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

The New Pornographers - Together

Rating: C+

Sometimes there comes a point in a band's career where they haven't changed, and maybe you haven't changed, but your tolerance of them has. Or maybe that's just a polite way to say they need to start doing some different shit. This is where I am with The New Pornographers. I really enjoyed their previous albums, from Mass Romantic to Twin Cinema to their most recent offering, Challengers. But somewhere along the line, The New Pornographers' music just stopped hitting me in the same way.

The band has never been an album band, really. It's a little bit silly to throw around the term supergroup when you're largely talking about bands few have heard of, but when you have three songwriting voices - A.C. Newman, Dan Bejar (of Destroyer), and Neko Case - you're not going to write 12 songs that are thematically linked, at least not very easily. So it comes down to the singles - are there those couple songs that just grab me and force me to listen to them over and over? I'm afraid not. There's no "Bleeding Heart Show," "Sing Me Spanish Techno," or "Myriad Harbour." I've listened through this album a dozen times, and nothing grabs me. Sure, there are a couple catchy tunes - "Crash Years" and "Silver Jenny Dollar" in particular - but nothing that's having me push the repeat button on my iPod or look up the lyrics on the web.

Particularly disappointing is the reduction of A.C. Newman's voice over the last couple albums. When solo effort The Slow Wonder came out in 2004, followed by Twin Cinema, it seemed like he was going to be an important voice in indie songwriting over the next decade. Instead, his writing has taken a backseat to Bejar's and Case's over the last couple albums. I'm not going to play armchair psychologist; I'm just going to say, "Mr. Newman, please step it up. Your contributions are required to make the next great New Pornographers album."

Buy it from Amazon:
Together
The New Pornographers Official Site

Josh Ritter - So Runs the World Away

Rating: A-

Let me start by saying that So Runs the World Away has two of the most beautiful tragic love songs I've ever heard - and one ("The Curse") tells of a romance between a mummy and the Egyptologist who finds him, while the other ("Another New World") tells of somewhat fictionalized Christopher Columbus and his love for his ship The Annabel Lee. These two tracks alone make the album worth picking up, but it has several more standout tracks - up-tempo tunes in "Lantern" and "Long Shadows," a dark lullabye in "Folk Bloodbath," even a menacing stomp worthy of Jack White in "Ratting Locks."

But "The Curse" and "Another New World" - wow. "The Curse" opens with a mummy seeing the woman who discovers him, and the poetry in this verse is breathtaking - "after thousands of years, what a face to wake up to" and "Under miles of stone, the dried fig of his heart / Under scarab and bone starts back to its beating" are two lines. As the mummy and the Egyptologist begin their relationship - spending nights together in the museum where he spends days in a glass display case - she begins to wear down physically as the curse implied by the song's title takes hold. As the mummy gains strength, he travels out into the world, becoming a celebrity along with the Egyptologist. She asks the mummy three times if he's cursed but he only answers "I think that I'm cured." Finally, in the last verse it's revealed that the mummy suspected he was cursed all along. Despite this deception (which ultimately leads to her death) and the implication that the mummy is unfaithful, he is a sympathetic character. After all, having literally been awoken from thousands of years by the sight of her, how could he not love her, even though it would destroy her?

The love in "Another New World," though not literally romantic, is no less destructive or poignant. An aging explorer, suggested to be Christopher Columbus, embarks on a grand journey on his beautiful ship the Annabel Lee to find another world world in the Arctic Circle. When the boat is stuck in the ice and snow and the crew all dies, he is left alone in the Annabel Lee, chopping up her mainsail and burning it for warmth. The cruelty of this act is not lost on the narrator, who anthropomorphizes the ship with lines like "she gave up her body to me" and "I burned her to keep me alive every night / In the loving embrace of her hull." Ultimately he saved, but "won't call it rescue ... [or] pretend that the search for another new world / Was well worth the burning of mine." The song is sung gently over a finger-picked guitar line, the musical starkness echoing the "vast glassy desert of arsenic white."

I'm big into great songwriting, and while I've heard good things about Josh Ritter, I was blown away by So Runs the World Away. It is trite to say songwriting is like poetry, but here it's true. I also see the fantastical prose of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. There aren't many higher compliments.

Buy it from Amazon:
So Runs The World Away
Josh Ritter Official Site

The National - High Violet

Rating: A-

I feel like reprising my review of LCD Soundsystem's This Is Happening. Everything I said about that album applies here: it's hard for me to judge High Violet without comparing it to The National's last effort, Boxer. That album, like LCD Soundsystem's Sound Of Silver, was one of my favorite records of 2007. High Violet, like This is Happening, maybe doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessor but is nonetheless a damn fine album.

Among the highlights: the fuzz-laden opener "Terrible Love," with its haunting refrain "It takes an ocean not to break"; middle track "Bloodbuzz Ohio," which apes the rhythm section of Boxer's "Brainy" but can be forgiven because Matt Berninger's baritone carries us "to Ohio in a swarm of bees"; and album closer "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks," which moves from stark quiet to lush string backings and back.

I'd count their lyrics among the strong points of The National, but like many great lyricists, Berninger isn't confined by having his lyrics make sense. Take the cryptically-titled "Conversation 16." Like in Boxer's "Slow Show," the protagonist is a a self-loathing loser. But while in "Slow Show" he felt socially awkward ("Can I get a minute of not being nervous / And not thinking of my dick?"), here he feels morally reprehensible ("I was afraid I'd eat your brains / 'Cause I'm evil") ... or something. Maybe he's a zombie. The verses, with lyrics like "We live on coffee and flowers / Try not to wonder what the weather will be" don't really enlighten us further.

There's nothing wrong with cryptic lyrics; many of the greatest songwriters have been at the same time the most inscrutable (I'm looking in your direction, Mr. Dylan). The trick with The National is that they make the cryptic lyrics seem direct and personal. After listening to Boxer it became hard to listen to Interpol, a band with a lot of sonic similarities; their lyrics just seemed shallow compared to The National's. But I don't know if that's really true; I think it's all in Berninger's delivery. Closer "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks" probably shows this the strongest - there's no story in the lyrics at all, just a vague sense of being lonely and wanting love. But the chorus, backed by harmony vocals (one of the few changes on High Violet in a sonic sense) and strings rises and rises, falling back to Berninger plaintively crying "I'll explain everything to the geeks." I don't have any idea what that means, but Berninger convinces me it means something to him. And maybe that's all that matters.

Buy it from Amazon:
High Violet
The National Official Site