I caught in a sense Birds of Chicago at Don Quixote in Felton Tuesday night, or it caught me. More to come.
THE LIGHT IN ME BOWS TO THE LIGHT IN YOU; or, THEY SEE HORSES, DON’T THEY?
edit to add, Friday, quite rainy: Lumineers’ “Hey Ho” on KFOG as I drove across town heading somewhere else reminded me and remanded me to divert to College Terrace library to update and augment my account of the Birds of Chicago. “New Weird North America”, on account of Allison, formerly of Po’ Girl, being from Montreal. Catching and releasing her, after the show — and subjecting her to two pretty miserable portrait attempts, above — I asked her whether Odetta or Nina Simone were more an influence. She replied “neither” in that her parents thrust upon her a more classical regimen “nothing after 1850”, although she added that she did perform with Odetta at the Vancouver Folk Festival. Also, I called some young female air talent at KZSU Stanford, 90.1, to ask about a song (Thao and Mirah) and suggested they look into Birds of Chicago. They had also made a PSA about a lecture that night about the history of the banjo, and whether Mumford and Sons would come up.
I jumped from my chair, and enchillada, to rush stage right and capture this image of Allison playing clarinet, then texted her agent, my friend Laura Thomas of ComboPlate Booking of South Austin, TX, who wrote back that if I was on the ubiquitous social media page I would have noticed her, too, trying the misery stick. I later promised Allison that I would write at the address on the cd, to get a snail mail direction, to send her a cd of Beth Custer’s Clarinet Thing. I also dropped John Ellis, or maybe just mentioned that I once managed a jazz musician who played tenor, soprano, flute and bass clarinet. Allison responded that she would love to get her hands on a bass clarinet. No, she was not classically trained in clarinet, merely self-taught; a friend had abandoned the instrument.
Jerermy Lindsay pka Jeremy Nero formerly of JT and the Clouds, who wrote 10 of the 12 songs on the self-titled 2011 release said his favorite Chi-town venue is Schuba’s (where my then-client Dao Strom opened for Anna Fermin Trigger Gospel in 2009 I fondly recall herewith). I asked where he fit in with, for the instant case, Old Town School of Folk, Bloodshot, Pitchfork. I suggested Corbett and Dempsey, including a bit of gossip. For probably the twentieth time I described myself as being from The South Side.
On the cd per se, the tracks working on me are called: Trampoline, Cannonball, Sans Souci (by Russell, and in French), Humboldt Crows, and Old Calcutta. I scanned the liner notes to select for ones that feature Russell on the agony pipe, as opposed to voice, ukelele, guitar, whistling, handclaps or banjo. I forgot to ask about Arcade Fire (I am forgetting who dropped for me Saigon Taxi or somesuch, or what foreign parts I have now drifted and digressed into).
Their excellent guitar sidework was provided Tuesday by Joe Faulhaber, from Austin by way of Athens, Ohio. He admitted he also co-leads a GD cover band, Deadeye, which launched me into my 7 Walkers story; he said he opened for 7 Walkers at a private function. Overall, I spent about an hour shmoozing post-show before braving the curves; I opted for Highway 9 north-by-northwest which delivered me to the Clear Channel operated venue Mountain Winery (Paul Masson to us boomer-esque types) after 25 miles. The schedule for Don Quixotes describes itself as a mere 10 minutes from downtown Santa Cruz. I passed Henflings on the way back, not realizing it still existed (assuming I was not merely lucid-dreaming). Reminds that: Tuesday’s show was somehow co-promoted by Snazzy and Fiddling Cricket, but spotted a music biz regular that I declined to speak to. Upcoming notably at the Donk: Mother Hips, Big Sandy. I noticed in the free weeklies of Santa Cruz: forty venues they list, notably Catalyst, Kuumbwa, Pulse Productions, Moe’s Alley and Crepe Place, and upcoming by Slightly Stoopid, Charlie Hunter, David Jacobs-Strain, all of which puts college town Palo Alto to shame.
I suggested Folk Yeah to the artists, and said I would mention it as well to the agent — not that I’ve even been to a Folk Yeah show, only that I rescued a poster here from the Cali Ave kiosks.
Slightly further off topic, and from dear Birds: there is a Merl Saunders and Jerry Garcia tribute bands called Keystone Revisited, which reminds me to lament that the former Keystone Palo Alto (Edge) is destined to be converted to office space. Palo Alto rockers pick up material with School of Rock franchise, and Freebird topic but blunder major pieces like The Varsity.
I wondered about Jon Langford producing Birds of Chicago — at times, Allison’s voice reminds me of my former client Caroleen Beatty (Bedlam Rovers, Waycross, Enorchestra, Pre War Jewel, The Upsets — she also doubled occassionally on not clarinet but flute). Also, Linda Tillery as a rock singer at the Fillmore in the Sixties (Loading Zone). Oddly: Stew featuring Stew and Heidi Rodewald. At times he sound like Paul Simon and the performances or one of them like Graceland or afro-pop. (More the bass line in the instant case, but this had me searching again for the name, from above, Forere Motloheloa, the accordion on “Graceland”).
The term Humboldt crows at first brought to mind “eating crow” or “humble pie”, and then the NorCal state university town, but I am deducing is a meta-Chicago reference.
They also reported having played in recent journeys both High Sierra and Strawberry Music festivals. Allison quipped from stage that we have more festivals than people –which sadly and ironically proves that she has never been to Palo Alto.
And this final bit is way of course, like if you are going 40 in a 25 zone on Highway 9, but there was an ad in Santa Cruz Goodtimes for the Sunset theatre in Carmel which will feature Arlo Guthrie. And I clipped an ad from local paper about Alice’s Restaurant on Skyline, “free internet” which maybe could be added to the famous song, about how you can get anything you want. (And I should probably stop myself from reporting remembering reading the other day a 7-page excerpt from Tom Wolfe, in a book on outlaw writing, an omnibus or offnibus, and Kesey and the Hell’s Angels and a woman “friending” more than 50 people at one gathering: maybe LSD presaged “social media”.)
Oh, shit. Totally almost forget two things. Important things:
1) Nels Andrews, recently re-located from New Mexico and Brooklyn to Santa Cruz, and other longtime Laura Thomas ComboPlate client, and father, and with new album produced by Todd Sickafoose (San Ramon Valley High), opened the show and was thanked profusely and heartfully by BOC;
2) Birds of Chicago opens Saturday Dec. 1 for Sean Hayes and Another Planet’s The Independent (formerly: Justice League, Kennel Club). Sean actually has a two-night stand with different openers. Which got me into with JT a riff on Alabama Chicken, the song, the store, the film by Les Blank, not to be more confused with, Jolie Holland (I met there; she played with Be Good Tanya’s, Trish Klein from BGT played with Allison in Po’ Girl).
Faulhaber, Russell and Lindsay as Birds of Chicago, Felton, California, November,2012
Maybe, 3) its because of not “Fast Cheap and Out of Control” but that I was for almost a year a Green Apple Books returns clerk, locked in a wee little room upstairs, that I write like this, filing things by color of spine and not any more Bertrand Russell (!) logical order: Butch Anthony, THE Alabama chicken, in NYT:
edita, less than hour later: the banjo lecture last night was by Bill Evans who I think was also name-checked it not spun by Bonnie Simmons on KPFA. I am feeling plucky enough to call him and ask him to busk at Lytton Plaza.
Here they are, the Birds of Chi, playing “Sans Souci’ at Austin’s SoupStock benefit:
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 