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| The Tropicals at the Hoot - Photo by Stacy Schwartz |
Some nights sneak up on you like the earth’s shadow creeps across the moon. In a week of eclipses, full and harvest moons, Friday night came across slow and strong, full of great local and national music.
The night started at Jim Walsh’s Mad Ripple Hootenany in the basement of Java Jack’s, a weekly decompression/communion of song. Walsh had promised earlier that it would be “one for the ages” and it was definitely a good one. On stage were Walsh, Hoot regular Jeaneen Gauthier and the re-united Tropicals. The Tropicals consist of Peter Lawton (just named KS95’s “Teacher of the Week”) and Craig Wright, a transplanted writer who is now a TV heavy hitter writing for Dirty Sexy Money and others. Jan played some of her sweet songs and Walsh chimed in. Brianna Lane, who was sitting onstage knitting, was cajoled into playing “Porchlight” a Hoot favorite.
The Tropicals were hilarious, bantering back and forth with Walsh, cracking jokes about old shows and playing punky songs with a humorous edge, Wright on vocals and Lawton on guitar and high harmony. A lot of the badmouthing revolved around Dan Wilson, who was rumored to be coming and whose single “Free Life” had been featured on Dirty Sexy Money earlier in the season. Wilson did eventually show, as Walsh was riling him up that Trip Shakespeare was a better band than Semisonic. The first song Wilson played was the aforementioned “Free Life” the title track of his recently released CD. It is a beautiful song, played loosely and skillfully, and the crowd joined in on the chorus, “What you gonna spend your free life on?” Singing together is an integral part of the Hoot and this song touches that need. People have reacted surprisingly, Wilson noted, saying things like, “We may be in a bad place, but I feel like something good is going to happen.” And therein lies the heart of the Friday night gatherings.
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| St. Vincent - Photo by Stacy Schwartz |
Dipping out early, photographer Stacy Schwartz and I made our way to the main event of the night, St. Vincent and Foreign Born at the Cedar Cultural Center. The Cedar can sometimes feel like a town-hall meeting, its institutional green walls and folding chairs keeping people fixed in place. As we entered, Foreign Born were in the middle of a heavy jam that would not have sounded out of place on an early Rolling Stones disc, with lead singer/acoustic guitar player Matt Popieluch shaking and bending in an out-of-control skiffle. The audience however, was still as could be, as if waiting for a Quaker prayer meeting.
The L.A.-based band were undeterred, working through numbers from their recent Dim Mak release On the Wing Now and also some unreleased material. Their sound had hints of Okkervil Riverand The Walkmen and they were game throughout their set, with surf-punk guitar riffs and solid rhythm featuring the currently en vogue conga drums (see Yeasayer, Vampire Weekend.) They closed with the chant-y “Union Hall” and thanked the audience, who gave them warm applause. Speaking to Popieluch after, he said that he didn’t mind the seated audience and appreciated the attentiveness, since most of the time people at bars just stand around anyway. Fair enough, I should know better by now than to expect everyone to dance.
The seated nature of the audience made me nervous for St. Vincent’s set. The last two times I have seen her in the Cities, she was at the Entry, where people switched between body shaking and gazing up adoringly. If you have not seen Annie Clark (St. Vincent head honcho and former guitarist for The Polyphonic Spree) know this – her sly, pixie look and gamine attitude will wrap your heart in warmth and cut it quick with a wink.
Any fears about the venue were misplaced. Clark travels with an orchestra of three (Walker Adams on drums, David Hart on violin, Billy Flynn on “everything”) and has been busy over this winter re-orchestrating and composing interstitial music to keep herself entertained. Violin player Hart said after the show “basically, Annie was bored, and wanted to see what she could do.” Hart and Clark have been making music together for about eight years now in different capacities, and they are tightly tuned in together.
The show opened with violin strains through a pitch pedal, a gypsy Space Odyssey noise that broke into a time-and-a-half version of “Now, Now.” Clark seemed determined to blow open everyone’s ears right away, and the explosive transition between languorous orchestration and frenetic virtuosity marked the rest of the show. She played most of the material from her Beggar’s Banquet full-length debut Marry Me masterfully, but the two standouts of the show were her solo cover of the Beatles’ “Dig a Pony” and the previously released “Paris is Burning.”
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| St. Vincent - Photo by Stacy Schwartz |
“Dig a Pony” saw the band leave the stage midway through the set and Clark go off on her own. Her voice simmered between her regular microphone and the distortion of her tin-can radio mic she also uses on stage. Stepping away from the microphones, she would tear up and down her guitar, stomping and jerking her way through bending and beautiful chords. “Paris is Burning” was a full orchestral effort, the boldest arrangement I have heard yet. The song encapsulated the pulse of her stage show, opening with looming violins and keys for the verses and then transitioning to a roar in the chorus, punctuated by a zip down the frets from Clark’s guitar as she moved to the old-timey mic.
Dispensing with leaving the stage, she played the encore immediately to the crowd giving her a standing ovation. Her solo rendition of “What Me Worry?” was a perfect capstone to the show, a coy and candied song with the lyrics, “What me worry? I never do / Life is one charming ruse for us lucky few.” As she sang and closed, “I’m outta here,” we were those lucky few.
Consider that the full moon reappeared, and on full moon nights, strange and wonderful things happen. There was more music to be had, this time from up-and-coming local band Plastic Chord, who were closing the night out at the ExerciseEXORCISE performance series. They played a stripped down set, and by stripped down, I mean only five of eight members were present and they only used 10 instruments. With horns, an organ and guitars, as well as percussion from a xylophone, drumset and assorted kitchen utensils, they made a Beirut-like clatter based around the melodies of frontman Orion Treon. They recently released their Colonial Conundrum full-length and played a number of tracks that are not part of their usual stage show. Closing with “Thang Goin’ On” the drums and xylophone played complementing rhythms as Treon and the band built up the rattle and verve, proving that indeed they do have some thang goin’ on, that indeed these nights and these cities do.
Mad Ripple Hootenanny: myspace.com/madripplemusic
Dan Wilson: danwilsonmusic.com
Foreign Born: myspace.com/foreignborn
St. Vincent: ilovestvincent.com
Plastic Chord: myspace.com/plasticchord2
Now, Now.
Jesus Saves, I spend
All My Stars Are Aligned
Human Racing
Landmines
Dig a Pony (Beatles)
Marry Me John
Paris is Burning
Your Lips Are Red
What Me Worry?
Location Info:
Java Jack's
Artist Info: Dan Wilson, Foreign Born, Plastic Chord, St. Vincent, The Mad Ripple, The Tropicals
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