Wale - More About Nothing

I saw Wale at House of Blues back in April, but I hadn't picked up any of his albums yet. Then my cousin told me about his free mixtape up on DatPiff. It's been a good season for free stuff!

As a middle-class white kid raised in a largely middle-class white suburb, the genre (sub-genre) of "gangsta rap" was always a little inaccessible. And frankly, fake. Was Ice Cube really going to start a "bloodbath of cops dying in L.A.?" That said, as far as I know Johnny Cash never really "shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die"; putting oneself in another character has always been a part of songwriting. This kind of character shapeshifting is especially jarring in hip-hop, and I'm not sure totally why. I think partly it's because rap personas seem more carefully crafted and more pervasive from song-to-song, and partially because the almost-talking vocal line creates more of an expectation of earnestness.

All of which is a roundabout way saying that I can relate a lot more easily to Wale's More About Nothing mixtape than I can to N.W.A. It's a mixtape inspired by Seinfeld. It's actually Wale's second take on the sitcom; in 2008 he released the Mixtape About Nothing (also available on DatPiff). He sprinkles quotes from the show through the mixtape, but not just for comedic effect: he turns an Elaine Benes quote on men changing after sex into a divider between a gentle seduction and a jarring villain turn in "The Manipulation 2." Later, he delves into Tiger Woods' mind and larger themes of infidelity in "The Eyes of the Tiger." Many of the tunes deal with issues of relationships, whether doomed ones in the "The Breakup Song," new ones in "The Ambitious Girl," or post-sexual in "The Friends Strangers."

Wale may be drawing inspiration from Seinfeld for lyric and theme, but for music he's pulling from everywhere - opener "The Problem" starts with tinkling piano, "The Number Won" is peppered with dark ambient electronic sounds, "The Soup" is carried by a snaking guitar hook, "The Ambitious Girl" has an uplifting horn part. His flow is versatile, ranging from conversational in "The Cloud" to pounding and anthemic on "The Black and Gold." It's impressive stuff. Wale is a creative force musically and someone worth watching in the hip-hop world over the next few years.

Wale official site
Download from DatPiff

Best of 2010

This is an odd year, where I listened to a ton of bluegrass / folk but many of my picks are from the hip-hop world.

Album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West. Runners-Up: The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monae, So Runs the World Away by Josh Ritter

Track: "Runaway" by Kanye West. Runner Up: "The Curse" by Josh Ritter.

Best Cover: "Hit 'Em Up Style" by the Carolina Chocolate Drops (original by Blu Cantrell).

Live Act: Mandolin Masters' Workshop, Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival (featuring Ronnie McCoury, Sarah Jarosz, David Grisman, Joe Walsh, and Buddy Merriam).

Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone

Rating: B

I was a fan of Mavis Staples' last endeavor, 2007's We'll Never Turn Back, and when I found out Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco) was producing her new album, I was intrigued. I'm a huge Wilco fan, and Tweedy is, in my opinion, perhaps the best songwriter of his generation. I enjoyed her performance at the Solid Sound festival this summer, so when her new album You Are Not Alone went on sale on Amazon for $1.99 (and it's still only $5), I picked it up.

I didn't go in with a lot of expectations, and that's good - anyone expecting Staples' soulful voice over Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-style psychedelic lyrics and instrumentation would certainly be disappointed. This album is a lot closer to We'll Never Turn Back than it is to any of Wilco's catalog. There are two Tweedy originals here - the title track is like a soul update of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," complete with gorgeous harmonies, while "Only the Lord Knows" mixes the direct, casual style Tweedy has employed on some recent Wilco efforts ("I pick up the paper / I put down the paper / Turn on the TV / I get confused") with the political ("Can't trust him / can't trust her") and religious ("Only the Lord knows / And He ain't you") themes that have pervaded Staples' career. "Only the Lord Knows" would be totally out of place on a Wilco album, and the same sentiment applies to the album's covers - "In Christ There Is No East and West," "I Belong to the Band," and "Creep Along Moses" are right out of the gospel tradition.

