I picked up Vacilando Territory Blues months ago, gave it a few listens and lazily let it slip to the bottom of a growing playlist. It stayed there until last week, when I heard Tillman’s breathtaking Daytrotter Session, recorded in Austin during this year’s South by Southwest music conference.
The session’s four songs highlight what I like best about Tillman’s songwriting: his patience. He lets the right amount of space into his music, allowing his clear voice and emotive lyrics to do their work. On the Daytrotter Sessions, those spaces also let in the sounds of the room: a creaking chair and a singing bird outside the window. Serendipitous sounds that don’t distract, but in fact, give life to these recordings.
The session includes the alt-gospel “Master’s House”–for me, the highlight of Vacilando Territory Blues. Itcontains some of Tillman’s most potent lyrics, including the line “How easily the heart of man is tamed.” Indeed.
Our intrepid roving reporter, Andrew Blake, is out in Europe seeing the sights and drinking massive amounts of German beer. Last week, he ran around Zurich, Switzerland, with Delta Spirit. Here is his travelogue.
It started off at the bar in the hotel. I was having a beer when the band began to roll in one by one, each ordering the only beer the bar offered. Shortly after we had all gathered, we roamed the streets of Zurich, Switzerland, until we reached a whiskey bar that we talked about earlier. Through ritzy glass doors across glimmering polished tiles, down stairs and through doors, we finally arrived at a hidden gem in Zurich. The menu held over 450 types of whiskey… we indulged. The night rolled along gracefully while each person engaged in sporadic conversation from one to another. Brandon and I talked for awhile about the state of music today and “making the hits,” and all that that entailed. We spoke of bands and how their albums were produced, mixed and reviewed. What I took from each member is that none of them are willing to sell out on any aspect of their music solely to get a “hit.” How their album is mixed and mastered and the style and quality of their songs, must be true to what they believe.
Each man looked tired from being on the road since January. Matt, Kelly, Brandon, Sean, Jon… even Olly, their epic European tour manager, were all ready for home. Most of them had girls back home just waiting for them to return from the road. Most of them kept their iPhones close by in case their girls called or sent a text. The road can be a lonely place, they say.
I caught Delta Spirit in San Luis Obispo two years ago when they were pushing their first EP. April 9th was the first time I had heard them play live since then. I can confidently say two years of touring and one album later, the band has only became tighter, both personally and on stage. Brandon said, “As trite as it sounds, we really are a band of brothers,” giving praise to each of his band mates.
The tour ends in a day or two. They are all looking forward to a month off. Each person will fly back to America and drift to their respective homes to recover from a whirlwind of work, life, and dream. Once recuperated, they will record their new album. Matt says it is time. He says they have played these songs for so long, in so many places, for so many people… it’s time to share what life has showed them these past two years.
Delta Spirit… a new age band in a new age. Check ‘em out.
Delta Spirit’s latest album, Ode to Sunshine, is out now on Rounder.
Before braving the hipster throngs and 24-hour industry parties of South by Southwest, M. Ward played an intimate show at the Dallas Museum of Art. No badges required.
Ward took the Horchow Auditorium’s empty stage with just his acoustic guitar– he didn’t need much more to impress. After burning through “Duet for Guitars, No. 3,” (on one guitar, mind you) Ward settled into a satisfying list of familiar favorites and Hold Time stand-outs.
“I don’t normally play in museums,” Ward confessed between songs, in one of his few asides to the audience. “But, I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
Songs such as “Never Had Nobody Like You” and “Magic Trick,” whose album versions move with full pop arrangements were stripped bare and slowed– suggesting what these songs might have sounded like when Ward first heard them himself as he was writing them. Ward’s hushed folk songs, such as “I’ll Be Yr Bird” and “Fuel for Fire,” carried in the silent auditorium, with not a clinking beer bottle or cell phone conversation in their way.
Ward kept the show simple– moving between his acoustic guitar and the hulking grand piano that sat in the rear of the stage– but pulled one trick from his bag. On “Oh Lonesome Me,” he used a guitar effects pedal to loop the rhythm chords as he played the sleepy slide lead over the top. The song took on a long interlude when he let the loop play, shot the audience a “Be right back” look, left the stage and returned after a few moments with a drink.
Ward ended his set with “Story of an Artist,” Daniel Johnston’s lament to a life of being misunderstood and unappreciated– an interesting choice for an artist who had just proven himself in front of a room of true believers.
Setlist:
1. Duet for Guitars, No. 3
2. Fuel for Fire
3. Never Had Nobody Like You
4. One Hundred Million Years
5. Oh Lonesome Me
6. I’ll Be Yr Bird
7. Chinese Translation
8. Hold Time
9. Vincent O’Brien
10. Sad, Sad Song
Encore:
11. Magic Trick
12. Poison Cup
13. Here Comes the Sun Again
14. Story of an Artist (Daniel Johnston cover)
Like Oprah and the Coen Brothers, Lucero’s Ben Nichols is a fan of Cormac McCarthy. The Last Pale Light in the West, his first solo record, is inspired by McCarthy’s 1985 novel Blood Meridian, the tale of murderous gang in the pre-civil war American Southwest. And, Nichols is a good man to tell the tale. His gritty voice and driving acoustic guitar are backed by subdued accordian and shimmering pedal steel that paint a bleak but captivating picture of the books desert setting.
The songs–all but one named for the book’s charachters– touch on lost love and redemption, but center around the gang’s brutal work. The theme of The Last Pale Light in the West is summed up on “The Kid”: “We killed in the desert, we killed in the streets/ We showed what shall and what shall not be/ We stood with pistols, fought back to back/ Now you stood your ground, what ground is that?”
But, it’s a short ablum for such an epic story. At just seven songs (one is an instrumental) the album clocks in at just 27 minutes. Last Pale Light in the West is out now on RCRD LBL.
Next week Phosphorescent, also known as Matthew Houck, releases his love letter to Willie Nelson. No, you won’t find “On the Road Again” here – To Willie looks deep into Nelson’s catalog for its 14 tracks. Houck’s melancholy delivery gets the point across on “Reason’s to Quit,” and should fit nicely with the rest of To Willie’s songs about drinking, heartache and regret. To Willie is out on Feb. 3.
Next month, Phosphorescent takes To Willieon the road. He’ll perform the album in its entirety at special shows in Brooklyn, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and at SXSW.
I think I owe Joshua Tillman an apology.
