Live Music Log, May 2019

 This just in:  local schmuck goes out to shows, tries in vain to remember details five months later.

5 3 19 Carrie McFerrin #27/Kate Pillsbury #4/CHRIS CRANICK  Webster's Prime, Kalamazoo  Five months out, my notes are cryptic and frickin' useless, but I know I enjoyed the ever loving hell out of this one: two of my favorite women on this earth in the same room at the same time and armed with guitars.  Mr. Cranick was very good as well, but it could have been a Raggedy Ann doll on the third stool and this would be a cannot-miss for me. Chris also leads a loud rock band called Overdrive Orchestra, but solo his tunes were medium-intensity mellow.  Carrie had a slinky new one about devilish temptation called Don't Be Afraid.  During Kate's sunny new one, Even Now, I misheard a line as "hepatitis in the morning," but I can't remember the real line. Carrie's Songs And Stories series is just a goldmine for creative sparks and storytelling, and I am glad the schmancy hotel picks up the tab for it.

5 4 19  MARK HARRELL/JAKE KALMINK & FURTHER CLOSER/DALMATIAN STONE  Park Theatre, Holland  This was one heat out of three for a contest to play into a slot at the Cowpie Music Festival, to be held in Alaska (MI) in August.  A battle of the bands, basically.  Mark Harrell was compelling in his cloth cap and low key demeanor, but plagued by sound problems and not enough songs to fill his slot.  Further Closer was like a local Broken Social Scene, with nine (if I remember right) people on stage to make the big hearted sound fly; Kalmink had three guitars tuned to three keys, an extravagance.  The last song had an extended solo that led to a psychedelic sound explosion:  needless to say, by far my favorite band of the night and one I want to see again.  And then, Dalmatian Stone rubbed me the wrong way.  The singer had one of those long rags dangling from his back pocket.  His hat had sequins.  There were some credible funkish noises from an integrated ensemble, but it all smelled fishy.  I left halfway through their set.  So, of course, this band eventually won the whole contest.

5 9 19  Molly #3  Rosa Parks Circle, Grand Rapids  Lunchtime solo (well, with Scott on guitar) set from the erstwhile Vox Vidorra powerhouse. Great line about "a lying dummy with a stupid toupee." A sound is coalescing:  sparer than the band, but no less warmly humanist.  I will always be hugely awkward around this ludicrously charismatic person, but she seemed pleased I came down, so I'll take it and run.

5 9 19  FOXFEATHER/Kaitlin Rose #11  The Sandbox at Kal-Tone, Kalamazoo  I can't remember why I had a Thursday night free, but I ventured down to Kzoo for a completely new band:  Foxfeather is from Boulder, Colorado, and I hope they're as beloved there as the Wives are here, because they are phenomenal. A pair of songwriting women, one the primary vocalist, at the core, with supporting dude players of high caliber. There's a pop singer named Meg Myers who has this wire-taut intensity;  Foxfeather takes that feeling and diffuses it through Americana, like honey in a whisky sour, to quote a lyric.  Most powerful song: The Rules, which should have become a nationwide Me Too anthem. Opening was Kaitlin Rose, who matched Foxfeather's intensity with a whip-tight band set and limited space to prowl in the sadly underpopulated Sandbox space. This is a great venue for intimate acts, but I would love to see Foxfeather blow the roof off at Founders.

5 10 19  The Crane Wives #68  Beer Merchant, Holland  When you go out to see as much music as
I do, you hear an awful lot of praise, if not to say kissing up, flung at the sound crew.  The reason for this:  the sound crew holds your experience, and your impression of that act's music, in the sweaty palms of their hands.  At this turgid backyard beer garden tent of yuppie scum, the sound guy diffidently pushed the faders on his iPad this way and that, but at no point did he actually land upon a sound mix worthy of this magnificent band.  This was a bad gig.  These sometimes happen. The music was still great.  I had fun with Roo, and I was glad I was there to support them in their frustration with a bad sound and a disinterested, North Face festooned, overly quaffing audience of Holland douchecanoes.

