Live Music Log, September 2018

Hi.  I’m a local schmuck who goes out to shows and then writes about it.

9 1 18  Darcy Wilkin #13  Crane’s Pie Pantry, Fennville      The Birdseed Salesmen #2  HopCat, Kalamazoo      FLEETWOOD MAC NIGHT at Old Dog Tavern, Kalamazoo, with the Kaitlin Rose Band, Matt Gabriel, and Bride of Fleckenstein  Triple Show Saturday!  I love Kalamazoo.  Started my day with a low key Darcy show (is there any other kind?) accompanied by cider and donuts out at the PieHole. Met another fan of hers…nice guy, but so over the top enthusiastic that I have designated him as another of my canaries in the coalmine:  when I get that nuts, time to spaz down. God I hope he doesn’t read this.  My readership has dropped sharply, probably due to delays, and that might be a good thing.  I really don’t wanna piss people off, but I don’t wanna start lying or schmoozing either.  Better to be an honest asshole than everyone’s number one fan?  I dunno, you tell me. Lots of people benignly ignoring her, but some more new songs were heard ahead of her upcoming recordings. Folktastic.  Then it was into town for the Birdseed Salesmen, the Django-based vocal-free outfit led by Darcy’s CFG bandmate, Jay Gavan. The younger man I’d seen with them before was swapped out for a woman on violin, and intimidating levels of professionalism were the speed they were set on. HopCat audiences are also not known for rapt attention, but our heads all snapped around when they dared to play Over The Rainbow during a tornado watch! Then: Kaitlin Rose’s big Fleetwood Mac night at Old Dog.  Last year it took almost an hour to get in, the place was at capacity with a $10 cover: yay for Kaitlin and crew, but I find it more than a little depressing that they can pack em in for 40 year old music by other people and not their own excellent original music. Park Theatre is about to start a whole month of tribute acts, and they will most likely pull in way more than they could from our vibrant local scene.  Sigh.  The playing was great, the vibe was celebratory, but it was too much for me (no air, no room for innovation) so I left at half time. How did I get to be someone who seeks newer music at an older age?  Aren’t I supposed to just hunker down with my REO Speedwagon 8 tracks by now?

9 2 18 JIMMIE BENNET/THE LIGHT SWITCHES/EIGHT BELLES  House show, Kalamazoo  Thanks to Labor Day, I was able to make this Sunday show at the lovely home of Ms. Sam Cooper. First act was Jimmie Bennet, aka for reasons unknown, Tyler Bassett.  Bit of Bob Seger Disease (southern accent).  Some interesting lyrics here and there, but also too much about “fickle wild women.” Cool fingerpicking and countrified harmonies with a woman named Tammi Rae.  Not my thing at all, but everything is better live and three feet away. Eight Belles was Jessi Phillips: she has a bandmate, but he’s in California. Sam Cooper joined in on violin and harmonies for some dusky, sultry folk. Striking lyric quotes from my notes: “they know you by your drink and not your name”; “you sang at the bar and made everyone stop talking”. Stories told in verse:  one played like Gilmore Girls as a tragedy.  Bought an album: slightly lighter on record, but striking as hell. Light Switches was a duo, genial twin electrics with a California intonation, featuring Eric Kuhn of May Erlewine’s band. Fleet fingered folk, with internal rhymes informed by rap. The best new music uses the past to construct new quilts. Thanks to all three acts and our host, especially for being so gracious when I was the first gomer to arrive by half an hour.

9 7 18 PILLAR TO POST/CAMERON BLAKE  Old Dog Tavern, Kalamazoo  Two very different acts on a killer bill. Cameron Blake is angular, churchy, dramatic, and mesmerizing.  I legit could not tell how old he was by looking at him, and his sound is just as timeless.  What if Daniel Day Lewis had a band? Story songs about recessionary Detroit, crime ridden Baltimore, and Tiananmen Square.  Hymns of despair and hope, with a somber three piece band.  The Old Dog did not know quite what to make of it, but the applause was genuine. Pillar To Post, Brian Koenigsknecht’s reactivated band, has nuance too, just…less of it.  These are working men with a working sound, and that sound is yacht rock, right down to the little hats. Crack from the stage:  we’ve been together 10 years for 15 years now. At times there’s a mellow-end-of-Pearl Jam vibe, with many Brian songs I know and quite a few I was hearing for the first time. Especially nice to hear Last Of The Venues, my favorite bit of old-scene nostalgia, pumped up to rockstar levels.  Still relevant, but only coming out of the vaults every now and then, like a Disney movie.

