Tea Leaf Green/Ha Ha Tonka; January 19-21, 2012; High Noon Saloon, Lincoln Hall (Chicago) and the 20th Century Theater (Cincinnati)
This might be hard to believe, but I was out with Ha Ha Tonka for three days and I didn’t take any pictures. It wasn’t because I forgot my camera or that the venues wouldn’t allow it. No, it was because I had my second carpal tunnel release surgery the day of the High Noon show. No sympathy please, it was seriously amazing. Not only did the surgery only take ten minutes, but the numbness and pain that had plagued me for months was gone. Besides in a year surprisingly short on vacation, how else was I going to go on tour if I didn’t use sick time? So the reason I didn’t take any pictures was that it was my right hand, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out to use my camera without it. Besides, you guys have probably seen enough pictures of HHT here anyway, haven’t you?
All I knew about Tea Leaf Green before this weekend was that they were a jam band. What I knew about them after was that they were the good kind of jam band, the kind that sounds like the Grateful Dead. Because if you are going to be a jam band, that is the one you should want to be like. Their songs were catchy and interesting, and it made me want to listen to one of their CDs. They played two, hour plus sets every night with a half hour break in between. While that may be great for their dancing fans, it left little time in the night for the opening band. HHT started fifteen minutes late in Madison because at 9 pm there were only a handful of people in the room. They started fifteen minutes late in Chicago because a drive that should have taken two and a half hours took a staggering six thanks to a snowstorm. We arrived at 8:15, well past our 6:30 load in time.
That meant thirty minute sets every night, which distilled down to Ha Ha Tonka’s greatest hits. They opened with “The Humorist” each night, my favorite song off their most recent record Death of Decade, before launching into a whirlwind set that drew heavily from that and their first record. “St Nick on the Fourth in a Fervor,” “Caney Mountain” and the classic a capella number “Hangman” (which they have done every single time I’ve seen them) all came from their Bloodshot debut Buckle in the Bible Belt. After seeing them the ridiculous number of times I have seen them, you would think I’d be tired of Hangman but I’m not. Besides, they need to play it for all the people who are seeing them for the first time. There is no better showcase for their terrific harmonies. Unfortunately, my favorite record, their sophomore effort Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South, was slighted during these short sets, only “Pendergast Machine” was included. A stripped down version followed “Hangman” with only Brett Anderson’s mandolin as accompaniment.
Each night at the merch stand I met people who were seeing them for the first time and people who had come just to see them. I admire that, but I’m not sure I would have paid $15 just to see their short set. In Cincinnati a group of breathless young girls left right they were done, but made me promise that I would tell them they were amazing. I was happy to oblige. Another thing I never get tired of is telling them how great they are.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Robbie Fulks and Friends “I Heart the Velvet Underground;” January 16, 2012; The Hideout
I’d barely seen Robbie Fulks in the last couple years, but here I was seeing him for the fourth time in just over a month. All of the shows had been completely different, the song swap with Langford, the basement show and the hilarious year-end review, but tonight’s show showed just how far ranging his talents are. I’m not going to lie, I don’t really know much about the Velvet Underground, I only have one barely listened to record and I only know a handful of songs. Another thing that I’m not going to lie about is that I really only came to see drummer Gerald Dowd, but it turned out to be very worth it for the show and everyone involved.
He’s the best drummer I know, period. I’ve seen him play country, rock, jazz and children’s songs (which are really just perfect pop songs), and he is equally good at all genres. And he can sing too, his harmony vocals add a lot to songs by Fulks, Chris Mills and Justin Roberts. But tonight I got to see something I hadn’t seen before; I got to see him play guitar AND bass. For this show the band members, which also included Steve Dawson on bass and Liam Davis on guitar, each selected a few songs they would like to sing, and Fulks pulled it all together into a cohesive night of music saluting the seminal rock band while somehow avoiding perhaps their best known song. Since “Sweet Jane” is one of only three songs I know, I was left with “I’m Waiting for the Man” and “Sunday Morning” as the only ones I recognized (and both were great).
Actually that’s not quite true. The friend I was with seemed surprised that I didn’t know show opener “All Tomorrow’s Parties” (which I am guessing is where the festival gets its name), but he seemed startled by the next song. “This isn’t a Velvet Underground song,” he said, looking confused. “I know,” I replied, “it’s Jonathan Richman.” Now this was inspired. They took Richman’s song “Velvet Underground” and in the middle of it answered his question “how on earth do they get that sound?” by going into a VU song. In my mind, that song, sung by Gerald, was as much as they sounded like the band they were saluting all night. He had the Lou Reed monotone that I associate with VU down. If I knew the original versions of these songs I would probably know better if that was true or not.
