Live Reviews November/December 2009
Quick-links to sub-sections:
Steve Martin - The Royal Festival Hall, London - 9th November 2009
Steve Earle - The Barbican, London - 4th November 2009
The Flaming Lips - Troxy London - 10th November 2009
The Lost Brothers/Doghouse Roses - Universal Bar, Glasgow - 8th November.
Damien Jurado – Stereo, Glasgow - 5th November 2009
Great Lake Swimmers – Glee Club, Birmingham – 15th November 2009
Steve Earle – Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow - 6th December 2009
Great Lake Swimmers - Jazz Cafe, London - 18th November 2009
Deer Park - The Windmill, Brixton - 8th December 2009
Catherine MacLellan and Gurf Morlix - Jumpin’ Hot Club @ Cluny2, Newcastle - 4th December 2009
| Reviews so far this, er, period for Steve Martin, Steve Earle, the Flaming Lips, The Lost Brothers/Doghouse Roses, Damien Jurado, Great Lake Swimmers, Steve Earle, Deer Park and Catherine MacLellan with Gurf Morlix.
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Steve Martin - The Royal Festival Hall, London - 9th November 2009
Review by Jonathan Aird
It was the worst of times, it was the best of times - in a day in which little had gone right the final throw of fate's dice was to cause me to miss the fast train into London and so, catching the next but slow train, I had only 30 minutes to get across London instead of the planned 55 minutes. Somehow I managed to get to my front row seat just as the support act - Mary Black and her band - were taking the stage. Mary Black - a name I vaguely knew, but was ignorant of her music other than that she sang on one of Steve Martin's compositions on his recent album The Crow. To be honest I sat through the next 30 minutes only because it seemed that there was the faintest slither of a chance that Steve could come out and guest on a song. Mary Black performed music that I can only describe as a blend of evangelical church meets Irish country with a hotel lounge band doing show tunes. Some of the audience seemed to like it, I'd be lying if I said I did. And Steve didn't join them. At least I got my breath back before the main performance.
Steve, in a dapper grey pin stripe suit, with wide trouser legs giving him the appearance of a true country gentleman, and his backing band - The Steep Canyon Rangers - took the stage to a warm greeting and it was soon plain that from here on in we were in for an evening of fine music. The music was going to be Steve's, which in effect means pretty much all of The Crow (much of which actually dates back to The Steve Martin Brothers comedy/banjo album), although he did throw in a few additional tunes not featured there, but more of that anon. If you know the album, and like it, then it was beautifully reproduced, and even bettered in places. A thrill of pure joy ran through me when the opening notes of "Pitkin County Turnaround" rang out - this tune is driven along at great pace but is leavened with a repeated tasty lick - oh, catchy is not the word- it's just banjo perfection.
In order to stretch the material to fit a concert length, Steve threw in a lot of one liners, and there were a few, only slightly stilted, scripted exchanges of repartee with the band members. If anything these added to the old timey feel of the evening, and as the band clustered around the old radio style microphone you almost expected to hear the words "and now from the grand ole opry...". Course, they wouldn't have had songs like "Jubilation Day", Martin's witty goodbye to a "psycho" lover, with the band harmonising on backing vocals, and some great little breaks mixed in.
Midway through the Steep Valley Rangers did a mini-showcase of their own music giving a song off each of their 3 albums, whilst Steve went offstage with a beer he'd retrieved from the back of the upright bass. "There ain't no easy street" and ""Lovin' pretty women" were a pair of bluegrass beauties, and "I can't sit down" was a glorious example of jubilee style gospel singing. This is a band to see in their own right, when the time comes.
