Franz Nicolay/David Dondero/The Faders; April 10, 2011; Schubas

Sometimes you just know you made the right decision. I hated hearing that only twenty people paid to see Eddie Spaghetti at the High Noon tonight. He had been absolutely charming when I met him at SXSW and the fact the he ends every song with an emphatic “CHA CHA CHA!” (so you know when to freak out) is just about the coolest thing I’d ever seen, er, heard. But given how excited Matt Focht and Colby Stark (both formerly of Head of Femur) were to see me at Schubas on a Sunday night; I knew I made the right choice. After all, I couldn’t miss the debut of their new band the Faders. The last time I had seen them they were still debating on a name, and the pressure was on since their split 7” with David Dondero was about to go to press. “There are other bands called the Faders,” they confided, “but none of them are as cool as us.”

How could they be? In addition to my two favorite members of HoF, the band also includes bassist Dan Dietrich (owner of Wall to Wall studios), fantastic guitarist Ethan Semone , and the uber-cool Dave Max Crawford whom I have seen many, many times with Chris Mills. The sound still bears a resemblance to Femur, but they’ve turned down the quirkiness and replaced it with an undeniable catchiness. I was hearing these songs for the first time, but wanted to sing along. Most of what makes it so addictive is Focht’s distinctive voice; I could pick it out of a line-up anytime. At the end of their set they announced that their next gig would be June 24 at the Hideout. It took me a minute to figure out why that sounded so familiar, then I realized that Mills is also playing at the Hideout that night. Yay!

Just as there were folks there just to see the Faders, there were certainly people who were there just to see the evening’s other two acts. During Dondero’s set, a dedicated following pressed close to the stage, occasionally yelling out a request, most of which he gamely tried to play. I knew the name as part of Conor Oberst’s Saddle Creek gang, and I thought I had seen him before, but the large man on stage didn’t look at all familiar. He has a mournful sound which matches well with his hangdog demeanor. The songs he played solo were good, but he came alive when the Faders joined him as his backing band. Especially catchy was the song “This Guitar” which I was happy to hear was his contribution to the record.

I wasn’t quite sure what exactly former Hold Steady member Franz Nicolay would sound like solo, but it was a pleasant surprise the first time I saw him. He’s charming and witty, and open and honest, and only the tiniest bit creepy. Oh, c’mon, if you’ve seen his mustache you probably thought he’d be creepy too. As with the last time I saw him, he talked a lot about being an accordion player and the trials of finding an accordion repair shop on the road. Luckily it seems the upper Midwest is a gold mine, which may be why I was seeing him for the second time in five months. The crowd had thinned quite a bit by this point, but the folks who were there were attentive and filled in the area in the front of the stage. I’m not in love with his grand songs, but they certainly are growing on me.

The Faders





David Dondero



Franz Nicolay

Darren Hanlon & Shelley Short/Windsor Drive/Derek Ramnarace/Max Dvorak; April 9, 2011; The Annex

I don’t go to the Annex very often, I’m pretty sure the last time I was there was for Daniel Johnston’s show, which hadn’t been scheduled there but had been moved from the Barrymore. So it isn’t surprising that it never occurs to me to look at their calendar, I wouldn’t recognize any of the hard rock, metal or rap bands that populate their schedule anyway. It’s a good thing Michelle did though, or we never would have known that charming Australian Darren Hanlon was playing tonight. And if we hadn’t known there likely would have been only two people there to see him. It was pretty obvious that he had been added to Windsor Drive’s already scheduled show. The likeable Wausau band has a modest following here and there were people scattered about the floor for their set, but with two openers before them (Max Dvorak and Derek Ramnarace, quite entertaining (and literally 15 years old) and earnestly boring respectively) I was sure those people weren’t going to stick around for Hanlon. I was right.

We’d been sitting at a table in the back through the first three bands, but we moved to the front for Hanlon. When we talked to him after the show he said he was sure we were getting up to leave instead of moving closer to the stage. Despite the fact that he is from the land down under, I’ve actually seen Hanlon several times before. The most recent of these was opening for Billy Bragg at Turner Hall. He was incredibly charming and his set was well received. Michelle insisted I should ask him to play at the house, but with all the people waiting to buy CDs (including his soon to be released Yep Roc debut) after the show, I was pretty sure he was too big for the house. I wish I had, because despite their enthusiasm the fact remained that Hanlon and his charming bandmates were playing for six people.

