My goal for 2019 is to write at least a little something about every show I see, preferably by the next day, we’ll see how it goes. I will compile weekly and post here as-is.
So, in that spirit, this is the forty-second of hopefully 52 posts…
14Oct19
Nice Williamsburg>Bushwick threefer for a Monday…
Ross Hammond, Rootless @ Muchmore’s
Started off at this pretty cool spot in Williamsburg, not too far off the BQE on Havemeyer, called Muchmore’s, a little bar with a nice cozy performance space through a curtain. Ross Hammond is a great Sacramento based guitar player who seems to come through town once a year and, apparently this is his week. Wanted to catch him so made sure to get there for a set listed as 7pm. Got there at like 7:02 and I could hear music coming out of the back and I have to admit, it sounded like a woman singing more than a guitar playing… but I pulled the curtain back and there were like 10 people in a small room and Hammond on stage with his steel resonator guitar on his lap. Here’s to accurate set times!!
His set was about 25 minutes long, maybe 3 pieces. The first one was just pure drone raga shit, full entrancement magic. With the guitar on his lap like that, his fingers of his right hand pecking at the strings like he was typing something out on some sort of mystical typewriter and indeed, the music told a rather psychedelic story. Pretty intense stuff, not quite beautiful, but entrancing for sure. The second piece started with a more standard blue riff and then seemed to disintegrate for a long improvised stretch before returning to the blues theme, a sensation of falling from the waking world to a ragged dreamscape and then eventually back again. The third piece was somewhere in between. A rather stunning journey in less than a half hour. I’ve spent a bit of time thinking and talking about what a perfect set length is and this was a perfect set length for that music.
We decided to stick around for the final set, a guy playing guitar as “Rootless.” This was more of your beautiful finger-picked acoustic guitar instrumental shit and it was, indeed, beautiful. I was reminded of David Crosby’s melodies and instrumental stuff, just gorgeous fields-of-wildflowers shit. Glad we stayed. The gig was free, but was a benefit for some Native American charity on Indigenous Peoples Day, so dropped some cash into the bucket on the way out.
Groovesafe All Stars (Deltaphonics opened) @ Brooklyn Bowl
From there the drive to Brooklyn Bowl was not even 5 minutes and we walked in for the last 10 minutes of Coach Z, who I really enjoyed — groovy fun on a near-reggae rhythm with an extended jam to wrap things up. Good times.
I somehow had this sound in mind when I first heard of Deltaphonics and I couldn’t have been more wrong. Let’s put it this way, I was not expecting to be coming to comparisons with North Mississippi All Stars, Derek Trucks or ARU, but all of those popped in my head unprompted during their rocking hour set. The band is an interesting twist on the power trio, with a guitar and drum and the lead guy playing a 6-string that is 3 guitar strings and 3 bass strings. He sort of was the bassist and rhythm guitarist all in one, as well as the lead singer and emotional center of the band. The sound was a very delta blues with a side of funk and New Orleans. The guitarist was pretty great, clearly influenced by Trucks, but not playing slide, and the (shirtless) drummer had surprising shades of Jeff Sipe in his hard-hitting style. I enjoyed this set a lot more than I had expected and so I think I felt their deficiencies a bit more than if I just didn’t give a fuck about them. What I mostly thought as the set went on is how much this band needs Col Bruce to help them find themselves, find a little weirdness and outness to help them reach their potential. They just were missing that little spark. Hopefully they’ll find it, because unfortunately, Bruce Hampton ain’t around no more and I don’t know that anyone is there to fill that role for bands like this. Kind of made me sad, actually. At multiple points in their set I was reminded of that short stretch where “ARU” existed without Bruce Hampton, a slick facsimile, a smile on a face that may not really be smiling inside. Deltaphonics should also add some covers to their set, because it’s ridiculous for a band like this not to play one or two songs that everyone can latch onto. A little advice from someone who thinks every band should have a cover or two in their bag, but especially bluesrockfunk bands from New Orleans. Regardless, these guys were great and I will definitely try to catch them next time they come through town.
