cheer-Accident - Enduring The American Dream

If America ever needs a soundtrack to serve as its death knell, I vote for this obscure 1997 gem from Chicago’s ruling experimental collective. Funeral dirges collide with angular post-punk pressure-cookers. Noisy Minimalist drones wed somber piano ballads. Experimental prog refrains bleed into static and prepared chaos.

And, through it all, Thymme Jones calmly disembowels contemporary America, brow-beating multinational corporations with his polished, almost theatrical voice as he critiques materialism and rampant consumerism as the yin and yang of western religions. (“The public and private sectors collide/ as the corporations buy up the night,” he sings at point, his falsetto stretched over a lo-fi recording of a lonely, distant piano. “We lie under the sign and embrace/ as they sell us the old dream of a new god.”)

But, it’s the bizarre sonic landscape Cheer-Accident sculpts here that truly may sell the message: the way biting lyrics in catchy refrains are thrown off their linear courses by pounded pianos, segues laced with ear-piercing feedback and choral flourishes, or the frequent interjection of found sounds and blasts of punk/prog noise. It’s an unnerving portrait of an American nightmare, but also the ideal introduction to a band that’s required listening for anyone seeking an education in underground music.

Currently breaking silence with Maker’s Mark and… Neutral Milk Hotel, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea; Will Oldham, Ode Music; UI, Lifelike; Rapeman, Two Nuns and A Pack Mule; Melvins, Hostile Ambient Takeover

Reviewer Spotlight: Pinetop Seven – Rigging The Toplights

Originally published in Punk Planet March/April 2006

Pinetop Seven – Rigging The Toplights

For the better part of two years and change, I worked at my university’s underground radio station, and few records remind me of all those priceless nights and graveyard shifts spent in windowless Student Center bomb shelters like Pinetop Seven’s sophomore outing, a quiet and quietly released disc that ranks among the finest and most overlooked of the last decade.

Written and recorded when the group’s core members still included Charles Kim, Ryan Hembrey and Darren Richard, Rigging The Toplights was made to be floated over invisible airwaves in the middle of a winter night. It’s the perfect medicine for loneliness.

There’s plaintive and heart wrenching ballads, slices of nostalgia and Americana, and acoustic guitar odes that quiver with emotion when Richard unfurls that shaky falsetto.

The mystery of the 13-track disc is how the band crafted songs so pristine, with such a calculated attention to subtle narratives and the most minute details, but made them so startlingly immediate and heartfelt. There’s not a dull moment throughout all the record’s 46 minutes — from the folk-pop road song “The Fear of Being Found” and “Floorboards,” that dark ode to commitment and recovery, to the Morricone shuffle of “Heavens” and the closing-credits resolve of “Quit These Hills.”

And, if you’re not moved to tears when Richard’s voice fades into darkness as he wails “I’ve no use not to hide” in “Drying Out,” well, you’ve just got no soul left.

Hang on St. Christopher through the smoke and the oil: Tom Waits, Real Gone; Shipping News, Flies The Fields; Loren Connors & David Grubbs, Arborvitae; The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band With Choir, “This Is Our Punk-Rock,” Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing; The Vanities, Coma Kiss Demos

Feature: Top 10 of 2005 (Delusions of Adequacy)

Top 10 of 2005

Originally published in Delusions of Adequacy

01. Slint – The Reunion (Bootlegs)

The Louisville legend’s rebirth was the underground story of the year and the recordings that have surfaced from their long-anticipated reunion tour provide all the evidence for those who couldn’t witness it with their own eyes. Whether it’s documented sets from New York’s Irving Plaza or Brown Theater in Louisville, these discs offer further proof, if any were needed, about why Slint’s work still resonates and casts shadows.

02. Bastro – Antlers: Live 1991 (Blue Chopsticks Records)

One of the year’s finest discs was, in fact, recorded roughly 15 years ago. A riveting collection of seven live songs from the year punk broke illustrate the now-defunct Chicago trio shifting from the venomous but densely arranged post-punk of its early days to the more atmospheric instrumentals it wrote before morphing into Gastr del Sol. More ammunition for those arguing David Grubbs’ prominent role in the history of post-rock.

