mikeherr's Posts


mikeherr's Photo I'm a St. Louis native and volunteer music writer for KDHX. I like listening to music, reading about music, and writing about music. But mostly I like listening to music. Follow my blog for CD reviews, show previews, and other musical musings.

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Concert review: Lightning Bolt, Spelling Bee and Parts & Labor electrify the Luminary Center for the Arts, Saturday, April 23

Lightning Bolt

facebook.com/pages/Lightning-Bolt/12838367045

The lightning and rain was hunching the smokers over when I arrived at the Luminary on Saturday night. Everyone else was jogging or speed walking to get out of the storm.

The foyer was chaotic, like one of those hyper-dramatic scenes in movies where people seem almost hysterical at ticket booths to get in to whatever’s going on behind the theatre doors. But once inside and wristbanded, people calmed down a bit — some even went back out to smoke — and I realized my mistake: No one was rushing out of the storm, they were here to see Lightning Bolt. They expected a storm tonight, a violent one. These people were exactly where they wanted to be.

Got your tickets guys, sold out show! was constantly ringing out from the foyer where likely a hundred Lightning Bolt fans were turned away. Again, I was skeptical of this Luminary place. How were they going to accommodate one of St. Louis’ great purveyors of entropic sound (Spelling Bee), much less Lightning Bolt, a band more comfortable playing on city streets than in the stage lights of a venue proper? But, upon entering I saw two stages. One, the main stage, wired to the house sound system, riddled with instruments; then, a stage almost directly at the entrance with a psychedelic, misshapen drum set, bass guitar, pedals here and there, and a veritable wall of speakers and amps looming behind (the Marshall on one amp was reformed to spell harsh). Lightning Bolt’s keep.

Mabel Suen and Joe Hess, aka Spelling Bee (and hosts of 88.1 KDHX’s Wrong Division), set the pace for the night, bringing raw surging, basement-weathered sounds to a tingling crowd. A single light shone on the duo from above as they tore into their first song, Suen’s gnashing guitar work actually done justice by the house speakers. Hess’s drumming too came alive for me, both nuance and brutal tom-ride crashes driving the music more than ever. And their set was short and sweet, whetting the taste of the highly appreciative crowd for whatever madness was bound to come.

Parts & Labor took the stage next; as a four-piece, they were the largest ensemble of the night. They seemed ready, on top of their sound, coming off the momentum of the release of their latest album, Constant Future. But their glossy presentation, the-lost in-the-mix, irrelevant guitar work, lyrics delivered almost under the breath (as if vocalist Dan Friel was reconsidering what he wrote), and Joe Wong’s stunning, ambidextrous, but nevertheless frequently over-the-top drumming all came together to warp their songs into complacency. At one point, Friel even looked frustrated at Wong’s calamitous song-closing drum fill, its conventionality (snare to tom to floor tom triplets) suggesting boredom or the stiffness of the song more than an exciting finish. And the crowd thinned, clapped less, took a breather before the main event, which after all may have been a good thing.

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Posted by | April 24, 2011 | Concerts | Comment 

Concert review: Destroyer and the War on Drugs dazzle the Luminary Center for the Arts, Monday, March 28

Destroyer

myspace.com/destroyer

In the old, quiet-looking stone building resting across from Tower Grove Park on Kingshighway, there’s something interesting going on. You go down some steps, enter a huge, low-ceilinged room that’s furnished like a upper-middle class basement in West County — low, warm lights, dry wall everywhere, marble-topped bar — and find yourself surrounded by probably a lot of clean, wide-eyed young people you’ve never seen at other shows in St. Louis.

This is the Luminary Center for the Arts, and so far, so weird. Yet, not long after the first dazzling chord of the War On Drugs‘s first song, I realized that this was one of the best places to see a show in the city.

The room disappeared, the band was lit in soft blue, and suddenly, feeling like I was in someone’s basement turned out to be great. And the War On Drugs projected a meaty, textured, phlangy sound through the huge hanging JBLs. Adam Granduciel’s trebly, Dylanesque phrasing rang through the music, and his considerable chops on lead guitar were made evident in elusive, streaking solos and shrieks. Dave Hartley’s bass was both an anchor and flair in the music, filling a tough and rare role somewhere between Paul McCartney’s melodic, jouncing playing and the low-down pocket grooves of soul music.