5 11 19  HOOM/TALK RADIO/TANNER J. BURNS/CROOKED SPIRES  House show, Holland  Sometimes you just gotta do it yourself:  the vibe at this DIY house show was 500% better despite being only two blocks from last night's debacle. Tanner Burns (and band) was a lot of loud melody in a small-ass space (a living room done up with cool light effects). Vocal was hard to decipher through the enthusiastic drumming; overall impression:  what if Weezer was as cool as they think they are? Crooked Spires is laid back soulful indie crunch, with Christian, the singer, having a good raspy rawk voice:  Chris Isaak joins Pink Floyd.  Hoom was sunny indie, very Elephant 6.  There was a dude somehow blissing out while perched on a stepladder to the right of the couch I was on. Patty Pierzchala, a recent acquaintance who was sitting near me, then rose to front the last band, Talk Radio, and what a joyful howl it was.  They broke up fairly soon after this, not sure why, but they had the best dynamic range of the night:  Elle King fronting the Black Keys.  Happy to follow Patty's other projects, but sorry to see this one drowned in the tub so quickly.

5 18 19  BUS STOP 2019: Sharp Dressed Men/Rodger Osborn/Mike List/Charlie Mench/Danny Staggs/Melissa Mae/Ryan Gladding & Lisa Moaiery/Desi Taylor/Megan Dooley/Strange Country/Borr McFerrin  The Bus Stop, Vicksburg  Five months out this one feels like a fever dream:  did it really happen?  An invite-only rural hootenanny, camping on site allowed, on the land of a man named Ted, deep deep in the center of a country square mile down the longest driveway that wasn't a private road I have ever seen. A ramshackle stage in front of a broken down bus, assorted other structures supporting sound equipment and food prep, camping under the trees, a road that turned to treacherous mud as the rains came late: and a whole lot of colorful Kalamazoo music and musicians. I pulled up while Kevin Hamman's pickup band, Sharp Dressed Men, were in progress, a friendly Frankenstein beast powered primarily by Jacob Rollins' prodigious blues guitar. Rodger Osborn was a hoarse old coot with a fiddle, happy as a clam to be upright and making music. Mike List is a musical iceberg, a wild-grown John Hiatt who will surprise you every time. Charlie Mench is another happy old coot, with some nifty countrified originals and a panoply of squeals. Carrie joined him on a song about a sentimental auction.  Danny Staggs gave me the creeps:  this could be totally unfair, but he felt like a dude who has struck a woman in anger.  All his songs were about fucking up, getting fucked up, or both. Melissa Mae was cheerfully folky, but five months out, I can't remember anything at all:  sorry Melissa.  Ryan and Lisa, at the beginning of a partnership that has been paying melodic dividends, meshed well together, her alluringly sleepy voice playing well with his lightning fingerpicking. Desi Taylor, a former fixture on the scene who went away for a while, was a sunny singer/guitarist with a folky/funny/earnest point of view. Dooley did not seem to be having a good day, but it did not show in her performance:  consummately professional, tuneful, and augmented by the slide guitar of Mike List, who along with Pete Weir is Strange Country.  I THINK Jeremy Rilko was with them on bass yet here, before he buggered off to the south, but my memory is weak. Borr and McFerrin did their thing, their countryish, bluesish, harmonyish thing, her yin and his yang gettin' the job done.  There were two more acts, Blue Veins and Smoke and Whiskey, but I was exhausted and had to make sure I could drive home safely.  Thanks to Aaron Helmer for the invitation, and to all the fine folks I met or met again out in the middle of nowhere.

5 25 19  May Erlewine #16  Founders, Grand Rapids  A good time was had, I'm sure...? I can't remember much.  Not as raucous and joyful as a Motivations show, not as solemn as a Mother Lion show (or the Second Sight show I just saw in October).  I made note of one new song, Make Use, an unusually slinky one for May, but otherwise this one is lost to the mists of my poor recall.

5 31 19  The Crane Wives #69  The Livery, Benton Harbor  I remember less about the music at this one than about the hangin' out. I had just committed to buying a house in Muskegon, and was comparing notes with the homeowners and renters in the band. When you go see someone play 69 times in 41 months, you either become friendly or they get a restraining order.  I seem to remember some seldom aired classics coming out to play in this longer-than-usual show, a nice treat.  Might even have been a wild Margaret.

5 31 19  Olivia & The Playboys #26  New Holland Brewing, Holland  The late start at New Holland made catching most of this show possible after the Wives an hour down the road.  This was a mongrel band, with the Frenchtown Playboys (Brandon, Adam, Erik McIntyre, Ben Green) matching their twenties cool-cat style to Olivia Mainville's happy-goth tunes.  The cats sometimes refused to be herded, the musical jokes visibly ruffling Olivia's feathers, but fun was had before a rapidly dwindling audience of Holland douchecanoes.  (Let's make that a thing.)