Crooked Still Live

There are two things that separate Crooked Still from most bands typically classified in the bluegrass family. One is the presence of cello, formerly played by Rushad Eggleston but now capably handled by Tristan Clarridge. And the other unique weapon is the voice of Aoife O'Donovan. No one sings like Aoife O'Donovan.

Both these elements are on display in Crooked Still Live (unfortunately, this disc is only available at their live shows). The cello drives "Little Sadie," acts nearly as percussion in "Ain't No Grave," and provides broad swaths of darkness in "The Golden Vanity." O'Donovan shows similar variety. She plays it angelic in Gillian Welch's "Orphan Girl," boisterous in "Lulu Gal," and sultry in Robert Johnson's "Come On In My Kitchen."

The dynamics in Clarridge's cello and O'Donovan's singing are indicative of Crooked Still's music. Add in Dr. Greg Liszt's inventive, melodic banjo, Corey DiMario's steady bass playing, and Brittany Haas' do-it-all fiddling, and they have all the pieces for a really dynamic band. And "dynamic" is the right word; most bluegrass-type music stays about the same volume, but Crooked Still swings wildly. A tune might start, as "Darling Corey" does, with O'Donovan's voice gentle over a Liszt banjo riff. DiMario's throbbing bass and Clarridge's chopping cello come in. Then we get Haas' soaring fiddle, and O'Donovan rising above accordingly. There's a real feel of controlled chaos.

Do you need Crooked Still live if you already have their other albums? Probably not, but there are some fine cuts on here, notably "Come On In My Kitchen" and a terrific duet version of Bill Monroe's "Can't You Hear Me Callin'" with Laurie Lewis. There aren't any 12-minute freakouts on here, for better or worse, and most tracks sound more-or-less as they do on the album. Stilll, it's a great introduction to Crooked Still's music and a fine disc to have in the collection.

Crooked Still Official Site

Toubab Krewe - TK2

Rating: C-

A few months ago, I had a conversation with an academic who was working on some really interesting interactive workspaces. It was very cool stuff, involving digital cameras, a huge touch screen, and a computer that would store state information. I asked him what he was planning on doing with it: strike out on his own, solicit venture capital, try to find partners to manage the business side; how was he going to move forward?

"Oh," he replied, "I'm not looking to make any money. I just want to be part of the dialogue on workspaces."

This is the thing that drives me crazy about academics: at the end of the day, they don't need to actually produce anything. Say what you want about the cruelty, amorality, corruption, and stupidity of the business world, but at the end of the day, they have to produce something people are willing to exchange money for.

I feel similarly about jam bands. Sometimes in the middle of an "epic" guitar part or drum solo, you just want to scream out, "Is there actually a song here?" There are definitely those bands who can rock out extended breaks without losing the plot, bringing it back to the melody or fitting the solo in to the vocals or elegantly transitioning or doing something, saying something, communicating something of the emotional language that is at the heart of great art. Toubab Krewe is not one of these bands.

Full disclosure: I'm a lyrics guy; TK2 is entirely instrumentals. I'm a little distrustful of white guys (in this case, five dudes from Asheville, NC) playing black music - and in this case, not just black music a la Chuck Berry but West African instruments. So Toubab Krewe was going to have an uphill climb with me. But leaving that aside, the music just isn't that interesting. It meanders, its repetitive, it has cryptic names like "Area Code" and "Konkoba," and there just doesn't seem that much point to it. There are exceptions: the catchy "Carnavalito" (which a friend described as the sort of music that would be present in a Bollywood Western) and the moody "Holy Grail" stand out and create an atmosphere. But too often, the songs fade into one another.

Worst of all, the African instruments don't add that much. Too often the djembe (bongo-like West African percussion) are drowned out by the very conventional rock drumming, and while the kamelengoni (a stringed instruments with a body made from a gourd and a stick) can be heard, it is plugged in and amplified and hard to distinguish from the electric guitars. The music doesn't sound West African. Nor is it a blending of American and African folk music. It just sounds like My Morning Jacket with occasional bongos. I don't know what Toubab Krewe is trying to communicate with its music, but what I'm getting is "plugged-in African instruments fit seamlessly into mediocre American jam band music."

Buy it from Amazon:
TK2
Toubab Krewe Official Site

Live Review - 10/9/2010 - 10/10/2010: The Festy

I was pretty excited when I found out that The Infamous Stringdusters were hosting their own festival. I've written previously about how talented and groundbreaking the 'Dusters are, and I was intrigued at what kind of festival they would put together.