03. Shipping News – Flies The Fields (Quarterstick Records)

Four years after Very Soon And In Pleasant Company, the group’s last full-length record proper, RMSN expands from a trio to a quartet and cuts one of their darkest and most direct outings yet. The resulting eight songs flutter between Rodan-tinged pressure-cookers and meditations crafted with rivers of guitar and bass.

04. Pinetop Seven – The Night’s Bloom (Barbary Coast/Empyrean Records)

It’s more polished and orchestrated than 1998′s Rigging The Toplights, the ensemble’s breathtaking high-water mark, but Pinetop Seven’s first new record in five years felt every bit as emotive and heartbreaking as its predecessors. Darren Richard and company again have crafted a unique mosaic of contemporary Americana.

05. Rachel’s – Technology Is Killing Music EP (Three Lobed Recordings)

A companion to 2003′s Systems/Layers and a cousin, perhaps, of Per Mission’s A Ritual Loop, this limited-run 18-minute disc offers a glimpse into how Rachel’s construct and deconstruct their enigmatic avant-chamber pieces. If you can find it, don’t let go.

06. Carrie Yury – Mutter EP (Self-released)

One of the year’s most unexpected and touching solo debuts also may have been one of its most understated. California artist-musician Carrie Yury invited Richard Schuler and members of the Palace stable to back her on this quietly released six-song offering and they help her craft folk-pop gems that are seductive and disarming in their beauty. Now all we need is the full-length follow-up.

07. The Wingdale Community Singers – S/T (Plain Recordings)

The literary-minded trio of Rick Moody, David Grubbs and Hannah Marcus lives up to all the buzz with a debut whose stripped-down odes and ruminations, acoustic romps and sometimes-playful songs burrow deep into memory and set up camp for a long winter. Each musician has their moment to shine on the 15-song disc (there’s more than a handful of outstanding tracks worth noting) but what’s most surprising is how well they fit together when they’re on the same page.

08. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Summer In The Southeast (Sea Note Records)

This collection of live songs captured, as the title plainly states, in the American southeast may be the answer for all those still hungering for another Will Oldham retrospective after 2004′s Greatest Palace Music. It’s all here – from “Pushkin” and “I Send My Love To You” to the Joya/I See A Darkness-era “Nomadic Revery” and “O Let It Be” – and Oldham and his cohorts prove they can still capture a live audience with their raw energy and sense of wonder.

09. Fantomas – Suspended Animation (Ipecac Recordings)

Yeah, it was gimmicky and felt, at times, like a reaction to the more long-form experiments of Delirium Cordia but Mike Patton, Buzz Osborne, Dave Lombardo and Trevor Dunn could stand in a room with their amps dead and droning and still sound captivating. This time, the buzz-saw energy gets the cut-up treatment through the prism of a sugar-powered Warner Bros. cartoon. And, for the next act?

10. Adam Gnade – Run Hide Retreat Surrender (Loud and Clear Records)

A modern version of Kerouac’s On The Road as seen through the eyes of the lo-fi singer-songwriter. Gnade’s stream-of-consciousness prose is far from earth-shattering but he nails the subtle colors and telling asides of American life with an addictive off-handedness in this cross-country musical journal. While most musicians would lose the rhythm of their tale by cramming it into a stale verse/chorus/verse mold, Gnade is smart enough to let the words levitate above and even without instrumentation. It speaks for itself.

Honorable Mentions: The Vanities – Coma Kiss demos (Self-released), Wicked Immigrant – White Nuns on Red Wine (Friendly Psychics Music), Amos Lee – S/T (EMI), Melvins – Mangled Demos From 1983 (Ipecac Recordings), PAK – Motel (Ra Sounds), Dave Spalding – Invisibles (Self-released), Blindfold – S/T (Resonant Records)