9 14 18 May Erlewine #14  Old Dog Tavern, Kalamazoo  I’ve realized that May is the artist (second only to the Verve Pipe) that I’ve seen the most often without actually meeting.  My friends Dan and Ken know her.  I’m sure she doesn’t bite.  She seems kind.  But I hold back: to preserve the mystique?  Because I’m shy?  Because I don’t want to prove That Guy right, that I’m collecting musicians like scalps? Whatever the reason, here we all were at a night billed “Sad Songs Say So Much.” (though they did not do that song…) It was a mix of originals and cool covers; Max Lockwood, Phil Barry, and Julian Allen, her longtime backup band, also performed songs in keeping with the theme. She was visibly confused when the Old Doggers talked over her: not in a conceited way, it’s just that at her career level it doesn’t really happen. Highlights: Nothing But Love, Julian’s surprising version of Billy Joel’s And So It Goes, and May’s even more surprising version of Boyz II Men’s End Of The Road, captured by me here. Best moment as relayed to me by Max:  early on in the night a gentleman stood up abruptly to go, announcing, “LEAVIN’.  TOO SAD.”

9 21-23 18 EARTHWORK HARVEST GATHERING, Lake City:  CHRIS DORMAN/ANI AND KORA/The Missing Generation #3/MOUSEWOLF/Kaitlin Rose #7/Dacia Bridges Project #4/The Accidentals #8/Corn Fed Girls #4/Airborne Or Aquatic? #2/HOLBORN/Borr + McFerrin #11/#18/ASPEN JACOBSEN/KATE ANDERSON/MONTE PRIDE/CANCELED PLANS/Red Sea Pedestrians #2/BRAXTON HICKS & THE CONTRACTIONS/HEATHER MALONEY/Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird #2/The Crane Wives #55/Public Access #6/Heavy Color #2/THE NORTH CAROLINES/Frank Youngman All Stars #2/BLAKE ELLIOTT & Elizabeth Landry (#2)/LAUREL PREMO/Libby DeCamp #4/Jack And The Bear #4/Dan Rickabus Band #6/May Erlewine #15  This was it, the Big One, the one I ponied up dough for All Access for:  almost every non-related friend I have in the dang world gathered on one farm for a weekend. I even came up a day early and voluntarily spent an extra miserable night sleeping on the ground, that’s how much I wanted to be here and only here.  Thursday night WAS actually warm, and chill, with the big organizational meeting followed by a super spiffy secret jam for the volunteers who came early. I camped immediately behind the iconic Barn Stage, right next to the moo cows inside the edge of the woods. Shoutout to Dan for helping me fumble up the tent in the falling dark. This festival was loaded with hard, nay Solomonic,  choices:  I managed to see 30 of the 130 acts who played.  All hail Seth Bernard for keeping this thing alive and thriving.