The four-piece was filled out by right-on-the-beat drumming and 12-string acoustic guitar that provided another layer of percussion as well as melody. They were confident, they held it down; they were one of the great opening acts I’ve seen: setting an appropriate musical atmosphere for the headliner, equal parts composed and satisfyingly giddy energy, softening the crowd up for the big punches to come. Not to mention throwing some haymakers of their own — songs like “Buenos Aires Beach” and their set-closer, “Arms Like Boulders” soared and jagged and pulsed, led by Granduciel, who seemed like some sage, ageless rock & roller with plenty more to offer in the future.

The crowd was full and buzzing by the time Dan Bejar and his band Destoyer came quietly onstage. With a tambourine and a contemplative look at his band, he set off “Chinatown,” the leadoff track on Kaputt. It was what everyone in the audience at least subconsciously expected the band to start with, but this once, predictability and expectations turned out to be good things.

The digital snare and electric piano and snaky horns and entangled guitars making Kaputt happen and then…Bejar comes in, eyes closed, right when everyone needed him. The whole set was a mood piece molded by Bejar’s calm and subtle direction. Rarely did he smile; he said maybe five or six words out-of-song. At the end of the night, you could find him leaning alone on his touring van, a guy who left it all inside, said probably everything he wanted to say that night to anyone in the songs.

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Posted by | March 29, 2011 | Concerts | Comment 

That’s what’s interesting about music: An interview with John Dieterich of Deerhoof

Deerhoof

facebook.com/Deerhoof

Deerhoof is a dynamic band — always one step ahead, knocking down musical boundaries and conventions with muscle, fervor and style gleaned from the world of music outside America. On their latest record, Deerhoof Vs. Evil, every sound is a strange surprise or an experiment, and it almost always turns out well for the listener.

And though the band is sometimes reduced to some version of indie rock’s lovable musical weirdoes with ADD, Deerhoof’s music is never obscure or quirky or drawn from a void — it is grounded in a deep respect for all music, channeling such a varied swell of influences that it is often misunderstood as the sounds of idiot savants. The band battles against this by making the exact music it wants to make, and hopefully the world as a whole will one day wise up and want to hear.

I got to talk a bit with guitarist John Dieterich about the album and about Deerhoof’s future in the good fight.

Mike Herr: I heard you guys moved out of San Francisco.

John Dieterich: That’s correct, yeah.

Where are you guys at now?

Well, we’re kind of in 4 different places. I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Ed lives in Portland, Oregon, and Greg lives in New York City. And Satomi is sort of in between places at the moment. She’s not sure where she’s gonna end up yet, but we’ll see.

You guys just a couple months back released that record [Deerhoof vs. Evil] — are you just kind of like taking some time off now?

Well, actually we just finished a tour like two days ago. We did a full U. S. tour. We have a couple of shows in New York in March, and then basically in the middle of April, we’re gonna start a European tour.

Where are you playing in Europe? Do you have like a bunch of shows lined up?

Yeah, it’s gonna be a busy one. Then at the end of that, we have a project we’re going to be doing where we’re going to be collaborating — have you ever heard of this group called Konono No. 1?

No, I haven’t actually.

It’s a group from the Congo, and basically there’s this sort of style of music in Kinshasa in the Congo where they use amplified thumb pianos, and Konono’s the most known band in this style, but there’s a whole bunch of them. But we’re going to be doing a collaboration with Konono and another group from the Congo called Kasai Allstars. Also Juana Molina is gonna be a part of it and then this amazing group from Sweden called Wildbirds & Peacedrums. It’s gonna be this huge collaboration, so that’s gonna be taking up a lot of our summer.

Yeah, that’s sounds pretty awesome.

Yeah it’s gonna be amazing. We’re all sort of writing for the group as well, and sending things back and forth.

So you guys are gonna be doing some recordings? Or are you gonna be playing live?

Well, we’re gonna be playing live. We’ll meet for like 10 days at the beginning of all of it and rehearse, and then play around ten shows.

Anywhere in America?

