Live Music Log, November 2018

Hi.  I’m a guy who goes to shows in west Michigan and then writes about them.  These are my stories.

11 2 18 The Accidentals #9/Kate & Emilee of the Crane Wives #57/Seth Bernard #7  Short’s, Bellaire I knew I was going to miss a big Crane Wives show on the 3^rd because of longstanding tickets to I’m With Her….so I threw a hail mary: I asked Kate and Em if I could ride with them to their own show. And they said yes. Over the last three years, very slowly, these two women have become very important to me, and I have somehow been accepted into their lives as well.  It took me a long time to accept that I, a gigantic old dude without monetary resources, could be an asset to them too, but I think I have.  There is a gentleman, a guy I actually admire for the work he does in the music community, who seemed to accuse me of “collecting” musician friends for the reflected glory (and then he blocked me on Facebook). I was hurt by this, because I genuinely liked him (and his dog) and think he does a great service with his show promotion….and I had a good monthlong soul search to see if he was at all right about that.  And I have to say, no, he’s not.  I have a lot of enthusiasm for the music I like, and a great deal of respect for musicians, even when I DON’T like the music. This comes through when I go to shows.  I am not meeting people for the meeting’s sake; I am expressing my enthusiasm, and people respond to kindness with kindness.  Hell, this blog is an extension of that, I have met people who knew of this before they knew me.  This was started solely to aid my own memory and became a whole other thing. I have made real, lasting friendships in this music scene, both with the makers and with the other enthusiastic showgoers.  If that fellow reads this, I hope he reaches out to me, because I was bewildered by his criticism and hope to answer it. I have something to offer.  I write.  I offer advice when asked. I accidentally design T shirts. I have been drafted to write copy for Harvest Gathering next year.  I have purpose other than filling a stool or a theater seat. And on this trip, my purpose was apparently to keep Em awake for the long drive. I met the Accidentals, something I had actually resisted doing because of the fellow’s criticism: they are his favorites like the Wives are mine.  The meeting was primarily sandwich-based.  I joined the other civilians (Dan, Michele and Ken all made it up!) in the audience for a great show, part of a mini-tour Seth was doing ahead of the election to publicize the Clean Water Campaign for Michigan. It opened with an AV presentation highlighting the important work we all need to do to protect our greatest resource.  Then, there were songs.  I didn’t keep notes, so the show was a blur of tuneful fellowship, but collaborations happened (occasionally felt like at gunpoint), and the Accidentals’ new election-themed single, Heavy Flag, was releasing that day. Whole lotta tunes on a tiny northern stage, and I was glad I made it.  With a little help from my friends. (Special thanks on this entry to Kay, who reviewed my writing and offered clear, cogent, thoughtful editorial suggestions.  I ignored all of them.)

11 3 18 I’M WITH HER/THE BROTHER BROTHERS Sauder Concert Hall, Goshen College, Goshen, IN       Libby DeCamp #7  Founders, Grand Rapids  After I tried Indian food for the first time at a little place downtown, my friend Laurie accompanied me to this gorgeous concert hall (only reachable by a potholey side street in a small town) for a folk music summit meeting. Opening act the Brothers Brothers, twins David and Adam Moss, are the midway point between Springsteen and Paul Simon, distilled through a Punch Brothers filter.  By turns funny and poignant, NPR fodder for sure but genuine and highly skilled at Sensitive Male Folk Music. And then:  Aoife O’Donovan, Sarah Jarosz and, sigh, Sara Watkins, the three successful songstresses that have banded together as I’m With Her.  I bought their album at the Jammies in February, not even knowing it was a promo copy and hadn’t even been released yet. Breathtaking harmonies, accomplished musicianship, all gathered around one mic with violins and mandolins and guitars oh my. I leaned over the vertiginous balcony edge and drank in every note. Very little chat or banter, just wall to wall virtuosity from the most accomplished women in modern folk. And then it was over in time for me to fly 90 minutes north to catch Libby’s set at Founders (I missed Justin Stover though, sadly). Ginger Witch Goddess still, but the banjo is playing second fiddle (har har) to the electric guitar on an angry new set of languid bangers.  Looking forward to an eventual album release: no one else sounds like her, an intelligently sullen sultry slow smear of baroque folk, aided and abetted by the unique rhythms of the brothers Schreiber.  Hell of a night.