Mavis' claim to fame is the amount of feeling and power in her voice, and nowhere is that more on display than in the cover of John Fogerty's "Wrote a Song For Everyone." She owns the tune; it feels much more personal when she sings it than in Creedence Clearwater Revival's original. The song takes on a gravity, transforming it into a sweeping statement about the civil rights movement.

This is a decen album, but all in all, predecessor We'll Never Turn Back touches on more profound emotional chords than You Are Not Alone. Tweedy doesn't really bring any of the weirdness or experimentation on display in Wilco. That's OK; the formula wasn't broken, and the cuts are mostly strong here, but it still feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

Mavis Staples official site

Punch Brothers - Antifogmatic

Rating: B-

There are a few people in music that I feel like I have to keep an eye on. It's not that I'm a huge fan of all their stuff, or that it touches a special chord with me, but of course I often am and it often does. It's just that there are a handful of artists who are so talented, inventive, and challenging that every new piece of work has the potential to change music. It's not just their great music that keeps me following Radiohead and Kanye West and Outkast and Wilco; it's the potential to create something entirely new. Chris Thile is in that category. If you're not familiar with his body of work, Thile's a former mandolin child prodigy who has gone on to produce solo work, star as a member of Nickel Creek, and collaborate with Mike Marshall, among others. Punch Brothers is his latest endeavor, a collaboration with, among others, ex-Stringduster Chris Eldridge and recent Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo winner Noam Pikelny.

It's an All-Star cast, and they're not just blazing and creative pickers; they're willing to push the boundaries of what is possible in string / roots music and music in general. In "p-bingo" shows in the past couple years, the band has played everything from original material to classical music and Radiohead, done string-band style. The music doesn't adhere to groundrules set up by traditional bluegrass - songs are multi-part suites, instruments drop in-and-out, the tight traditional rhythms are twisted into melodic experiments. It's unique.

The problem with music like that of Antifogmatic, the second record by the quintet is, when it doesn't grab me, I don't know whether it's because I'm deficient or whether, for all its inventiveness and skill, the music is just not that engaging. The orchestration of some tracks into multi-part suites can be breathtaking (as in the gorgeous "Missy," where a cutting Gabe Witcher fiddle break is followed by a bridge punctuated with Thile's percussive mandolin), but oftentimes they just meander, like in opener "You Are," which starts out strong but deteriorates into sleepy background music. It's hard for the melodies to stick in this arrangement. It's no surprise that the album's most fun, punchiest, catchiest number is also the most straightforward - bluegrass stomp "Rye Whiskey."

So, maybe it's just me, or maybe, for all its uniqueness, Antifogmatic is a bit dull. There are standout tracks, and it may be that repeated listens will reward me with brilliance I didn't see on first blush. That's the thing about musical geniuses. You have to keep following them, and you can't count them out.

Punch Brothers official site

Live Review - 12/14/2010 John McGann's Bluegrass Mashup and The Dixie Butterhounds at Cantab

The Dixie Butterhounds: banjo player Jon Gersh described The Dixie Butterhounds' music at one point (and I'm paraphrasing) as "not too different from what you'd hear on a Friday or Saturday night in northern Georgia in the 1920's or 1930's." They mined traditional music (such as "Sugar Hill") and pre-bluegrass folk music stars (such as Uncle Dave Macon and The Carter Family) for their old-time set. The group is strong vocally, with everyone but the bassist taking a turn. Particularly good were subtle harmonies between fiddler Mark Wholley and rhythm guitarist Kathy Fletcher, very tastefully done. Nothing too groundbreaking here, but the mix of sounds - double fiddles by Wholley and George Touchstone, and Gersh's clawhammer banjo - was appealing.

John McGann's Bluegrass Mashup: I was prepared for McGann's excellence - though I hadn't heard him previously, his reputation as one of the best mandolin players in the Boston area precedes him - but the excellence of his accompaniment was a welcome surprise. McGann was joined by Deadly Gentlemen fiddler Mike Barnett, Della Mae bassist Amanda Kowalski, and the uber-talented Courtney Hartman. Kowalski brought the energy, consistently making eye contact with her band mates, swaying her whole body as she played, and keeping the bass line popping, even as the band played swingier numbers. Barnett and Hartman are just effortless players, playing fast, interesting, tasteful solos like they were just sitting on a chair. Hartman also sang and did a fine job; she's definitely a talent to watch. And McGann was terrific as expected, playing traditional fast bluegrass solos, bluesy riffs, woody chops, and putting the whole thing together I'll be interested to see if this foursome plays again, and also follow along with the other projects this group might have in store.

