Lexington is eclectic. We should call it “eclextic”
Thursday, November 11
Boy Without God, The Nativity Singers, and The Fervor
Green Lantern, 9 P.M.
We sometimes imagine, when we listen to an artist for the first time, that what we’re hearing is an entirely new sort of music, that these new songs were spontaneously generated in the songwriter’s id, called forth from some prehistoric memory involving stone mallets and stretched mammoth hide.
The best songwriters do this routinely; these are the compositions that seem to have been there all along, that sound great played by any instrument, sung by any singer, and recorded in any era. This is why there are hundreds of recorded cover versions of “Yesterday,” and why Holland, Dozier, and Holland dominate every waiting room, elevator, and hotel lobby in the English-speaking world. The kind of tune that isn’t just another rock song, or soul song, or folk song, and isn’t tied to a particular time or place.
But these songs weren’t spun from the ether. Artists are the sum of their influences, though it’s often hard to distinguish what those influences are, so smoothly are they blended: the magic of songcraft.
Gabriel Birnbaum, who has performed solo on record as Boy Without God, but has now assembled a raucous rhythm section to back him, blends his influences by stripping them to their essences—to their moods, really. For example “Reason,” a cut from the band’s upcoming album, begins with raw, off-key vocals over a gentle folk progression, and the bittersweet result sounds like something sung by a man just paroled from a long stint in the state pen: there’s hope, but you’re not sure if you remember how to find it.
Then some curious things happen. There’s a B section, with close, ragged harmonies of the sort mastered by The Band and Three Dog Night, and before we know what’s happened, there’s an anthemic chorus with horns and an elaborate singalong melody that resembles an Irish drinking song or ancient sea shanty as much as it does post-rock. Then a stuttering guitar solo in the outro and we’re swaying along to Van Morrison’s closing number on an especially besotted evening.
It’s transporting stuff, and proof that songcraft and low-fi can inhabit the same space. The Nativity Singers and The Fervor, of Lexington and Louisville respectively, help set the mood. —Keith Halladay
Saturday, November 13
Ben Sollee and Justin Lewis
Al’s Bar, 9 P.M.
Ben Sollee’s work is often described in earthy and pastoral terms. The title of his first full album, Learning to Bend, references not only the beautifully manipulative cello skills on display in most Sollee compositions, but also the album’s sense of pastoral emplacement, of learning to make expansive art out of knowledge of environment, out of making do within limits: in short, the music of bending and plucking and of learning to bend and pluck. If Sollee’s described as earthy, in part it’s because the sounds his cello produces tend to mimic the soundscapes of the places his songs evoke.
In this, Sollee is reminiscent of John Hartford, another songwriter/composer often described in earthy and pastoral terms. Like Sollee, Hartford was a master at skillfully manipulating his instrument of choice—banjo or fiddle—to pattern his instrument’s rhythms and cadences alongside his own vocal and clog accompaniments. To hear Hartford, a licensed river boat pilot and long-time resident of a house located on the bluffs of the Cumberland River outside Nashville with clear views of its riverboat traffic, was to hear the river as it existed during the roughly century-long era of steamboat travel: the steamboat whistles and speaking cadences; the bluff’s bird calls and the river’s rhythmic lapping against rock, mudbanks or boat decks; the days’ lazy passage into history, watching the river go by, playing music into the night, waiting anxiously for the flood to come in.
Also like Hartford, Ben Sollee can fucking rock it out when he wants to. I was slow on the uptake to this fact. I read the articles in the papers (our included); I saw the cello. I even attended he and Daniel Martin Moore’s CD release “concert” at CD Central this past year, where I was able to hear Sollee as a member of a full, mildly electric, band.
But it wasn’t until the after-party at Institute 193, as he sat in with roots musicians Morgan O’Kane, who were traveling in from Brooklyn. Some time ago, Sollee had played with Morgan O’Kane`while at parties or busking street-corners while living in Brooklyn. Morgan O’Kane play no electric instruments. The banjo player and lead singer sits atop a suitcase repurposed with a foot pedal to provide a counter-beat to the stand-up base. That night in the warm winter retreat of the cozy Institute, un-mic’d Morgan O’Kane rocked the place out. And when Sollee joined the fray for several songs, smacking and picking and rubbing that cello, seemingly laying on it, well….he fucking rocked it out, too.
Here’s hoping Sollee rocks it out, at some point, with Louisville’s Justin Lewis at this Saturday night’s benefit for the Broke Spoke.
Sunday, November 14
The Dresden Dolls w/ Chico Fellini and Ford Theatre Reunion
Busters, 9 P.M.
So I was sitting at home, minding my own business, listening intently to Meshuggah’s recent live album, Alive, when a friend of mine at NoC called and asked for a short preview of the upcoming Dresden Dolls show, November 14th at Buster’s. Not knowing the depth of the puddle of quicksand into which I was about to step, I eagerly agreed and moseyed over to their YouTube site. What I saw was appalling.
The Dresden Dolls are two schtick-laden hipsters, who appear to have forgotten to take their Ritalin, engaged in what at first glance can only be described as a cry for help.
After having suffered through a handful of videos, it dawned on me that this is terrible; but that’s the point. In a very loose sense, art can be described as an action taken in order to provoke emotional and intellectual responses and, even though visceral, The Dresden Dolls have certainly accomplished as much.
In stark contrast to the characteristics that I generally enjoy in music, extreme precision, complex polyrhythms, interesting dynamic and tempo contrasts, and the ability to bang my head without abandon, The Dresden Dolls are the complete opposite. In what might be described as purposeful sloppily played emo, the music takes back seat to their stage act. A chick in a bra playing the piano and a shirtless guy banging haphazardly on a drum set highlight their stage presence, along with their cat-like wailing, pushing both social limits and expectations of what a musical act should be. This is not a group to like for their musicianship, but one to ponder in search of the message they are trying to send; to find against what they protest.
What is it they are challenging? Why? Is this little more than college pretension masquerading as art? Or is there a significant message hidden in their antics? —Christopher Williams
Editor’s note: at this point the “preview” descended into bitter ruminations about the cultural and societal failures The Dresden Dolls embody, and then several paragraphs of anti-government polemic, so we cut it. The editors would like to encourage you, whatever you think of the headliner, to support local artists Chico Fellini and Ford Theatre Reunion.
Friday, November 19
Raquy and the Cavemen
Natasha’s, 9 P.M.
Even if you plugged a cable into the back of your neck, Matrix-style, and programmed yourself with all there is to know about middle-eastern drumming, you still couldn’t get a gig in this band. —Buck Edwards
Monday, November 22
Turdus Musicus, Dead Icons, and The Oxford Farm Report
Cosmic Charlies, 8 P.M.
Over the last couple of years Dead Icons have asserted themselves as one of the region’s tightest, most ferocious hardcore bands, and they’ve reached that point through hard work and an impressive touring schedule. The downside for local fans is that road work for them means fewer shows near us, so it would behoove you, if you like a little unadulterated aggression in your evening’s musical entertainment, to catch them now, before the next trip.
They’re playing with Norwegian four-piece Turdus Musicus, who move between punk and metal with confidence and power, and with The Oxford Farm Report, who move between confidence and power with punk and metal. —KH
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