Live Review: John Vanderslice @ Mercury Lounge [3.30.08]

Sunday night: time for most of America to sit at home, prepare for the week ahead, and go to sleep early. But for a few brave souls at Mercury Lounge the pain of an early Monday morning after a short night of sleep was the last thing on their minds. John Vanderslice—probably the friendliest entertainer in rock—saddled up with two flannel-wearing (but not quite country) acts, Deer Tick and the Cotton Jones Basket Ride (the new project of Michael Nau of Page France) to put on an evening that featured the songwriter’s craft at its best.

The somewhat awkwardly named Cotton Jones Basket Ride is not much a departure for Nau. He gives up the acoustic guitar, but his ringing nasal voice and poetic world of bluebirds and black hearts still resound. There were telecasters, button-up shirts, jeans, and flannel in abundance, but the country-vibe was not that present in the sound. I heard something vaguely 60’s-ish, a mixture between the smoothness of soul backing bands and the slight twang of The Band. For some reason—and tell me why I think this but it’s strange enough to lay bare for all—I kept thinking of crushed velvet and James Bond movies—in the sound—despite the overt references to a culture entirely separate from that. I think it has something to do with the way the drums sashayed in the songs: they didn’t have that prickly gallop I expected (considering the country look).

Deer Tick, on the other hand, played country music. They had a more old-time look, in particular bassist Chris Ryan, who dressed in barbershop quartet gear and had a well-trimmed but full mustache. He looked a bit like the Pringles man. But all this is neither here nor there. The music, country as it was, was not an essay in genre-play. The songs worked, and not merely as nostalgic documents of a different time. Songwriter and lead singer John McCauley sang melancholy poetry with a voice that was nasal but worn at the same time, like a mixture of Dylan and unplugged Cobain. My favorite song of the evening came early in the set, “Art Isn’t Real (City of Sin).” The infectious “Iayeyai” at the beginning of the melody was instantly catchy. (Lyrical context: “I am the dotted line/you fill me in with whatever you like.”) McCauley was quite the comedian, too, entertaining between songs with deadpan orations on the state of his voice, Limp Bizkit, the TV show House, and more.

John Vanderslice, who is currently on tour opening for Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, seemed happy to be playing the headliner roll. After playing “White Dove” to open the set (a song, it may not be wholly extraneous to note, that I was humming all day in expectation of the show), he was pleased with the results: “We’ve never opened with that…It went well.” Vanderslice, who always seems sunny California happy, expressed to us early and often how much fun he was having playing music (“which isn’t always the case”, he said). He was giddy and loose all night (even messing up a few song openings), and he certainly challenged McCauley for the evening’s comedy title.

It is a difficult thing not to fall in love with someone this nice already, but his music—played with the help of this tour’s backing band, Ian Bjornstad, David Douglas, Daniel Hart, and sound engineer David Willingham—was, as always, erudite, sharp and perfectly pop. There was nothing excessive about the music: chords, sounds, and words all fit together in a way that welcomed you into their world. Of course, a writer of well-crafted pop songs would be a populist, but just in case you were wondering Vanderslice refused to do an encore (which is, after all, a stupid tradition in rock shows) and instead came out into the audience and played an acoustic set with guitar, violin, accordion, xylophone, and tom-tom. This is something he’s done before, but it felt like we were his favorite audience ever (and who knows…?). He melded with the crowd, and the evening took on that happy (we’re talking nearly hippie-level proportions here!), sing-a-long communal vibe that we all so deeply desire in our democratic hearts of hearts.

[Words: John Melillo]
[Pictures: Elizabeth Weinberg]