11 10 18 EARTHWORK MUSIC COLLECTIVE TOUR with Seth Bernard, Joe Reilly, Chris Good, Ralston Bowles, Dede and the Dreamers, Nicholas James Thomasma, Allison Radell, and DarlenYa Seven Steps Up, Spring Lake  I know I look like a gomer when I take notes on my phone at shows: to all the world it appears like I’m checking Facebook while amazing things happen all around me.  But when I don’t, and then two months pass before writing, details vanish.  The original point of this blog was just to aid my own memories, so it may be time to get over hang-ups about appearances.  What can I say without notes?  THIS WAS A SWELL SHOW.  The first Earthwork label road show in many years, it featured a dizzying array of talent, talented in different ways, supporting each other on their songs. The night’s MVPs:  Dede’s occasional Dreamers, Chris Michels and John Driscoll, who ably backed up everyone else, plus Michels sang a great song of his own that I must investigate. Chris Good was a lot of fun, with his Methuselah beard and optimism. Seth was happily Sething all over that stage.  Nick and Ralston did their thing, then rode the couch, mostly:  whole lotta guitars in the room. Allison Radell and her keyboard added other colors.  And DarlenYa is a force of nature whom I can’t believe I hadn’t discovered before, the driving force behind the whole shebang, with her whooping backing vocals and her exhortation to live a better life. I wish Mr. Rickabus had been on this date, but this was a damn fine show and representation of the Earthwork ethos.  

11 11 18 ANNA BURCH/Fiona Dickinson #5  Bell’s, Kalamazoo  Rare Sunday show for a pair of imposing women and their guitars. On the superior Bell’s PA, I could ALMOST make out Fiona’s lyrics amid the shoegaze maelstrom, but not quite.  The ever present echo and buzz in her band’s sound is equal parts compelling and frustrating.  Incredible talent that still needs a focus. Detroiter Anna Burch, late of Frontier Ruckus, is more straightahead indie rock, with clean guitar lines, like Liz Phair meets Pavement in a bar on John R Road. Echoes of the Eames Era, but a gentle smirk all her own is present amid the pretty tunes.  Short but sweet set, her crackerjack band cranking her songs like a hunk of road salt in a rock tumbler.  And no, I don’t know what I mean by that, either.

11 17 18 The Corn Fed Girls #5  La Luna Studio, Kalamazoo    ELVIS COSTELLO & THE IMPOSTERS  20 Monroe Live, Grand Rapids  CFG was doing an early show as part of a big open house for the new La Luna recording studio, part of a big industrial refurbishment site with coffeehouse, guitar maker, antique shop, and more.  There was tuneful japery, virtuosic instrument swapping, four lead singers (including a world class whistler), and a biggish crowd in a small room. 21^st year of laid back folkery.  I got to see a bunch of other friends pass through as well, which fortified me for the haul up to GR for a Creepy Alone Guy show at the midsize downtown venue.  Elvis Costello is a tower of song, and I’m glad I went, but I’m still not sure I got my (gulp) $100 worth. The Imposters are an immensely talented trio of old dudes, and the two African American backup singers were skilled and unbelievably gorgeous. Is this practice (black women backing up old British dudes) an unforgivable cliché, or just part of the classic rock sound?  Or both? I haven’t seen such a thing since Billy Joel/Elton John 15 years ago.  Anyhoo.  Mr. McManus is much more unhinged on guitar live than on record, highly exciting, though the misogynistic streak that runs through his early hits is pronounced when you hear that many of them back to back. This was somewhat balanced by the fact that many of the new songs, from the album Look Now, were either sympathetic or even written from a female point of view.  He had a strange habit of exhorting the crowd to greater whoops and claps, like he wasn’t receiving enough acclamation to continue till we had gone suitably berserk.  Have Ralston Bowles and Elvis Costello ever been seen in a room together? During Deep Dark Truthful Mirror (the only song from between 1984 and 2011), Elvis moved from guitar to solo mic to organ to piano seamlessly.  Surprisingly awesome falsetto, well preserved voice.  Oh those hits:  Club Land, Green Shirt, Beyond Belief, Mystery Dance, Watching The Detectives, Radio Radio, Alison, Everyday I Write The Book, Pump It Up (gleefully vicious), and the big closer, Nick Lowe’s What’s So Funny Bout Peace Love and Understanding. Out a hundo, but damned if I wasn’t entertained.

