The crawl started Tuesday (Sept. 5) at the Outback Lodge, where I ducked in for a set of
Buzby's weekly shindig. The place was practically vacant, and if not for Evan Williams (the bartender, not the whiskey) I'd have probably felt a little lonesome. Buzby did not let the low turnout get the better of them. They cranked it out and kicked it down and accomplished several other almost indecipherable colloquialisms with their finessed harmonic pop and rock formula.
Thursday I poked my beak into Michael's Bistro where Asheville's Greasy Beans were laying down their happy old-time formula. The Carolina crew were doing the all-time coolest bluegrass maneuver-- most recently revived around here a few years back by Del McCoury's band: playing and singing into a single microphone. It's a tricky feat that requires the players to lean in closer to the mic when singing or taking solos, but the results are dramatic: the band sounds exactly like an old-time AM radio recording. When you first walk into the room, you think it is an old-time radio recording. And then you look over and WHAM! it's a bunch of dudes from Asheville. The Beans are sweet-sounding, classic and tight.
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| puritan exposure |
Friday I rolled to the Downtown Ampitheater for a little of the
Naked Puritans at Fridays After 5. After years of seeing their cryptic flyers around town, I was really curious to check out their show. It turns out that the fully-dressed and only mildly obscene pilgrims are a solid little power trio whose alternative pop stuff hearkens back to underdog superheros of the '70's and '80's like Elvis Costello and XTC. An impressive little avant troupe, really. I believe they recorded the show for potential use on an upcoming live CD. Always a bonus.
Zofia Drone were playing at the Moondance Cafe-- by the central fountain on the mall-- and although I wasn't about to sit down for dinner, I did stand off to one side to check out a few of their tunes. I'd describe them as a mature "future-folk" acoustic duo-- very "contemporary adult" with a distinctly "New York/European-cafe" vibe to them. (If I'd told you this story in person, my fingers would have been making lots of "air-quotations.") They might be a little more sophisticated than Charlottesville's bluegrass-loving crowds normally throw down to, but they have a nice tight sound, and should appeal to the "Dave-Matthews-leaning" amongst us. I dug 'em.
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| fresh hope banana |
That night you couldn't have torn me away from Trax, seeing as how this was to be the maiden Charlottesville voyage of the new Deep Banana Blackout lineup-- fronted by none other than local horn wiz and former Baaba Seth groovemaker Hope Clayburn.
The show opened with Waynesboro's (pronounced "waynes-burl" for you non-Virginians out there) Sundried Opossum, and all I can say about their set is "Damn!" Sundried regularly tears up the Outback Lodge and DŸrty Nelly's, but at Trax they were truly fired up and relentless. A dynamo of solid southern-fried psychedelia, they threw down like they meant to take over the joint, burn it to the ground and baptize the whole lot of us in the drainage ditch outside after the show. Needless to say, I was somewhat impressed.
Deep Banana Blackout came on to much audience revelry and, with the enthusiastic Hope Clayburn at the helm, proceeded to funk the place down. When I heard that Hope was taking over the "lead vocal" spot (there are several singers in the band) from the somewhat Joplinesque Jen Durkin, I wasn't sure how it would turn out. My hesitation was unwarranted. Hope sang like a champ and added a third horn (and flute) to the band's already lush funky mix, resulting in a most digable scene. After only a few weeks together, they sound tight as a pimp's dimples, and I smell big parties in their near future.
The following night while killing time before Unit F's CD release party, I rolled into Miller's for a beer and got sonically assaulted by Caron's Gathering. What the hell is that all about? They almost put me off my brew until I started thinking of them as a comedy act-- then it got really entertaining. Caron, a jazz trumpet novice, can just barely play. This really isn't a big deal though, since both the sax and keyboard players are on similar terms with their instruments. The only guys up there who appeared to know what the hell was going on were the drummer (pretty good, but a little more suited to rock than jazz, I think) and the bass player who was inaudible. I'm sorry Caron, but what are you thinking? The only thing that could possibly justify listening to a jazz band this crappy would be the presence of a stripper, so either take off your clothes or give it up. Please...
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| unit a+ |
Unit F rules. Their CD release party at Tokyo Rose was a rousing success, a sweaty, stomping bath of gleeful metallic punk chocked full of anthemic sing-alongs and a mighty dose of muscle-squinching intensity. Their much anticipated disc,
A Friend of Sorrow, should be available around town so get a copy and then join me in the fray at their next throw down. Mammoth temples of glorious guitar-god gritty gloom and mayhem.
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