Friday kicked off in the barn with Chris Dorman, farmer, early childhood educator, and now star of his own PBS show, a nine year veteran of Harvest: the reincarnation of Fred Rogers, with gentle, amusing tunes that engage children without talking down to them. Sounds a lot like Kevin Hearn of BNL, a voice that will make you happily sleepy. I kept my spot on my beloved stage-left truck bench for Ani And Kora, kind of an Accidentals Jr. with a charming gypsy swing sound not too far from Olivia’s. Comparisons not quite fair, as they had their own flair for storytelling.  It’s certainly a new and better world in some ways when a 15 year old girl can sing a queer love anthem and no one visibly freaks out. Highlight: Voyager (some might even call it…an odyssey.) Next, here came the Missing Generation to gingerly kick us in the ass with rock and roll:  the politest possible slinky swagger, like a Canadian in leather pants. I kid! Love was compared to a monster under the bed, and I approved. The drummer looked stressed out, which I later found out was due to playing with a herniated disc:  Gerren Young, you are a damn hero.  Out to the far off Market Stage tent for Mousewolf, a trio featuring the Happiest Drummer, Ruth Livingstone.  Technical issues marred the set, but Darren Bain’s songs were great,  a herky jerkful Devo/Heads joy-bash. Kaitlin Rose was on the biggest stage, the outdoor Cedar, crowd thin in the light rain but appreciative, her nervous but beaming (she had just closed on a house the same dang day). Top notch vocal performance, haunting new tune Love At Last. Back to the barn for Dacia Bridges:  I climbed to the loft for a lofty view of the Get Down, again sparse in the growing cold, but the virtuosity of her band of ringers is effortless. Only quibble?  She never seems to have new songs, many of these dating back to her German EDM days. Also a guy climbing up behind during the funk, trying in vain to raise a movie screen. Like you couldn’t wait 20 minutes, dude? The Accidentals were on the smaller outdoor Hill stage, but they drew the biggest crowd yet for their youthfully energetic, defiantly lovesong-free orch-dork sound. They suffered another stage invasion, a bunch of little kids this time. I missed Seth and Hannah Rose Graves because I needed a nap because I am old, but I got out to Market in time for Corn Fed Girls.  Here my notes endeth for the evening, but I’m sure they were great, they’ve had 21(!) years to polish it up. Airborne or Aquatic?, Seth’s prog rock project with Dan Rickabus on one of two drum sets, is impressive, and tuneful, and ultimately exhausting. I have become friends with Seth’s young apprentice, Ben Kolk, but I have yet to see his guitar skills;  instead, tonight was his electronic act, Holborn, with Sav Buist and Justin Avdek sitting in as live ringers.  Fun, well done, but so very far from My Thing.  Definitely bemusing to see them in their space suits playing space music in a centennial barn. I stumbled 40 feet back to my tent and fell asleep to the strains of Small Houses.

Saturday morning began with a tasty but nonfilling vegetarian breakfast.  My all access got me the food they serve the musicians in back, but it’s strictly meat free, which grew into a problem for my unrefined palate.  At one point I bought a burger out front to take back and break over my veggie tacos.  The musical day began at 10 am out at the Market tent with good ol Borr and McFerrin, playing mostly to their friends, but a foot is placed firmly in the door of the Gathering. Matt especially sounded energized and expansive, proving he is a morning person and I hate him. I then headed to Hill Stage, where lack of sleep compelled me to lie on the ground, head under my chair for shade, and listen to the next four acts while dozing.  I’m sure I looked ridiculous, but Aspen Jacobsen was very charming and poised for being 13, Kate Anderson (she of the Cold Calls) was excellent though nervous, Monte Pride was earnestly compelling, and Canceled Plans aka Michaela Stock is someone to follow up on for sure. I roused myself for the cosmic klezmer of Red Sea Pedestrians, raucous thinking-party music that could wake the dead, then into the barn to experience Braxton Hicks and the Contractions.  This is a joke band with Seth and head of Short’s Beer, Joe Short, and it is the most well polished turd since Tenacious D.  Top notch playing on songs about beer, and songs about beer, and a straight cover of Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.  This is a thing that exists. Heather Maloney was rather more sincere, with folk intensity and deeply personal lyrics, not from around here despite that Dutch name. I was a sleep deprived zombie, but I knew I wanted to be fairly fresh for the next one, so there was a nap behind the barn before the majesty that is Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird. Not as tightly themed as last year, but the songs, mostly from the album The Butcher’s Share, mostly expound on how we’re all bastard-coated bastards with bastard filling.  Migration:  people ain’t no flood. Freedom is a verb.  The Butcher will always have his share in the world of perpetual war.  Quoth Kahn:  “I wish to hell these songs would get old.” In the best segue of the festival, it was over to Cedar for the Crane Wives, who had the biggest crowd I saw of the whole weekend.  Engaged, friendly, funny, and so on point.  Is this a bunker or a shallow grave? Immediately after, same stage:  Public Access did their melody as monument thing to a crowd that was picking up what they were puttin’ down. Smells like Teen Spirit encore got em roaring. With that, I scrubbed my last couple planned sets and headed for the tent to crash.

