This gallery contains 14 photos.
I’ve been a fan of Paul Weller since a friend introduced me to The Jam back in high school. His musical styles have evolved and changed with the times, but the fundamentals have remained. Clever, socially aware lyrics set to … Continue reading
This gallery contains 25 photos.
Thursday July 18 through Sunday July 21 I saw a lot of great artists perform live! These are my photos. They’re not great, as I was experimenting with a brand new camera. Still I wanted to share. I don’t have … Continue reading
Cory Branan @ The Middle East
Cory Branan makes Mutt Music! That may sound like a lame insult I’ve just invented, but it’s actually the term he’s been using to describe his music for some time, and it’s what he alluded to in titling his most recent album Mutt. He proudly owns the hybrid, eclectic styles of music it contains, and well he should. He shifts and combines styles seamlessly. It’s brilliant. His musical style was one of the topics of conversation when I interviewed him before his set at the Middle East Downstairs on July 21st.
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Among the crowd at the Middle East, July 21st
When I asked Tim Barry how he would classify the style of music he plays, he told me, “I just say it’s Rock & Roll with an acoustic guitar.” I’ll buy that. I know that his solo set during the show at the Middle East Downstairs on Sunday, July 21st reminded me of what rock and roll is really about as much or more than did any of the sets by artists with full bands and electric instruments. He had the nervous energy and desire to please that an aspiring artist might bring to an important audition, yet he was confident and a consummate performer. He established a rapport with the audience that made it seem like he leading a sing along with a bunch of friends at a pub. This was especially true when he took the microphone stand from the stage and put in on the floor in front so he could sing in the midst of the crowd. This was a guy who was working his ass off to put on a great show, but having a great time at it. He told stories and philosophized, but mostly he played his heart out, and the crowd ate it up.
As he recounted in the post Musicians Egos and…, he had been largely responsible for bringing the show together, and several acts expressed their appreciation to “nice guy” Tim, either from the stage of when I talked to them later. It was a Sunday night show that certainly didn’t feel like it was happening on a Sunday night! I’ll have more to say about the other acts in later posts, but for now let me tell you about Tim Barry, and incredibly exciting artist I had the good fortune to interview on June 17 by phone from his home in Richmond, four days before the show in Cambridge.
We all know how musicians are and how tough the music business can be. Musicians have huge egos and the business is intensely competitive. Because of these big egos, artists don’t work together well, and when the record companies make them do so, it’s the stuff of big drama. It’s what made last season’s tv drama Nashville a hit, and it’s the reason why we can only have one American Idol or winner of The Voice each season. Yet I hardly ever hear those kinds of stories when I talk to musicians. The kinds of stories I hear much more often are ones like the one Time Barry told me about how the six act show on Sunday, July 21st, Downstairs at the Middle East came about.
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Ade Denae, Cory Chisel, Matt Pynn and Will Dailey close the show Monday night.
The audience that turned out for the show on Monday at The Sinclair in Cambridge was small. Both the headliner, Cory Chisel from Appleton, Wisconsin and Boston’s own Will Dailey are capable of drawing much larger audiences, so I’m not sure what happened. Maybe the storm warnings around the area made people nervous about traveling in; maybe it was because it was because it was a Monday show during the Fourth of July week, and people were out of town; maybe it was because the show was not well enough publicized… Who knows? Whatever the reason, the turnout was small. That can really affect the energy of a show, but it didn’t seem to be the case on Monday night. Both acts played great, exciting sets. In fact one might argue the show benefitted from having fewer people in the crowd, creating a more intimate atmosphere and some exciting audience interaction.