11 23 18 Nicholas James Thomasma #6  Tripelroot, Zeeland   I finally saw someone other than Olivia and Brandon in my own town.  Nick was alone with his guitar and his grin and his little plush VW bus full of swag. I requested really old songs.  I got to hear most of his masterwork, Long Story Short. This is sunny modern hippie music, with a melancholy streak unique to Grand Rapids. Catch him when you can.

11 24 18 Matt Gross #2 Webster’s, Kalamazoo      The Gasoline Gypsies #2/DREW PHORIA Final Gravity Brewing, Kalamazoo     Delilah DeWylde #5  The Union, Kalamazoo     WOOTS Papa Pete’s, Kalamazoo  FOUR shows in one night, playing baby Sinkevics by accident. Matt Gross has my favorite male voice in the entire scene, but he was playing nothing but Christmas music and covers, so I moved on fairly quickly.  (Bah humbug.) The Gypsies’ opener at Final Gravity, Drew Phoria, was interesting:  a solo dude with a looping pedal, a frantic pace, and killer guitar hooks that he kinda ran into the ground, though with a pleasant garage rock crunch. The Gypsies play propulsive, highly competent blooze, very reminiscent of the wave of bands like the Black Crowes and Cry of Love around 1990. Highlight: Abilene, a chugging two-part hard luck tale. From there, I went for dinner and about an hour’s worth of Delilah DeWylde’s gentle old time rockabilly at the Union: whatever her issue with me personally, I still enjoy this music (though I sat in the back). And finally, because I had been promising to check it out, Evan Wouters and company, known as WOOTS, at the dive-iest place I have yet been in Kzoo, Papa Pete’s. Both the venue and the sound gave me 1997 flashbacks, to the old Club Soda/Intersection scene. But this is a fun thing, not a bad thing. Big jammy mall sax, hot keyboards, well done white boy funk n roll.  Surprisingly straight cover of Chocolate Salty Balls of all damn things.  A lot of fun on a typical night in Magical Kalamazoo.

11 28 18 Kate & Emilee of the Crane Wives #58  Grand Armory, Grand Haven  I finally figured out what’s good to eat here:  the smoked wings. Omigaw. And the tunes and friendship and hard cider flowed forth from this fount like the elixir of life, or something.  I tried, but probably failed, to be non-obnoxious, enjoying the company of Carlton and new friend Jason. Their acoustic guitars, run through an overpowered amp, produced an oddly hardcore sound, making a runthrough of the beloved Margaret sound almost metal, but this effect enhanced October with sharp teeth. New Kate song, possibly called Rooted, was a beautiful and welcome request from another showgoer.  They won’t be non-famous forever.  Check them out while you still can.

11 30 18 EARTH RADIO/MINOR ELEMENT/LUSHH  Shakespeare’s, Kalamazoo  I have been wanting to see Earth Radio for almost two years, but some life event or other show kept interfering; finally caught them on an all-jazz-fusion bill in a new venue, the surprisingly non-divey Shakepeare’s. Two keyboards, guitar, bass, drums: Steely Dan, Weather Report, and Janis Joplin in a blender, season to taste. Alternatively: what if Mariah Carey joined King Crimson on tour? A little bit of Rufus soul detected in there as well. Most songs build from swirling atmospherics to earthy shrieks in a tidy five minutes. Really really good, been enjoying the hell out of the CD I bought here too. Next up:  Minor Element, a crew of young WMU cats. Three guitars, three horns, two keys, no vocals. Great sound, but went on too long, leaving the nominal headliners, Lushh, enough time to do only two damn songs. They are even more Crimsonish, with a similar lineup and a similar seated cerebral lead guitarist. Must see them again.  All of them, in fact.