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March 24, 2008

JONATHAN RICHMAN/VIC CHESNUTT
Stage Door Theatre (Madison, WI)
March 13, 2008

(NODEPRESSION.NET) -- "I don't know what it means, either," Jonathan Richman confessed after singing his encore a cappella -- a joyful ditty in Spanish, Italian and gibberish. Then he waved goodbye to the audience, smiling in the wistful way a child does before leaving his parents for summer camp. All of a sudden he turned around and came back to the mike.

"If you see me in the lobby I may not speak to you but don't be alarmed. My doctor tells me to save my voice because of a vocal condition. I don't talk so I can save it for singing. I gesture but I'm not practicing to be Marcel Marceau! Goodbye!"

His comment caught me off-guard because I had been thinking of the great French mime earlier in Richman's show. Richman writes more and more in French, Spanish and Italian. Yet it doesn't matter if you don't understand what he says because, as with all great artists, you understand what he means. He puts it over with his tone, his facial expressions, his posture. You know how he feels because you've been there, too. Rejected by a lover. Reaching for a rebound.

On this night, dressed in a form-fitting black suit, shirt unbuttoned to reveal a black-and-white striped gondolier shirt, Richman played the audience like he plays his music: as though one needed the other. When he sang "Les Printemps", you didn't have to understand French to smell the streets of Paris.

A large part of Richman's upbeat emotional drive is due to Tommy Larkin, one of the most musical drummers working. He may have well been playing vibes. His break during "My Baby Loves Me" didn't merely keep the song on temporal track, it reshaped the melody. Richman pranced and shook bells to the delight of the swaying twentysomethings parked shoulder-to-shoulder at his feet. (The Farrelly Brothers movies have introduced Richman and his musical benevolence to a whole new generation, and his beguiling performance of "I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar" had the young hipsters reeling.)

You often hear fans describe a performer's intimacy by saying, "It felt like he was singing directly to me." But Richman actually does give whole verses to just one person in the crowd. He seems to feed off the contact, as though it makes the music more real to him. The rest of the hall reaps the benefit of the synergy.

Richman seems to get more authentic as he gets older, and he seems to get younger with each new song he writes. The show peaked when he descended to one knee, strumming the nylon strings of his Spanish guitar, and belted out the title song of his new record, "Because Her Beauty Is Raw And Wild". The song distills love to its foundation: how every time is the first time when your heart is pure.

Taken back-to-back, Richman and opener Vic Chesnutt, with all their literary muscle, could have been promoted as the "Glass Half-Full/Glass Half-Empty Tour."

"I'm a pessimist," wailed Chesnutt by way of introduction; "Jonathan Richman is an optimist." He could not have summarized the evening's pairing more efficiently. Both are accomplished, emotive writers and performers. And it wouldn't be fair to write off Chesnutt as simply a cynic, because he's a cynic in the important way that Jonathan Swift was. Yet the contrast he drew between himself and the headliner was spot on.

"Jonathan Richman steps into an alley, smells piss, and says, 'Look what the world has shown us,'" Chestnut sang. "I step into the alley, smell piss, and say, 'Oh god damn, get these molecules out of my nostrils!'"

I didn't see Richman in the lobby on my way out. But as I made my way home, I thought about what he said at the end of his show. I thought about how the words "discipline" and "art" are often used together. And I thought about a guy who doesn't talk...so that he may sing.

-- ANDY MOORE
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Andy Moore.
-- (Photograph by Margaret A. Moore)
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Margaret A. Moore.

Posted by Peter at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 4, 2008

REIVERS
Parish (Austin, Texas)
February 9, 2008

(NODEPRESSION.NET) -- Forget Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, the Police. For the generation that came of age with mid-1980s college radio, arguably the biggest band on their reunion wish list has been the Reivers, who broke up the month Nirvana' Nevermind hit the charts. It's been so long since the Reivers dissolved that a reunion seemed a remote possibility.

Thus it was a surprise when they agreed to reconvene in February to play a weekend of shows in their hometown of Austin, selling out two nights at the 500-sized Parish (with some attendees traveling from as far as Toronto, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.). Also in the audience were the individual Reivers' kids, almost all of whom were too young to have seen the band in its first go-round. They looked as impressed as everyone else at what a rock spectacle their parents put on.

The Reivers left behind four excellent albums of pure-pop jingle-jangle, each a perfect microcosm of the musical spirit of the age. Those records (the first one, 1985's Translate Slowly, released under the name Zeitgeist before a deal with Capitol Records resulted in a name-change) are still quite fine to listen to, but they can't convey what an immensely likable bunch the Reivers were onstage in their prime.

All four members were visibly older, and the energy level was a few notches lower than it used to be -- and yet the band's onstage chemistry remains entirely intact, with the rhythm section of drummer Garrett Williams and bassist Cindy Toth driving the songs and the signature blend of John Croslin's drawl and Kim Longacre's soaring voice taking them higher.

Not surprisingly, the opening stretch of the first show was a bit tentative. "Ragamuffin Man" began the proceedings, followed by "Electra" (from their very first single in 1984) and a funkier-than-before "Lazy Afternoon". But with an enthusiastic audience singing along on every chorus, the band seemed to gain confidence as the set progressed.

Things kicked up a notch with "Almost Home" (jokingly introduced as "a Hootie song" in reference to Hootie & the Blowfish having covered it on an album) and a new number called "All The Drunks Say Amen". If it's a good sign that they played a new song, it's an even better sign that the song was pretty decent.

They dusted off a few of their trademark covers for old time's sake, including the old Charlie Brown theme "Linus And Lucy", their inventive reworking of the Willie Nelson hit "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain", and Thin Lizzy's "Cowboy Song" as a rip-it-up show-closer.

But the best was a mid-set stretch of indie-pop perfection that went from strength to strength: the jaunty instrumental "Hill Country Theme", the overdrive "Araby", Croslin's Fort Worth love letter "Star Telegram". All of which led up to a version of "Things Don't Change" that was so good it was chilling. The front-of-stage mob jumping up and down included the editor of this magazine (as well as this reviewer), and it was as if the song had been written twenty-some years ago to encapsulate this very moment:

"Things don't change/They never have."

-- DAVID MENCONI
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or David Menconi.

Posted by Peter at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)