VISITING ACT|Ryan Adams & The Cardinals

MARCH 11, 2009
VISITING ACT Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
Turning Points: Ryan Adams does stuff 'n' shit
BY BRYAN REED

Today, David Ryan Adams will lead his Cardinals through a set at the Performing Arts Center. It might be one of his last. Or not. On Jan. 14, Adams announced his pending retirement from music on his blog. Referencing the current tour, Adams wrote, "I am excited to finish this wonderful time I have had with the Cardinals, and whatever new adventures may come after march. Atlanta will be my last venture with the band and I am grateful for the time we have had and maybe someday we will have more stories to tell together."
Expressing a sincere dissatisfaction with the life of a touring musician, addressing hearing issues, the hardship on personal relationships, and a fear of a damaged legacy, Adams offered only a slight glimpse of hope for his fans: "Maybe we will play again sometime and maybe I will work my way back into some kind of music situation, but this is the time for me to step back now."
Seven days later, the retirement announcement was deleted. The general assumption was that Adams changed his mind. It wouldn't be a first for the singer/songwriter, who since becoming an alt-country icon as the frontman of Whiskeytown more than 10 years ago, has carried a reputation for erratic behavior. Notorious bouts of stage fright and a constant stream of studio work have all became synonymous with his name.
But his latest album, 2008's Cardinology, (Lost Highway), the third to feature the Cardinals as his backing band, finds Adams seated into a comfortable groove. He seems solidified by the sobriety he found in time for 2007's Easy Tiger (Lost Highway). This Adams, at least in the studio, sounds more focused and comfortable, which results in some of his most consistent work, even if not always his most exciting. Still, the fact remains, when Adams hits it just right, his songs are close to genius caliber.
That potential for greatness is what's kept Adams' fans coming back time and again for every album and every show. It's probably a good thing it was that blog post, and not Adams' future music career, that was deleted.
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals perform at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center (5001 Coliseum Drive, 843-529-5050) on Wed. March 11 at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $31. Visit www.coliseumpac.com and www.cardinology.com.

Charleston City Paper

Elvis Perkins In Dearland

Elvis Perkins In Dearland
[XL; 2009]
Styles: rock/pop singer/songwriter

Others: Benjy Ferree, Van Morrison

Links: Elvis Perkins In Dearland - XL

Barring the obvious conclusion that, like so many discussions related to one’s appreciation of music, individual taste makes a concrete solution impossible, let’s ponder for a moment the importance of lyrics in pop songcraft. Granted, you’ve got your Darnielles, those whose verbose storytelling is the sole focal point no matter the sonic qualities. But in general, lyrics are shaded by our own impressions and interpretations, a misheard line becomes an existential dispute if left to fester too long and given too much gravity.

And what of the casual listen? What of the melodic or textural qualities that usually illicit the initial attraction? If lyrics form a song’s personality, is a good hook really no more substantial than a killer rack?

With his second LP, Elvis Perkins, an orphan to two of his era’s greatest tragedies — father Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates in Psycho) died of AIDS in 1992, and mother Berry Berenson, a photographer, died on 9/11 — keeps his pen trained on matters of finality. But you could figure that out by reading the tracklist. “Hours Last Stand.” “Doomsday.” “123 Goodbye.” You get the picture.

But, much like his 2007 debut, Ash Wednesday, Perkins speaks through characters and, more importantly, though his musical arrangements to present a nuanced approach to musing on mortality and loss and loneliness. And, given a tracklist and the instrumental takes, I’d imagine you’d get much the same message.

Album standout “Doomsday,” filled with vibrant horns and a barrel-chested oom-pah bass line, is a celebratory arrangement — celebratory like a New Orleans funeral. “Till Doomsday/Fiddle-Aye-Ay” boasts Perkins to a lover he’s forgotten. But simply by evoking a Dixieland jazz band’s lively eulogy, the message is solidified: finality isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The death of one thing is the birth of another. Lyrics are only a corroborative account. Same for “How’s Forever Been Baby,” a trudging shuffle, dirge-like in its languishing pace and spare ensemble. Piano, light drums, and acoustic guitar stagger along with the speaker. Occasional brass and harmonica evoke the blues. It gives Perkins the perfect soapbox from which to plead “How’s forever been, Baby?” This time he’s got his memory, and maybe this time he’s not so okay with losing someone, but again, the verses rely more on Perkins downcast croon than the actual words he’s crooning. The words don’t hurt. His images are masterfully placed and phrased. But the point’s not lost without them.

And maybe that’s the real mark of a good songwriter, when you can extract pieces without tumbling the tower, even though the combined effort of all those pieces all serve to strengthen the song. Nothing’s wasted, but all that’s necessary is the inspiration.