Sunday began with possibly the most intense cold I have ever felt in my life.  It was about 30 degrees, I was wearing basically all my clothes, everything was damp, and I just could not sleep any more.  Packed up the whole camp by 8 am, with help from Brian K. who couldn’t take much more either. Ended up at a long breakfast and some time at the fire, missing a couple of planned acts, so my first music was noon in the barn with Caroline Barlow and the North Carolines, including Drew Howard playing unusually quietly, and my friend Roo on viola! Lovely, lilting, and personal, with a surprise cover of Collective Soul’s Shine. The Frank Youngman All Stars were a hoot, with multiple famous faces subsuming their egos to support this irascible, genial teacher and mensch on folk standards. Blake Elliott and Elizabeth Landry (formerly E Minor) are two excellent solo stars who joined forces here, supporting each other with killer harmonies and fine picking. The virtuosic Laurel Premo was more loose, conversationally and musically, away from Red Tail Ring, even picking up, gasp, a guitar at one point, though violin and banjo were well represented. In the bright autumn sun (the day warmed up considerably, making my long johns less of a good idea), Libby DeCamp’s hair counts as a pyrotechnic effect, and her songs reflected that, slow motion explosions of languid anger. Then Jack and the Bear happened alllll over that stage, with the flipping and the flopping and the wild hair and gesticulations and stop-start rhythms and big bold horns and polyrhythms and Brandon. They played a hell of a set yo. Big chunk of the Halloween EP they wrote and recorded at breakneck speed.  Definite upswing in fortunes here. From there I RAN over to the barn for Dan Rickabus and the Big Big Band, beaming the positive vibes out into the cosmos while I beamed from the hayloft. Last but not least, May Erlewine’s set of healing sounds sent me off into the night with a glow in my heart and a smile on my face. Harvest Gathering doesn’t get the big national headliners, but it is a community like no other, and I was happy to be a fringe member of it for a while.  Special thanks to the hanger outers:  Kevin H, Dan L, Matt, Brian, Michele, Ken,  Darcy, Carrie, Ben K, Em, Maz, Korey,  Bob, Laurie, John and Judy, Brandon, Adam, Olivia, and to Kevin K for the loaner headlamp. Still not used to knowing so many people who actually like it when I’m around.

9 28 18 MARGARET GLASPY/STEFANIE HAAPALA  Knickerbocker Theatre, Holland This was me broadening my horizons, as Ms. Glaspy is someone I was only vaguely aware of. Very sparsely attended for a Hope event:  highish ticket price may have led to maybe three dozen people rattling around the giant theater. Opener Stephanie Haapala, solo on stage with an electric guitar, had a vulnerable, cracking voice, sleepy yet compelling, spinning a slightly sullen spell of observational lyrics and stormy arpeggios. Margaret, also solo electric, plays self reflective songs full of specific images.  She comes off like the cool girl from high school who got along with everyone while dating unwisely. Images:  “I’m not the hanging plant you can’t seem to keep alive.”  “I wanna build a house for us to hide in, a big old bed for us to fight in.”  “Why remember all the times it took forever to forget?” Cover of Lauryn Hill’s Ex Factor.  And then after 50 minutes she was done.  I enjoyed what I heard, but never have I paid so much for such a short set.

9 29 18 The Crane Wives #56  House show, Cadillac House shows are special.  The Wives rarely play acoustic any more, so they’re a chance to hear these marvelous songs stripped down to the studs, to really hear the words more than the sounds. And during tuning interludes, we were treated to a lot of stories behind the tunes.  Caleb Trask is a reminder that we are all worthy of love.Turn Out The Lights was inspired by the practice of mindfulness.  Volta is about putting in the work to overcome the effects of depression.  High Horse is about an asshole.  A specific one, not an All Purpose Asshole.  This was the same deceptively beautiful house where I saw Jen Sygit in April, also as part of the Gopherwood series; twas well worth the drive north.