It’s hard to imagine a more sincere songwriter than Micah Schnabel. He wears his heart on his sleeve and emotion pours from his voice, his urgent strumming conveys as much as his smart lyrics. “This is the closest thing I’ve ever written to a love song,” he claimed early on, “I failed miserably.” He’s wrong though; every song is a love song, full of passion. Mostly it’s about being in love with music, living on the road and trying to make everything work. They should all be hits; they’re all so damn catchy and anthemic, and you wish you knew all the words (and there are a lot of them), so you could sing along. After each song you think you’re never going to get it out of your head till the next song gets in there and wiggles around.
It’s impossible to pick a favorite, when he asked for
requests I couldn’t pick one but I am sure he played them all anyway. “When the Stage Lights Go Dim” is an honest
look at the life of a touring musician, all the late nights and hangovers and
broken hearts. The title track to his
first solo record “American Static” was a burnburner, “It’s American static, so
automatic, five, four, three, two, one,” like he’s counting down a rocket
launch. “Thanks for asking, but things
have never been worse,” he says in one of the only songs he
played that didn’t feel autobiographical.
In fact it seems like things are going pretty great. He’s traveling with his artist girlfriend,
doing what makes him happy. “I love
doing this more than anything, so when you ask me to do more,” he said before
the encore, “it isn’t very hard to convince me.” In fact the only thing that didn’t seem right
was the rental car they were traveling in.
“It’s red,” he said, “and that just doesn’t seem to fit me, I think it’s
messing with my head.” In fact it seemed
weird to see him in anything other than the Two Cow van which advertises “Hot
Leathers” the company that prints all their T-shirts.
I’d asked him to stop thanking me, after all, like I always
say, I do these shows for me, but there is one thing I will take credit
for. He ate his first mushroom ever
tonight. Hard to believe, right? “I grew up white trash, eating nothing but
pizza, Coke and Wendy’s cheeseburgers,” he said by way of explanation. Not only were mushrooms served, they were the
main part of the meal. Eating a
Portobello mushroom must seem weird to someone who’s never had any
mushrooms. The good news is he liked it.
It’s always entertaining having Robby Schiller open a
show. Those who only know him as the
lead singer of the Blueheels don’t know what they are missing. His solo stuff bears a heavy Harry Nilsson
influence but he’s always surprised when people call him on it. When one woman started singing “take the lime
and the coconut and mix them all up” after his hilarious song about hippies
doing acid, he laughed, “I don’t expect the people who see me to have heard of
Harry Nilsson. He was even more
hilarious than usual; a pre-show whiskey seemed to have loosened him up. “What does this thing do?” he exclaimed after
putting the capo on the neck of the guitar, “this changes everything!” That’s funny, because it does.
He opened with Nick Lowe’s “The Beast in Me,” covered
memorably, but not better, by Johnny Cash on his American Recordings
record. He also pulled out the classic “Danny
Boy” which he sung with conviction early in the set. The fan favorite seemed to be “Outdoor Cat”
which he wrote from the point of view of the cat next door watching his cat
through the window. “Oh to be an outdoor
cat, bathed in baby bunny blood, a puff of feathers when I sneeze,” drew many
laughs. He promises all these new songs
will be on a record soon. And in fact
most of them were new, I only knew a few and “Meaner than the Wolves Outside”
was the only one I would call old. I
love that he feels so comfortable playing in the basement that he will try out
new songs. In fact he told me he liked
playing the house so much that he would open for a lamp in my living room. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I’m
pretty sure it is a compliment.
Robby Schiller
Micah Schnabel
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