The Spin
Wild man blues
Where Dada meets country wisdom, that’s where you’ll find Malcolm Holcombe. “A bull’s ass gets hungry, too,” the North Carolina singer-songwriter explained to the attentive Bluebird crowd last Thursday, and they laughed nervously, uncertain if they were supposed to understand. But Holcombe’s spontaneous remark, just to kill time while he tuned his guitar, was much like the lyrical conundrums that give his songs a mystical bent. “But I believe in ways than these,” he sang to start the choruses of the gorgeous “A Far Cry From Here,” and, flaws of logic and grammar aside, it somehow made perfect sense, though we’d be hard-pressed to explain how. Perhaps it’s the conviction that oozes from his scratchy, booming baritone, or his disarming lack of even a nano-hint of self-consciousness. Holcombe has found a steady home at the Bluebird, and the venue is oddly appropriate for a couple of reasons: first, he’s one act that makes us actually want to shush the crowd, and second, his off-kilter persona and eccentric stage antics—getting up out of his chair and hunching over the mic, furiously shaking his head like a pit-bull tearing someone’s arm off—create a palpable tension among the relatively wholesome audience, giving the proceedings a delicious edge. What might seem like a conscious attempt to baffle is more likely just Malcolm being Malcolm, and in the end it always comes back to the music, which is by turns raucous, heartrending, mystifying and hypnotic, but rarely less than stunning. “Wow,” our newbie friend whispered, “he’s really intense.”
Drums “R” Us
Take two drummers, add a banjo and a tall brunette on tambourine and you have Huntsville, Ala.’s The Counter Clockwise. Playing to a sparse but energetic crowd last Wednesday night at the Radio Café, the unorthodox quartet somehow made us feel that every band with only one drummer was missing out. Well, maybe that’s a little extreme, but the CCW’s loud, fast White Stripes-meets-Woody Guthrie-meets-Drumline sound was irresistible. Especially those drummers—kits practically intertwined, they smiled and exchanged looks, sometimes playing in unison with deafening synchronicity, at other times creating a multilayered rhythm that made up for the otherwise spare instrumentation. Lead singer Matt Bakula, with his James Franco-esque pallor and straightforward punk rock bark, threw himself into every song. New London, Conn.’s The Can Kickers followed. With barely a breath between songs, the trio ran through a set of punky bluegrass. It was a night of standout drummers—we couldn’t decide whether Can Kickers drummer Doug Schaefer’s frenzy was more seizure or demonic possession. (Then he pulled out the washboard, and all bets were off.) The Can Kickers are about as high-energy as it gets, and by the end of their set they had drawn some listeners out of their chairs to the front of the stage. They closed with the traditional ditty “What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?,” drenching it in lightning-quick banjo, fiddle and drums. We were tapping our feet until earl-aye in the morning.
Sonic boon
Call it fate. Kismet. Synchronicity. A customer brought Grimey’s “indie-pop princess” Anna Lundy a copy of a book she had asked about, Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture—edited by one of her all-time idols, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore—to the record store, where she was working her Saturday shift. Who should walk in, no more than 20 minutes later, than Thurston Moore himself. “I kind of geeked,” Lundy says. “I was totally star-struck. I am such a fan—I just couldn’t believe it. He signed my book.” “He was in town visiting a friend,” says Grimey’s co-owner Doyle Davis. “He only looked at 7-inches—went through every box I had, and that’s a lot. He was particularly excited to find a record by a noise ensemble that was based out of Nashville. It had a very strange name but it was basically John Sharp [a.k.a. Mr. Natural] and Tony Gerber [of the space rock project Spacecraft].” Even more intriguing, it seems the reason for Moore’s visit was to catch Be Your Own Pet, who played that night at The End. In fact, accompanying him and his friend was BYOP guitarist Jonas Stein. Apparently, there’s something sonic about these youths that has piqued Moore’s curiosity. Could there a record or production deal in the offing?
The Activist Stuntband?
There’s more to Chris Crofton than just spinning death metal and John Denver tunes and trash-talking The Pink Spiders, as he does every Thursday morning on WRVU-91 Rock. No, the amazing new CD from his group The Alcohol Stuntband shows off an activist side of the city’s brawniest boozehound frontman. He takes a stand against sexual double standards (“Studs and Sluts”), the circumstances that would drive a man to wear a fez (“Horror in Hippieland”) and even the Bell Witch (“The Bell Witch”). Laugh all you want, but Crofton’s hilarious mix of filth and fury has become one of the most compelling shows in town—and on this CD, backed by longtime foil Theo Antoniadis, bassist Dana Cerick and members of The Bubblegum Complex, Porter Hall TN, the Black Diamond Heavies and more, he’s finally got the sonic muscle to back it up on disc. (Check out the 13-second scream that silences the snarling riff of “The Bell Witch”—Roger Daltrey, eat your heart out.) And if Toby Keith ever got hold of Crofton’s anthem “The Alcohol Stuntman,” they’d both be the better for it. As a thank-you to their fans, the band will give away copies at their CD release show Friday night at The Basement, joined by The Clutters and Falls City Angels.
France farewell
If you frequent The Basement, or were a Slow Bar regular, or hung out at the Radio Cafe back in the late ’90s, chances are you know Shalene France, who’s been a fixture on the Nashville club scene for years—whether it was taking your money at the door, working behind the bar, or managing, booking or promoting her favorite bands. But a lot of people may not know about Shalene’s growing passion for photography, which has led to a couple of shows and a fair bit of freelance work. She’s having one last exhibit at the Family Wash, “New York State of Mine,” before she picks up stakes and heads to Los Angeles to pursue both her art and her interest in the entertainment industry. The show, which features 20 black-and-white images, opens with a reception 7 to 10 pm this Sunday that includes music by singer Tommy Keenum, and will run through Dec. 10. (On Sat., Nov. 26, The Basement will host Shalene’s official farewell extravaganza.)
Comments (0)