My cool covers itch was scratched aplenty for the ensemble billed as the GrooveSafe All-Stars who finished up. Kudos to whoever put this outfit together, again my expectations were way off. I was thinking it would be an improvisational free-for-all (I wouldn’t have complained), but instead it was a very well-rehearsed soul outfit playing cool covers… I think there was some Sharon Jones in there, a great extended version of the Tina Turner take on “Proud Mary” and a cool take on the 90’s groover Lovefool. I mean, this was a big band with Turkuaz horns, three singers who rotated lead and back-up, two guitarists, bass, drums and keys, and they really tackled the material and were a lot of fun. I say this with genuine admiration, they were like the best wedding band you could ever ask for. Good solos from everyone, but nothing that was too showy or over the top and a more-than-solid rhythm section and great vocals. Not sure you could ask for muchmore, er much more. And all for $11 with proceeds to a good cause. And they kept things on the announced set times perfectly, which is very appreciated on a Monday. Again, kudos to all involved with putting that one on, happy to be there.
Visitors Trio @ The Sultan Room
We left early to catch the late set at the Sultan Room. I had caught this trio, called The Visitors Trio, it’s Jim Black, Jonathan Goldberger and JP Schligelmilch, once before at Barbes and their album is pretty great, but the 25 or 30 minutes we caught last night was a total, deep, dark funkprog meltdown. It’s an organ/guitar/drums trio, with JPS doing a lot of nasty low-end stuff on the organ, Jim Black just going ratatatata apeshit on the drums and Goldberger alternating between soaring near-Garcia leads and from-the-underworld nastiness. The thing was just nasty all around, a ton of noise, all of it fucking awesome. I get a strong Emerson Lake and Palmer Tarkus vibe, except if that was a guitar/organ/drums trio and were almost all improvised. I think they played one piece the entire time we were there and it was heavy duty sickness. I say it every single time I see him, but Black is really the best drummer no one ever talks about. He’s just one of those guys who never plays the same thing twice in a row, hits for power and average, fast, hard, mindblowing… I try not to miss him, he’s that good. I was utterly mesmerized and perplexed by him the entire time last night. Goldberger is clearly in the miss-at-your-own-peril stage of his career, he does so many different things well, the bridge between the Zorn world and the Russo world with a mix of Frisell’s universe as well, and every time makes magic without ever going overboard.
I was a bit surprised when they finished it and then said goodnight because the guy at the door said they had just started the set when we arrived, so either he was lying or they just played a one-jam 25 minute second set. Either is possible. Again, it was a perfect dose of awesome and done at 11:30 on a Monday is probably something I shouldn’t be complaining about. Great shit, damn.
15Oct19 Jealous of the Birds, Michael Daves @ Rockwood Music Hall
Quick review of a couple sets at Rockwood last night.
Jealous of the Birds is a band I’ve been digging for a few years, she/they have some nice studio releases — mostly very good songs with a couple really better-than-very-good songs thrown into the mix that I dig. They’re from Ireland but have been doing a sort of extended residency at Rockwood room #1 with some other touring around the east coast thrown in. I’ve managed to miss them all and last night was their final show at Rockwood for this visit, so I was glad it worked out to catch them. I love catching sets at the original Rockwood Music Hall, there is something very pure about it as a venue that works for rock or country or bluegrass or jazz. I mean, the size, the brick-wall decor, the red lights, the vibe, the sound… it’s all there and they run a tight ship…. set time says 9pm, they’re starting at 9pm. That was on display last night, we walked in and the music started almost immediately at 9 on the nose.
The set was really great, they started out with a loud rocking energy, two electric gutiars, bass and the drum kit on the floor — not enough room on the stage for drums, but that just adds to the charms. Their sound is really a nothing-fancy thing, solid indie rock, often sounding like something out of the 90’s or 00’s. I love a quartet that sports four completely different looks. The main member is Naomi Hamilton who had a short slicked-back haircut, piercings in her lips and a cool-but-dated (or dated-but-cool) blue pantsuit on with white Chuck Taylors. I mean, that’s one version of cool. The lead guitar guy was the other end of the spectrum, shaggy pale blonde hair, white t-shirt, goofy moustache… he played with a nice friendly, warm tone and took several melodic solos throughout the 35 minute set. The bassist looked like an old newspaper delivery boy or something, kind of short with a cap… his style had shades of 80’s jazzfunk, like he belonged in a different band or something (at one point he did a nice little double-tap outro solo), but it worked. The drummer was more than solid and happened to be celebrating his 22nd birthday, which got a holy-shit-they’re-young out of me. Everything they played was great, but was glad they worked all my personal favorites into the set, because when Hamilton is at her songwriting best, it’s damn good. They closed with the song “Plastic Skeletons” which is easily her best. Check ’em out, you might dig.
