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Soulsavers at the Independent, San Francisco
Soulsavers
September 9th at the Independent, San Francisco
Soulsavers produce hypnotic rock music, made thick by various components: Guitars, strings, orchestral accents, electronic beats, keyboard sequences, and vocal harmonies, threaded together by glossy studio production and the common vision of Rich Machin and Ian Glover. Live, however, the Soulsavers are more stripped down. Whereas their tour last year included two gospel singers to round out the lush tapestry that was It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s the Way You Land, this touring ensemble to promote their newest album, Broken, is vocally driven by the contribution of Mark Lanegan (with the other instrumentalists carrying some duties as well). Lanegan, of course, is a battered old soul, a man whose presence unfurls with a signature guttural voice, one that ultimately ends up carrying whatever project he happens to be currently lending a hand to. And the projects have been many. Lanegan’s music career began way back in the early ’80s with the pioneering Seattle grunge of the Screaming Trees, and has made its way through many incarnations and experiments and projects, one of his latest being Soulsavers. But Lanegan could be singing alongside a single acoustic guitar or commanding an entire orchestra, and still he’d be the central force. When he walked on stage at the Independent, a quiet, revered cheer from the crowd accompanied his entrance, but in true Lanegan style, he didn’t show an inkling of emotion, that strong, war-torn grimace cloaking his face in between heavy lyrical utterances of spirituality and crushing loss. Sigh… how I do love thee.
Even without those righteous gospel ladies of yesteryear in attendance, they still did beautiful, albeit slightly less spine-tingling, renditions of their older material, including “Kingdoms of Rain”, “Spiritual”, “Ghosts of You and Me”, and an encore performance of “Revival”, as well as a slow, striking cover of ZZ Top’s “Jesus Just Left Chicago.” Their new album was most deftly showcased, and while Lanegan and company could likely tell that their audience wasn’t quite fully satiated upon the end of their short set, it was only with a backwards glance and a quick thank you mumbled by Lanegan as they walked off the stage that they gave us our final parting. Soulsavers could’ve gone for miles but I suppose the way we were left grasping at straws that had already risen into the night was the only way to accept the absence of their departure.
In the Pines: Big Sur Festival ‘09
In the Pines: Big Sur Festival ’09
August 29th at the Henry Miller Library, Big Sur
Any trip I’ve ever taken to Big Sur has been laced with the notion that I will be graced with some sort of life-affirming experience. The literary works that have come out of that place—from Henry Miller to Jack Kerouac—have long placed that sort of mystique around one of the most naturally beautiful places on earth. So, mix that with a music festival featuring a number of folk, metal, prog-rock, noise, lo-fi, and psych rock bands of the moment at the Henry Miller Library (a little cabin with an intimate space that comfortably fits 200 situated in a redwood grove), and I couldn’t help but idealize the possibilities. Books, music, nature… I mean, c’mon.
Inside the library itself, from the ceiling, hangs a note from Mr. Miller himself asking all those who come through the gates to leave their psychoses and neuroses there at the door. I have to laugh every time I think about that now, because if there was any distinguishable collective energy that hung prominently in the late-August day air (temperatures reached into the 100s), it was largely a standoffish one for such an intimate and beautiful setting. And while I must attribute some of the aloofness to the stifling heat beating we all received, the communing aspect of my aforementioned ideals was nonexistent. The local hippie working the beer tap was projecting a cooler-than-thou edge. Pasty rocker types slunk back into the shade, looking cool but not cool (an applicable metaphor perhaps?). Neither pot nor even smiles were exchanged and/or shared. Many New Yorkers made the trek out for this affair—Brooklyn-based record label Mexican Summer put on the show with FolkYeah—and there was even a sighting of Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold in the crowd. It was quite the scene indeed. With Outside Lands happening just a few hours away in San Francisco, it felt like this was Outsider Lands, a sort of protest festival to those somewhat mass appeal proceedings. And even if most everyone in attendance was fashioned like the ’60s were alive and well, that era couldn’t have felt further in the past. The unfriendliness was a real bummer. A Mexican Bummer.
Pete Yorn at the Fillmore, San Francisco
Pete Yorn, The Brothers Comatose
August 24th at the Fillmore, San Francisco
Remember that summer by the Jersey Shore? You know, the one when you thought you were going to “lose it” to your blonde girlfriend in a beach bungalow? And then, out of a four- or five-foot wave came crawling some good looking gila monster of a beach bum and it slithered over for your blonde baby? And you stared aghast from the bungalow in the middle of blending some fruity margaritas, frozen at the prospect of this beefy dude with bushy hair rubbing suntan lotion all over her back? And by the time you and your melting margaritas and faded fantasies made it back down to the beach, he was serenading her with his guitar? And she told you to get lost and rode off in his Woody, leaving you with two pathetic margaritas to cry into? Well, that guy was, maybe, probably, Pete Yorn. He is the dude that steals your girlfriend with slick renderings of love songs. His music is too proficient to criticize and too slick to trust. His band is exceptional, their stage demeanor and instrument changes professional and timed to a tee. Oh, and they sure can woo a crowd. The pop and rock was bathing the multitudes and pricking them with a hint o’ twang. But for my money, the real charmers were the Brothers Comatose, who played upstairs in the lounge in-between sets and laid the twang on thick, with rhythmic mandolin and guitar, shredded banjo, and exceptional fiddle-fied violin and melodic upright bass. They were the honest gentleman’s scuffed leather, an antidote to the shoe-polish show downstairs. And I can’t imagine that band of outback brothers and one sister cruising the beach for blonde babies. The lake, maybe, but not the beach.
This Week’s Record Releases: March 22, 2010
by: Mike Conklin
So you’re back from Austin, yeah? Or at least you’re done hating all your friends who were in Austin eating tacos and getting drunk while you were sitting at home hanging out in the same stupid bars as ever or sitting at home watching to same stupid television shows as ever, yeah? Great, now let us get back to work.
She & Him – Volume Two
Fond as I am of Scarlett Johansson (and I am quite fond of Scarlett Johansson), it pleases to no end that her foray into the world of music—first with the album of Tom Waits covers, then with the album of duets with the dreadful Pete Yorn—has been nowhere near as successful as the diminutive and unassuming indie-rock trophy-wife (of Ben Gibbard, actually) Zooey Deschanel. Her She and Him project—in which M. Ward provides instrumental backing—has now yielded two albums full of absolutely irresistible retro-pop songs that pull brilliantly from the Brill Building/girl-group sound and quaint country & western. In addition to all that, the new album features a slightly more grownup sounds of late-‘60s California folk-rock. It comes as a bit of a surprise that Deschanel’s voice is strong enough to go beyond cutesy, obviously heartstring-pulling stuff, but she pulls it off relatively effortlessly.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Bill Callahan — Rough Travel for a Rare Thing
One of the problems with seeing Bill Callahan, who formerly recorded under the Smog moniker, is that no one anywhere has any idea how the fuck to act when the person they presumably paid good money to see perform live puts on a relatively quiet show. It happens all the time: People fucking chat and blabber endlessly and scream at bartenders and laugh like morons and don’t turn the ringers off on their phone. It’s a bit of a drag, to say the least. Good news, then, that the Austin-based songwriter is set to release his first-ever live album, Rough Travel for a Rare Thing, on which you can actually hear his every word, his every carefully picked guitar note. It’s beautiful and intense and it features his impossibly slowed-down version of “In the Pines”, the old standard people sometimes pretend they knew before Nirvana Unplugged.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
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by: Mike Conklin
published: March 22, 2010
in column: Reviews, What Goes On
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