The Dixie Butterhounds official site
John McGann official site

Live Review - 12/7/2010 Jake Armerding Band and Lost Mountain at Cantab

James Delnero and Lost Mountain: this group consisted of rhythm guitarist Delnero, mandolinist Mark Leveille, and banjo picker Chris Boucher, plus a bass player who was a last-minute addition. I couldn't tell; it was pretty seamless. A lot of that was due to the tightness between Delnero, Leveille, and Boucher, who sang three-part harmonies on nearly every song. Delnero primarily sang lead but Leveille and Boucher had a couple turns each. Though the group asked for requests, they only got one: "Man of Constant Sorrow," which they did a nice job on. Mostly they played traditional songs: "Worried Man Blues," "Shake My Mother's Hand For Me," "Blue Ridge Cabin Home." They did play a couple originals. All in all, it was a solid performance. Usually the opening band at the Cantab is more old-timey, so it was fun to get a double shot of bluegrass.

Old Train and the Refugees / Jake Armerding Band: the calendar lists them as the Jake Armerding Band, but Geoff Bartley (who runs Bluegrass Tuesdays at the 'Tab) introduced them as Old Train and the Refugees, which the band picked up. I thought it was just a running joke, but they never gave another name and an Internet search does find that band name. It doesn't matter, it's the same guys: Jake Armerding, playing mostly fiddle, his dad Taylor "Old Train" Armerding on mandolin, and bassist / wonderful moustachioed man Zach Hickman (last seen rocking The Festy with Josh Ritter). Joining them was guitarist and terrific singer Mark Erelli, and Charlie Rose, primarily on the banjo.

As much as I enjoyed the opening act, it wasn't long into the main course that I was struck by what a difference in energy there was. Part of it was the energy; any band featuring Zach Hickman on bass is going to be a lot of fun. Part was the stage presence; the quintet was all nattily attired, with Erelli sporting a cowboy hat and suit, Hickman his usually moustache, and everyone with a sport coat or suit jacket. Part was the banter, as Taylor Armerding mocked a recent U.S. Weekly headline, "Jake and Taylor in love!" Part was the technical wizardry; Rose was stellar with up-the-neck banjo solos, Hickman performed at least three bass solos, and Jake Armerding played three instruments. And part was the songs.

The song selection deserves its own paragraph. All five members sang, from Hickman taking the Roy Orbison part on The Traveling Wilbury's "Handle With Care" (and Erelli doing a spot-on Tom Petty) to Taylor Armerding singing high lonesome on an original gospel number, "City On a Hill." No stone was left unturned: Rose sang Carl Perkins' "Baby Why You Been Gone So Long," Erelli reached into the 70's with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen tunes, and Jake Armerding played a humorous original tune about TSA regulations and closed things out with Paul Simon's "Graceland." It was a celebration of American music through the lens of bluegrass, and it was as awesome as all that implies.

James Delnero and Lost Mountain official site
Jake Armerding official site

Girl Talk - All Day

Rating: B+

It's been a great month-plus for free and cheap downloads, and now Gregg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk, has thrown his hat in the ring. I covered a Girl Talk set at Austin City Limits over a year ago, but I hadn't picked up any of his albums until now. Enter the free album, All Day.

If you haven't heard Girl Talk, it's not like anything else out there. Gillis samples tunes from all over the musical spectrum, pairing odd combinations of beats, words, and bass lines and someone making all these twenty-second cuts flow together. He'll layer Ludacris' "Move Bitch (Get Out the Way)" over Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" (this is actually how the album opens), Wiz Khalifa rapping over Keith Richards' guitar, or Birdman's "Money to Blow" over The Arcade Fire's "Wake Up." If you listen to the album straight through, as the download site suggests, you'll see that there's a continuous flow even between songs; the end result is a party dance track that goes on for over an hour.