We stuck around for Michael Daves, because, heck we were already there. The room had been about 1/3 full, but by the time Daves started there were like 8 people in the room, so we kind of had to stay. I rarely dwell on talkers during shows, it’s part of the livemusic thing and I can deal with the worst of ’em, but last night was a completely different beast as a couple came in, bought two beers and sat down at the table directly in front of the guy playing music on stage by himself and had this very loud conversation while he played these country and bluegrass songs, trying his best to ignore these two yahoos. It was actually more funny than anything, it almost felt like performance art, like these two were acting almost as if there was no one playing music at all, completely oblivious to the point where it felt intentional. Weird, but made me laugh for some reason.
I still had no trouble concentrating on the music and it was stereotypically awesome Daves. He’s been on a music-from-his-hometown kick lately, covering much of the last few times I’ve seen him, so we ended up seeing a bunch of songs I’ve seen him do recently. Seems like he’s compiling and mining for material and it will become an album in the near future. He’s a NYC treasure, one of the best residencies out there, if only because he can truck through any crowd or situation like a pro.
16Oct19 Okey Dokey @ The Sultan Room
Wednesday night was a nasty, nasty night of wind and rain, so we didn’t get to the earlier show I wanted to see, but there was no way I was missing Okey Dokey. These guys are from Nashville whom I discovered opening for Blitzen Trapper last year. That’s got to be the best way to discover new music sight unseen, be lucky enough to be at the show early and not just be pleasantly surprised, but occasionally blown away by the support act you knew nothing about. Since then I’ve been following along with Okey Dokey and what you quickly learn is that these guys are super prolific. Basically, they release about one track a month and they are all over the place stylistically, many of them with guests (the track with Liz Cooper last year is a personal favorite), all of them, more or less, awesome. I’m not sure if they’ve been back to NYC since that opening slot, but they did say that the show at the Sultan Room was their first headlining show in NYC and, let me just say, I do hope it is the first of many more to come. Because they were pretty fucking great.
This was also the first time I saw a sort of “rock” show at The Sultan Room… pretty much everything up to now has been in the jazz/improv/experimental vein and the room fits that kind of shit very perfectly. It turns out to be a pretty great room for a rock show as well, the partition of the “front” and “back” sections lends itself nicely to the natural split in a crowd of people who want to be close to the band and people who want to hang back. The crowd was a nice healthy size, it was definitely not crowded, there was room to move if you wanted it, but it was nowhere close to being empty, which was encouraging especially on a Wednesday, kind of awful night with the headliner starting at 11pm.
And what about the music? So, so good. The first half of the set kind of had this cosmic doo-wop feel permeating it. Olden days rock with a dash of soul and country, great harmonies, amazing songs. The band is two guitars, drums and a keyboard player who had his left hand on a Korg synth-bass the whole time bringing some seriously groovy low end to the entire sound. That bass, more than guitars or anything else, was the leading edge of their music and it sounded sweet, let me tell you. The midway point of the set to me whether literally or not, was a cover of the Roy Orbison’s “You Got It” which seemed to perfectly capture the sound of the first bunch of tunes. During the song, the lead singer walked through the crowd and then hopped up on the bar between the front and back sections, walking along the length of it to the end of the room, singing the entire time. Fun!
The second half of the show was a whirlwind of styles with a lot more spaced-out awesome exploratory stuff. The band doesn’t jam, there were barely even any guitar solos, especially considering the two-guitar line-up, but they were able to create the energy of improvisation through their compositions, with mult-tiered pieces, plenty of up-to-down/down-to-up arcs and some deceptively complicated arrangements of keys, bass and guitars, anchored by some killer rock drumming. At various times I caught similarities to Tame Impala and Pink Floyd and more. Which is to say they were all over the place stylistically, but were rather masterful at everything. In the middle of this, they did their sort of “cover” of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” a sort of offbeat not-ironic reimagining of the Mr Rogers theme that was one of the many, many songs they released in the past year. All in all a great, show, much below the surface of this seemingly standard Nashville-based rock band. I have high hopes for these guys, check ’em out if you get a chance.
