The Pines; January 29, 2010; Café Carpe

I don’t get to Fort Atkinson’s charming Café Carpe as often as I’d like to. Of course, that would be once a week if I could, but the 45 minute drive and my schedule don’t allow for that. Ben Weaver had told me that he thought his friends the Pines would be perfect for the basement, and I put this show on my calendar as soon as I heard about it. Even though they have yet to do a proper show in Madison, they’ve been playing the Carpe for a number of years. The Carpe’s proprietors, the delightful Kitty and curmudgeonly Bill, seemed quite pleased with the crowd tonight, which impressively numbered somewhere around 40, claiming this was the crowd they’d always known the Pines could draw.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that the pedigree of the band is well-suited to their crowd. Benson Ramsey, one half of the duo, is the son of Greg Brown’s longtime sideman the remarkable guitarist Bo Ramsey. As we sat down in the front row, we were easily able to predict which chair belonged to Ramsey and which to David Huckfelt. The seat closest to us had an imposing number of pedals arranged in front of it, while all that was in front of the other was bare wood. Ramsey certainly seemed to know what to do with all them, creating sonic textures consisting of haunting melodies pulled from the guitar with his slide, a piece of rag tied through it to keep it from slipping off his long, thin fingers as he played. The pair switched off lead vocals through their two sets, Huckfelt’s voice a calming croon, while Ramsey’s was reminiscent of young Bob Dylan.

It always amazes me that mellow music can invoke such a varied response, sometimes it’s yawn-inducing and other times mesmerizing. While there may have been a few in the audience in the former camp, I was certainly in the latter. All of their original songs were hypnotic, and their covers surprising and perfectly chosen. Some were so unexpected that it took me a minute to place them. Ramsey was halfway through “Old Dominion Blues,” which I was happily singing along to, before the light went off and I realized it was an eels tune. I barely kept from shouting “Eureka!” In addition to the Mississippi John Hurt song “Spike Driver Blues” (better known to me as “Railroad Worksong” by Mark Knopfler’s Notting Hillbillies), they ended with (coincidentally) Dire Straits’ “So Far Away From Me,” the fourth hit from Brothers in Arms, which probably came out before they were born.

With as much as I enjoyed their show, I was even more disappointed that I had missed their 30 Minute Music Hour taping earlier in the week. It remains to be seen if they actually did rent tuxes for the show like they said they did. Even if they had I can’t imagine them being any classier than they were tonight.