Anders & Kendall; May 18, 2013; Kiki’s House of Righteous Music

You would think that getting a pick in the Isthmus would translate to at least a few more people at the show, but sadly that was not the case for Anders & Kendall. I could count the attendees on two hands and still have a few fingers left over. There was guy who came because he saw the pick, but he got there late and missed the whole show. He did pick up a few CDs at least. There was a lot going on tonight, BB King at the Overture, Kristen Hirsch at the High Noon. The latter surely had some effect on my show, and I admit I kept clicking the “win tickets” link in my weekly e-mail before remembering that I had someplace better to be that night. So it meant even more to me that a couple of guys who had been to the house a few times before picked this show to go see someone they didn’t know for the first time. At least somebody trusts me.

This was Anders Parker’s fifth time in the basement. The former Varnaline frontman has never drawn big crowds, but he seems to really like playing here, and thankfully keeps coming back. Five times is enough to put him solidly in second place on the leader board (though “first loser” was probably not the right way to phrase it), but still far behind Jon Dee Graham who will play his ninth show in July. Parker had a very good reason to be on tour this time, his record with Kendall Meade (of the band Mascot) was released earlier this year, and I’ve already named Wild Chorus the year’s prettiest record. Meade has sung on every record Parker has put out since Varnaline’s swan song Songs in a Northern Key. This record has inherent sweetness to it, a joyful passion, and Parker said it was the first time he’s been able to successfully co-write songs with someone.

They opted to play unplugged, as they have most of the house concerts on this tour, which also included several club dates. Given the size of the crowd, unplugged was just fine, but it meant that Meade especially would have to project to be heard over Parker and the guitar. Not being tethered to microphones gave them the freedom to move around during the set, and they spent much of facing each other and their relaxed camaraderie was obvious and infectious. For most of the night Parker played guitar, and Meade sang, occasionally picking up a tambourine. Unlike most singers with nothing to play and no mike to hide behind, she looked perfectly comfortable. There were a couple songs where they both played guitar and those seemed even more special.

I’d have to go back and check the rack listing, but I feel like they did most of the songs on Wild Chorus. The exuberant “I’m Not Ready” with its inherent stick-in-your-headiness may be the best of these, though it may be a tie with the passionate album opener “We’re on Fire.” I had included that video with the e-mail announcing the show. Apparently not many people watched it or there would have been more folks here, it’s that catchy. To round out the material they played a Mascot song or two and ended with the title track to the best of Parker’s solo records “Tell It to the Dust” for an encore. I wish everyone could have seen it.

Gurf Morlix; May 17, 2013; Kiki’s House of Righteous Music

Gurf Morlix finds the present tense. He really does, “it’s terrifying,” he quipped during his third appearance in the basement. It took a moment before the giggles from the crowd meant they had figured out his double meaning. So it’s appropriate that Gurf Morlix Finds the Present Tense is the name of his new record, his first of all new material in six years. His previous release, 2011’s Blaze Foley’s 113th Wet Dream, was a collection of covers written by the memorable Austin character who was a good friend and whom Morlix played with many times before Foley’s senseless death in 1989. He claimed he tried to keep the body count down on this record, limiting it to only one after racking up eighty or so on the last. At first I thought he meant musicians in the band, but I eventually figured out he meant characters in his songs, each of which has a story to tell.

He also had a few (hilarious) stories to tell between songs. Several of them he also told last time, and I still haven’t figured out if they were really his or if he read them in Reader’s Digest. One of these involved being asked to play at the funeral of an unidentified homeless man. As you can guess it didn’t turn out as planned. Another was why he will never set foot in a Starbuck’s again. Many of his stories had to do with Foley, even though these were even more unbelievable, I was pretty sure these had happened. After all, this was a man about whom the legendary Townes Van Zandt said “he only went crazy once, decided to stay.” One of the most hilarious involved a little old lady who pointedly locked the door when Foley was hitchhiking. She had no way of guessing that Foley would later write the silly “Wouldn’t That Be Nice” hyperbole about the incident. Opposite of that song stands the heartbreaking love song “If I Could Only Fly,” a song which Merle Haggard recorded twice and called the “Greatest Country Song Ever.” “And if anyone should know, it’s Merle Haggard,” Morlix declared.

