The August Teens; March 12, 2010; High Noon Saloon

Theoretically it had to happen. As a band, you can only say you are putting out a CD for so long before you have to actually put out a CD. The August Teens had stretched that window about as far as they could. The last time we saw them singer/songwriter/guitarist Dan Hardgrove had told us that he was using his paid sabbatical from his day job at Epic to finish it. Not what I would have done when they pay for your flight and lodging if you go to a country you haven’t been to before, but I certainly wasn’t going to argue with him.

True to his word, A Kiss in Wisconsin, the debut release from the August Teens, was available for purchase tonight. An impressive crowd, which included Hargrove’s mother for the first time, turned out for the momentous occasion. She confessed that she probably hadn’t seen him play in ten years (so I’m guessing that would be right around the time the August Teens got together). Without a second band on the bill, they had the night to themselves. For their first set they followed CD release show protocol and played the disc in order. Well, almost. “We missed one,” Hardgrove confessed halfway through, smiling, “we have to go back.” With banter, the set was only about 45 minutes long, which makes perfect sense for a CD made up of fourteen (technically thirteen with a reprise, what is this, a Broadway musical?) power pop songs (which means none of them run more than a few seconds over three minutes). The title track makes a grand finish to this collection of songs about girls, whether named or unnamed.

There are the titular girls, “Sweet Elaine,” “There is No Amber Klein” and “Sheila Doesn’t Want Me” (“It’s true, she didn’t,” Hardgrove claimed after introducing the song), and then there are the ones that go nameless, which is pretty much every other song. No really, it’s true, all the songs are all about girls except for the financial preparedness lesson “Pocket Change.” Even the puzzling “Pizza in Your Heart,” which asks, “Are there donuts in your soul? Or is there just a hole,” and claims “I hope your tacos are pretty smart,” is about a girl. Um, I think. Or maybe it just resulted from a really bad case of the munchies. Strangely enough for a band that does the power pop so well, the best song on the record may be “All the Elements.” A slow (relative to the rest of the record) lament about a girl who seems perfect but yet somehow isn’t the one, its charm is its sincerity.

The second set consisted of songs not on the record, and before each song they would announce whether it would be on the next one or the third record. I happen to know that Epic gives sabbaticals every five years, so I wouldn’t expect it before then. Of all of these, “Ten Years Older,” about a crush on an older woman, may be the one I wish would have made this cut. Hardgrove on the other hand seems partial to another, “I don’t like picking a favorite, but I think this one is my favorite.” The August Teens always look like they are having more fun than any other band, but that seemed even more obvious tonight. They deserved to have a good time, not only did they finally get that debut CD monkey off their backs, but they also had a good crowd there to celebrate with.

Tally Hall; March 11, 2010; The Frequency

Deadstring Brothers/Blueheels; March 10, 2010; High Noon Saloon

In the six years that I’ve been seeing the Deadstring Brothers band the only constant has been lead singer and songwriter Kurt Marschke. The line-up even changed in the week between the Bloodshot Beer-B-Que’s in Minneapolis and Boston,. Tonight I wasn’t quite sure who I had seen before. The bass player was probably the most familiar of tonight’s band, for the first time only a four piece. It used to be that the drummer was the other constant, but tonight we were surprised that the tall, skinny, well-dressed dude who definitely looked like a guitar player was sitting behind the kit. Apparently so was Marschke. He kept commenting on how great a drummer he was since he was used to seeing him on guitar and lap steel. When he spoke up with a British accent, I realized he must be part of the UK contingent of Deadstring Brothers members. I missed the sassy violin and backing vocals from the new, new girl who had replaced Masha’s replacement. Next time I’ll have to bring a program, it seems to be the only way to tell the players.

Next time isn’t far off. Along with half the musicians in the US, the band was on its way to SXSW in Austin where it will play Bloodshot’s day party at Yard Dog on Friday as well as several other shows. Since Ha Ha Tonka will be also be at the party, I will be too. I’m hoping for something a little more inspired than the forty minute set they played tonight. Not that it was bad necessarily, but they seemed to be just going through the motions. Sure, there weren’t a lot of people there, but it was a Wednesday. A killer set could have won them some new fans among the Blueheels supporting crowd. Their new record Sao Paulo just released by Bloodshot last month is a big step forward from their previous release, the lackluster Silver Mountain. I’d always preferred their prior record Starving Winter Report which diluted their heavy 70’s Stones sound with a healthy dose of Dylan. In addition to that record’s best songs “Talking Born Blues” and “Get Up Jake,” tonight’s set contained a fair amount of Sao Paulo.

Inexplicably, the Deadstring Brothers have never drawn well in Madison. Other than the Bloodshot BBQ which was technically sold out, they’ve played to some pretty paltry crowds in the past. Still, I hope they don’t give up on us, because Madison does seem the perfect venue for their bluesy hippy vibe. Next time I just hope they are a little more excited to be here.

Califone; March 9, 2010; Lincoln Hall, Chicago

What sounded intriguing in theory turned out to be even more amazing than I could have imagined in practice. Califone’s Tim Rutili made a movie “All My Friends Are Funeral Singers” about a house full of ghosts, with music by and also starring Califone. When they presented the movie at this year’s Sundance Film Festival for one of the shows the band played along with the movie, providing a live soundtrack. Tonight, they were doing the same thing at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall before taking it on the road again for the film portion of Austin’s SXSW festival, with an additional performance during the music segment. If you are going to be in Austin I highly recommend checking it out.