My favorite thing about All Day is how it indulges one's guilty musical pleasures. Sure, there's U2 and Radiohead and the Ramones and Springsteen, plus indie favorites Phoenix and MGMT, but there's also "oh man I forgot about that guy" rappers Skee-Lo and Citizen King, modern "I won't admit I like this but it gets stuck in my head all day" pop from Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Black Eyed Peas, or angsty alternate throwbacks like The Toadies' "Do You Want To Die?"

There's a note on the site that says "All Day is intended to be listened to as a whole," and it's true that the tracks blend seamlessly together, but it's hard to say it's an album in the sense of there being a cohesive story or message. It's pretty clear there isn't; this is just a celebration of pop music as a form. Repeated listens do reward, as you catch new snippets of songs or clever mixes, but it doesn't hit many emotional chords. The end of the album is an exception, as synthesized claps and hip-hop voices play over John Lennon's "Imagine." It's a bit trite, making explicit the implied link between musical and human togetherness, but dammit, it works. So does All Day.

Download for free at Illegal-Art.net

The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter

Rating: B-

I just reviewed Ritter's latest offering, So Runs the World Away, but I enjoyed his performance at The Festy so much that I had to go back to the well. As a fan of music, it's often hard for me to get into a second album by an artist / act / band if I really loved the first one; even if the album is strong, it tends to suffer by comparison, even if just in my head.

The first track, "To the Dogs or Whoever" (the title oddly doesn't appear in this song but does appear in later track "Empty Hearts"), is a great example of what Josh Ritter is capable. Each line is peppered with words, syllables, and imagery. The opening line "Deep in the belly of a whale I found her" grabbed me right away with the staccato stops of the "b" and "p" sounds, then stretching out the long vowel sounds in "whale" and "found" - it's aurally appealing. "To the Dogs" doesn't have a linear plot, instead overwhelming the listener with different scenes: a woman trapped in a whale, Joan of Arc, contrasting images of fabled engineer Casey Jones and fabled baseball player Casey At the Bat. This lyrical montage spans through time, and is offset against less romantic, er, romantic imagery: "I love the way she looks in her underwear." Finally, the chorus explodes in an exuberant "I though I heard somebody callin' in the dark." It's driving, joyful, dense, and wonderful.

The rest of the album has its moments, but nothing approaching the brilliance of the first track or of the best moments on So Runs the World Away. More typical are solid pop songs like "Real Long Distance" or "Rumors": lots of energy, some clever but repetitive lyrics, a nice enough meolody, but ultimately forgettable. The album is also intermittently plagued by the production. "Right Moves" has some clever lyrics and a catchy melody, but the strings that run through the chorus and some of the verses coat the song in too much shellac. Even in "To the Dogs or Whoever," Ritter's vocals have an odd distortion on them that's distracting. This also shows up in "Next to the Last Romantic." Ritter's at his best when his lyrics and voice have a simple, clear production to shine through, as in the gentle acoustic guitar picking on "The Last Temptation of Adam" or the a-little-bit-rough-but-not-too-much barroom stomp of "Wait For Love."

I have to keep asking myself if these are fair criticisms and if I'm holding The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter and Ritter himself to a standard above what I would hold an ordinary album too. But I've given myself a lot of time with this album, waiting for something to grab me, and it hasn't yet. It's still a good pop album, with one stellar track, but I can't recommend it unequivocally like So Runs the World Away.

Josh Ritter official site

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Rating: A

Because the world needs another review of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

I had a running conversation with a friend this summer about Kanye West and Jay-Z. My friend was in awe of how cool Jay-Z is. There's no doubt that Jay-Z is cool but what I argued is, not only "Who cares?" (and let's face, I wasn't one of those "cool" kids in high school, the last time anybody talked about coolness), but that Jay-Z's coolness not only doesn't make him interesting, it makes him particularly uninteresting. What do we really know about Jay-Z?