First of all, it's important to note that this was not a bluegrass festival. Almost every act had some connection to bluegrass, ranging from Pantherburn just having an electric banjo to Tony Rice having as compelling a guitar resume as anybody in bluegrass history, but there were almost no acts that were bluegrass in the sense that Bill Monroe or Flatt & Scruggs would have understood it: five-piece fiddle / banjo / guitar / mandolin / bass, breaks and vocals, high lonesome, hard-drivin', country- and blues- influenced Bluegrass with a capital "B." Instead we had Crooked Still bringing in a cello and replacing Monroe's propulsive, concussive drive with a swath of dark tone and Railroad Earth adding drums to the mix and creating a sound almost entirely unlike bluegrass. Even the bands with typical bluegrass instrumentation had a non-bluegrassy feel; The Tony Rice Unit kicked off its set with Rodgers and Hammerstein's "My Favorite Things," and Josh Ritter's Love Canon String Band complemented Ritter's folky originals with covers ranging from Mercer and Mancini's "Moon River" to Dire Straits' "Money for Nothin'."

That brings us to the 'Dusters themselves, who since their debut album Fork in the Road have been shifting away from traditional bluegrass into ... I don't know. They do play some traditional bluegrass; they closed their Saturday set with Monroe's classic "Uncle Pen." But more frequently they're exploring the sonic textures they can create with traditional bluegrass instrumentation. Bassist Travis Book might be playing the typical 1-3 alternating stomp that services as the rhythm backbone of most bluegrass, but he might be bouncing notes up and down the scale throughout. Banjo player Chris Pandolfi and dobro player Andy Hall might be vamping on two and four like they're "supposed to," but they might be playing a background rift that adds texture behind the lead break or vocal. Bluegrass is typically single-threaded; you've got your lead vocal or instrument and everyone else is playing rhythm. That's not the case with the 'Dusters. A key to that is their sound man, Drew Becker, who finds a way to distill a comprehensible sound out of six instruments with pickups. Without plugging in and without a great sound man, it's hard to imagine the Infamous Stringdusters would sound the way they do. The band works very hard at this, too; they were very active on stage, moving around constantly depending on who was playing to get the right balance of sound.

And that sound! A friend with me at the festival, who had limited exposure to the Stringdusters and bluegrass in general, remarked "It hits you right in the gut! It's rock n' roll to me, man." The music rises and falls, from beautiful and melodic to percussive and driving, with solos by everyone in the band, rhythm from everyone, texture from everyone. They have an amazing sense of dynamics and getting the feeling from the songs. The best part of The Festy was seeing the Infamous Stringdusters, already a terrific live band, at their apex of energy and skill to please devoted fans who came from all over to their festival.

Some notes on the individual bands:

• Crooked Still, as always, was excellent. More to come on them in a subsequent blog post.
• Pantherburn was one of the pleasant surprises, a local act that I had never heard of. They rocked catchy tunes with a nice energy and literate lyrics. Their biggest quirk was an electric banjo that they didn't quite integrate with the rest of their sound; it was hard to tell if it was doing anything. Still, a band to watch going forward.
  
• Old School Freight Train was a skilled group of instrumentalists, but something seemed flat to me. Maybe it was guitarist / lead singer Jesse Harper's voice; it sounded too radio-friendly for bluegrass.
• It was a treat to watch Tony Rice; obviously he can still play. I was very impressed with mandolin player Josh Williams; I'd heard he was a talented guitar flatpicker but he really tore it up on the mando. He also had a nice singing voice.
• Railroad Earth played a completely different set than at Grey Fox just a couple months ago, which was a surprise. Their live jams can get tedious, but their strong songwriting distinguishes them from other jam bands. A highlight was an extended version of "Warhead Boogie," which ended in tumult before fading in to a gentle treatment of the Beatles' "Across the Universe." It was one of two tributes in honor of John Lennon's birthday, the other being Old School Freight Train with a nice rendition of "Instant Karma."
• Larry Keel & Natural Bridge were entertaining. Keel is a big guy with a bushy beard, a weathered voice a la Steve Earle (but he can actually sing in tune), and quite the flatpicking skill. His band had a loose, almost punk feel that was appealing.
• Josh Ritter & The Love Canon String Band were the highlight of the festival up to that point. I was very fond of Ritter's most recent album, but I wasn't sure how his sometimes quiet, lyrically dense music would translate to the live setting. The set list was terrific, varying between slower tunes and more uptempo ones. Ritter had a lot of charisma and always looked like he was enjoying himself. The not-so-secret weapon was bassist Zach Hickman, who has a moustache out of the 1920's and a strong sense of showmanship in additional to his skillful bass thumping. He also provided hilarious harmonies on a surprising encore cover of Journey's "Dont' Stop Believin.'" The music was terrific and the crowd was really into it. I will definitely check out Ritter again live in the future.
• Well, Ritter was the best performance until The Infamous Stringdusters' second show. Holy crap. More details above, but a particular highlight was their take on Peter Rowan's classic "Midnight Moonlight."
• Toubab Krewe was the Sunday night headliner, and, well, I wasn't a fan. I'll cover this in more detail in my next blog post.
  