In addition to opening for Bragg, I’d seen Hanlon at SXSW in 2009, but I’d fallen in love with him the very first time I had seen him. My sister and I took an impulsive trip to Florida to see the Magnetic Fields. they were rather sleepy that night, but the opener completely won me over, and I bought Hello Stranger. On those three occasions Hanlon had been solo, but tonight be was accompanied by two women who played their own set and then were joined by Hanlon. I suspected that Shelly Short was the voice on I Will Love You at All , most notably the ridiculously adorable duet “All These Things.” That suspicion was confirmed. With a band backing him, he didn’t tell near as many funny stories as he had on the other occasions, but he was still completely adorable. Besides, I already knew the story behind “I Waited for the 17,” a song about trying to catch a bus, the most mundane subject he could think of. “I bought a new computer,” he told us, “and they gave me a free printer/scanner,” pointing to what Steph Hughes was using for a drum stool. Since he didn’t really need a printer/scanner and he couldn’t really take it home with him, not to mention that there wasn’t really room for it in the van, he offered it to the first person who bought three CDs. The other folks jumped on the offer, and Hughes promptly gave up her seat.

As their very enjoyable set wound down, Hanlon asked if anyone had any requests, a dangerous proposition when there are only six people in your audience. Since I’d already had a few IPAs (there were three openers after all), I asked for “the song about the kickstand.” He looked surprised, “how do you know that song?” I confessed to having seen him with the Magnetic Fields. Despite the fact that it was from 2002, he had no problem playing it. It’s a simple song, about a simple invention that made bike riders’ lives easier. “Oh what joy it can bring, a piece of metal and a spring.” Brilliant. Hopefully next time he will be playing the House of Righteous Music, and hopefully there will be a few more people there.

Max Dvorak



Windsor Drive


Darren Hanlon & Shelley Short

Bright Eyes/Titus Andronicus; April 3, 2011; The Riverside Theater, Milwaukee

Admittedly, it seemed a little silly for me to be going to this show. After all, I had just seen Conor Oberst and band play a terrific show two and a half weeks earlier in Chicago the night before I headed to Austin for SXSW. But honestly, it was because of that show that I wanted to see tonight’s show. It occurred to me that going to a show might be the last thing I wanted to do after being on tour a week, but I ignored that thought, and was I ever glad I did.

The set list was essentially the same, perhaps even identical, but the energy was ten-fold. It could have been the difference in the openers, instead of the dreamy Mynabirds we had seen in Chicago, we got the manic rock of Titus Andronicus. I’d seen them a couple times before, and didn’t really understand what the attraction was. Tonight was an improvement, lead singer Patrick Stickles’ flailings seemed sincere instead of act and the songs flat out seemed better than before. I did get tired of guitarist Amy Klein who would not stop jumping up and down no matter what the song, but the nerdily handsome bass player proved a sufficient distraction. Also the fact that Stickles looks almost exactly like my cousin Johnny is inescapable. Watching the band it was easy to pretend that Johnny had made the big time.

It’s obvious that Oberst is a fan. When thanking them during his set, he admitted that he was “totally stoked” to have them joining him on tour. In fact, Oberst talked a lot more than he did last time, and it had everything to do with the fact that he was in Wisconsin. He got very worked up about the state of workers’ rights and about Scott Walker in particular, saying that what he was doing was equivalent to slavery, which led the young girl ahead of us to yell “slavery… boo!” Yep, really. He also encouraged us to go egg the governor’s house. Hmm, maybe all these protestors have been going about it all wrong, all they needed was a couple dozen eggs and maybe that bill never would have been passed. Throughout the show anyone attempting to get on stage to dance or grab a quick hug of Oberst had been calmly escorted back off. During the encore security let them stay and a flood of people enveloped the band. The tiny Oberst had disappeared from sight, and I worried he might get crushed until he stood up on the drum stool, arms up in victory. Another great show, I’d call that a victory.

Titus Andronicus





Bright Eyes

On tour with Ha Ha Tonka- Day 5; April 2, 2011; The Hi Dive, Denver

While the scenery had been unfailingly beautiful on this trip, we hadn’t seen any wildlife of note. That changed today as we were leaving Utah. A pronghorn antelope dashed across the road, slowing traffic and leading to exclamations of “what was that?” The rest of the eight hour drive was less interesting, while the flat expanses that ended in mountains all around us were stunning, they eventually morphed to monotony. More demanding of our attention were the high winds that buffeted the van for more than half the drive. With gusts up to 55 mph, warning signs suggested small trailers beware. Luckily James Dean has done this drive before.

