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November 21, 2005

* "haven't given up on it yet, i don't want you to quit..."

Been meaning to drop a brief note about this record into the blog for awhile now, and was reminded of it when compiling my list of top-20 records of 2005 for our upcoming annual ND Critics' Poll (which will appear in our Jan-Feb issue, as usual). The record I'm speaking of is Jon Nolan's When The Summers Lasted Long -- which you may have heard if you're the type that pays close watch to the alt-country DIY underground, but otherwise you probably haven't.

I was planning on writing a brief review of this disc for the magazine myself, but we ended up having Scott Brodeur do a short Town & Country piece on Nolan instead (which you may have seen in our current Nov-Dec issue). Still, I wanted to chip in my own couple cents worth about it, for whatever purpose it may serve.

This one surprised me a bit, maybe because I took Nolan a little too much for granted. I'd seen his old band, Say Zuzu, in Boston over the holidays a few years back, and while they were certainly an enjoyable and talented regional act, I'd never quite felt that electric connection with their music myself, the kind that makes you just want to listen to a band's record over and over. I got to know a couple of the band's members a little bit through their participation in the Yahoo ND discussion board, and came to greatly appreciate their knowledge and humor and just their general attitude toward their musical adventures.

When they called it quits a year or two ago, it was no huge surprise, as they seemed one of those bands destined to have their day and then move on with their lives. Lots of great bands have had those kinds of runs -- some of my very favorites, indeed. That's pretty much the eventual reality for 99% of the folks who give it a go with rock 'n' roll, even the very good ones; and really, that's just fine, in the long run.

Jon Nolan and I had a nice discussion at SXSW last year that was somewhat along those lines; I remember reciting my spiel (borrowed/learned many years ago from my colleague Don McLeese) about how "the music must be its own reward." No doubt Jon figured that out a good while ago, even if there might have been moments when Say Zuzu seemed to have a shot at bigger things.

Anyhow, what I wasn't prepared for was to slip Jon's solo record into the CD player several months later, when it arrived in the mail, and be totally charmed by what I heard. Indeed, this was that kind of connection I mentioned above, and I did in fact listen to When The Summers Lasted Long over and over. It's not a "big" record, or any kind of stylistic breakthrough, or any huge diversion from what he'd done previously with his old band; what it is, simply, is eight well-written, well-played, well-sung, well-recorded roots-pop tunes -- especially "Mary (Won't You Come Along?)", from which both this blog entry's subject-line and the album's title are lifted. True enough, it would've sounded right at home on the AM airwaves back in those days when the summers lasted long. I tip my hat to Mr. Nolan for taking me back to that place; to be sure, this music is its own reward.

Posted by Peter at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 8, 2005

* "i will hang my hat in the hall of the big house..."

A couple nights ago I heard Caitlin Cary & Thad Cockrell sing out those words -- from the last track of their recent duets album Begonias -- and they cast a whole different spell than they ever had previously. That's because Thad & Caitlin were standing in the corner of my living room, performing with their band at a house concert that my wife Lisa & I had arranged for them at our place in Poulsbo outside of Seattle.

The root of this extends back to the North Carolina Triangle area, where Lisa & I had attended many house concerts in recent years before we relocated to Poulsbo in 2004. In Chapel Hill and Durham especially, and to a slightly lesser extent in Raleigh, house concerts were quite plentiful; indeed, some of the best Americana artists, both local and touring, often played house-concert gigs in the Triangle rather than (or in addition to) doing shows in the clubs.

The idea is nothing new, but the degree to which it had become an integral part of the community in the Triangle was unique, something I had not ever seen in any other area of the country. I went to house concerts at probably at least a half-dozen different residences, though the most prominent were definitely the Afternoon Nap shows hosted by Tim Kimrey in Chapel Hill and the Pine Hill Farm shows hosted by Kurt Hickey in Durham. Kimrey's still doing them at his place; Hickey left Pine Hill Farm behind a couple years ago when he moved back to Wisconsin, but he left us with indelible memories of a grand-finale weekend in December 2002 that included Bobby Bare Jr., Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers, Tim Easton, Tift Merritt, Thad Cockrell, Kenny Roby, the Backsliders' Chip Robinson, and Patty Hurst Shifter's Chris Smith. All playing acoustic and unamplified, perfectly distilled to their essential musical brilliance for the company of a few dozen folks gathered in folding chairs around the warm and welcome front room on a cold winter night.

We did our best to recapture that spirit this past Friday night. It helped that our featured artists were two of the finest talents to have sprung from that North Carolina Triangle scene (though Cockrell has since moved to Nashville). It also helped that they brought along three excellent musicians — bassist Aaron Oliva, drummer Nate Stalfa, and pedal steel guitarist Rich Gilbert -- to accompany them, though the expanded cast did make the living-room seating a challenge. We managed to get about 40 chairs into the space, and a full house of folks from our own little town of Poulsbo and other nearby communities turned out to support the artists (the full ticket price going directly to the performers).

And from the moment they launched into their first song, all the way through the set-break and on through the finale of Cockrell's "Are You Still Missing Me" performed solo on piano (thanks to our ancient Stieff upright in the corner), you could feel that old Pine Hill magic back in the air. They conversed with the audience, they told amusing anecdotes, they let their supporting players shine, they rocked the house on some honky-tonk numbers...and on the breathtaking ballads, like their cover of Percy Sledge's "Warm And Tender Love", or Cockrell's "She Ain't No You", or the song that inspired this post's subject-line, the big house fell pin-drop silent, the aching beauty of their voices joined in heartbreak-harmony left to float above the shadows across the room...and in the hall, of the big house.

Posted by Peter at 11:19 PM | Permalink