On the other hand, Kanye West is not cool. He would love to be cool, he has a lot of cool associates, he does a lot of cool things (and, certainly, some not-so-cool things), but he's just missing something. When he tries to be cool, it comes off like he's trying to be cool. That sounds uncomplimentary, but it isn't: Kanye comes through in everything he does. Whether or not he's telling the truth at any given time, he's so transparent that it comes off as honesty. And when deliberately tries to let us in to his world - like in "Big Brother" off Graduation (coincidentally, about his relationship with Jay-Z), or his entire last auto-tuned masterpiece 808s & Heartbreak, it can be amazing art.

In MBDTF, we get both the putting-on-an-act-but-we-can-see-right-through-it Kanye and the honest and heartfelt Kanye. He puts on an act in tracks like "Gorgeous" and "Monster," where he seems to relish the villain role that his controversial comments on George Bush and his much-mocked interruption of Taylor Swift have cast him as. But as much as he would like us to believe he's thick-skinned, it's obvious he's not - his dig at the South Park writers who mocked him is funny ("choke a South Park writer with a fish stick / dick," but you can tell it really rankles). When he lets down his guard, it's devastating. He tears the entire hip-hop scene apart in "So Appalled," criticizing the "champagne wishes, thirty white bitches" scene for being "fuckin' ridiculous" while people are "going through real shit man - they outta work." It's backed by legitimately creepy electronic sounds.

Then there's "Runaway," which is both wrapped into one. I thought "Jesus Walks" was the most important song made in the last ten years, but now it might not even be his best track. "Runaway" hits on all levels - the spare, haunting piano, the relentless beat, Kanye lyrically just opening a vein about his own insecurities ("I always find something wrong / You've been putting up with this shit just way too long / I'm so gifted at finding what I dislike the most"), and finally embracing his villain status ("Let's have a toast for the douchebags") and ultimately pushing away those who care about him, advising "I got a plan / run away as fast as you can." It's heartbreaking, and it would be painful to listen to if it wasn't so fucking beautiful; the denouement is him singing the melody so distorted through a vocoder that it's indecipherable. It's braggadocio and vulnerability swaddled in psychedelia and a beat, and it stretches for nine minutes. Honestly, it's so good I could write about it for ten times that long.

Usually I need to listen to an album several times before I form an opinion on it. 808s and Heartbreak took my months to get into. But MBDTF is accessible right away, immediately grabbing you with its beats and unique sounds. Still, it rewards several listens; every repeat makes me appreciate a new song or catch a new lyric or sample or beat. Say what you want about Kanye - whether he's embarrassing himself in public or making the best album of the year, he's multi-dimensional and never boring.

One last note: it's only $4 in digital form on Amazon. You're crazy not to get it.

Kanye West official site

Live Review - 11/23/2010 Jerks of Grass and The Lowbrow Boyz at Cantab

It's been too long since my last visit to the Cantab Lounge, which has the premier weekly bluegrass showcase in the Boston area every Tuesday night. Last night I made it out to see The Low Brow Boys and Jerks of Grass.

The Low Brow Boys are a trio of Dans playing old-time style music. Dan Spurr plays clawhammer-style on the open back banjo, Dan Fram plays rhythm guitar, and Dan Thompson gets a workout on the fiddle. I mean he gets a workout; in their hour-long set, he only stopped playing fiddle during two songs. The group had a lot of energy, tapping their feet in time as they played. They played a mix of traditional songs (including favorite "Sitting On Top of the World") and originals in that vein. It was an entertaining opening act; I might check them out again but I probably wouldn't go out of my way to do so.

I reviewed the new CD by Jerks of Grass just a few months ago, and that review still stands up as a summary of their music, but I wanted to emphasize again how talented the quartet are as musicians. Fiddler Melissa Bragdon makes it look incredibly easy and never hits a wrong note. Bassist Kris Day plays some of the best bass solos I've ever heard, even on fast banjo tunes like "Foggy Mountain Special." Jason Phelps is one of the fastest guitar flatpickers I've seen and plays a fine mandolin as well. And utility man Carter Logan plays banjo and dobro with equal aplomb, and even threw in some fine bluesy guitar licks on "Deep River Blues." They stuck pretty much to the uptempo numbers and had great energy; the crowd was really into it. They're one of my favorite local bluegrass / roots bands and I'm definitely keeping an eye on them going forward.

