4Play (May 2010)

 By Don Allred

MAY 5:

Laura Marling

Wednesday @ Wexner Center

At seventeen, British singer-songwriter Laura Marling released Alas, I Cannot Swim, powered by a teenage appetite for folk-flavored melodrama and mischief. If your castle explodes, it might be justice, or just because. Marling’s new I Speak Because I Can conjures with spontaneity, stagecraft, complex subtexts and direct address. Concerning her banished lord of disorder, she confides,  “We write, that’s all right/I miss his smell.” Maybe that’s all right too: now 20, Marling muses, “ I wouldn’t want to ruin something that I couldn’t save.” Let’s hold her to it. 

Weedeater 

Wednesday @ Carabar

“Untied we stand/Long live dirtweed/Mankind is unkind, man/God luck and good speed.” As delivered, that last line suggests that “God luck” is about as likely as good luck or good speed (hint: not very).. But Weedeater’s sound also suggests the successful ingestion of at least tolerably effective speed with weed, so maybe there’s some comparable luck waiting for us lonesome forager monsters. Meanwhile, along with what’s defiantly stated and reliably fated, there’s the sometimes compelling, always compulsive friction of lost and found, high and low ground, in this grizzled power trio’s seething strata of homegrown, industrial strength Dixie sludge (come for yon comfort food. y'all).

The Cab

Friday @ Newport Music Hall

You may well be aware of certain perfectly presentable, mostly male pop-rock combos that keep coming around, best understood by actual nineteen-year-old girls, not those of us who merely wish to be. The Cab somehow veer from this caravan on their debut album, Whisper War. Combining analog-associated warmth and digital clarity, judiciously assertive voices, guitars, pianos and drums evoke ‘70s power-pop and later decades of smooth r & b influences. The Cab fly about as right as a band convincingly homesick for “Vegas Skies” ever could or should. 

mr. Gnome

Saturday @ Ruby Tuesday

Cleveland’s mr. Gnome like their name to be lower- and upper-cased, atop the other cute, cliché-risking contrasts. They’re yet another guitar-drums duo, with sly little vocals materializing in passing caverns of sound: But singer-guitarist Nicole Barille has such a touch, ditto drummer Sam Meister. Their songs are rocking Rubik’s Cubes of interlocking variations, channeling indie roots flannel, mountain vampire twang, surf king Dick Dale’s Middle Eastern modality, 70s glam, and “ Cleveland Polka” into new psychic adventures. “I saw my love/ Shut his eyes and call it over.” That’s the spirit!

 MAY 12:

Local Natives

Wednesday @ The Basement

On Local Natives’ Gorilla Manor, voices rise from cool, safe shadows to the mythological ambition of “Sun Hands.” Native  harmonies, melodies, and beats spin the empathy of “World News,” becoming overwhelming as  “Who Knows, Who Cares” abandons ship for the river of sound. But it all pertains to getting the girl back. Local Natives’ favorite drugs are memory’s bittersweet sugar high and confession’s rocket fuel for the soul. 

 Growing

Friday @ The Summit

 ”Lab dance,” Sadie Laska mutters, as beats and textures slide into different speeds, on Growing’s  Pumps! It’s a heads-up, as Laska and her colleagues bring a disruptive/disrupted balance, sometimes with a rippling edge, to Growing’s hectic electric beach. It’s also a cue for sounds usually tagged as “abstract” to come out of their cubicles and socialize, surfing on a blackboard through the waves, laundromat, and car wash, often simultaneously. They’re fairly dance-worthy; probably more so live. Growing’s showtime seems like the right time to beep with the one you love.

J. D. Souther

Saturday @ The Bar of Modern Art

After recording  as Longbranch Pennywhistle with Glenn Frey, J.D. Souther  provided the Eagles  and others with songs and production, moving from L.A. country rock to Nashville pop country when the time was ripe. Rain, Souther’s new live release, even brings out the latent Latin jazzness of his musical heirloom tomatoes. Compatible new ballads extend Souther’s mix of romance and sharp-eyed attitude, implicitly including his own cool tourism in “That golden cup of style/On your journey down the Nile,” kinda late-70s Steely Dan style, minus that SD era’s tendency to smooth self-pity. Souther’s well-preserved voice and guitar will be accompanied tonight by pianist Chris Walters, a key player on Rain.    

Jason Aldean 

Monday @ The Schottenstein Center

Back in ’06, Jason Aldean rode around his beloved “Hicktown,” with its truly country view of  “The neighbor’s butt-crack/As he’s nailin’ up the shingles.”  Most songs on  2010’s Wide Open  seriously emphasize the tension of peeling away from (and as) roots by cranking up mid-tempo strum and sway. That works best after a refreshing jolt of “She’s Country,” which is not unlike “Back in Black.” Judging by YouTube and Aldean’s rowdy  encounter with Bryan Adams on CMT‘s “Crossroads,” we can expect some more tangy twang on stage.