He also featured many of his own songs during his nearly two hour set. These didn’t have the instant memorability of Foley’s compositions, but they were well-crafted songs and he was happy to share the stories behind many of them. Opening track “My Life’s Been Taken” is about a bad decision that changes a life, while “Bang, Bang, Bang,” is, unsurprisingly, about our culture’s obsession with guns, made even more poignant by the reference to Foley. My personal favorite was the strong imagery of “A Series of Closing Doors.”

As always, Morlix delighted and charmed the crowd, a natural storyteller and laid-back performer. This was the first time he didn’t have to go to bed early or had made arrangements to stay elsewhere. And he surprised me by cracking several beers as we stayed up late. I introduced him to family favorite Ed Henry, and made him a copy of Country & Eastern which he promised to listen to exclusively on his six hour drive, he introduced me to Stompin’ Tom Connors, the Canadian Woody Guthrie. While YouTube yielded nothing on Henry, we were able to watch many videos of Connors. I told him to come back anytime, and meant it. Who knows, maybe next time he’ll have an Ed Henry cover for me.

Chuck Prophet & the Mission Express/Mike Benign Compulsion; May 9, 2013; Shank Hall

Yes, I know Chuck Prophet is playing at my house next week, but that’s a solo show and this was a band show, and besides, do I really need to justify seeing Prophet as often as possible? And tonight’s show seemed extra awesome. Prophet is ridiculously cool, like Fonzie, you know, if Fonzie were actually cool. He says everything with a wink and a grin, asking a guy up front if he needed a hug, “because you really look like you need a hug.” When another audience member raised her hand excitedly, hoping for a hug, he deflected her, “I don’t have time to hug everyone, but this guy really looked like he needed one.” He called on the audience several times to do some singing, first on the title track to last year’s excellent Temple Beautiful and later on that record’s “Willie Mays Is Up at Bat.” Before asking us to sing the “whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, ooh, ooh” from the latter, he jokingly described our effort on the former as pathetic. And I thought we had done a pretty good job shouting back “Tem-ple Beau-ti-ful” in time with the song.

Most of the songs from the new record showed up later in the set, along with the aforementioned two, “Castro Halloween,” and “The Left Hand and the Right Hand,” which as always he dedicated to brothers everywhere, made the set. Usually with a band it seems like the record where you discovered them will always be your favorite, and while Hurting Business will always have a special place because of that, with Prophet it seems like I like every record more than the one before. The last time I had seen him in Milwaukee he got a bit of a surprise when he asked if anyone had a request, everyone shouted back “Pin a Rose on Me” nearly in unison. He had no choice but to play it. This time the random collection of songs shouted out didn’t require such action, “OK, those are some good ideas” he replied when the shouting had stopped, “but we’re going to play this.”

Prophet knows how to pick a great cover, and perhaps the best tonight was the Flaming Groovies “Shake Some Action,” which he announced as the national anthem of San Francisco. Additionally his lovely wife Stephanie Finch stepped from behind the keyboard, strapped on a guitar and took two songs at the mike, the second a duet with Prophet. You would think it would be hard to be in a band with your spouse, but for them it looks like the greatest thing on earth. The rest of the band has remained fairly stable over the years, the always excellent James DePrado on guitar and Kevin T White on bass, but the Mission Express must be hard on drummers, since this was the third new one in just over a year. Prophet seemed to take great joy in announcing his name “Vicente Rodriguez!” like he was coming up to bat.

Local opener the Mike Benign Compulsion was fairly entertaining, and became more so as their set went on. They weren’t particularly tight, but their 90’s power pop was rather infectious. I had Matthew Sweet “Girlfriend” flashbacks more than once. I applaud them for resisting the urge to go with a cheesier name like “Mike Benign and the Tumors” or “the Malignants.” Though admittedly it was pronounced different than expected.

