This one is for the countrified “I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory” off of her amazing Asking for Flowers CD. I’ll admit that while I dig the country cool vibe of the music,the lyrics, as quirky as they are, aren’t my favorite lyrics of hers. Regardless, it’s a really good song, and a fun video. Hello, it has Kathleen in sports gear!! I will also admit, I am not huge on the whole “her kissing another man” thing….what? She didn’t think I was going to watch this??? DO I NOT MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU KATHLEEN?!?!?! Hahahahaha, just kidding…sort of.
The great crowd also enjoyed opener Matt Butcher (above)
It was an amazing show, and I could sit here and try to give you a scholarly, extremely verbose analysis of not only the show, but what the music of the Avett Brothers truly represent in today’s current musical landscape and how it complicates people’s desires to forcibly place every act into a nice, neat little marketable package with a simplistic and catchy label to satisfy soccer moms all over the Midwest, but I won’t….
What I will say about how I felt during the show is this: I felt like the skin of my face was being pulled off by broken banjo strings and I LOVED IT!!! I have never quite understood the punk-rock comparisons that many people apply to the Avett’s until I saw them perform live Wednesday night. Their CD’s are great, but the Avett’s, accompanied by a cello also on stage, turned these songs into Bill Monroe’s Red Bull-laced night terrors (again, I loved it). If NOFX had scraggly beards instead of shaved heads and the occasional Mohawk, unplugged their instruments, they might make for a good Avett Bros. tribute band…if they really worked hard at it.
They tore through many of my fave tracks from Emotionalism. “Paranoia in BB Major,” “Weight of Lies” and “DIe, Die, Die” were abundantly better and more lively than even the stellar versions on the CD itself. Scott Avett proved to be a dynamic front-man as he jerked his head in rhythm to the beats he was pounding out on his awesome bass drum that was placed at his right foot.
I was there with Cindy from the Fine Line and her hubby Scott, who were also both impressed with the show, as well as the fact that Dallas showed up well for this hard working band from the east (there were clearly several hundred folks there by the time the Avett’s hit the stage).
It’s here and I am pumped. The Avett Brothers take the stage tonight (Wednesday) in Dallas at the Granada Theater. You can still get tix here.
Cindy from The Fine Line Live will be webcasting and I’ll be her little helper (even though I dont know the first thing bout that kind of techie stuff). Show starts at 8.
When I pop in a disc from a band based in Virginia (West, or just the plain one) or North Carolina, I get excited and my mind fills with preconceived notions of good ol’ smokey mountain boogie, complete with Dueling Banjos and Foggy Mountain Breakdowns. Unfair? Sure. True? Not really, I don’t think that all the time, but I’d be lying if I said it was totally untrue. Having said all of that, I do find satisfaction when I listen to the album and gain a sense of the band’s rootsy region tucked nicely inside their music.
The Atkinson’s (Official / Myspace) are, in fact, from Virginia and therefore fell victim to my preconceived silliness, but only for a moment (or the length of time for the first track to play). American Gothic slipped from the clutches of my sickness by the time the album’s second track, “Caroline” rolled around. This cut showcases an excellent fiddle feverishly fiddling, as well as lead singer Dickie Woods animated vocals (think a less hillbilly BR549). Woods vocal augments the urgency of the fiddle and when the chorus of, “Caroline, don’t know how you do it” hits, I can’t help but feel that I am listening to a Roots-Rock band that is putting their roots slightly ahead of the rock. The up-tempo fiddle and wonderfully manic vocals are the two traits that give this album its own distinctive identity. The signature fiddle sound also keeps revving on full-speed into the third track, “Watertown”. The fiddle does eventually slow down, but not as to create a gaping whole in the album’s sound. In “Part of Me”, the harmonies build up steam as the fiddle cries softly in the background.
Cuts like the album’s closer, “Best Thing” exemplify why it can dangerous for bands to float in the treacherous waters of comparison. Whether it be critics and bloggers that throw them in the water or even the band’s own press materials, there can often times be a lazy and reckless tendency to use Alt-Country Icons such as Drive by Truckers, Old 97’s or Son Volt to help convey the sound of the band to the desired listener. While this name-game can help a person understand what sonic the band is reaching for, or assist a friend in telling his buddy who a certain band “is like”, the comparison name-game can also often times miss the key elements of what makes the band unique and prevent someone from fully “getting” a certain band. In “Best Thing”, along with many of the tracks I have mentioned, it is Mike Ferry’s fiddle and Dickie Woods’ vocal that sets this disc and band apart from trail blazers such as the 97’s or Uncle Tupelo who rarely feature either fiddle or terribly “countrified” vocals.
American Gothic from The Atkinsons succeeds tremendously in providing us an introduction to a Roots-Rock band that will hopefully continue to expose their roots as the keep on rockin’.
This review and a whole lot more can be seen over at TWANGVILLE.COM