Steve returned to the stage musing on the lack of uplifting spiritual music for atheists. There was none ! Until now - as Steve handed out word sheets for the Steep Canyon Rangers and they launched into the hilarious, and rather true, "Atheists only sing the blues", also delivered as a close harmony song. But comedy is all well and good, it can raise the spirits for a moment, but where does it sit next to fine picking ? With Nicky Sanders, the fiddle player (the difference between a violin and a fiddle - you can spill beer on a fiddle) Steve lived out a fantasy inspired by a Flatt and Scruggs album of performing a banjo and fiddle duet. It went so well he did another. And then performed his medley of traditional clawhammer tunes. The tune "Tin Roof", Steve noted, was originally entitled by his wife "When are you going to stop playing that goddamn banjo ?" - funny, but oh so true. I admit it was with a mean-spirited joy that I received the news that the band hadn't had enough time to rehearse with Mary Black, so her vocal on "Calico Train" would be performed by Woody Platt, the guitarist and lead vocalist of the Steep Canyon Rangers. And it was superb.
A highlight amongst so many great moments was "Saga of the old west", an old tune of Steve's which blends in traditional bluegrass stylings with a raga section inspired by Ravi Shanker. It has to be heard to be believed, as it travels on a wild journey across America and declares - it's not the place you think you know, it's older and stranger than you thought. You can easily imagine the consternation it would have caused a '60's traditionalist. It's tunes like this that make me admire Steve Martin's banjo playing - he's not the flashiest player, he's by no means a prolific tunesmith, but what he does write is worth hearing.
Throughout, with all the band getting their solos and with Steve as likely to be in the background as up front this was by no means the vanity project he laughingly made it out to be. It was serious music - and because of that joyful, uplifting, intriguing and intellectually stimulating. And that's what I want from a gig.
The encore began with Steve musing that the only thing missing from the night was a bluegrass song as perfect as “Orange Blossom Special“, and how he'd always wished he'd written it. Then it could have been in the concert. Luckily for us he'd recently had an epiphany - hadn't he, he'd suddenly realised, actually written “Orange Blossom Special” ? Perfect. Followed up with an unexpected pleasure - a bluegrass version of “King Tut” - it's a truly terrible song, but in this arrangement magical and very funny. Called back for a final encore, a new song called "Ignition", Steve insisted this had to be the last because "we don't know any more songs". And it's probably close to the truth - we probably had seen all of Steve's tastiest licks - but what a fine way to spend an evening. At the start of the gig Steve had said "It's been a dream of mine to play banjo on the stage of the Royal Festival hall and tonight I feel one step closer to fulfilling that dream" : let's put modesty aside - Steve, you played banjo. | | Steve Earle - The Barbican, London - 4th November 2009
Review by Jonathan Aird
A bare stage, just monitors, a guitar and a mandolin. A dark backdrop, and a tape of Townes Van Zandt playing. Then Rhett Miller and his guitar appear, keyed up and ready to go, with a hundred songs to sing and twenty five minutes to do it in. Numbers were banged out at a rapid rate, and during "Need to know where I stand" I recognised the voice, but couldn't place it at first, then realised, during "Question", that it was from Scrubs which was further enforced by "Our Love". It's jaunty pop folk, with catchy tunes and lyrical slides and quirks - in "Caroline" Rhett raises the ante on self-destruction, he is not his own worst enemy, no, no, he is his own archenemy. A fine set, sadly curtailed, but he promised, on more than one occasion, to return.
It turns out that Steve Earle has a very strict policy on people wandering back to their seats when he's singing - which is why, like the thirty or so others at each door not allowed back into the auditorium after the world's shortest interval, I get to hear a muffled version of the set's first song - "Where I Lead me". It sounds good, even through the door. There's a charge during the applause, which allows us to regain out seats, and get a first proper view of the man on stage as he launches into "Colorado Girl".
It's a large stage, but Steve Earle has a big enough presence to fill it. Certainly grizzled, bearded like a cross between an old testament prophet and the wildman down from the hills, he is at the heights of his not inconsiderable powers. Yes, Steve Earle keeps The Barbican rapt for nigh on two hours with just acoustic guitar, harmonica, mandolin (translates as "out of tune" he informs us) and a voice who's rasp is like cracked asphalt. Oh, and with great songs; great songs of Townes Van Zandt and great songs of Steve Earle, and somewhere along the line there is a blur to the point that it's hardly possible to tell the one from the other. Interspersed with the songs are anecdotes, mostly about Townes, and not all wholly complimentary but all the truer for it.