The Mike Benign Compulsion

Chuck Prophet & the Mission Express

Kelly Hogan & her band; May 3, 2013; Kiki’s House of Righteous Music

This was Kelly Hogan’s fourth time in Madison since the release of her record I Like to Keep Myself in Pain last year, and I wasn’t sure if everyone would be as excited about another show as I was. I needn’t have worried, there was a capacity crowd once again and they were treated to a pretty stellar show. One regular had wondered before the show if he really needed to see her again, only to enthusiastically strike that earlier thought at the end of the night. She made a conscious effort to mix it up a little from earlier appearances, while I was sad to see “Papa Was a Rodeo” go, the replacements were worth it.

She still played many of the songs from Pain, and “Nice Things” and “Haunted” were as amazing as always. The former features words written by Jack Pendarvis and music by Andrew Bird and it’s a killer, a dark, heartbreaker whose melody gets into your head and stays. The latter is a Jon Langford song, one of my favorite songs from his Old Devils record and which Hogan knocks out of the park. This was the first time I had heard the Wilco song “Open Mind” that Jeff Tweedy had given her for the record. Since they also ended up putting it on their record she decided not to put it on hers, but I’m glad she does it live. Even though “Rodeo” wasn’t in the set, she did another Stephen Merritt composition, the melancholy “Plant White Roses,” which is “a song that may or may not be about gardening” The first time I ever saw Hogan was a long, long time ago, singing with John Wesley Harding at Martyr’s, in a nice example of symmetry she covers his “Sleeper Awake.” (I also told her to put in a good word with Wes about playing the basement someday.)

The best part of the night actually happened about an hour into the evening after the “official set” was over. Whereas they were straight shooting earlier, Hogan indicated this part of the set was going to be both guns drawn, shooting into the air, “pow, pow, pow” she demonstrated with her fingers. She’d been bragging about her band all night, and rightfully so, but this is where they really got to show off. Guitarist Casey McDonough set the bar impossibly high right off the bat with a tear-jerking version of Roy Orbison’s “Crying.” “Brave choice” I thought when he started, “perfect choice” when he finished. He drew what may have been the biggest applause of the night and reduced bassist Nora O’Connor to tears. She’d been wowing the crowd all night with her backing vocals, but she really got to impress when she and Hogan shared the lead on the stunning tune “Mama Don’t Like My Man,” which I am pretty sure some of the band learned during sound check. Drummer Gerald Dowd sang lead on the Charlie Rich classic “Life Has It’s Little Ups and Downs,” which like many of his tunes was written or co-written by Rich’s wife, whom Hogan is obviously a fan of since they followed it with another of her songs.

The crowd again included her friends and neighbors from Evansville. Her landlady brought flowers and homemade applesauce, while her neighbors brought their son who was seeing his first show (I forget how old he was but it was less than ten). As always, Hogan was witty and charming, personal and at times confessional. Several times after admitting something she wouldn’t usually say on stage she would shake her head, smiling, “it’s the basement.”

Miles Nielsen & the Rusted Hearts/Corey Hart/Daniel & the Lion; May 1, 2013

I had enjoyed Nielsen the last time I saw him, but I had a more pressing reason to go to tonight’s show- I had to find out if he had the amp. The Rick’s Picks exhibit, a collection of mementos from his dad’s long career as the gregarious guitarist of Cheap Trick, contained many fascinating and gorgeous guitars, but the one with the best story was a custom built cherry wood guitar. When the Nielsen family put in a new driveway it killed the cherry tree in the front yard, so Rick saved the wood, had it kiln-dried for ten years, and then had a guitar and matching amp made out of it. While the guitar itself was on display at the Burpee Museum, Nielsen reportedly had no idea where the amp was, “I think maybe Miles has it.” That matter had been sorted out before I even got there, he does have it, and it was in the van. While the museum card said that all the knobs were labeled volume, Miles went one better, telling my friend that “they all go to eleven.”