Live Review - 11/17/2010 Crooked Still at Passim

OK, I just reviewed Crooked Still Live, so it seems a little silly to go review Crooked Still, live. Also, Second Cousin Curley just wrote a great preview of the show that covers a lot of the bases with respect to the Boston-based quintet and their sound. Still, I couldn't help but add a few observations, since I was close enough that I actually felt like I was staring at them creepily as I watch them:

• Brittany Haas' fiddle has five strings. It was hard to tell what the fifth string did for her (maybe helped her with rhythm vamping?), but it was pretty cool.
  
• In that vein, I learned at Grey Fox that Dr. Greg Liszt, banjo man extraordinaire (also the banjo player for the recently-reviewed-here Deadly Gentlemen) not only plays a Scruggs-style three-finger roll, he also plays a four-finger roll at times, with an extra pick on his ring finger. So if you're ever listening to him play an absurd number of notes per second, that's one of his secrets.
• While we're on Dr. Liszt, I also saw him throw some slide banjo on there in Rolling Stones cover "You Got the Silver," drop some banjo harmonics in, and use his tuners to alter sound partway through a song. What an inventive player!
• Seeing them live really gave me an appreciation for what Tristan Clarridge's cello adds to the rhythm section. Crooked Still plays without a mandolin, but Clarridge gets such a sharp chop out of the cello that the bluegrass back beat is still very much present in their music.
• Double-bassist Corey DiMario is the unsung hero of the group, whether it's just thumping the beat (sometimes in very slow tunes where it seems impossible to keep the time), throwing some bass runs in there, bowing a few notes, or providing a little levity with hockey jokes.
• And the only one I haven't mentioned yet, Aoife O'Donovan, has the best voice ever.
• It's worth mentioning that the show was at Passim, formerly Club Passim, formerly Club 47. I was reading up a bit on the history of the club earlier today; it really is an important institution in the Boston / Cambridge folk / roots music scene. It's cramped, tiny, and the only serve vegetarian food, but you get to see artists really up close in personal in a way you can't anywhere else in a setting where great musicians have played for years.
  

Crooked Still official site
Passim official site

The Bluegrass Album

Rating: B+

Bluegrass is a funny genre in a lot of ways. It would seem beyond egotistical if a rock 'n roll band decided to name itself "The Rock 'N Roll Band" and release an album called "The Rock 'N Roll Album." But we ascribe no such hubris the quintet that comprises The Bluegrass Album Band. Maybe that's because the name is largely an accident (the group was originally supposed to be a backing band for a Tony Rice album); it's similar to how The Band got their moniker. Maybe it's because the name seems a bit tongue in cheek. Or maybe it's because no one could begrudge this group of all-stars - legendary flatpicker Rice, five-string master J.D. Crowe, mandolin and singing virtuoso Doyle Lawson, ex-Bluegrass Boy fiddler Bobby Hicks, and bassist Todd Phillips, an original member of David Grisman's band - calling themselves whatever they wanted.

At The Festy, Infamous Stringduster Jesse Cobb gave a mandolin workshop, and he was asked about playing rhythm mandolin. He said, "Go out and buy The Bluegrass Album and listen to the rhythm played by Todd Phillips and Doyle Lawson." It's hard to say Phillips and Lawson are a tighter rhythm section than, say, Bill Monroe and Howard Watts, but it's indicative of not just the excellence this group has, but the kind of excellence - it's a tight professionalism. This is a band's band, and they get the little things right, not just the breaks and the leads, but the rhythm, the harmonies, and the fills.

There aren't any originals on here, but it's a terrific selection of covers. Bill Monroe is present here extensively, from racehorse classic "Molly and Tenbrooks" to finale "River of Death." Flatt and Scruggs are also well-represented, with opener "Blue Ridge Cabin Home" and two other Flatt-penned tunes. There's a definite bias towards the up-tempo numbers; only a mid-album interlude with waltz "I Believe In You Darling" and slower gospel number "Model Church" lowers the BPM. There are several songs lyrically on the "I'm heartbroken theme" - "I Believe in You Darling," "Chalk Up Another One," and Monroe's classic "Toy Heart" followed immediately by the Osborne Brothers' "Pain My Heart" in a curious bit of album sequencing.