MAY 19:

Screaming Females

Wednesday @ The Summit

House party-bred-and-breeding power trio Screaming Females’ sound is a rough and ready, yet intriguingly detailed, hot tomato soup poured from the battlements of Castle Talk and other mercifully mercurial milestones.  Not too gradually: their songs are succinctly slamming sagas, tight and sometimes bouncy. For instance, the ska beat of “Mothership” boots Odysseus to Mars, through a fairy tale fractured by the furious humor of singer-guitarist Marissa Paternoster, a visionary pilgrim tramping out the sustaining, shadow-hungry center of the storm. You may well sing along: “You make me feel so important/Like a letter from God in her purse!”

The B-52s

Friday @ The LC Pavilion

Since the mid-‘70s, the B-52s have danced real people out of silly poses, with a super-silly blend of genre benders, which are also the real deal. Even space age sirens with bouffant/bomber/hairdos sometimes have to wail, “Why don’t you dance with me /I’m not no lim-bur-ger!” 1989’s “Love Shack” is still open to all, though 2008’s “Funplex” is private property, as Jersey mall cop Fred Schneider warns Georgia peaches Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson. But they’ll race him through Keith Strickland‘s guitar, until he has to call, “Faster, Pussycat! Thrill! Thrill!”

Mumford and Sons

Saturday @ Wexner

"Tremble, little lion man /Your boldness stands alone/Among the wreck."  Drawing on their reputation for poetically rowdy shows, UK folk-rockers Mumford and Sons’ "Little Lion Man" is a shrewd point of risky departure for their debut album, Sigh No More. The slight penitent waits for the music’s shots of tough love’s grace. He gets enough to break away, through rising cycles of obsessive drama. These can turn bleak; that’s the risk. But the diminutive immigrant does a  “Dustbowl Dance,” while hometown love and war renew their vows.

Halestorm

Saturday @ Crew Stadium

A certain power ballad sure feels like a sultry country night, as the lady recalls summer love. Until she suddenly taunts her old sweetheart, who shouldn’t feel too bad. She also loves doing that to stalkers, voyeurs and other favorite audience members. On Halestorm’s self-titled debut album, Lzzy (yeah, “Lzzy”) Hale’s brand of metal shares ‘70s/80s-rock-based connections with restlessly nostalgic modern country. She’s a leather working girl, whose extreme measures sometimes have to battle her own heart, and that’s country too. But no twangy strings or singers need to apply.

MAY 29:

Beth Nielsen Chapman & The Harmony Project 

Wednesday & Thursday @ The Lincoln Theatre

“We’ll dance until we’re dead/While the clouds hurl shadows at the wind.” The jolting spiritual adjustments of “Shadows” flow through the besieged fourth quarter of singer-songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman’s Back To Love, sociably connecting with earlier tracks’ experienced leaps of faith and jumping musical precision. Chapman’s stress-tested quests now compatibly spend two evenings with the practical idealism of Columbus’ choral Harmony Project. This benefit for Project Feed also includes versatile keyboard stylist Bobby Floyd and a 12-piece band.

Main Street Gospel

Saturday @ Ruby Tuesday’s

 “I might f*** you up/I might drag you down/I might see you around.” No wonder this opening track bears the title of Main Street Gospel’s new album, Love Will Have Her Revenge. The departing spirit puts a hex on her ominous ex at the crossroads, and sends MSG’s psych-blues drone searching  overcast, still vivid topography. The music only falters when it goes where it thinks it should. But when Barry Dean growls, “Take what you need/Take what you can/Leave a little for the travelin’ man,” she whets his appetite.

Shellshag

Monday @ Carabar

Shellshag’s corrugated strum ‘n’ thump forms a nice, plain, indie-traditional frame, inviting you to step through, as characters appear in the cracked mirror of Rumors in Disguise. They’re shuffling a deck of clues, but drummer Jenny Shag is consistently supportive and elusive; while guitarist Johnny Shell ponders just the right degrees of heat and sharpness. They suggest several ways time and self-image can ease over the brink together. Meanwhile, let’s warble along with gifted child Johnny: “They never understood/All their words are made of wood/And they burn with fuh-fuh-fire.”

Tony Monaco 

Tuesday @ Rumba

As developed by pioneers like Jimmy Smith, trios featuring the Hammond B2 organ delighted club audiences and thrifty owners, while economically conjuring orchestral splendor. In the hands of Smith’s student Tony Monaco, the present-day B3 finds an agility which can be both fluid and spiky, while poised at any speed. Columbus-based Monaco, who also tours with jazz stars Pat Martino and Harvey Mason, is at home in funky trio classics and modernist excursions. He’s joined this evening by equally cosmopolitan resident legends, guitarist Derek DiCenzo and drummer Reggie Jackson.