17Oct19
Thursdays are so often Threesdays if you play your cards right…
Molly Sarle @ Baby’s All Right
Molly Sarle is one third of Mountain Man and has her own solo album out recently, just like Daughter of the Swords. I guess they all agreed they’d do their solo album right at the same time? I caught Daughter of the Swords at Union Pool earlier this year and she’s also been opening for the likes of Wilco and others. Sarle has been a little more under the radar for whatever reason, but her music maybe is a bit more intriguing in that there’s nothing of that beautiful, sparse folk of Mountain Man in it. I was happy to catch her last night at Baby’s All Right in an early slot. She started off solo, playing electric guitar and singing, but the music was more indie rock than straight folk and her voice had the conversational warmth of someone telling a great story as opposed to some sort of ethereal folk goddess emerging from the hills. After the first song she invited her band up on stage and told a short story about touring Europe solo and driving around with a tour manager she didn’t know who wouldn’t shut up the entire time… and then she gestured to her band and said “so, it’s good to be with friends.” I think it was just a funny little anecdote for her, one of many she would recount through the night, each a self-contained relatable story from a very relatable storyteller, but once the band kicked in, the message I got was: I’m OK playing solo, but it’s this band that makes me sound good. And boy, did they ever. The first song had the lead guitarist on electric 12-string and the bassist played a beautiful McCartney tone on his Hohner, the drummer playing very subtly with brushes and, oftentimes, with this hands. Each element of the band was very simple on its own, there was little extraneous sound. But together, arranged around these songs and Sarle’s presence, they sounded really great. At times I was reminded of Real Estate’s folkier side, other times I got some Wilco vibes, and then there was just stuff that was uniquely hers. Her stuff was musical Mondrian, simple geometries of primary color, arranged to lead you eye and mind to certain places, ultimately pleasing when taken in as a whole. I love that Hohner pop and the guitarist was lovely adding a lot of ethereal sound with a slide. Really good stuff.
Garcia Peoples @ Nublu 151
Finally made it to one of the Garcia Peoples’ monthlong Thursday night residency at Nublu. I’ve seen these guys maybe 5 times now and I must say they get better every time and last night was no exception. The key to such improvement — gigging as much as humanly possible, playing with lots of different people, writing a lot of music, going to see a lot of music — seems simple, but so few bands do it and so very few bands I’ve known have gelled quite like GP.
Like so many bands, with Garcia Peoples is all comes back to the Grateful Dead. I mean, the name makes it obvious. But what I was thinking of during their set last night is how “influenced by the Dead” is about as meaningful and specific as “Beatlesque.” It can mean so much. It’s like the parable of the blind men describing an elephant to each other, all of them correct, but all of them describing something completely different — one guy’s got the big floppy ears, one guy has the tiny tail and all points in between. The Dead were (are!) that big unwieldy pachyderm and present day influencees are free to pick and choose which parts of that elephant they want to adopt and which parts they want to ignore completely… and the vast ecosystem of music that results from such freedom is a rather remarkable, uniformly awesome thing. The thing with Garcia Peoples is that they don’t even really sound much like the Dead and maybe sound less and less like them the more they play and evolve, which is a great thing. Last night I had this feeling that their jamming was as if The Band had jammed like the Dead circa 1967. Maybe next time they’ll sound like something completely different.
There were no way-long extended meltdown jams last night, no exclusive sit-ins or weirdness. It was straight driven-by-the-songs guitar-keys-bass-drums rocking by a band that’s becoming increasingly comfortable doing a little bit of everything. If the vocals were a bit shaky and unsure at times, the forays of guitar — one bubbling-below-a-boil lead and one steady rhythms — were bright, confident things that filled the room and got people moving their bodies ecstatically. I don’t call GP a “jamband” because to me that nomenclature signifies a specific sound and specific influences and styles that these guys just don’t have, but that’s my thing. These guys definitely jam, they’re very good at it and getting better seemingly every week. Two more Thursdays in October to get your Garcia Peoples fix… until the next time.
Wayne Krantz, James Genus, Josh Dion @ 55 Bar (late)
Another total I-can-die-happy brainstew at 55 Bar on a Thursday night. Very full room with super high energy got treated to one of the better hours of pure guitar mastery I’ve seen this year. Every week a shift in tone or chemistry, a different experiment, the specifics unknowable, but the result always awe-inspiring. This week really started and ended with Wayne himself. I barely registered the other two guys, as good as they were, but their presence was what made such guitar playing possible. Krantz really seemed unleashed with several awe-inspiring solos. Actually “several” and “awe-inspiring” are conservative estimates on what he was unleashing into that room. The band was playing music Twister, every so often spinning the dial and then pretzeling themselves into new contorted configurations, sometimes deeply entwined, sometimes individually twisted. Holy shit, this was so fucking good.
