William Tyler and the Impossible Truth Host a Far-Out Friendsgiving

Jemina Pearl with William Tyler and the Impossible Truth at The Blue Room, 11/25/2023
Photo: Diana Lee Zadlo

William Tyler and his band — formerly just William Tyler Band, they recently started touring as William Tyler and the Impossible Truth — have a refined knack for shifting at a moment’s notice from their time-honored Southern-fried krautrock to blues, punk or anything in between. Saturday night, Tyler & Co. returned to The Blue Room to reignite their annual Thanksgiving-time tradition of augmenting the sound they’re known for with a diverse selection of covers featuring guest vocal turns from fellow Nashville music mainstays.

The general homecoming feel shares a lot with The Band’s grand finale The Last Waltz, the concert portion of which was filmed in San Francisco exactly 47 years prior. Ahead of Saturday, Tyler riffed on the parallels on Instagram, noting that “there probably will only be a couple Neil Diamond covers and everyone likes each other.” Something else the two concerts share: an ephemeral feeling that grows from knowing what you see and hear is unlikely to be replicated.

Eve Maret at The Blue Room, 11/25/2023
Photo: Diana Lee Zadlo

Electronic artist Eve Maret set the tone with her opening set, her table at center stage festooned with various synths, effects and cables. She began with shimmery bell sounds before introducing layers of live clarinet into the mix. Those swelled into a drone, and the visuals courtesy of Morgan Higby-Flowers dissolved and coalesced into forms akin to topographical maps or television test signals. Eventually, with a few twists of control knobs and buttons, the drone morphed into a hallucinogenic breakbeat while the images in the background streamed together in an array of colors before fading to white. Maret left the stage with a bow.

William Tyler performs at The Blue Room in 2023 — William Tyler and the Impossible Truth at The Blue Room, 11/25/2023
Photo: Diana Lee Zadlo

After a quick intermission, pedal-steel ace Luke Schneider saged his instrument and adjusted its pedals, another meditative act before The Impossible Truth took the stage. Tyler and Schneider have played individually with folks like Lambchop and Margo Price and together in various bands, and the pair’s paths have crossed frequently across the expanding universe of what they’ve called “cosmic pastoral” music. Among the group’s five members there are decades of experience, with music in Nashville and beyond. For a few select credits, bassist Jack Lawrence is an alum of various Third Man- and Jack White-affiliated supergroups, plus many others; Tyler’s onetime Silver Jews bandmate, drummer Brian Kotzur, has been rocking hard with Country Westerns; and keyboardist Jo Schornikow has been releasing much-loved solo LPs like last year’s Altar as well as recording with Sunny War and more.

As they slid into their opening number “I'm Gonna Live Forever (If It Kills Me)” — versions of which appear on Tyler’s 2016 solo release Modern Country and the band’s recent live LP Secret Stratosphere — you could detect fragments of the group’s storied history along with plenty that’s new and all their own. The special blend includes the ambient groove of past collaborators Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet) and Steve Gunn with the jammed-out twang of the Allman Brothers or Little Feat. Tyler and the group stuck the landing throughout their set, including songs like “Whole New Dude” and “We Can’t Go Home Again.” These pieces highlighted their talent with intricate bass solos, a zydeco-esque pedal-steel breakdown and a firm rhythmic foundation. Similarly, the duality of Tyler’s playing was a feature, both his inventive fingerstyle and his freak-out soloing that calls to mind Ira Kaplan or Thurston Moore. In the last few seconds, Tyler channeled Moore especially, falling to his knees and cradling his Gibson SG surrounded by a wall of noise.

Tré Burt with William Tyler and the Impossible Truth at The Blue Room, 11/25/2023
Photo: Diana Lee Zadlo

Following one more break, the band returned for the “And Friends” portion and poured their talents into being a first-rate cover band. Schornikow took the mic first for a rendition of The Magnetic Fields’ “The Book of Love,” followed by an equally moving cover of Linda Perhacs’ “Hey, Who Really Cares?” sung by Erin Rae. A few minutes later, they transitioned into a rowdy bar band, inviting Adia Victoria to the stage to cover Eddie Rabbitt’s “Drivin’ My Life Away.” Tyler introduced the next tune with a caveat: “We’re gonna play a Rolling Stones song, but don’t worry, it’s not off Hackney Diamonds,” he quipped, before the band played “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” with Annie Williams. Kotzur and Schornikow jammed together a while before the towering Tré Burt appeared to sing the epic cheating song “The Dark End of the Street.” Memphis legend James Carr’s original version made the song famous, and it’s been covered many times; it was a perfect fit for Burt’s soulful vocal chops.

As the night drew toward its close, The Impossible Truth transformed into a punk outlet, guided by Tyler’s “all-time rock and life hero,” The Jesus Lizard’s Duane Denison. The band ran through a surf-rock instrumental with Denison and Tyler trading quickened solos. For the final number, the band welcomed their “official frontperson,” Be Your Own Pet’s Jemina Pearl. “I’m the Ruby Starr to your Jim Dandy,” she joked, calling back to Southern rockers Black Oak Arkansas.

Pearl’s comment felt representative of the entire night, fusing deep-cut references and disparate genres into a cohesive whole. The last song, Wipers’ “Youth of America,” exhibited a panoply of techniques, with Kotzur and Lawrence laying an intricate beat beneath Pearl’s effects-modulated vocals as Schneider and Tyler wreaked sonic havoc. The jam session ended just as it began, riding waves of sludge and noise.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly indicated that Jo Schornikow toured with Sunny War. Schornikow recorded with War, but was not on the road with her.