Now, a confession, I'd listened to the new album Townes, of course - I even picked up the deluxe version - and I had found myself only half liking it. So much so that I had not yet listened to the bonus disc of acoustic demo tracks. And it was really this that Steve Earle was presenting, and it was truly superb (and - what a surprise - so is that bonus CD). These stripped down versions of Zandt's songs had a real power, their immediacy could even be shocking in a way that is lost with more musically complicated arrangements. And it suits the troubadour image of both men. And to hear these familiar songs really taken hold of live by another singer is a great thing to experience.
"Pancho And Lefty", not kept as I'd guessed for the encore, was the first song recorded for the album - just like going to prison, Steve tells us, you have to knock the biggest guy in the yard down first. With discordant guitar Steve Earle takes the song, shakes it by the scruff of the neck, and throws it down, battered but not defeated. At some gigs you can say "yes, that was it, that made it worthwhile being here", at this gig you'd be found muttering it to yourself all the way through.
About halfway through Steve threw in a few of his own songs - a dramatic "Taneytown" and a dark and brooding "Someday" sounding like a lost outtake from Nebraska.
Obviously over the years Townes Van Zandt had a big influence on Steve Earle. There's a tale of him heckling between songs with requests for Wabash Cannonball at an early performance by Steve in The Old Quarter - "I'm 17, being heckled by my hero" - only finally silenced by Steve singing "Mr Mudd and Mr Gold", which he does again this night with pace and urgency as the cards fly around the table. Then there's the rueful confession, dating to years later, that "You know you're in bad way when you get a temperance talk from Townes Van Zandt". Talking of his love of Zandt's songs and this series of concerts he added that "this album has outsold my last three albums. Do you know how that makes a singer-songwriter feel ?". Bad a prospect as this sounds, Steve Earle's pleasure in the fact is quite clear.
Switching to mandolin heralds a strident "Dixieland" - which pulls off the great trick of sounding a lot older than it is, and is just so beautifully written - followed up with a rousing, joyful "Galway Girl" a nice change of pace for the set, and a necessary lightening of the tone before the gruesome request - "Oh won't you lend your lungs to me, mine are collapsing" takes us right down into the world of pain dished up in "Lungs". A half soothing balm is applied with the closer, "To Live Is To Fly", although the words belie the seeming gentleness of the melody.
The encore gets the audience to participate in Tom Waits' "Way down in the hole", followed up with "Guitar Town" and the perhaps inevitable but none the less very welcome "Copperhead Road". A lengthy standing ovation marks two hours which have simply flown by. As the lights go up the tape of Townes comes back on - "If I needed You", what a joyful way to walk out, and a timely reminder that Townes wasn't one hundred percent downer.
Partial Set List
Were I lead me
Colarado Girl
? How how low ?
Fort Worth Blues
Pancho and Lefty
Brand New Companion
? No one like her ?
My friend the Blues
Someday
Taneytown
Goodbye
Mr Mudd and Mr Gold
Marie
City of Immigrants
Dixieland
Galway Girl
Lungs
To live is to fly
Encore:
Way down in the hole
Guitar Town
Copperhead Road | | The Flaming Lips - Troxy London - 10th November 2009
Review by Oliver Gray
The Troxy used to be a Bingo Hall, but not even back then can it have seen so many balls (in this case, gigantic rubber ones). The traditional opening salvo of “Race For The Prize” compete with its accompanying mayhem, must be one of the greatest rushes rock music has to offer. The audience is up and in a state of hysteria before the show is three minutes old. This is where it actually works brilliantly that the band then boldly presents quite lengthy unfamiliar portions from the new “Embryonic” album, which has a less anthemic, more jamming feel than recent Lips output. This allows the audience some breathing space before a storming “Convinced Of The Hex”, “Yoshimi” and “Do You Realize?” bring us back to fever pitch. Although it is true he owes the UK a debt, there is no real need for Wayne Coyne to make Oscar acceptance speeches between each song. More fun is the falsetto “Thank You” that Steven Drodz uses to acknowledge the adulation. He is the evil genius behind it, after all. | | The Lost Brothers/Doghouse Roses - Universal Bar, Glasgow - 8th November.
