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

Joe Val Bands!

Just yesterday I noted that the The Boxcars' website said were playing at the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival even though the schedule hasn't been announced yet. Well the fine folks at Joe Val threw us a bone, listing four bands:

• The Grascals
• The Boxcars
• The Whites
• Della Mae

Exciting stuff!

More Upcoming Festival News!

The lineup for the 2011 Saddleback Bluegrass Festival hasn't been announced yet, but Ricky Skaggs is already confirmed per his website.

The Boxcars

Rating: B-

Loosely-organized thoughts while listening to The Boxcars' self-titled debut:

The album kicks off with "December 13th," which is its high point - an atmospheric tune that touches on a lot of the great folk music themes - murder, betrayal, revenge, guilt, and memory. The verses are driven by Ron Stewart's banjo, giving the tune an urgency you don't typically get in murder ballads. The song has a real darkness and dramatic flair.

Some of the other tunes don't fare as well. "In God's Hands" is slow, plodding, and overly sentimental and mawkish. "Hurtin' Inside" is similarly sappy. Other than "December 13th," the best moments are uptempo songs keyed by Stewart's banjo: "You Can Take Your Time," "Log Cabin In the Lane," and closer "Take Me On the Midnight Train" have an energy that isn't always there in this album.

One of the things that drew me to pick up this album is the presence of Adam Steffey, who I was familiar with from Mountain Heart and who recently one his fifth IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year award. I'm a sucker for great mandolin and Steffey delivers it, whether a bluesy break on "Old Henry Hill" or a more traditional blistering bluegrass solo on instrumental tune "Jump the Track." He always gets a clean sound, and is a master of subtlely shading the tone and pace to sad, bouncy, woody, or whatever he needs. A fine example is in "Never Played the Opry" - another mandolinist probably would have used a lot of tremolo on this slow number, but Steffey's staccato notes seem to mimic teardrops and fit perfectly with the tune. Steffey also has one of the most distinctive singing voices in bluegrass, a very deep baritone he puts to good use in "The Hard Way."

Overall, this is a good album with some definite high points and some low points. It's not breaking any new ground. It sounds great, very clean, but I wish there was a little more edge to it.

Note: Per the Boxcars website, they're going to be playing at the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival, which is the closest festival to me here in Boston. They haven't announced the full Joe Val lineup, but I'll update the blog if I they do or if I notice any other bands that are schedule to play.

Buy it from Amazon:
The Boxcars (only $6.99 right now)
The Boxcars official site

The Deadly Gentlemen - Carry Me To Home

Rating: B

The "high lonesome sound" has been synonymous with bluegrass since Bill Monroe first assembled his Bluegrass Boys. Vocal performs from Monroe to Jimmy Martin to Del McCoury have continued the tradition of plaintive, mournful tenor vocals and high harmonies. Even modern acts that expand quite a bit beyond the traditional bluegrass sound are enamoured with the classic vocal stylings, from Tim O'Brien to Jeremy Garrett of The Infamous Stringdusters. There's something about the way a high, sad voice cuts through the rhythmic bass thumping and percussive chops and provides a human edge to the technical prowess of bluegrass music.

The Deadly Gentlemen ... yeah, they're doing something completely different. When you first hear Carry Me To Home, it is downright jarring. The band's website describes their vocal style as "three-part harmony singing, group shouting, really dense rhymes, and an almost rap-like phrasing." The clearest example of the oddity in their vocal delivery is the track "Police." The chorus is a call-and-response: "POLICE!!!," shouted by several band members, followed by "are bangin' on my door this morning!," which is neither quite sung nor shouted. Later on we get the band shouting "BANG BANG BANG BANG! BANG BANG BANG!!!" In other words, it's not how Jimmy Martin woulda done it. "The Road Is Rocky," a riff on Bill Monroe's "Rocky Road Blues" is even subject to this treatment, with low harmonized call-and-response and vocal meters that wouldn't be out of place in hip-hop. "Sadie's" vocals consist of alternating spoken whisper and falsetto harmonies against a backdrop of Mike Barnett's weird fiddle sounds and percussive rhythm guitar from Stash Wyslouch.

Perhaps tellingly, the title song, and also the album's best song, has the most conventional vocal delivery. It's not sung the way Monroe would have sung it, but it's the one tune where there's a conscious effort to sound pretty. This probably makes it stand out even more: the harmonized chorus "Someone pick me up and carry me to home!" comes through as really earnest. The chorus is really accentuated by the swell in Barnett's fiddle and Dominick Leslie's mandolin.

In light of that, there's the very good question: does the odd vocal style work? It's high-energy, which keeps the album engaging. It's pretty diverse; for five guys who don't sing (much), they get a lot of different sounds out of the voice as an instrument. All in all, I still love the high lonesome sound, but I respect what The Deadly Gentlemen are trying to do here.

The album as a whole ... hmm. It's interesting. I don't mean that negatively. The unusual vocal sound and feel means it's going to take a while for some of the subtler elements to sink in - I didn't even mention Crooked Still's Greg Liszt and his always-amazing banjo, or David Grisman's son Sam Grisman rocking the bass - and this could be a favorite of mine three months from now. But I'm writing this review today, not then, and so I say: download it now! It's free, for goodness' sake. What are you waiting for?

Download for free at The Deadly Gentlemen official site!

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