Denver’s Hi Dive is yet another venue I’ve wanted to visit, when bands I like play Denver this is usually where they play. It’s a big room with a capacity near 300, and a half wall separates the stage from the bar area. Sadly, that meant I couldn’t see the band from the merch area. Since this was my last night on tour, I ducked in and out of the room for my last couple songs I would hear. You know, at least until they are in Madison two weeks later. As much as I’d enjoyed Hoots & Hellmouth, I had gotten a little tired of them after five nights. Inexplicably that has yet to happen with Ha Ha Tonka, even though the set list has been essentially the same for a year. Many of the new songs, like “Made Example Of,” “Westward Bound” and “Deadman’s Hand,” they’ve been playing since well before the record’s release. The first single (and the song they played on No Reservations) “Usual Suspects” has been a constant on the set list since early last year. In fact, I think only “Lonely Fortunes” and title track “Death of a Decade” were new for this tour, but the fact that I’ve been listening to the record since the end of last year made even those songs familiar. Still, no complaints.

Big Smith’s “12 inch, 3 Speed Oscillating Fan” usually figures into the encore, the ridiculously catchy, high spirited number is a perfect finale. I’ve never even heard the original version, but I find it hard to believe they could equal HHT’s enthusiastic hoe down. Each night Rob Berliner from Hoots had been joining them for the song, jamming an enthusiastic mandolin, but since tonight was the last night of their tour together, the whole band joined them on stage. Additionally, Denver resident Pat Meese (of the band Meese) was part of the jamboree, taking over the mandolin.

No matter how a good a vacation is, I am inevitably ready to come home at the end. Not this time, I easily could have stayed out on the road with them another week or more. And I am pretty sure they would have let me, I know that James Dean was delighted to be relieved of merch duty. The highest compliment came from Luke who told me tonight, “You know Keeks, you didn’t get in the way at all.” Aw, thanks.



Sound check



Glowing House


Ha Ha Tonka

On tour with Ha Ha Tonka- Day 4; April 1, 2011; The Wood Shed, Salt Lake City

Today was one of the shorter drives of the week, so tour manager James Dean let everyone sleep in. While those boys can sleep till noon no problem I was wide awake at 9 am. Likely because I’d gone to bed rather than participate in the poker game they had planned, though I did invest $5 in James Dean (and yes, I do always use his full name) before leaving. Turns out I backed the wrong horse and I wasn’t going to see any return on my investment. Next time I’ll know better. It was another beautiful day so I sat outside with our host’s skittish dog Blossom and watched folks go by on their golf carts.

The drive to Salt Lake City was as picturesque as the day before, and the city itself was especially lovely, seemingly surrounded on all sides by mountains. We passed the state’s gorgeous capitol building on the outskirts of town which seemed a funny location for the seat of government, until I realized what was in the center of town. The Salt Lake Temple. It looks like a castle, and dwarfs the capitol; I guess we know who runs this town. I was still under the impression that there weren’t any bars in town, just membership clubs, but I found out later that bars had been legalized just a couple years ago. I learned that and other interesting facts about Salt Lake City from my friend Ken, a professor at the University of Utah. I’ve known him since he was a grad student, but this was the first time we’d hung out since he made more money than me. Still, he let me buy him beers all night; I guess some things should never change.

I’ll admit I don’t know much about Mormonism, but what I think I know is that they aren’t allowed to have any fun. So it was a bit of a surprise when tonight’s show turned out to be the craziest of the week. The crowd packed in front of the stage, giving the impression of one big creature bouncing up and down to the music. And they drink a lot too, everywhere I looked folks were holding 24 oz PBRs. Apparently it was that kind of party, because halfway through the set Luke had his shirt off. Which is just fine believe me, but it had the unfortunate effect of encouraging some audience members to do the same. Not as good. They hadn’t been playing it every night, but Ram Jam’s “Black Betty” was an inspired and appropriate encore tonight. Who knew Utah could be so fun?

Brett and James Dean playing some foosball

Lennon lookin' good

Ha Ha Tonka




yep, it was that kind of show