Took the ChaChi and my sweetheart to the In the Pines show around 21:00.
Got a call from Myers (drummer | In the Pines, The String and Return, Life and Times, etc.) while I was on my knees in the new bedroom putting down cork tile — still. It must have been close to ten (20:00). I have one word for you: Tessellation. Oh. Holy. Shit. Don’t let your sweet-faced little honey talk you into a repeating pattern in which no tile is in line with another tile. Especially if you are using a non-grouted tile, where they need to be tightly laid against one-another. My worst fucking nightmare is named Herringbone, and Herringbone needs a dick punching.
Anyway, with my melon all headache-high from the adhesive, we took the little man to The Jackpot. He was wide awake, and the real goal was to show him off and to snag a CD from In the Pines. I was impressed by how many folks held the little fellow, although Myers was afraid of him. Brad Hodgson (voc/guit | In the Pines) snatched him up. Billy Belzer (drummer | Uncle Tupelo, Todd Newman, New Amsterdams, etc.) begged for him, and held him until his baby-cop spouse stepped in and made me take him back because Billy was “over the baby holding limit.”
Baby-craziest folks of the night: Billy Belzer, Brad Hodgson, Jill Myers, Clayton VanMeter. Most insightful parenting comments of the night: Craig Comstock (bass | Blue Leaves / drums, bass, guitar | This is My Condition).
We got to the show just after The Blue Leaves quit playing. It seems really odd to me that Craig Comstock is playing with guys I expect to be playing angular pop (I have no idea what they play; that is a guess). The guy has the most entertaining and jaw-dropping gig this area has seen in many, many years, and then he pops up playing bass in a combo. Weird. As long as it doesn’t reduce the number of This is My Condition gigs, I guess I don’t care. But in short, my review of the Blue Leaves show tonight goes as such:
The Blue Leaves’s Bass Player is sole proprietor of the best band in Lawrence. If he would have been playing by himself, I would have been there on time. Well, not really, but I would have tried a lot harder. Who knows. And maybe they are great. Craig definitely makes bands great.
We walked in as another band started playing. Carrying an infant (with little earplugs), you’d expect to have to wrap his head with soundproofing and duct tape, but the band was delightfully quiet. So we didn’t have to leave right away (whew/damn). From the back, it looked like the band was a woman playing a white bass, and some other guys. The name was forgettable, like The New Republic or Tragic Forest or something. It doesn’t help that they sounded like I would imagine In the Pines would sound if half of the band went out drinking and left the other half at a practice space to try to come up with more material. Everybody kept telling me that they are “really nice.” That is the band equivalent of “pretty in the face,” only it gets you farther. I’m actually really glad that they are “really nice” because they are more likely to be serving me at a restaurant than playing at Wembley Stadium. And I mean that in a “really nice” way.
At first, I thought the bass-playing chick was Ann (spelling?) from Tawni Freeland’s circa 2000 project called T & A. She was some kind of clean-cut, Nordic blond girl who held her bass like it was sticky. But man she was an amazing bass player. And a sweet kid. Prolly under 20. She worked at Mass Street Music in Lawrence and didn’t lie to me, which is notable. And she was marrying a dude that looked like they were from the same parents. That was creepy. I swear the guy was her brother. If I had pictures of both, I’d show ‘ya. But then again, if I had pictures of both, that would be really fucking creepy of me.
But the bass player for In the Tragic Republic was neither Ann nor Craig, so I can’t really tell you much more than that. She had a white bass. I don’t know where they work.
As In the Pines got ready to go on, we got a copy of the CD and readied to leave. It was getting late, and we were beat from all of the work. We went home and laid flooring for six more hours.
Upon listening to the CD during the flooring debacle (a lot), it became apparent to me that J. Hall made the CD much more appealing to you folks. The people who hear it for the first time will be much more attentive and much more excited. It is dark, it is lazy, and it is literate (think Dirty Three meets P.W. Long (sans blues), Erskine Caldwell, Flannery O’Conner, James Dickey, and Borat). There is some redemption, some backwoods wisdom, and some cliched heartbreak (i.e., “You can’t take my soul; it’s mine”). It is punchy, the voice performances are tight, soaring, and confident, and the CD has a brightness that will keep new listeners aware — uhhhh … needle scratch, anyone? Do we want O’Connor and Dickey characters moping with a tight, soaring confidence? Do we want our backwoods wisdom to be punchy? Do we even want the harmonies in close tune?
Don’t get me wrong; it sounds great. And there are some really touching performances and dy-no-mite songs. If I had to sell this record, I’d be overjoyed that it sounds more like a product of Sear Sound in New York than field recordings from You Have Seen Their Faces. And it does sound great.
But I’ve heard those early mixes, and they aren’t so confident. Turning down the “darkness” knob is a curious move for a record marketed as dark. But the reality is that records need to be marketed, and the beauty of disjointed, wavering harmonies and open spaces where confidence disappear are lost on people who look to MySpace for their “friends” and audiences. You’ve only got until the next “click” to catch their attention, blah, blah, cliche, blah. Bah. I liked the chick-voices when they were coming from the woods rather than the iso-booth.
The artwork is stunning (hat tip to MK12). And someone (you know who you are) is wrong about the white disc with spot-gloss; it is perfect. And it is a metaphor for the new mixes. Dan Askew uses spot gloss like it is free, and even though it ain’t, it is worth every penny.
Speaking of Dan Askew, he wasn’t at the record release shows for In the Pines because he is in New York City for the CMJ music festival pimping his other bands. So at least I didn’t blow him off on Friday.
My review of the In the Pines show? When Darren sang, he probably sounded very sweet. I was home.
Shows I may or may not go see. Chances can be influence upwards by whether I am “on the list”:
- Ghosty; 06 Nov; The Bottleneck (12% chance)
- Hello Goodbye / Reggie and the Full Effect / Cute I s What We Aim For / Dave Mellilo; 15 Nov; Granada (0% chance)
- Topeka Ascension Ork’ester, This is My Condition as special guest, 17 Nov; Grace Episcopal Cathedral (71% chance)
- Gay Beast / This is My Condition / Witch & Hare 29 Nov; Jackpot Saloon (94% chance)
- Split Lip Rayfield, 01 Dec; Liberty Hall (62% chance)