Nielsen has a likeable voice and the songs are catchy, but it’s his band that really sells the material. The best of these is multi-instrumentalist Dan McMahon. Not only is he a terrific guitar player, but he has a great voice which plays well with Nielsen’s. I’ve been a fan of McMahon for years since seeing him with the Wandering Sons, a band that got much less interesting after his departure. Also great is keyboardist/clarinetist Adam Plamann who added a lot without a hint of the cheesiness both of those instruments are prone to. The night had been a collaborative effort already with Daniel & the Lion featuring PHOX vocalist Monica Martin and Corey Hart inviting D&L up for one of their songs, so it made sense that Nielsen would invite everyone back to the stage for a singalong on the Beatles “Don’t Bring Me Down,” a song custom-made for all star jams. It took me a second to recognize the guy behind the keyboard as Rusty (whose last name I don’t know and who plays with Corey Hart) because it was the first time I had seen him without his hat.

I was running late since it was a volleyball night, but I still got there in time to see plenty of Daniel and the Lion’s opening set. They knew they were getting a good deal too, commenting “the opening band doesn’t usually get a chance to stretch out like this.” I was surprised that the long haired keyboard player was the one named Daniel since he looked much more like the Lion. Their piano/guitar songs were pretty but a little sleepy. Hart got a little more lively with his big band and his infectious tunes. It had been years since I had last seen him and it seems he has done well for himself since then. A lot of the crowd was definitely his fans. I was surprised I didn’t know more people there, but it was good to see our friend Eric from Milwaukee.

And it was very good to know that Miles does indeed have the amp.

Corey Hart

Miles Nielsen & the Rusted Hearts

The Devil Makes Three/Jonny Fritz; April 27, 2013; Majestic Theater

Everyone knows all of the good band names are taken, so explain to me how The Devil Makes Three was unclaimed before this trio from California grabbed it as their moniker. Of course, either the devil actually makes four in this case or one of them is in fact Satan (I’d go with upright bass player Lucia Torino who was awfully bewitching). Admittedly, a deal with Lucifer would go a long way toward explaining how this band I’d never heard of sold out the spacious Majestic Theater. I wouldn’t have even been there if not for James Dean, who has made tour manager into his full-time job. I first met Dean when he was doing the same for Ha Ha Tonka, who he had met when his band Meese was on the road with them. This has lead to multiple tours managing Murder By Death, as well as stints with Matt & Kim (when they were opening for Blink 182!) and White Rabbits.

The Onion described the band as a traditional bluegrass party band, and that was a decent call. There were a couple smoky, slower tunes, but most were frenetic banjo-powered raves with a thumping bass, making it very easy to dance to. The alcohol fueled crowd was doing just that, turning into an undulating mass in front of the stage after just a few songs. The songs were all catchy enough, but not much stuck with me after the house lights went up other than the clever chorus to one of their catchiest tunes, “If you’re gonna do wrong, buddy, you better do wrong right.” The crowd was a younger hippie type group, which explained all the dancing and the fact that everyone smelled like pot. They weren’t subtle about it either, little clouds of smoke went up periodically from the group in front of us. I was surprised that the security that won’t let me take pictures wasn’t on them immediately. Apparently having a camera with a “lens that sticks out too far” or “takes video” is a worse crime than smoking illegal substances. They didn’t hassle me tonight, but I found out that was only because Dean had stopped them.

Opener Jonny Fritz writes the kind of slightly offensive redneck songs that crowds like this love. I did not love it, but he did have something going for him and that was fiddler Josh Hedley. He didn’t look like your typical fiddle wizard, he had a lot of tattoos and a beer belly, his hat said “Born to fish, forced to work,” and his T-shirt depicted a cow flattened on the front of a semi with the caption “Grilled cheese,” but holy crap could that dude play. No matter how stupid the song, it got a lot better when he started playing. He even came back at the end of the night and joined Devil for a song. Dean told me he’s never had a real job, he’s just been playing fiddle for a living since he’s been old enough to get paid for it. And I believe it, I’m pretty sure he could win a fiddle made of gold off the devil anytime he runs short on cash.

Jonny Fritz

The Devil Makes Three