Um, not yet. We’re hoping that something can get booked, but it’s a huge production, as you might imagine. It’s gonna be like 20 people onstage, and it’s a very complicated thing to put together. So, there’s this label in Belgium called Crammed Discs, and they’ve been releasing Konono’s music for a while. And basically, we did a cover version of one the artists on Crammed that’s from the Congo — this group, Kasai Allstars — and that’s kind of how this whole idea came up. In the midst of all that, we’re going to be playing Deerhoof shows. . . .

It’s kind of interesting that you’re doing all that because I feel like there’s little hints of African stuff, especially in the new record — really just many sections of the world, none of them sound especially American — and it’s just cool that you guys are joining up with some other forces.

Yeah, it’s exciting for us. You know, when we did this cover version of this song, we really studied it and tried to figure out a way of coming up with our own version that worked. And we felt like we learned something in the process, but it’s a whole other thing altogether actually playing with them. It’s an incredibly sophisticated musical tradition, and we’re just like complete newbies. It’s gonna be the craziest, probably, experience of my life, musically. I can’t even predict how it’s going to work yet. [They’re] real musical masters, you know. I’m looking forward to it a lot.

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Posted by | March 4, 2011 | Interviews, Music | Comment 

Concert review: Randy Newman never misses a note, at the Sheldon, Friday, February 25

Randy Newman

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In 1975, in his book Mystery Train, Greil Marcus wrote of Randy Newman: “Newman is afraid of his sensibility, to the degree that he has to get it over to an audience.” 36 years later, here he is in the Sheldon Concert Hall, sitting on his piano bench before a great Steinway, which yawned at a full house of devoted fans, many of them around his age — and Mr. Newman seems only moderately comfortable.

He fidgets, smiles probably more than normal, mumbles the ends of song introductions. But it’s not because the songs aren’t there; it’s not that the piano isn’t tuned; it’s not that his voice is shot, that he’s scared and old, that he’s lost it. He hasn’t. He goes on to play an unbelievable, sincere, hilarious set because he still doesn’t quite know who these people in the audience are, whether they know the line between Newman and his characters. And sometimes neither does he.

Over 2 extensive sets, Newman covered most of the great moments in his songbook. He played everything from his biggest commercial hits like “Mama Told Me Not to Come,” “Sail Away,” “I Love L. A.” and “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” to his most sneering and morally ambiguous tunes such as “Rednecks” and “You Can Leave Your Hat On,” as well as at least a couple of songs that sit in both groups (“Short People” and “Political Science”). He played the piano like someone else might talk, or more specifically, explain something, make excuses. But beautiful, fissure-less excuses — Newman did not miss a note. His phrasing was as expressive and goofy as ever, able to take on the voice of a sexually frustrated boozehound chasing after a young girl and a man who misses his woman. The magic in his body of work — and in his delivery of it live — is that these voices, all these voices, are not so different. All Newman’s songs can be boiled down basically to longing, death and regret, and he gives all his characters his voice because he feels all of it, as does his whole audience, ideally.

And he hasn’t lost touch with any of the unadorned honesty of his music. In one of the quietest, emotional moments of the evening, Newman introduced “I Miss You” as a love song to his first wife, written while married to his second. The crowd laughed, but immediately sank into the warmth and heady honesty of the song. Newman’s introduction and song served to let the audience see him for what he really is, to give a name to that weird mix of forbidden longing and regret, and to implicate this audience of people, likely well-versed in life’s tragedies, but who do not always acknowledge or say as much.

At 67, Newman has softened up a bit in his old age (in 1975, he wouldn’t have given “Rednecks” a context, explaining how he wrote the song from a Georgian’s perspective after seeing Lester Maddox booed off The Dick Cavett Show), but he makes sure he still straddles the line between gentle composer and dispassionate asshole performer.

Right after starting into “Harps and Angels,” a man in the audience fell on the stairs with enough thud to break everyone’s attention — everyone except Newman. He kept playing, singing about angels and death while the commotion all went on behind him. It wasn’t until the house lights went up and someone yelled, “Call 911! Is there a doctor in the house?” (very cinematically too, like Newman was providing some twisted score for a near-death scene) that he stopped playing, turning around confused and flustered. People crowded the elderly man, who now sat on a stair, seeming to gaze at the stage. Newman muttered, “Tell me what to do…” and looked up at the lights.