The song I am now calling “Heavy Metal Interlude” continues to be a majestic centerpiece to the set. The thing about it is you don’t even know you’re listening to this “song” until minutes of freeform rockfunk jamming and then, all of the sudden, nasty riffage. So good. The latter half of the set, that midnight til 12:30 stretch is always where the magic is. The audience can’t stifle the giggles when they realize they’re actually listening to a take on Another One Bites the Dust or U Can’t Touch This, but the origin point matter less than the musical diffraction patterns emanating out in all directions. It’s rather remarkable to listen to this guy play guitar and to not find any discernible tricks or themes that bridge one week to the next. I mean, I have my favorite guitar players, Anastasio and Metzger and so on, and I’ve seen those two guys specifically well over 100 times each and I have some notion of prediction, little pockets of recognizable riffs or themes or progressions, things they’ve done that are characeristcally them and easily picked out, signposts along the way of undoubtedly top-tier guitar improvisation. Wayne Krantz has none of those tics. I mean, he has go-to effects and the songs follow a predictable arc, but within these, the actual guitar playing, the heavy-duty jamming, it’s somehow entirely fresh and different and brand spanking new every single week. On top of all the things that blow my mind about this $15 weekly gig, a fucking kaleidoscope of mindblowing shit all the way down, that brilliant freshness may be the most remarkable… I mean he’s playing the same damn songs every time, and yet each one is like a newborn baby every time. It makes the repeated visits that much more rewarding, Friday mornings be damned. Nothing like it. Can’t wait for next week.
18Oct19
Oh Sees @ Warsaw
I first saw Thee Oh Sees at the Mercury Lounge almost exactly 10 years ago. I had zero clue about who “they” were or what they sounded like, but back in my earlier days of reviewing for the Bowery Presents, I was happy to just get recommendations from the guys who booked the shows and this was one of many good recs I got. The band that night flat out blew me (and a sold out Merc) away. At first blush they were a very aggressive punk style band, but it didn’t take long to realize that there was quite a bit more behind the ridiculous energy. It also didn’t take long to realize that “they” really meant John Dwyer, the mastermind/guitarist/genius behind Thee Oh Sees or Oh Sees or OCS. If you don’t count the OCS show at Murmrr last year, which was a different band/beast altogether, last night at Warsaw was my 10th time seeing Dwyer & Co. The band has changed significantly since then, settling on a current set-up of two drums, bass, keys and Dwyer; the sound, also, has grown and mutated and evolved in exciting ways, maintaining the holy-shit liveshow energy theyve always had while building up layers of psychedelia, flat-out jam, and surprising doses of prog-rock. And what they are now is undeniably one of my favorite live shows to hit, a can’t-miss 90 minutes of pure Dwyer-fueled mayhem of the highest order, good enough to fill a venue like Warsaw 3 nights in a row, and smart enough to keep it at that when they could likely fill larger rooms. Every single time I see them I think that was the best I’ve ever seen them play and it’s always true and it definitely was last night.
Good lord, what a killer show. They went on right about 10:30, maybe 10:35 and there’s not much warning or easing in. It’s what I imagine being one of those Polar Bear Club swimmers is like, it’s cold as fuck and you just jump right in, a leap of faith in your body’s ability to handle it, to adjust to the extreme temperature. Or, on the other end of the spectrum jumping right into a near-boiling jacuzzi, too hot to bear, and yet feels so good. When the lights went down last night and less than a split second later the room was electrified by the exponential energy of two drummers going apeshit from the first moment, Dwyer immediately whipping his head around like he was 20 years younger than he is, his guitar held characteristically high on his chest, must get better leverage that way, when the sound hits from the get-go, it’s somehow like simultaneously jumping into an ice cold Atlantic Ocean and a hotter-than-hell hot tub. Like your brain is experiencing one extreme and your body is dealing with the other and my word, that somehow feels so damn good.