Review by Paul Kerr
First time for this reviewer at this venue, a small intimate room and perfect for this type of gig where the players thrive in a small setting allowing every nuance of the performance to be appreciated. Doghouse Roses played first and live are a much earthier proposition than one was led to believe from their album “How’ve You Been All this Time.” Iona Macdonald’s singing is assured and is complemented perfectly by Paul Tasker’s guitar. Tasker, an avowed fan of Bert Jansch played with such dexterity that the arrangements on the album versions of “On the River” and “Gone There” weren’t missed. With traditional songs such as “Wayfaring Stranger” and “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor” thrown in they are an excellent entertainment.
The Lost Brothers ambled on to the stage looking like a bizarre marriage of the Blues Brothers and The Proclaimers with a Belushi lookalike and a preppy spectacled partner. In reality however they must be the secret love children of Simon and Garfunkel such is their way with a song. With eyes closed one could imagine you were in a sixties club listening to classics from Bookends. While they played tribute to classic forebears (a great delivery of The Everly’s All I Have to do is Dream and a breathtaking version of Ricky Nelson’s Lonesome Town) their own songs stand up to comparison. From their album “Dream No More,” “Wake Me Up“ and “City of the Rose” impressed with excellent harmony singing. A new song “Don’t Wanna Run Anymore” had some of the pathos of Lonely Town but the highlight was “Under the Turquoise Sky “ with a climatic thrash of guitars under slightly psychedelic lyrics. A great little gig. | | Damien Jurado – Stereo, Glasgow - 5th November 2009
Review By Mike Ritchie
Rarely have songs so dark, desperate and disheartening sounded so good. On a night when fireworks erupted in the night sky over Glasgow, Damien Jurado treated those gathered in this subterranean venue in a dark, city centre lane to a depressing and fulsome litany of stark topics - fractured human beings, lost causes, evil and untreatable heartache. And it was just great, quite uplifting, to be honest.
Jurado connected immediately with his audience, his distinct voice and careful guitar playing creating shades of darkness and, well, more darkness. Live, more so than on his albums, his voice is more penetrating and beguiling with hints at times, for me at any rate, of Richard Thompson, Robert Fisher and even Nick Drake. Record label stable mate, Jason Molina seems to be in the sounds’ mix, too.
No-one else could inhabit his songs like him, though, that’s for sure. Ghost of David, Ohio, What Were The Chances from the scintillating CD “And Now That I’m In Your Shadow” are graphic songs that compelled you to listen. Resistance was futile.
By his own admission, he can’t write upbeat tunes so it was amusing that he can be deadpan funny between his songs, none of them noted for their witty one-liners. On The Killer, which came towards the end of the set, he spat out the vocals about a prisoner, possibly, on the run with dogs and guns in pursuit. The tension carried the lyrics and the gentle strumming kept the words unremittingly in sight.
Jurado’s style is simple, beguiling and difficult to fault. This was the latest in an impressive list of gigs promoted by Synergy Concerts and, the artiste told us, it was a year to the day since he last played in the city. If he fancies making it an annual event, anyone at this show would be glad to turn up again for more of the same. | | Great Lake Swimmers – Glee Club, Birmingham – 15th November 2009
Review by Jeremy Searle
As Great Lake Swimmers take the stage there is no hint of the magic that is about to be performed. A fairly anonymous looking bunch, they set themselves up, leader Tony Dekker gives a sotto voce “1, 2, 3, 4” and then it happens. Music of shimmering beauty pours out of the speakers and fills the room with plaintive sweetness. That may appear to be an over-adjectived and over the top sentence but really, it is like that. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is making music this beautiful right now. Dekker writes like a god and sings like a broken down angel and he has a band that’s as good as his songs, with the dobro player in particular driving the sound along perfectly.