The sequencing is maybe the funniest thing about the album; the two slowest tunes are back-to-back, two songs with "heart" in the name are back-to-back, it's almost half Monroe covers - it feels like they just played a bunch of songs together and then just took a random chunk of 11 and threw it on an album. The other complaint is that the biggest strength is it's greatest weakness - it's so tight it feels about contrived. J.D. Crowe's banjo sounds remarkably like Earl Scruggs', Doyle Lawson's mandolin solos are Monroe-esque, and most bizarrely Tony Rice, one of the greatest flatpickers of all time, primarily confines himself to just rhythm guitar.

Those are nitpicks, though; you need this album in your collection. If you're not a bluegrass fan, this is a fine introduction to the form. If you are a bluegrass fan, you need to see why one band called itself "The Bluegrass Album Band" - and why that wasn't silly at all.

Live Review - 11/10/2010 Infamous Stringdusters and Trampled by Turtles at The Middle East

I've written about the Infamous Stringdusters more than any band in the history of this blog, most recently here, so I will spare you another several-thousand-word paean to their greatness.

I hadn't seen opener Trampled by Turtles, however, so I wanted to put a few words down about them and their performance. I thought they were terrific. They describe themselves as "thrashgrass," and it's easy to see why - many of their tunes are mile-a-minute blazing, with an old-timey looseness complementing their dexterous playing. Even their slow stuff had a real drive and feeling to it, thanks in no small part to Tim Saxhaug's clever bass lines on the acoustic bass guitar. They were at once very iconoclastic - banjo player Dave Carroll flatpicked the 5-string, which I've never seen before - and traditional, with three-part harmonies between Carroll, Saxhaug, and lead singer / guitarist Dave Simonett.

There are a lot of mostly-bullshit ways to divide bands into two groups - I've thought about having a "rock dichotomies" running column in this blog - and one is between psychedelia and punk in bluegrass. Psychedelia and punk probably aren't the most common words one hears associated with traditional acoustic music, but most great bluegrass bands have quite a bit of one or the other. The Stringdusters are masters of psychedelia in bluegrass - they create note just notes but rich soundscapes with their music, blazing through five parts at once and then dropping down to one fiddle drown, ideas and notes and words bouncing off each other, creating some new ephemeral sculpture out of music. The 'Dusters often say soundman Drew Becker is the seventh Stringduster, and it's easy to see why - he's distilling all this sound into a balanced, cohesive dram.

TBT (as their fans, who were out in surprising numbers last night, call them), are not like that. They are rooted in the punk tradition of bluegrass, which has been there since Bill Monroe and even before. It seems crazy to call a master instrumentalist like Monroe "punk," but the looseness that pervades old-time music was always present there. Monroe would often eschew single note picking for violent strikes of two, three strings at once, and he made the loud, percussive woody thumping of the mandolin not only something accepted but something embraced by all prospective bluegrass mandolinists. He was a gifted technical player, of course, but it wasn't about technique, it was about drive and feel. Trampled By Turtles has a punk urgency, a point driven home by their cover of Boston-area indie punksters The Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?" which sounded completely in place with acoustic instruments, with mandolinist Erik Berry miming Frank Black's snaking guitar part and Ryan Young aping Kim Deal's haunting moans so well I had to keep looking over at him to make sure he was still playing the fiddle and not singing.

Both traditions are great and glorious, but is there any overlap? There is, if the Stringdusters' encore is any indication. They closed the show just after midnight, leaving the stage and piling on to the floor with TBT to play, without mics or pickups, The Band's classic "The Weight" and blues standard "Sittin' On Top of the World." It was a fine finale, two modern bands with different sensibilities finding common ground, not only with each other but also between the past and future of American acoustic music.

Trampled by Turtles official site
Infamous Stringdusters official site