As far as I was concerned, Chisel had some high expectations to meet. I’ve been wanting to see him play live since I bought a Windows desktop in 2009 and the music video for his song “Born Again” came with Windows Media Player. Continue reading
Hayes Carll fronts the Warren Hood Band at Johnny D’s in Cambridge, MA on June 11
Known for his clever lyrics and turn of a phrase, I didn’t know what to expect when I interviewed Texas singer-songwriter Hayes Carll. The man writes incredibly clever lyrics that can be awfully sharp-witted at times. And I had given him reason to be annoyed with me. I live in Boston, MA; he in Austin, TX and we set up a time on my lunch break from my real job for a phone interview. I called as scheduled, only in spite of working for nearly a decade for a national non-profit that had one of it’s primary offices just north of Austin, it slipped my mind the city is in the Central Time Zone, so I called an hour early. I sent a contrite text and nervously awaited a reply. Over the next couple hours and a business like exchange, we set up another interview the next day. I expected some sort of reprimand, a demand to keep the interview short, or at least a snide remark. I got none of that, only a gracious acceptance of my apology. It struck me that Hayes might be a nice guy. What a relief! I really needed this interview! Continue reading
The Lone Bellow on stage at The Ark
When I decided to check out the show on Thursday, June 20 at The Ark in Ann Arbor MI where I was for a conference, I expected something pretty mellow. The Lone Bellow were headlining with an opening act called The Saint Johns. It had been a very busy few days, but I did find time to listen to the first song of NPR Tiny Desk Concert linked from the page announcing the show in The Ark website. It’s called “You Never Need Nobody,” and it is performed acoustically in the NPR offices, as the Tiny Desk Concerts always are. I liked it and decided to go. I didn’t have time to read anything else.
Now it says right there on the web page of the venue that “The Ark is Ann Arbor’s nonprofit home for acoustic music,” and that it presents “performers who fall into the wide-ranging genres of folk and roots music.” I love that stuff, and judging from video, as well as their name, The Lone Bellow would be an example of it par excellence. I looked looked at them in that video, dressed in dark colors, playing acoustic instruments, singing a song about heartbreak… They even had a mandolin… I knew what to expect. This would be a show full of sad, mountain music, albeit interpreted by New Yorkers, because the page said they hailed from Brooklyn. That was cool by me. I love that stuff! Wow, was I ever in for a surprise, a good one, but a surprise nonetheless! Continue reading
The Stage at the Fillmore for Father John Misty
“Father John Misty” (Josh Tillman’s stage name), is a square-jawed, blue-eyed, wavy-dark-blond-haired model-handsome man who had everyone in the audience, men and women alike, screaming out how they loved him. Faithful to his irony-filled persona, he tossed out oddly sincere soundbites, such as “Everyone, thank you for all you do that’s good.” The audience, caught up in wanting to capture this sinuous creature singing in a such an enticing manner, held up a Milky Way of smartphones, trying to capture the moment for Instagram or YouTube. He snatched up a pink-cased one and filmed himself performing, to delighted laughter. Despite the sometimes disturbing images of his lyrics, the trippy voyages his songs take, the overall effect is so outsizedly comic that it’s impossible to take too seriously.
I don’t recall exactly where I first heard of Father John Misty. I believe it was in a recommendation from Spotify, or another cloud-based modern music jukebox. It was the songwriting that first drew me in, with lyrics that read like a miniaturized “Day of the Locust” that attracted me. Most of his subjects are religious or scenes of Los Angeles decadence. “I’m Writing A Novel” is a particularly hilarious satire of Hollywood’s abundance of screenwriters, casual relationships and a fast-moving blur of faces going past.
FJM singing at The Fillmore
What kept me coming back is his voice. Very unlike most rock performers, FJM has an excellent and powerful voice with a great emotional range but also technically fine, one that he uses throughout the song to support those witty lyrics. I read of it being compared to Roy Orbison, and while I don’t agree that they sound at all alike, I do think that he’s one of the rare performers whose flexible range is employed well without being showy. It’s often pointed out in biographic clips on Tillman that he was previously the drummer for Seattle indie folk group Fleet Foxes. That’d be where the resemblance ends. His energetic vocals and drum backing do not resemble that group at all.
Misty opened with “Funtimes in Babylon,” a country-toasted wistful ballad that showcased his lovely voice. That characteristic, a pensive and regretful song that combines an inner ache with a surface veneer of cheeriness, makes his songs so listenable over and over.
I would like to abuse my lungs
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Ride around the wreckage on a horse knee-deep in blood
Look out Hollywood, here I come
The final number of his set, “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” begins with a hard and sexy drubbing from percussion, joined by a lick from the guitar, rhythmically coursing through images with hints of menace, finishing with the plaintive plea, “Someone’s gotta help me dig…” Well-received set that will help establish a solid fan base for this upcomer. Misty, who recently played a well-received set at Bonnaroo, seems destined to be changing the course of the current sound for a while.
Father John Misty at The Fillmore
Official Site: http://www.fatherjohnmisty.net/
SubPop Records Artist Profile: http://www.subpop.com/artists/father_john_misty