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Posted by | February 26, 2011 | Concerts | Comment 

Concert review: Leon Redbone charms away the blues at the Old Rock House, Tuesday, January 25

Leon Redbone

myspace.com/leonredboneblues

The Old Rock House was already standing room only when I arrived on Tuesday night. Waitresses milled through low light into a host of well-dressed, mostly middle-aged folks sitting packed together at candlelit tables before the stage. And then Leon Redbone sidled with a cane up the stage steps like a ghost. Redbone’s piano man played him onstage with Anton Karas’s zither theme from The Third Man. By the time the man sat down on his stool with archaic guitar, gambler’s sunglasses, mustache and old hat all intact, he was all real.

Redbone almost immediately raised his glass of dark cocktail to the audience in keeping with his tradition of stage-drunkenness, and softened us up with some drawled wisecracks. He fiddled with his guitar throughout his musings and jokes. When he broke into song, guitar and voice, it was as if Gene Austin or Fats Waller had whispered in his ear, “C’mon, Leon.” And the songs were gorgeous. If he’s lost some of his pyrotechnical blues playing abilities over the last 4-or-so decades (which he barely has), his voice has grown richer, more textured, manifold and distinct: his rich crooning of “My Blue Heaven” warmed and enchanted the room; his drunken and debonair “Ain’t Misbehavin’” perfectly emulated some kind of wallowing brass, his voice like a well-greased hasp on some heavy, ancient door; and his near-heartbreaking ballad, “If We Never Meet Again This Side of Heaven,” was delivered through a wry grin.

Which is likely the face he’ll wear to the end. Redbone asked his audience to slow down, come in from the gloom and flash and hurry of the world for an hour, take things at his pace. Not all the jokes are funny, but who cares? They may have not even been funny in the 1920s, but that’s why he tells them. He didn’t even feel the need to play the whole time, even sitting back and listening to his piano man play a couple of rollicking stride pieces, whistling, spidering his fingers, stomping. And though many of his songs and jokes carried a serious sentiment of aging and death, (“Will someone come up and finish this evening for me?”), he seemed resilient, a glad and goofy host of this steady tour through prewar blues, postwar Vienna and Italian opera. Everything he sang and played was rich and cared for and steeped in tradition beyond any shtick. Why would anyone question it? It sounds too good.

He ended the night with a yarn about a young Italian castrato, whom he then mimicked, and then somehow glided right into “Shine on Harvest Moon.” He bowed to the applause and catcalls and quietly exited the building through the side door. I watched him through the window, politely eluding autograph-opportunities, then disappearing around the rear of the building, probably descending into some speakeasy where Fats Waller sat dealing a hand.

Posted by | January 26, 2011 | Concerts | 1 Comment 

Concert review: The Bad Plus has few equals at Jazz at the Bistro, Wednesday, January 5

The Bad Plus

Cameron Wittig

The Bad Plus and Jazz at the Bistro have a special relationship going, and it’s only growing stronger and more vital with each new year.

The symbiosis between bands and clubs is a jazz tradition, providing the stability for working bands and businesses to foster some of the great stands of live jazz music. Since the late ’60s, jazz has gone through rough times; the music has often sounded stagnant, diluted and soulless; in other cases it’s become the music of intellectuals.

But when the Bad Plus has settled down at Jazz at the Bistro for a few nights the past 5 Januaries, there’s some of that old energy pulsing through the room.

I stepped in for the late set on their first of a 5-night stand, got a table and ordered a beer. Most of the crowd was loosened up from the first set and was sticking around for the rest. But even with spirits and wine floating by on service trays, money changing hands, the general musical chairs, and at least some spark of anticipation in the eyes of the fans, the atmosphere was still a reverent, vanilla murmuring. After the trio was introduced and applauded once again, they composedly took the stage and sat with their instruments in tabernacle silence.

A few seconds later, they were off: Dave King layering snare cracks, cymbal minutia, tom tom surges with surgeon’s precision; Reid Anderson working up and down the neck of his upright bass in some kind of planned chaos; Ethan Iverson blasting confetti melodies, keeping them in the air somehow. The music swirled and stopped on a dime. They broke into the next tune with barely any time to applaud the first. Already, King ran the show for me, spiking the night with a shot of something a little out of control, dangerous. He grinned, let moans steam through the spaces in the music, stood and bore down on his drums as if there were no other way to get those sounds out of them. All the music was gorgeous, weird, rollicking, but it only really seemed like a good, old jazz show when I watched King.