Festy Photos

My review of The Festy is coming shortly, but I couldn't resist linking to this great collection of photos from the festival over at The Bluegrass Blog.

The Festy

I'm heading down to The Festy this weekend, the inaugural festival organized and headlined by The Infamous Stringdusters. I almost said "bluegrass festival"; surely it's rooted in the bluegrass milieu, but with bands like Toubab Krewe (electric instrumentals using a lot of West African instruments), Railroad Earth (bluegrass instruments + drums, not a very bluegrassy sound), and Josh Ritter (singer-songwriter stuff, though he will have his rootsy "Love Canon String Band" with him) as headliners they're definitely stretching the ideas of the genre. I'll be blogging about the Festy early next week.

Requisite links to past blog posts featuring some of these acts:

• Album Review: Peter Rowan and Tony Rice, Quartet (Rice's band will be there)
• Album Review: Josh Ritter, So Runs the World Away
• Live Review: 8/7/2010 Saddleback Mountain Bluegrass Festival ('Dusters played)
• Live Review: 7/18/2010 Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival (Crooked Still and Railroad Earth played then and will play at The Festy)
• Live Review: 4/28/2010 Infamous Stringdusters at Lizard Lounge
• Live Review: 11/12/2009 Infamous Stringdusters at Johnny D's

Peter Rowan and Tony Rice - Quartet

Rating: B+

It's tough to evaluate a bluegrass album. Many of the normal criteria I use when evaluating albums seem to be moot. Songwriting? Many bluegrass songs are not original tunes but handed down from the Appalachian folk tradition. Instrumental skill? Pretty much any bluegrass recording is going to have it in spades. Strong singing? Ditto. Inventiveness? Here's where it gets tricky. Certainly there are the Infamous Stringdusters and Tim O'Briens of the greater bluegrass world, but what about the artists operating in the realm of "traditional bluegrass?" Is it fair to judge them by the same standards as folks who are trying to push the envelope?

It's not fair to make Peter Rowan and Tony Rice sound like they're just paint-by-numbers guys; far from it. Rowan has spent a career collaborating with genre-breakers like David Grisman and Jerry Garcia and bringing a folk singer-songwriter sensibility to the bluegrass world. That songwriting skill is on display here ... kind of. Nearly half the album was written by Rowan (or, in the case of the now-classic "Walls of Time," co-written with bluegrass founder / giant Bill Monroe), but only album closer "Perfection" is new; the rest are like half a greatest hits package played with a new band. Rice, meanwhile, is arguably the most accomplished flatpicker in the bluegrass idiom. He's brought influence from jazz, folk, and blues to his guitar style and worked with luminaries like Grisman, Garcia, J.D. Crowe, and Alison Krauss. The quartet is rounded out by mandolinist Sharon Gilchrist and bass player Bryn Davies, who also provide backing vocals.

So what do we have here? Well, it's mostly very good. Rice gets to show off his six-string wizardry on traditional tune "Shady Grove" and Rowan's jamgrass classic "Midnight Moonlight." Rowan's seasoned, warbly tenor is terrific on "The Walls of Time" and especially on a really eerie version of "Cold Rain and Snow" - I didn't think this song could be done better than Del McCoury does it, but Rowan's version in my opinion tops even Del's. The harmony singing from Gilchrist and Davies is terrific on Townes Van Zandt tune "To Live Is To Fly" and "Let the Harvest Go To Seed." It's not all highlights; Rowan's singing is overwrought on opener "Dust Bowl Children," "Trespasses" is just slow and meandering, and sole new tune "Perfection" is just OK. And I'll ding them a bit for a lack of adventurousness. All in all, however, this is a strong effort; two giants of the genre who have earned the right to do whatever they want making a fine, solid album that doesn't break any new ground.

Buy it from Amazon:
Quartet
Tony Rice Official Site
Peter Rowan Official Site