Alabama Shakes – Reggie’s – 3/10/12

The Alabama Shakes hit my radar last year like a B1 Bomber entering urban airspace. So I was excited to find out they were coming to town last December to the small, yet inviting Hideout. And then I was disappointed to find out it was the same night as a Wilco show for which I already had tickets. But then I was excited to find out that they were doing a second show a couple days later at the sterile, seated, yet acceptable SPACE in Evanston. And then I was disappointed to find out it was the same night as my Christmas dinner for work. I considered blowing off dinner but since there were only eight of us, my absence might have been noticeable. I still considered it, but ultimately put on my bib and got down with some crab legs. But then I was excited a couple months later when they announced a return trip to Chicago for a gig at the venerable Lincoln Hall. And then I was disappointed to find out it was the same night Dave Alvin was in town. If you read my previous review, you’ll understand that missing Dave was not an option. Yet I was still tempted. And then I was excited to hear that they were doing a free WXRT show at Reggie’s the following day at high noon. Would Brittany finally be Cracky’s bride instead of his bridesmaid? Hell yes. I even shimmied down the retired dumbwaiter to gain early access to the hall and secure a front row spot.

Was she worth the wait? Hell yes. Can I do the rest of this review as a Q&A format? Hell yes. Did I really get that excited about a band that hasn’t even released their first full-length record yet? Hell yes. Check out YouTube. Okay, enough of that.

The music. It’s as if Otis Redding were born a woman and adopted by Mama and Papa Allman and raised along side Greg and Duane and then turned loose with a guitar and a notebook plastered with Zeppelin stickers.

Clothes make the man. So before you go making fun of my Wham! t-shirts, perhaps you’d be interested to know that vocalist Brittany Howard kicked this band thing off by inviting the weird kid in her psych class to play with her because she liked the band t-shirts he wore. They eventually found an additional guitarist and drummer and hatched this Alabama Shakes thing.

Brittany commands center stage, filling the place with her impassioned vocals and then attacking her guitar with similar vigor. It’s always nice to see a guitarist who knows more than the same three open chords that I do. But I digress.

The band stays largely in the background, recognizing that Brittany is the lobster in this bisque and they are the cream holding it together with just a dash of sherry to remind you that they’re there. It works. My only complaint is that the set clocked in well under an hour, but I'll shove that complaint up my own ass since it was a free show and the fact that they played less than 12 hours the night before and were due back on stage in Milwaukee later that day. Take care of that voice, Brittany, or else you'll end up like Drew Brees after that shoulder injury. And we all know how that turned out.

Bottom line: She’s fun to watch. They’re easy to listen to. You’ll dig the tunes. Cracky shakes his tailfeather.

Dave Alvin & The Guilty Ones - Fitzgeralds - 3/9/2012

This was Uncle Dave, telling some bedtime stories, except instead of fairy tales about princesses and ogres and make-believe crap, his stories are about lost friends, badass old-timers, runaways, barroom troubadours and the women who love them, and other assorted characters on the fringe of society that most of us rarely encounter, may not want to encounter, but can’t help being drawn to when introduced to us through Dave’s eyes. He brings the stories home with six strings, some of them stinging us with the pain of a lost soulmate, others coming together in chords that give us a glimmer of hope that the runaway girl just might find a place to call home for the first time in her life.

There will be no falling asleep, either. Uncle Dave comes to town and tells your parents he knows it’s your bedtime, but you revel in the dark side and get chills as you hear the buzz of his amplifier fill your room. There’s no sleeping when Dave comes to town.

His van is filled with his cohorts… a supporting cast of players who know the stories well, yet are ready for a new twist he may add any night, taking their cues from a slight hitch of the guitar, a look from the corner of his eye, a nod of his head as he turns the page on the next guitar riff. Chris Miller handles the other guitar duties, often taking to the slide as the set up man for Dave’s next verse or solo. Brad Fordham keeps things rumbling on the bass clef so Dave can focus his efforts higher up neck. Alvin is clearly the star here and commands your attention in his boots and jeans, leather jacket, ever present bandana and worn cowboy hat and swagger, but the ringmaster who pulls them all together is drummer and Guilty Woman Lisa Pankratz. In a show a couple years ago Dave credited her for keeping him in line since he claims to have no sense of timing, but it goes beyond just keeping the beat. She gives off a sense of hyper-awareness, often staring intensely in Dave’s direction. Not always getting those cues, but sensing exactly when and where Dave is going next. She can take the beat down while he ponders his next move or pauses to carry on the narrative, building tension with some steady, subtle rhythms, but then just as easily she can rally the beat and send Dave off crack-the-whip style into a climactic solo that will leave you tattooed with every emotion that song conveys.

