Catfish Haven Live!
Catfish Haven
Double Door, Chicago
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Missing from the garage rock renaissance of the early millennium were great singers. Roky Erickson was as essential to 13th Floor Elevators as that nauseating electric jug, just as a sinewy Iggy Pop not only gave The Stooges unpredictibility, but also an unquantifiable grace. A rudimentary power trio, Catfish Haven could get by on their stripped Stax soul, like Booker T. acolytes without access to an organ. But they excel with George Hunter’s Southern soul quaver.
Hunter’s honeyed vocals could be white or black, and that’s where that argument ends. Free of racial qualifications, he guides Catfish’s debut, Tell Me (Secretly Candian), with the restraint of Al Green, or, more precisely, Otis Redding.
The challenge for the band at their release party Saturday night rested solely with Hunter’s voice, as his standard guitar chords, Miguel Castillo’s backbeat bass, and Ryan Farnham’s trap kit would assemble everything else. Drenched in a crimson glow, Hunter delivered the warbling strains of “If I Was Right” without a broomstick of a mic stand as a crutch, restrained to his distorted acoustic while fighting the mandatory rhythmic ticks. He was more free to sway on gospel-inflected numbers like “Tell Me” and straight-rockers such as “Please Come Back.”
As it is on the record, “Crazy For Leaving” stood out as nothing but an irreplaceable standard, a masterpiece of aping classic influences and modernizing them. The backing vocals, characteristic of The Four Tops’ best work behind Levi Stubbs, were actually most key, providing a sympathetic bellow to Hunter’s pop-inflected misdeeds.
Catfish Haven’s choice of covers, however, was disorienting. Joined by a gang of backing vocalists, “Let’s Spend The Night Together” and “Mony Mony” were forthright as far as the era they emulated but were so obvious to be ineffectual. Perhaps it’s a testament to the strength of the originals — irony ought to be out of the question — but there are better showcases for their ingenuity and reverence.
— Steve Forstneger
Category: Live Reviews, Weekly
