Welcome back, summer!
Yes, we know how lame it is to talk about the weather. Older generations and the upper classes consider it vulgar.
We don’t know about that, but as the leaves begin the feather-like descent to their inevitable deaths, we will turn over a new one and promise that for the rest of this post, we will make no allusions to the fact we’re glad we no longer attend a high school without air conditioning.
Let’s talk about . . . high school! The Tallest Man On Earth, a.k.a. Swede Kristian Matsson, bears the distinction of being a singer/songwriter who doesn’t sound like he’s been carrying around the same lyric notebook since secondary school. While he backed his tales with very Dylanesque underpinnings on The Wild Hunt, his full-length issued earlier this year by Dead Oceans, this fall’s Sometimes The Blues Is Just A Passing Bird EP retains intimacy but feels more like the work of a rock ‘n’ roll songwriter. Not long ago, Matsson opened for Bon Iver and now BI percussionist S. (Sean) Carey returns the favor serving warmup for this jaunt. Carey’s All We Grow (Jagjaguwar) could easily be mistaken for the solo work of Iver mainman Justin Vernon: languid, ethereal sonic explorations that could otherwise backdrop rustic folk ballads. (Wednesday@Lincoln Hall.)
“Down, down, down,” sing Dead Confederate on the spankin’ new Sugar (Old Flame), though it’s not quickly picked up by “We’re not goin’ down!” Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood always jokes how rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t a good way to get girls at his southern high school, and he played it like Skynyrd. We can only imagine how often this Athens, Georgia-based quintet had its ass kicked for exploring Jesus & Mary Chain-esque dirges with the occasional sonic brushstroke pinched from Kevin Shields’ palette. There are plenty of fiery guitar solos (a la Dino Jr.) to tangentially relate this to your stereotypical flag-waving, F-150-drivin’ redneck blowhard, but if you get anyone drunk enough songs of lost love will put tears in anyone’s beer. (Wednesday@Double Door with Alberta Cross and J Roddy.)
Maybe you’d like to go to film class instead? I’d still like to visit retribution on my guidance counselor for never hooking me up with that scam. Do It Again: One Man’s Quest To Reunite The Kinks represents filmmaker Geoff Edgers‘ attempts to reunited sparring brothers Ray and Dave Davies. The 90-minute documentary might not have the tearjerker ending of Anvil: The Story Of Anvil, but it does feature along-the-way interviews with Sting, Zooey Deschanel, and Robyn Hitchcock. (Thursday@Metro.)
— Steve Forstneger
Category: Featured, Stage Buzz, Weekly