Perhaps the most interesting was a “song” called “The Gift” from their album White Light/White Heat. The quotes are necessary because it was more of a spoken word piece to an instrumental background than a song in the traditional since. Apparently in the original version, the story was heard in one speaker, while the instrumental in the other. Robbie put on his reading glasses and perched on a stool to read the story of Waldo Jeffers who decided he would mail himself to his long distance girlfriend Marsha. How does it end? Badly as you can imagine. I loved Robbie and Gerald, but Steve and Liam were just as great. I’ve never really been a fan of Dawson’s band Dolly Varden, but after seeing him tonight I might give his solo stuff a try. And Davis, the other half of Justin Roberts’ rhythm section, is always terrific.
As I said, I don’t know much about the Velvet Underground, but this show certainly made me want to hear more. It was another Megabus (or as Robbie likes to call it, “The people’s bus”) trip well worth it.
I’d barely seen Robbie Fulks in the last couple years, but here I was seeing him for the fourth time in just over a month. All of the shows had been completely different, the song swap with Langford, the basement show and the hilarious year-end review, but tonight’s show showed just how far ranging his talents are. I’m not going to lie, I don’t really know much about the Velvet Underground, I only have one barely listened to record and I only know a handful of songs. Another thing that I’m not going to lie about is that I really only came to see drummer Gerald Dowd, but it turned out to be very worth it for the show and everyone involved.
He’s the best drummer I know, period. I’ve seen him play country, rock, jazz and children’s songs (which are really just perfect pop songs), and he is equally good at all genres. And he can sing too, his harmony vocals add a lot to songs by Fulks, Chris Mills and Justin Roberts. But tonight I got to see something I hadn’t seen before; I got to see him play guitar AND bass. For this show the band members, which also included Steve Dawson on bass and Liam Davis on guitar, each selected a few songs they would like to sing, and Fulks pulled it all together into a cohesive night of music saluting the seminal rock band while somehow avoiding perhaps their best known song. Since “Sweet Jane” is one of only three songs I know, I was left with “I’m Waiting for the Man” and “Sunday Morning” as the only ones I recognized (and both were great).
Actually that’s not quite true. The friend I was with seemed surprised that I didn’t know show opener “All Tomorrow’s Parties” (which I am guessing is where the festival gets its name), but he seemed startled by the next song. “This isn’t a Velvet Underground song,” he said, looking confused. “I know,” I replied, “it’s Jonathan Richman.” Now this was inspired. They took Richman’s song “Velvet Underground” and in the middle of it answered his question “how on earth do they get that sound?” by going into a VU song. In my mind, that song, sung by Gerald, was as much as they sounded like the band they were saluting all night. He had the Lou Reed monotone that I associate with VU down. If I knew the original versions of these songs I would probably know better if that was true or not.
Perhaps the most interesting was a “song” called “The Gift” from their album White Light/White Heat. The quotes are necessary because it was more of a spoken word piece to an instrumental background than a song in the traditional since. Apparently in the original version, the story was heard in one speaker, while the instrumental in the other. Robbie put on his reading glasses and perched on a stool to read the story of Waldo Jeffers who decided he would mail himself to his long distance girlfriend Marsha. How does it end? Badly as you can imagine. I loved Robbie and Gerald, but Steve and Liam were just as great. I’ve never really been a fan of Dawson’s band Dolly Varden, but after seeing him tonight I might give his solo stuff a try. And Davis, the other half of Justin Roberts’ rhythm section, is always terrific.
As I said, I don’t know much about the Velvet Underground, but this show certainly made me want to hear more. It was another Megabus (or as Robbie likes to call it, “The people’s bus”) trip well worth it.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Saturday, January 07, 2012
Loves It!/Count This Penny; January 7, 2012; Kiki’s House of Righteous Music
It’s always great to have a good show, but there is something exceptionally satisfying about being told that it was the best show of the tour. Jenny Parrott of Loves It! is well-known in Madison as the singer and guitar player of the recently disbanded, and already sorely missed, Shotgun Party. The Austin trio played the basement in 2008 and then went on to appear at the Sugar Maple Traditional Music Festival (twice!) and also headlined the High Noon for a SMTMF warm-up show. But thus far Madison had not been introduced to Loves It!, the band that Parrott started with her boyfriend Vaughn Walters.