1. Shampoo

2. Hey

3. Hours Last Stand

4. I Heard Your Voice In Dresden

5. Send My Fond Regards To Lonelyville

6. I’ll Be Arriving

7. Chains, Chains, Chains

8. Doomsday

9. 123 Goodbye

10. How’s Forever Been Baby

by Bryan Reed

Tiy Mix Tapes

Butterflies' Nothing's Personal

(Trekky Records)

11 MAR 2009 • by Bryan Reed

"For you, I'll go and dig up my old roller-blades/ I'm taking off work for the weekend," Butterflies frontman Josh Kimbrough promises during "Relive Brielle," perhaps the best song on his band's Nothing's Personal. Musically, the song is uncharacteristic of the band, its electric charge proving an unexpected counterpoint to the rest of the album's acoustic shuffle. But thematically, it's the crux of what Butterflies is all about: small, simple gestures of friendship cast through a nostalgic filter.

Purportedly the product of Kimbrough's post-grad musings about lost friends, bands and freedom, Nothing's Personal proves to be a bittersweet collection that plays like a series of extremely personal notes: "Hang-Ups" tides its morose verses ("The words once music to your ears/ Have turned to daggers in your heart") into the album's most hopeful refrain: "You're gonna make it/ Whatever you do." The simplicity in the lyrics behooves Kimbrough, whose limited voice manages to express a very real sense of vulnerability and honesty. In fact, the album's biggest flaw comes from overdone arrangements, auxiliary instruments brought too far to the fore, where they intrude on Kimbrough's coming-of-age reflections. However, even this flaw is relative. An example: Robert Britt's fiddle—a frequent culprit—draws intricate and delightful melodies. Even as it oversteps, it engages.

Overall, though, Butterflies' latest aims for the heart and rarely misses. Kimbrough's songwriting is detailed but not obsessive, allowing the gauze of memory to soften his focus. In tandem with his voice, it gives the songs a welcome sense of sincerity and intimacy.

Butterflies headlines a free show at Local 506 Wednesday, March 18. Husband & Wife and Wes Phillips open.

Independent Weekly, 3/12/09

Live: Harvey Milk, "a baptism in tone and volume"

Live: Harvey Milk, “a baptism in tone and volume”

Bryan Reed · 3 Mar 2009, 2:13 PM · Comment

Harvey Milk, Black Skies, Pontiak
Local 506, Chapel Hill
Friday, Feb. 27

Harvey Milk is a band to feel live more than see: Sure ,the unassuming trio, in its old jeans and novelty T-shirts (singer/guitarist Creston Spiers’ read “Lord of the Strings”), was animated and personable on stage Friday, cracking smiles and spreading surprising affability from its Local 506 pulpit.

Harvey Milk's Creston Spiers: Oh, Lord. (Photo: Bryan Reed)

But it was hardly a visual spectacle. Then the music started, and it became clear why Black Skies frontman Kevin Clark, amid a tuning break, hurried his bandmates along: “Come on, we’ve got a show to see.” His sentiment echoed that of a growing audience, all eager to hear Harvey Milk.

For a full hour, the Athens-born weird-metal institution trudged its way through a career-spanning set. A few hundred heads—all nodding involuntarily to the band’s deep, rumbling pulse—cast their eyes to the stage. Chests rattled with the force of the amplifiers. The tandem of Harvey Milk’s down-tuned, start-stop sturm und drang and frontman Creston Spiers’ cavernous moan mines blues and drone, creating an impossibly weighty sound, a baptism in tone and volume. Milk’s deliberate pacing and loud-quiet-silent-louder dynamic made its performance—save for cuts from The Pleaser, which Spiers declared “our rock album”—hard to describe as a rock show. The structural elements of the songs didn’t fit the norm. Still, the feeling was the same.

The tar-thick heaviness of Harvey Milk proved an ideal counterpoint to Pontiak, who opened. The Virginia trio’s psychedelic overtones lent a spaciousness and melodicism to its sludgy riffs without sacrificing heft.

Pontiak's Van Carney (Photo: Bryan Reed)

If Harvey Milk were a glacier, slow, monolithic and uncompromising, Pontiak proved the groundwater beneath it, more fluid and prone to directional shifts. Both, though, seemed to have developed organically from atavistic elements, existing seemingly as they would in any era.

The same could not be said of local openers Black Skies, whose midtempo heavy metal—something akin to High on Fire’s more straighforward material—offered plenty of glimpses at potential, but relied more on a highly kinetic stage presence from Clark. While certainly enjoyable, the set felt rushed and a bit misplaced.

Black Skies' Kevin Clark (Photo: Bryan Reed)

Independent Weekly's "Scan" music blog. 3/3/09