The bands best known song, “Pulling On A Line”, appears early on and it’s a measure of the rest of the set that, superb though it is, it’s not the best moment of the night. That accolade is shared between an ineffable “She Comes To Me In Dreams”, the diptych of “Moving Pictures, Silent Films” and “Unison Falling Into Harmony” (the first and last songs the band recorded) and Dekker’s solo cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case Of You”, the last achieving the near-impossible feat of being as good as the original.
As perfect melody after perfect melody flows through the room, accompanied by intelligent and thoughtful lyrics that simply demand attention the audience will the evening not to end. But end it does, and after a mere two encores the band are gone. Outside it’s a cold, windy and dark Sunday night but that doesn’t matter, for the warmth and perfection of this gig will last for a lot longer than a mere season. | | Steve Earle – Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow - 6th December 2009
Review By Mike Ritchie
A truly admirable and incontestable quality about Steve Earle is that you never get less than total performance commitment, whether he’s playing steamingly flat-out with The Dukes or solo in the spotlight for an acoustic set such as this.
And as he kicked off his self-styled “world tour of Scotland” heavily promoting this year’s “Townes” tribute CD, it’s clear he’s a man dedicated to his craft, to his views and to his supporters. “Take care” he told us at the end of a mesmerising two-hour set, a glorious mixture of the songs of Townes Van Zandt and his own - and for my money - Earle’s songs edge my personal superiority award.
Two men were being celebrated on stage, one very much alive, bringing to life the songs and words of a man who meant so much to him. Clearly, Earle has learned so much through his association with Van Zandt, not so much an official teacher/pupil relationship, more a shared love of hell raising and storytelling. That Earle pulled himself back from the edge of booze, drug and serial bridegroom oblivion to create his pungent, rocky, rootsy, bluesy bag of songs that we can share is something we should all truly give thanks for.
It also took guts to undertake the “Townes” project. When you admire someone so much as Earle did his mentor, he would have been crushed had the outcome not been a positive one. The 15 tracks have been critically well-received, even if he pretended to be aghast that this CD has sold more than his last three records and the emotional effect that had on a singer/songwriter.
Impossible to pick the best from a flawless set list, but Pancho and Lefty, Colorado Girl, Brand New Companion and the ultra scary Lungs would have had Earle’s hero on his feet in appreciation, of that there could be no doubt. Each was delivered with sensitivity, drive, emotion and all underpinned by that ultra important ingredient of hardcore troubadour stardust.
He slotted in his own songs including My Old Friend The Blues, Copperhead Road and a whole load of others plus a Down In the Hole sing-along that would have raised the Barrowland roof but not this posh venue’s – but I won’t have another pop at that subject.
With the promise of a new album next year sometime, he left us, not for the first time, longing for more. A new album will mean a return to Scotland, won’t it? Bound to. | | Great Lake Swimmers - Jazz Cafe, London - 18th November 2009
Review by Jonathan Aird
Originally advertised as at The Scala, presumably ticket sales were strong enough to make it worthwhile transferring to the slightly larger Jazz Cafe. Although I'd bought a ticket for the more intimate venue, it was odds on I'd have been going in any case. Great Lake Swimmers were a band I stumbled across - Ongiara had been on a record shop listening post - and I was completely transported by the album’s acoustic earnestness, and since then they‘ve been on my “must see“ list.
The opening band was Sleeping States, a Bristolian duo who are in need of a full band. Then they wouldn't have to mess around playing 5 second solos and drum parts and then looping them. For me, this is endlessly dull. Although the male singer had a voice that would carry a folk song, what we had here were aural landscapes and stream of consciousness lyrics. It'd been a long day, I was weary, so once I'd been numbed by possibly the dullest bass line I've ever heard, Sleeping States finally left me comatose. Cheap shot ? Hell yeah, but who said I wasn't allowed the occasional cheap shot ?