This is the best band working on the road today. Dave is the real deal, and he surrounds himself with the top people in the business. I normally go off on some ridiculous tangent in these show reviews, but I have too much respect for this band. Cracky says you’re a fool if you miss an opportunity to see Mr. Alvin.

Punch Brothers – Park West – 3/1/2012

I thought Punch Brothers was a machine shop on the west side of Chicago or a bad improv group so I was less than intrigued when a friend invited me to see them. But I keep an open mind about stuff and found out that it’s a band led by Chris Thile. I wasn’t sure, but didn’t he play second base for the Mets back in the 80’s? No? Apparently he was in Nickel Creek, a band for whom several friends got raging boners, but left me feeling less than satisfied. However, I checked out some of the Punch Brothers stuff and found it, well, punchier than what I had expected. I’m also going through a bluegrass phase lately and have been debating whether to purchase a mandolin or a banjo so that I can rightfully suck at another genre of music. I’m leaning toward the mandolin since it’s much smaller and probably easier to carry around. I can also finally dust off that Hooters’ songbook that’s been sitting on my shelf since 1985. You remember The Hooters… that Philly band that did “All You Zombies” and “And We Danced” before they opened all those stupid Hooters restaurants? But I digress.

Sometimes I overestimate the number of friends I have and purchase 20 tickets for a show and end up having to sell 19 of them on Craigslist in exchange for faulty curling irons and used copies of Kirk Cameron’s autobiography. Recently, though, a friend has come through for me a few times so that I’ve only had to sell 18 extra tickets, so I decided to repay the favor and take one of her 20 tickets to the Punch Brothers.

I got there about halfway through the opener, Aoife O’Donovan, and was informed that she’s “pleasant”. An odd description but spot on. Too bad Scrabble doesn’t allow proper nouns because her name would be a killer play when you end up with a rack full of vowels. Just missing the U and sometimes Y. Ah, yes, back to the Punch Brothers.

So the Punch Brothers aren’t really brothers, they didn’t punch anyone or serve punch, and they don’t have a drummer. But they did bring an upright bass player, a guitarist, a banjo-ist, a fiddler off the roof, and Chris Thile, the said mandolinist.

Going to a Punch Brothers show is like watching the snowboarding events at the Winter Olympics, except it’s not as cold. The boarders all do some crazy shit and even though it’s a competition they’re out there partying, cheering each other on and all go apeshit every time someone nails a triple-lindy in the half-pipe. Same thing… individually the Punch Brothers are immensely talented, but as each one takes a solo or is featured in a tune the other four are dialed in and smiling in disbelief that they are in the same band with these other fuckers. Chris Thile flailed on that mandolin like I’ve never seen, and then takes a ringmaster role as he physically moves the music through and across all the other members. And they all deliver. But even more “pleasant” is how they all mesh on every song. Their timing is dead on, through the barnburners and the ballads, and they nail tempo changes and creative arrangements as if they’ve been playing together on the front porch all their lives. This was a fun show. Cracky drank the punch.

Diamanda Galas – Museum of Contemporary Art – 2/25/2012

Cracky got a Kindle from Kris Kringle for Christmas. And I also overdo the alliteration any time I get the chance. Between skee-ball tournaments and pickling hard-boiled eggs for the corner tavern, I stay pretty busy and lose track of any books I’m reading and where I left off. The Kindle has kept me more focused, more efficient and somehow even more hygienic. It’s truly a miracle device.

One of the books I’ve been reading is "Get In The Van" by Henry Rollins, which is essentially his journal from his days in Black Flag in the early 80’s. At this stage in the book, he’s living in a shed, largely withdrawn, and not talking to anyone very much. So, yeah, living just like Cracky. However, there is but one person with whom he likes hanging out, exchanging letters and even talking on the phone: Diamanda Galas. I had never heard of her, but I was intrigued enough to check her out and stalk her online. Since she has a Wikipedia entry and music on Spotify, it was much easier than stalking that woman on the bus. But I digress.

Allow me to quote three lines from Wikipedia:

Galás has been described as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror", with her three and a half octave vocal range. She often screams, hisses and growls. Her works largely concentrate on the topics of AIDS, mental illness, despair, injustice, condemnation, and loss of dignity.

Sold.

Fast forward a couple days and I’m flipping through Time Out magazine around 3 a.m. on a Friday night trying to find the best place in Chicago to get my chest waxed when who should I see peering back at me from the pages of the magazine but Diamanda Galas herself. She’s in town and performing on the 23rd! Shit, that was yesterday. Why couldn’t I have gotten the urge to wax my chest a couple days earlier? Wait! Another show on the 25th! Tomorrow. Sweet! Argh, sold out.