The band sat in a line across the edge of the stage, drums, guitars, keyboards, a banjo, a violin and a bass clarinet wedged in between them. Rutili, who wrote and directed the movie, had his back to us, the rest were angled toward the screen. It would have been cool no matter what, just watching the band play in synch with their screen selves, with none of the usual communication that goes on between songs, was remarkable. At times the live version would be playing the same instrument as their screen selves. Other times I was surprised to see them doing completely different things, like when screen Jim Becker was playing violin while the Becker on stage plucked a banjo. But the fact that the film itself was so engrossing made the whole experience mind-boggling.

Zella, a psychic advisor, lives in her grandmother’s big, old house with a collection of very solid ghosts that only she can see and who help her with her business. Every day she drags the sign out to the highway, but her only clients are a smarmy dude looking for names of racehorses and an older friend who wants to talk to her dead husband. Both get what they want, the diamond crusted grill the oily sycophant is wearing on his third visit is evidence of that, but the ghosts aren’t happy. I won’t give any more away; you should see it for yourself (with or without the band). Because the film succeeds on its own, the story is absorbing and the cinematography is artfully trippy and visually captivating. In fact, the only disappointment was that not all of the acting was at the same level. As blind musicians with no speaking parts, the band members (the Funeral Singers of the title) were all great, especially percussionist Ben Masarella whose flowing white gown and empty eyes were unnerving.

The applause began as the credits rolled, growing louder for certain names, for example “Live Mix for Performance- Ryan Hembrey.” I was sure that would be the end of the show, but as the clapping continued the band wove their way back to their spots on stage. “We’re going to play a few more songs for you,” Rutili announced, “and like the Jesus and Mary Chain back in the day we are going to do it with our backs to you.” Like their thirty minute set opening for Wilco a few weeks ago, this short set was stunning and concise. There were moments of jam, but they were essential, not the exhausting noodling I’ve seen before. It was all brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Johnny Miller's 50th Birthday Party; March 7, 2010; High Noon Saloon
The Cakes



The Low Czars






Helliphant





The Arge

The Magnetic Fields/Laura Barrett; March 4, 2010; The Pabst Theater

There’s distressing trend emerging at the Pabst Theater, that of boring, or flat out terrible openers. I often find myself retreating to the lobby whether I need another Pabst tall boy or not. It’s been going on for quite some time, dating back to the unlistenable CoCo Rosie who opened for Bright Eyes years ago. The streak might have snapped had I seen Conor Oberst on his last trip through when the always enjoyable Matt Focht opened; alas I was home with a broken foot. But back to tonight. When my sisters asked who was opening, I responded Laura Barrett and that I didn’t know a thing about her but I didn’t have high hopes. That may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy, because on the scale of terrible openers, she and her band were well above CCR, but they certainly were no Matt Focht.

The problem is that the thumb piano was never meant to be the main instrumental focus of a band. It can be enchanting in small doses, on Paul Simon’s “Further to Fly” for example or when Luke folds it into his layers of loops, but it can’t support an entire song, especially an instrumental to open a set. The best thing about it was the name, “Stop Giving Your Children Standardized Tests,” which drew an appreciative chuckle from the smarter-than-usual crowd. Her “band,” a banjo/glockenspiel player and a flutist, joined her for the rest of the set. Both sang some and played minimally, but minimal certainly seemed to be what Barrett was going for, and it did nothing to hide the inanity of the lyrics.

The last time I saw the Magnetic Fields their leader Stephen Merritt was in a particularly foul mood, belittling the crowd and his band mates. Oddly enough, it may have been the best show of theirs I’d seen. Tonight he was mellower, letting his complacency seep into the songs. The first half especially was very sleepy, but the surprise intermission, and the Red Bull I got during it, made the second half decidedly more interesting. There were a number of tunes from their ‘94 release The Charm of the Highway Strip, which they mentioned each time was “available on vinyl for the first time.” I finally bought a turntable late last year, but hadn’t actually purchased much vinyl yet, most of what I’ve been listening to was given to me. I resisted a stop at the merch stand earlier, but it was the engaging “Afraid of Trains” that convinced me otherwise. Who could blame her when “It was the army train that took her daddy from her, it was the bible train that took her momma too, and that high loud whistle made her horse run away, but the straw the broke the camel's back was you.”

The Magnetic Fields have been around for almost two decades now, and they drew from a vast pool of material for tonight’s show. In addition to their releases under the Magnetic Fields name, there’s also the Gothic Archies who recorded the delightful soundtrack to the Lemony Snicket movie. In addition to a song from that, there was a tune each from the movie soundtracks to Pieces of April and Eban and Charlie, and a couple from the lisp-inducing band The Sixths, and their records Wasp’s Nests and Hyacinths and Thistles. New release Realism, their “khaki album,” contributed the delightfully silly “We’re Having a Hootenanny Now,” as well as the bitter “You Must Be Out of Your Mind.” Most songs were introduced as being about vampires, but I have a hard time believing that. I’d almost forgotten about 2005’s I until they played “I Die,” a good choice but I’d rather have heard the amusingly twisted “I Wish I Had an Evil Twin.”

Which pretty much sums up my feelings about the whole show, it was good, but I kept wishing they would have played something else. Even their usually rapier sharp banter seemed tired, as if they just couldn’t be bothered to think that hard. The typically quick Claudia Gonson spent most of her time bemoaning the fact that the red shirts she and Shirley Simms were wearing were too bright for this tour instead of snapping off one-liners in Merritt’s direction. It was also strange to see her playing a keyboard instead of a real piano. Merritt and his ukulele just kept doing a Gary Numan impression. Huh? Still, it was a good show in a beautiful theater, and it is hard to argue with $3 tall boys of PBR. If they hadn’t been so great last time, I probably would have enjoyed this show more.