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]

Live Review: Zombieville IX: The New York Howl, Mark Denardo, Doveman and Deer Tick @ Southpaw [2.15.08]

Zombieville is a monthly show that aims to distinguish itself by being markedly considerate to the audience’s experience while instilling harmony instead of competition between performers. Instead of having clearly defined headlining and opening bands with long waits in between, the audience pays just eight dollars for a completely cohesive yet eclectic evening of music. Bands alternate between the front and center stages; the band in the center, the “house band,” plays twice so that the other bands in the front can move in and out. There is never a lull in entertainment—even during brief musicless moments, the audience was distracted by stand up comedy. The whole concept seems catered to concertgoers who no longer have the attention span or stamina required to endure the typical routine of standing and waiting at most shows. Being one of those concertgoers, I appreciated the consideration.

Last Friday, the opening-but-not-opening band, The New York Howl, took the stage promptly at nine, and their ability to draw everyone’s attention from the start was a testament to Zombieville’s anti-“save the best for last” philosophy. The band self-describes their soul-punk sound as “Otis Redding meets Iggy Pop in a fist fight,” and while this description is perhaps a little ambitious, I think it’s accurate in the sense that they sound like a well composed mixture made of equal parts of things you’ve heard before and know you like. This isn’t a comment on their originality as much as it is on their mysteriously potent catchiness, epitomized by infectious “Can’t Get it Right Right Now.” (Can’t you tell what it would sound like just from the title?)

Front man Andrew Katz looks like he was born to lead a band like this. He towers over the other members (literally—the guy’s gotta be over six feet) in a paint-splattered blazer and green goggles, and says things like “rad” and “fuckin rad” as in, “We’re gonna play two more fuckin rad songs!” Girls swooned, people danced and even waltzed during some more circus-y songs, and all this in the first twenty minutes of the show: more proof of the Zombieville commitment to never having a dull moment from start to finish.

Mark Denardo, the “house band” for the night, played next in the center stage, which is less elevated and harder to see than the stage at the front, and visibility was important in order to fully appreciate the way Denardo makes his unique brand of electro-pop. Craning over the heads in front of me, I could see Denardo with his guitar and some kid with what looked like a Gameboy. Louis Shannon, I later discovered, is in fact a kid; I saw his friends get turned away at the door for being under eighteen--the downside of being cool beyond one's years. After interning with Denardo and becoming adept at “Little Sound DJ,” software that allows the manipulation of vintage Nintendo sound cards, Shannon began touring with him. There’s something almost absurd about watching someone play a Gameboy and interact with it as if it were a musical instrument. Regardless, the result is a cohesive, electronic sound that mixes modern technical precision with the raw, primitive effect of old-school video games.

In the time it took to go to the bathroom and get another drink, Doveman set up on the front stage and began their set of ethereal ballads that crescendo into Sufjan Stevens-ish climaxes. In fact, frontman Thomas Bartlett seems to take more than one cue from Stevens, or maybe The Microphones’ Phil Elverum, in that he combines an enveloping wash of instrumental sound with vocals that sound like he’s stroking your hair and whispering lullabies in your ear. It would be easy to dismiss them as mere fluff, but each of the members of the sextet has an extensive resume of previous projects, thus creating a sound that is technically impressive enough to keep it interesting.


After a second set by Mark Denardo and some unmemorable but distracting stand up comedy, Deer Tick took the stage. Although there are no headlining bands at Zombieville, and it contradicts their egalitarian ideals to point this out, it was inarguable that Deer Tick drew the biggest crowd of the night. While the other bands epitomized extremes of different genres, Deer Tick’s brand of gritty but lyrical alt-country perhaps has a wider appeal and a more mature sound. This is ironic, considering that frontman and founder John McCauley is only 21 and proved himself to be not only musically, but charismatically precocious. Full of amusing anecdotes and ironic covers, McCauley knows how to work a crowd. But it seems to me he walks a fine line between preciousness and pretension. As much as I enjoyed their set, I couldn’t help but wonder what his voice really sounds like underneath the gritty, nasal, disaffected baritone. And the cowboy themes of his lyrics about seeing “better days” and being “on the wrong side of the track” give the impression he is aspiring toward a certain aesthetic more than trying to sing his heart out.

But despite my cynicism, there was a certain benevolence in the air at Zombieville last Friday—an unbridled enthusiasm for live music that made even the occasional contrivance seem endearingly earnest. There was a sense of true musical community: performers were eager audience members during other bands’ sets, appetites were appeased by free cookies, and my usual impatience for long concerts was mitigated for nearly four hours of music.

Live Review: Deer Tick at Union Pool [12.07.07]

Deer Tick is a classic country-western combination of finger picked electric guitar, stand up bass and brushed snare drums. You are headed into Hank Williams, Willie Nelson country. It's that vintage country western, but not exactly. It has the same feeling, the authenticity, not exactly sound. Does it fit into something like alt-country? I've never liked that categorization or any of the bands associated with it. It's too generalized, and overused.

You definitely wouldn't think of this type of music coming out of Rhode Island, and I have wonder how this would be received in a place like Nashville or Austin. I think it would be hard for audiences in those places to separate the band from the place. What right do they have, coming here? And they would only be saying that because they would be better than any local band. Is it successful here on the East Coast because it's a something of a novelty? No... there's probably a million bar bands that play electric country and cover the Beatles. It's more than that for sure. Is it kind of a new sound, like Dylan's electric folk combination at Newport?

Lead singer, John McCauley wants to make it very clear that he is NOT influenced by Bob Dylan, he does owns John Wesley Harding, but, "seriously didn't listen to Bob Dylan until like a year ago." The comparison isn't a mistake, this is more than just the gravely, strained, nasal vocals, it's completely Dylan, in his early electric period, a really really good Dylan, maybe without the burden of realizing it.

Of course they are influenced by the blues also, covering "Bring Me My Shotgun" by Lighting Hopkins. It was good enough, but I wanted to them to get back to their brand of playing and singing about guns, loneliness, getting drunk, and gold. The typical country sad themes. That could be another problem for this 21 year songwriter. We could easily scoff and say, how can he possibly know what the hell he's singing about? Except that they are just plain talented.

John wins the crowd over, talking in between songs about how Kurt Cobain would flip them the bird and say "I've got your freebird right here," how they played the night before with the Mountain Goats and some kid came up to him with a note for John Darnielle. At first he was just going to throw it away, but then he had to read it...it said "Hey John I think you're great. if you want to hang out with me and my bros in our dorm room and drink 40's here's my number." He stuck it under his door and later asked him if he got his note 'about the 40's.' He didn't think they'd play with them anytime again soon. None of it is hokey, he's not trying too hard, he just thinks you'll like it as much as he does.

To end the night they covered "Sleep Walk", the 50's slide guitar instrumental which transitioned suddenly into an epic double time "La Bamba". Union pool lost their collective mind. Chris Ryan wasn't even struggling to keep up the insanely intricate bass lines that I didn't even know existed in the song. Seeing this it live, I could even appreciate what this fusion must have been like for those audiences of early rock and roll, it still has something to be appreciated done by a band that is fusing something themselves, and honestly loving the song. I've heard it covered a million places, from all kinds of bands, enough to be really sick of it...but I hadn't heard it like this.

John and Dennis traded instruments and stretched out a big finish for minutes, crashing cymbals, and guitar scale solos. But they still weren't finished and John, taking the stage, sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" acapella, not at all ironically, again just appreciating this popular songwriting, with all the appeal of Tony Bennet, a country Elvis or early Dylan, it's all there. I'm going to stop trying to figure it out.

[Bad Photos by Jason]