I decided to head down to the MCA early when the doors opened to get on the wait list, and when I arrived they had exactly one solitary ticket left. I pushed the sickly looking goths in front of me out of the way and threw my cash on the counter. Good thing I had turned down that transvestite on the corner who asked me if I needed a date.

It was my first trip to the surprisingly minimalist yet functional MCA theater. The lone grand piano, stool, and monitors on the simply lit stage were a perfect compliment to the space.

Diamanda came out in black tights and black fringed chemise, not nearly as goth as half her audience, yet reminding me of a Greek, slightly goth Beth Hart. She took a seat, got her sheet music in order and plowed right into the first chords. Oh, yeah, she’s a badass pianist. I would have paid just to see her play piano, probably because I don’t understand the value of a dollar, but I’m a sucker for piano music and women musicians the same way other people love kittens with baggies full of crack. Crack kittens.

But unlike the mythical crack kittens, Diamanda has experimented and trained her voice unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. I’d say her voice is a cross between Maria Callas, Nick Cave, Lydia Lunch, and John Lee Hooker. Her vocals are like a clown car… you can’t believe all those sounds are coming out of one human, or any human. The fact that it’s all happening while she’s pounding out these intricate melodies and rhythms on piano nearly made my head explode. I think I heard a couple heads explode in the back, after which they were asked to leave for disturbing the artist.

The songs ranged from covers of old spiritual tunes (“Let My People Go”) to original music set to early 20th century Greek poetry and Italian suicide poems to complete originals from her 80’s trilogy based on the AIDS epidemic.

I once worked on a job site where the risk of explosion was so high that the walls were cinder block, but there was a light tin roof above so that the force of any explosion would be directed upwards. Diamanda’s performances would work well in a room like this. If you’re feeling brave enough, step inside and be prepared to be blown away. Once you clear the tin roof, you might enjoy the ride. The rest of you may be better off staying on the other side of those walls. I went inside and Cracky’s alive. Very alive.

Bindlestickin' New York City: Memphis - Shubert Theatre

I somehow found myself on the guest list for a dinner on the Upper East side of Manhattan earlier this month. I’m not sure how that happened, but I never turn down a free meal so I hopped on a big ol’ jet airliner and got my ass to NYC. I arrived on a Sunday afternoon and like any Tony-loving fellow I decided to kick off my visit with a Broadway play. Book of Mormon was the obvious choice, but it is sold out until 2028 and I can’t plan that far in advance. Spiderman sounded cool, but general consensus is that the play sucks unless you get off on dudes in tights flying around your head. So I went down to Times Square and got in line at the TKTS booth with all the other cheapasses who don’t want to pay full price. I like my culture cut-rate.

Remember the thespians in high school? Well, just like I realized that a career in pro football was unlikely and hung up my stinky cleats after senior year, most of the thespians also realized that a Broadway career was unlikely and hung up their Kabuki masks and got real jobs as singing waiters at TGI Fridays. However, a few of them did not give up on the dream and can be found in Times Square wearing ridiculous costumes in the cold and passing out flyers to the shows for which they were rejected faster than was my application to Mensa. But I digress.

I perused the flyers and decided on Memphis on the basis of its 2010 Tony for best musical, the fact that featured some R&B music and because I’ve had some really good BBQ in the actual town of Memphis.

So, the play. The story of Huey Calhoun, a white dude in the 50’s who starts all sorts of shit for liking, playing and promoting black music. Back then such an atrocious act would be akin to going to Rick Santorum’s house with a plate of deviled eggs. So there’s your story, conflict and protagonist. In the course of getting to the end of the play, they dance and sing a lot. And there are some badass dancers and impressive singers that would make it to Hollywood on American Idol should they ever decide to stoop to that level. I usually hang out at infinitely off-Broadway theatres in which I’m lucky to find a folding chair and an usher not on crack, so I’m always blown away by the talent, sets, and general production value. But the songs were pretty generic, and well, like a musical. Almost as if they were written by Bon Jovi. Or their keyboard player David Bryan. What’s that? You say they were written by David Bryan? I can’t believe I got snookered.

Regardless, I was somewhat entertained, but left the theatre feeling ripped off. Like ordering the ten-piece McNugget and getting home only to find eight in the box. If you want to know why, then I must issue a semi-spoiler alert.

Huey doesn’t die. Huey doesn’t live happily ever after. The damn musical just ends. He should have died. Not because I’m evil and like sad endings. Cracky very much enjoys happy endings. But the story is pretty much based on real-life DJ Dewey Phillips. And Dewey died. Huey should have died. Cracky got had.