keel and the good constable

Oh yeah, Larry Keel brought his newly remodeled Experience to town May 9, so I stopped by early to milk him for a copy of his latest, third and eponymously titled disc. Of course, being a sucker always up for benign good times and the occasional bit of malfeasance, I got stuck in an eddy and ended up "in the way" all night. (Pesky customer.) True to form, the new Experience kicks ass: wife Jenny still on bass and she-voice, some new buddy with an impressive bluegrass resum&#eacute; named Bill Constable on banjo, C-Ville's own Bill Cardine on smokin' dobro, and hairy Mr. Larry on "don't stop me now" flatpicks of fury. Always a good time. Just stay the hell out of the way.

Friday, May 12 -- Having grown up in the snoring '80's, I remember all too well the gem of an underhanded pop two chord wonderjam that was Modern English's "Melt With You." When word snuck out from the Charlottesville Downtown Foundation via disguised bicycle courier that members of that very band were to play Fridays After Five, I donned my fake mustache and blind man's glasses and went down incognito to gleefully witness the spectacle. The Blue Mockingbirds did indeed feature Modern English frontman Ted Mason as well as Living Color's bass superstud Muzz Skillings. Yow! The band produced a hybrid pop sound, dark and slightly dissonant but tasty in a too-mature-for-MTV kinda way. Sure enough, at the end of the run, "Melt With You" was featured complete with a five minute sing-along of "You Can't Always Get What You Want," which didn't quite pan out since "Melt With You" and its humming break was more relevant to most of us than the afforementioned Stones tune ever was. They should have stuck with that. We'd have sung. And maybe even melted.

mighty muzz

now in syndication

I broke away to the Outback Lodge to catch the first set of the Acoustic Syndicate show. Gotta say: what a band. With impressively acrobatic acoustic guitar, banjo, upright bass and drumset, they are the other side of the coin shared by Leftover Salmon. Whereas the Salmon are a spastic traditional bluegrass band hardwired to the transformer, the Syndicate is a full-on intellectual fusion band performing on traditional instruments with only the sparsest traces of Appalachian rhythm and melody still intact. Their sober and intelligent music is very difficult to define because it has departed from so many of the muses that inspired it. But rock, it does. By the time they got to their upscale cover of Dire Strait's "Water of Love," I was a devotee, but much was happening that evening so I reluctantly jettisoned my pod and directed myself to Tokyo Rose.

At the Rose, One Hundred Dollars was preparing for their final Charlottesville sware&#eacute; before the departure of frontman Joshua Krahn, headed for greener pastures (or at least a woman) in Ohio. The former Curious Digit co-conspirator (now leaving One Hundred Dollars twenty bucks light) led his ebow slinging posse (ebow -- a hand-held electronic device that, when held to a guitar string, causes it to produce a sustained note -- like a bow) through some kooky covers and their own gurgly superdead underground college pop superlatives. Always reliable for oblique antics and subliminal gestures, they opened with the Cars' "Since You Gone," and encored with AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock."

20 bucks short

Both were delivered with the understated alternative rock slither that is their way. (I call this the "suck ethic"-- not because it sucks, but because its rough around the edges approach seems to sneer at virtuosity.) Krahn had donned a terribly cheesy fake mustache and skinny tie for the occasion, which made him look like an early '80's new wave porn star. He will be missed.

The event was actually something of a CD release party for True Love Always' newest Teen Beat Records offering, Torch, so they rolled out to deliver a set of their supersweet bubblegum alternative pop. Songsmith John Lindaman knows how to put the jazz chords in alternative rock and never fails to do so to great effect.

isn't that sweet!

His songs are invariably complex, soft-spoken and lovely, and they seem to owe more to Bacharach and the top 40 of the early '70's than anything else I can try to compare them to. In most cases I might consider "bubblegum" a harsh criticism, but in TLA's case, its a coveted paradigm. Their set was well-received and I managed to sneak away with a copy of the new disc. Free tunes! I love this job.
-C.D.
cripsyduck@mindspring.com