I recognized plenty of the songs they played, but even if I knew all the songs it would probably mean nothing to you. The show was 90 minutes of Oh Sees perfection. The band seems to operate at a speed just a tick faster than the rest of the room, like you’re watching a video that’s slightly sped up. There is so much visceral kinetic energy on the stage, it’s going so fast and there’s so much of it, it’s impressive that they actually make compelling music. But that’s the beauty of this band, they have the energy and propulsion of a punk rock band — albeit one with two drummers — but the songs have all this thrilling structure to them, amazing riffs, sweet little melodies, hyperintelligent arrangements. If Dwyer tried to write the kind of compositions that, say, Trey Anastasio wrote, or songs with the depth of a Kevin Morby, he would maybe be appreciated for the genius he is. But he instead writes these firecrackers of pure energy that gets a packed Warsaw moving up and down and left and right and everyone in the room is agog with his mastery and the rest of the world says who? More for us, I suppose.
Last night felt jammier than usual, but I maybe always feel that way. Three or four songs went deep, a couple way deep, with fantastical guitar work from Dwyer, more drum and bass than your body can keep up with and, the secret weapon of the band for the past couple of years, an array of keys and synths and organ that elevates this version of the Oh Sees beyond just the best damn guitar band out there. For one song they brought out a two-man saxophone section, I don’t think I’ve ever seen horns play in this band, and it added another interesting layer to things, worked quite well, actually.
There’s no way I’m getting through the rest of the weekend without one more shot at Dwyer, I’ll be back Sunday and even if it’s the same exact show, it’ll be well worth it. I mean, either these guys blow you away or you simply haven’t seen them yet. Choose your lane.
A super quick on-the-way-home drive from Warsaw is Sera Phi on the outskirts of Greenpoint. Stopped in to catch a nice 45-minute chunk of super fun funkydanceparty vibes courtesy of WeTheeFunk with awesome people. A very what-could-be-bad? scene that I would have loved to stick around longer for if I wasn’t driving and I had gotten any semblance of sleep this week. Also Sees > WeThee seemed reasonable.
19Oct19 Altin Gün @ Elsewhere
Altin Gün is a band out of the Netherlands that plays traditional Turkish music… Sorta. Almost all “traditional” musics have some elements of groove and psychedelia to them. From klezmer to Tuareg, massage them in the right way and you’re dancing your butt off or headtripping or some combination of both. Rub in some western influences — rock, funk, jazz, and the trick becomes that much easier to pull off. That’s what these guys do with Turkish music and it’s pretty damn awesome.
The show was maybe not quite sold out, but the room was packed. It was quite clear that a large number were Turkish, singing along, cheering when songs were introduced as works of this famous Turkish poet or that one. But once the songs got going, it didn’t matter where you call “home,” the universal language of awesomefuckingmusic spoken quite clearly for all to hear.
The show was a perfect balance of old world sounds, supreme funk and intense psychedelia. The boogie grooves were courtesy of the bass and drum pair who had a phenomenal pocket throughout. Apparently the band is the brainchild mostly of the Dutch bassist. The psych came from the guitarist and the main melodic voice of the group, a guy who switched between this lute like instrument and synthesizers. What a great sound he has, otherworldly shit. Another guitarist took an occasional solo as well.
The songs were compact things, 3 or 4 minutes each maybe, each a little world within itself, nooks and crannies to explore, high peaks to look down from and dreamlike fields to roam in. The set was a little more than an hour, a mostly nonstop dance party, each moment dense enough to fill a concert on its own… It was a perfectly sized set.
It’s easy to compare these guys to, say Khruangbin with their exotic vibe, killer grooves and unique sound. Along those lines, judging from the crowd response and pure fun of the show, an utterly how-can-you-not-love-this energy, I imagine great things in Altin Gün’s future.
At one point the guy behind me asked his (I imagine) Turkish date the meaning of the band’s name. She said “it means ‘golden day,’ but it also means more than that.” Kind of cryptic, but also felt very true.
20Oct19
Been a helluva week, why stop??
Jim James, Teddy Abrams and members of the Louisville Symphony Orchestra @ Le Poisson Rouge
Let’s just get this out of the way. This show was special. You could almost see the collective thought bubble above the sold out audience when the last note finally ended, the words that was special in a cartoon cloud. And everyone in that room was thinking the same thing as well, Jim James is special. And I believe it to be true, he’s a generational talent, whether playing solo or with My Morning Jacket, he has a magnetic personality, all-timer front-man energy, a (usually) great songwriting voice and can rock the fuck out with the best of ’em. He makes big rooms feel small and small rooms feel big. So, it was definitely a special thing to see him in the cozy underground lair of LPR, an early set on a Sunday night, not just playing his music, but playing it backed by a small orchestra — a 5-person string section, two back-up singers, a drummer/percussionist and Teddy Abrams, playing piano and conducting the whole thing.