Great Lakes Swimmers arrived on stage to be greeted by a very full Jazz Cafe. As well as Tony Decker there were four others in the band tonight, pedal steel/mandolin, electric guitar/banjo, drums, upright bass. Dressed in a uniform of checked shirts, except for Decker who sported a natty cowboy shirt, they were every inch the country band. Opening with the fragile crystalline beauty of Let's Trade Skins, there was magic from the first - but sometimes you had to focus hard to get it. Whilst it's a good thing that there's a sizable audience for Canadian folk tinged country, or maybe country tinged folk, I do have one question - why must they talk through the whole gig ?
Fortunately amongst the delicate songs so easily dispersed by a faint breath of wind, there were also somewhat more robust songs - Everything Is Moving So Fast was just sublime, the set closer I Am Part Of A Large Family with its syncopated chorus kicked along in fine fettle. She Comes To Me In Dreams almost counts as a full band rock out, and The Chorus In The Underground swung along with lively banjo accompaniment. Of course, in a set drawing heavily on the albums Ongiara and Lost Channels there were plenty of quiet moments as well - perhaps the finest being Your Rocky Spine, where the wonderful interplay of banjo and voice raised the hairs on the back of the neck.
Tony Decker did two solo spots, mid-set and the finale encore. A treasured moment came with him performing Concrete Heart, conjuring up images of wandering around Toronto and sights of the ever present CN Tower in particular. It was written, Decker explained, as part of a city sponsored tribute to its architecture, but it worked out so well that it made the album. These solo spots provided that necessary stillness that his music, oh so gently, demands.
Throughout wonderful music, serious and thoughtful lyrics, this was a gig which touched special on several occasions. | | Deer Park - The Windmill, Brixton - 8th December 2009
Review by James Dufficy
On Saturday night, Deer Park were welcomed back into the scuzzy – sorry, Bohemian – arms of the Windmill, Brixton, opening for Subpop band, the Fruit Bats.
This was the first time I’ve seen Deer Park as a proper grown-up band – having witnessed their birth as an acoustic solo act and subsequent evolution into a trio – and they are a powerful force for good. The sound is sui generis, but the Hold Steady and the National fit in there somewhere, and early Springsteen – but not as pastiche, more as religious conviction!
With the addition of new guitarist Dean Ramsay (tentatively feeling his way through one or two solos), the sound has been eminently fleshed out and lead singer and songwriter Mark Grassick was unleashed as a rhythm guitarist par excellence. It was all tethered together neatly by Ian Olney’s elegant bass and Simon Oldham’s spare drumming.
They bravely started the set with The Final Fall, a haunting if somewhat downbeat new song, and the rest of the numbers hailed from the debut album, a mix of fast and slow but all exploring Grassick’s Celtic obsession with drunkenness, depravity, and the notion of sin. Highlights included 1961, a love song steeped in Cold War paranoia, and Nails, an intense ballad which always scares the shit out of me.
No covers, which was a pity because in his days as a lone troubadour, Grassick did exquisite versions of Sin City and (believe it or not) Dancing in the Dark. I wonder if they take requests ... | | Catherine MacLellan and Gurf Morlix - Jumpin’ Hot Club @ Cluny2, Newcastle - 4th December 2009
Review by Maurice Hope
It was the second time in a year that Texas-based, Buffalo New York State raised multi-talent Gurf Morlix played Newcastle and the Jumpin’ Hot Club —his other gig at the Cluny had seen Morlix in top form as he came of age, both musically and as a live performer. Entertaining and sharp throughout his gig at Cluny2, a smaller and intimate listening room is perfect for singer-songwriters and for that matter any act. Catherine MacLellan who was aided by mandolinist and harmony vocalist Gabriel Minnikin was also was back in town after an impressive debut a year previous, and didn’t she show great mastery of her trade. With her free flowing melodies coupled with a voice that vies between honey sweet and an outpouring of emotion. As on a song she wrote for her late father, songwriter Gene MacLellan entitled ‘Flowers on Your Grave’, while for her most impressive material you had the superb ‘Take A Break’ (a song about planting potatoes, I kid you not) and ‘Water In the Ground’ (the title track from her most recent album is one of the prettiest songs I have heard in a long time and what a killer melody it has).