She’d given me a copy of their CD, the appropriately titled Yay!, at SXSW last year. I’d listened to it a few times, and it is good, but it does not do them justice, they are much better in person. Tonight they both sang and played into a single condenser microphone, perfect for the basement and the attentive crowd that had gathered. They sound genuinely great together and their instrumentation complements the songs nicely. The most memorable song from the CD is the silly “Dinosaurs,” with its repeated line, “I’m going extinct like a dinosaur,” and it was certainly the most unforgettable tonight, which really isn’t quite fair to all the other gorgeous songs they sang. The image was reinforced by the T-shirts and sweatshirts they had for sale, a scary T Rex which boldly proclaims Loves It! And it glows in the dark. Yep, pretty cool.
Throughout their set, Parrott thanked local band Count This Penny for doing such a good job of warming up the crowd. And they had done just that with their exquisite set earlier in the night. The band consists of Alan and Amanda Rigel, an adorable couple who moved here somewhat recently from East Tennessee, plus fiddler John Henry and banjo player John Ray. Amanda said it was the first she had been able to sing in five days thanks to a case of laryngitis, but she sounded terrific. I patted myself on the back more than once for asking them to open, not only were they the perfect complement to Loves It! But they also did a great job of bringing people out for the show. In fact, for a moment I thought I might even have a sell-out at the door. Even though it fell just short of that, it was still a pretty amazing crowd.
And I have no trouble seeing why people are drawn to them, not only are they terrific performers- Alan and Amanda share vocal duty and sound great together, while the Johns add immeasurably on their respective instruments- but they are warm and genuine people. Oh yeah, and funny too, especially Amanda. My favorite comment of hers tonight was when Alan’s mother told her she had finally figured out who she reminded her of when she performed. “Emmy Lou Harris?” Amanda thought hopefully to herself before her mother-in-law announced “Ellen DeGeneres!” Ha. I can’t thank them enough for playing, and for bringing snacks. I can’t wait to get to Trader Joes to get some of that cheese for myself.
Parrott had arrived in a slightly off mood, but by the end of the night she couldn’t have been happier thanks to a terrific show and a bottle of Powers. “People tell you not to drink to solve your problems,” she pondered, “but why not? It works.” Here, here!
Count This Penny
Loves It!
It’s always great to have a good show, but there is something exceptionally satisfying about being told that it was the best show of the tour. Jenny Parrott of Loves It! is well-known in Madison as the singer and guitar player of the recently disbanded, and already sorely missed, Shotgun Party. The Austin trio played the basement in 2008 and then went on to appear at the Sugar Maple Traditional Music Festival (twice!) and also headlined the High Noon for a SMTMF warm-up show. But thus far Madison had not been introduced to Loves It!, the band that Parrott started with her boyfriend Vaughn Walters.
She’d given me a copy of their CD, the appropriately titled Yay!, at SXSW last year. I’d listened to it a few times, and it is good, but it does not do them justice, they are much better in person. Tonight they both sang and played into a single condenser microphone, perfect for the basement and the attentive crowd that had gathered. They sound genuinely great together and their instrumentation complements the songs nicely. The most memorable song from the CD is the silly “Dinosaurs,” with its repeated line, “I’m going extinct like a dinosaur,” and it was certainly the most unforgettable tonight, which really isn’t quite fair to all the other gorgeous songs they sang. The image was reinforced by the T-shirts and sweatshirts they had for sale, a scary T Rex which boldly proclaims Loves It! And it glows in the dark. Yep, pretty cool.
Throughout their set, Parrott thanked local band Count This Penny for doing such a good job of warming up the crowd. And they had done just that with their exquisite set earlier in the night. The band consists of Alan and Amanda Rigel, an adorable couple who moved here somewhat recently from East Tennessee, plus fiddler John Henry and banjo player John Ray. Amanda said it was the first she had been able to sing in five days thanks to a case of laryngitis, but she sounded terrific. I patted myself on the back more than once for asking them to open, not only were they the perfect complement to Loves It! But they also did a great job of bringing people out for the show. In fact, for a moment I thought I might even have a sell-out at the door. Even though it fell just short of that, it was still a pretty amazing crowd.
And I have no trouble seeing why people are drawn to them, not only are they terrific performers- Alan and Amanda share vocal duty and sound great together, while the Johns add immeasurably on their respective instruments- but they are warm and genuine people. Oh yeah, and funny too, especially Amanda. My favorite comment of hers tonight was when Alan’s mother told her she had finally figured out who she reminded her of when she performed. “Emmy Lou Harris?” Amanda thought hopefully to herself before her mother-in-law announced “Ellen DeGeneres!” Ha. I can’t thank them enough for playing, and for bringing snacks. I can’t wait to get to Trader Joes to get some of that cheese for myself.
Parrott had arrived in a slightly off mood, but by the end of the night she couldn’t have been happier thanks to a terrific show and a bottle of Powers. “People tell you not to drink to solve your problems,” she pondered, “but why not? It works.” Here, here!
Count This Penny
Loves It!
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