What’s maybe surprising is that James wasn’t even the star of his own show. The real magic of the set, which ran more or less the same setlist as the album they just put out on Friday, was from Abrams who arranged JJ’s songs for the orchestra and, even cooler, strung them together into a single musical narrative, one song flowing to the next so that at times it felt less like a concert and more like a musical or an opera (for better or, at times, maybe worse). The arrangements were quite brilliant, bringing extra gravitas to the melodies but also maintaining a sense of rock and roll and even a little groove at times. There was very little pause between songs, absolutely no banter at all, just a straight 40 minutes that felt strongly rehearsed and perfectly executed by the ensemble. James voice was the centerpiece, sure, and sometimes it was more up to the task than others, but this was all about those strings and Abrams to me. It felt all as one “piece” to me and so nothing really stuck out to me more than anything else, even the moments of heightened drama — a ridiculous violin solo, a swell of the entire group filling the room, the raucous end to the show when James walked off and the backup singers started banging away at the percussion — were part of the whole, made possible by the quieter moments that filled in between.
Yes, it was a special show. I enjoyed it. But I’ve got a “but” to end this review (feel free to skip ahead, trigger warning). I mean, Jim James, I love you, but… but… but… the thing about the songs that they played is that they kind of were put together almost as a “concept” and in a not-so-great way highlighted some of his sloppiest songwriting. About halfway through the set the lyrics, the kind of expository, self-indulgent poetry you might write in junior high to let people know how deep you are (and by “you” I definitely include myself as someone who wrote such in my naive youth, I remember one of my poems in particular “Wake up world/what’s up for today/should I be worried/should I pray”). Alright, alright, we get it. Don’t tell us how you feel, show it with something tangible and real. By the time he got to “Who Am I” about reincarnation which more or less devolves into a list of animals whose names happen to rhyme (“wren” and “hen” anyone?) I was a little embarrassed and found myself longing for the profundity of Trey’s Ghost in the Forest material. (I make that reference partly because I realized I’ve managed to mention Anastasio multiple times in reviews this week and figure why stop now?). What made it all the more annoying is that the guy can write awesome songs! I love most of ’em and can forgive this shit, but hearing them all packed together one after the other, James standing in front of this orchestra with a trenchcoat like a wannabe prophet was a bit much. When he stormed off the stage without even mentioning these amazing musicians who crushed his material for 40 minutes (I mean, isn’t the right thing to do to introduce them? Oof, that left a really bad taste in my mouth), supposedly walking right off the stage into a waiting car. Well, at that point, I was glad that it was only the first stop of the night..
Oh Sees @ Warsaw
FUCKYEAH! I don’t have too much more to add to my Friday review, but one night ain’t enough. Maybe two nights ain’t enough. The room was not sold out, comfortably full with room in the back, but the band was all that once again, absolutely crushed everything. A couple things I didn’t mention in my other review, but there were these moments during the show… like, it’s loud, obviously, loud in a good way, in a way you want it to be loud, but then there were these moments where the band just hit it all at once and it was loooooud, an absolute explosion of sound, a fill-the-room, feel-it-in-your-shockra moment that was just the best shit ever. Wow. And that being said, their sets are inverted in that the quiet moments have the effect that the climactic over-the-top moments would in any other set, merely by contrast, but also by the surprising fact that, for a band that is churning along at the pace they do, two-drummers on down, they can ratchet things down and poke around little melodies and compositional complexity.
Amazing show, perhaps even better than Friday, although pretty similar in the best ways possible. Dwyer finished thanking the crowd (he thanked a few times through the night and I got a chuckle how he always thanked in a different way: “thank you Warsaw,” “thank you Brooklyn,” “thank you New York,” and, my favorite, “thank you Greenpoint!”) and, perhaps the best part, “see you next year.” Already looking forward to October 2020 3 nights of Oh Sees at the Warsaw or wherever they play (someone make Brooklyn Steel happen, please, I want to see them tear that place down). Miss their next run here at your own peril.