With her in good humour, since this was her last gig of the tour and she was soon to be on her way back home to Prince Edward Island and be back with her young daughter and partner. On sharing stories about having a ‘Snow Day’ and a new composition she has written about the people who are forced to move away to find work ‘Place I Know’ —that had Minnikin play some especially fine mandolin (even better than usual). He was wonderful aid to her guitar and songs and he is no mean vocalist too —this it ensured Maclellan’s work gained the presentation it deserved. Not least been a heartfelt ‘Isabel’s Song’ written for her daughter and for their curtain call she again choose wisely, what better than her father’s famed (a world-wide hit for Anne Murray) composition, ‘Snowbird’.
Morlix may well have repeated some of the same stories as he had the last time I saw him, but those in the audience cared little, while the others just could not get enough of him. Whether it was his great songs, as featured on his album Last Exit To Happyland that deserves a slot in my top ten records of the year and yours too.
Gurf’s rough-hewn vocals are of a kind that draws the listener to the lyrics, and to top it off his superb work on guitar, some beautiful finger picking included were enough to ensure the listener hung on to every lick. Plus, there was the small mater of his foot-bass that, alongside his tapping of his other foot on an amplified piece of plywood had him his own one-man rhythm section to flesh out an already full sound.
Superb to the degree it was addictive, his stories that, like his music just get better spoke mainly of his late friend (and an album he has put out called Cold Cold World of his music) and wayward talent Blaze Foley and there was one that also featured another lost soul, late Texas singer-songwriter legend Townes Van Zandt. Once sat down Morlix launched into the hard and bruising ‘One More Second’ that was immediately followed by ‘Walkin’ To New Orleans’ —that took the listener into the heart of hurricane Katrina as the character in the song battled his way back to the city. It was rock solid fare, and though vocalist Patty Griffin who sings on the album wasn’t present ‘I Got Nothin’ like with ‘The Voice Of Midnight’ it suffered little as Gurf won himself over a bunch of new followers. I have yet to meet anyone who wouldn’t be blow away by the fabulous ‘Drums Of New Orleans’!
With no let up in standard, Morlix slipped through the likes of a new song I took to be called ‘Born To Breath’ and ‘Madalyn Bones’; an intriguing song concerning the life of atheist leader Madalyn Murphy. ‘A foul-mouthed woman who had an agenda and succeeded in having prayer thrown out of schools in the 1960s, and in her death was ironically given a Christian burial by her son who was once of her belief or should that be disbelief).
As for his guitar work and the solid rhythm he produced it was exemplary. One other heady moment was the occasions he demonstrated the great art of finger picking style guitar playing. ‘Music You Mighta Made’ that he wrote for Foley and Blaze’s own wacky, Roger Miller-esque tune ‘Wouldn’t That Be Nice’ underlined this. It was one of those nights as the audience wandered off afterwards drooling over the music and if having been in the company of a man who until the last year or so was best known as a producer of fabulous albums by Lucinda Williams, Slaid Cleaves, Mary Gauthier, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Tom Russell, and Hot Club Of Cowtown etc.
It still left the likes of his working of ‘Milk Cow Blues’ with more mighty guitar licks plus, the blues song ‘Crazy About My Jelly Roll’ that saw the audience held in awe at Morlix’s wondrous acoustic guitar work.
Yes, you could say I am pleased Gurf is now making waves as a recording act in his own right! |
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