That being said, the Bad Plus is a song-oriented band, improvising in fluid bursts within tight structures, so there isn’t the same long-form improvised soloing of a traditional jazz combo. The pace of their live set is brisk because of this, and I was actually surprised when it ended. But there were two moments when the band slowed down and fell on the same beat with each other and with the crowd. Both were Anderson’s compositions from their newest album, Never Stop. On the ballad, “People Like You,” the band got in the song and filled up the room with it like they hadn’t done before, and on the almost poppy “Never Stop,” the audience would’ve probably danced if they were in any other venue.

When they closed their set, they got a standing ovation, headed upstairs for the night. They’ll do it again the next few nights, and hopefully at least one person will get up and dance or yell or testify.

The Bad Plus continues its new year’s run at Jazz at the Bistro, January 6-8, 2011.

Posted by | January 6, 2011 | Concerts | Comment 

Grave and morbid music: An interview with (most of) the Conformists

The Conformists by Greg Schaal

Greg Schaal

Formed in 1996, the Conformists are some kind of anomalous rock band — playing big, strange, intricate music that’s painstakingly crafted and precise, but never predictable. The band – Chris on guitar, Mike on vocals, Jim on bass and Pat on drums – has steadily built a steadfast group of fans in St. Louis and internationally, evolving from a local, 3-nights-a-week weirdo bar/basement band to a band that holds the respect of their peers.

The Conformists are the kind of band that goes months without playing shows and tours nationwide, takes its time releasing records and takes its music dead seriously, can’t stop cracking jokes and simply gets better with time. In October, they released None Hundred, their third record and first on the Chicago-based label, Sick Room Records. It is available on vinyl and CD.

I visited the band at Chris’s brewery-side house to talk to them, and hopefully get some insight. They were freshly practiced, feeling goofy, and wanted to take a walk. I agreed, thinking maybe getting the blood flowing would birth some great moments of truth. As we set out walking, Mike left. No one seemed to question it, so, being a good interviewer, I didn’t either.

Mike goes to his gigantic truck, languidly. . . .

Jim: Uh, “his romantic truck,” is that what you said?

Yeah.

Jim: Mike said this interview sounds fucking boring.

Well, it is gonna be a little boring. Here, let’s start like this, because I’m sure you guys have never been asked anything like this: Tell me how you write these songs.

Jim: We’ve never been asked that.

Okay, I’m just interested in how you write songs. Actually, I’m interested specifically in how you wrote the songs on the new album–take as much time as you need.

Jim: To write the songs?

Chris: Collectively. Next question.

Jim: Zing!

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Posted by | December 2, 2010 | Local, Music | 1 Comment 

Concert review: Futurebirds, Jonny Corndawg and the Dive Poets fly through country and rock at the Firebird, Monday, November 15

Jonny Corndawg & Futurebirds at the Firebird

Kate McDaniel

A Monday night rock & roll show in St. Louis has the potential to be an uncomfortable experience on both sides of the music; especially if it happens in the long, slate corridor of the Firebird, where Monday-night crowd members might feel isolated standing in that gaping space before the stage.

But, the Firebird also allows you to see some great acts up close and personal, and the Dive Poets, Jonny Corndawg, and the Futurebirds each broke down any fourth walls Monday night had put up.

Local band, the Dive Poets, played a tight, focused set coming off the release of their debut EP. At first the crowd tried nestling itself into the bar corner of the room, leaving a good 10 feet of unoccupied space between anyone and the stage. But as the Poets played and urged everyone to come closer, the crowd eased in, some people tapping their boots or swinging their beers this way and that. The Poets rung out original country ballads, some generic, power-chord rock and even a Townes Van Zandt song with ease, textured high and low with a singing fiddle and drums hammering right on top of the beat.

Jonny Corndawg took the stage next (backed by the Futurebirds) scrawny in a Canadian tuxedo and snakeskin boots, his guitar tucked up high under his arm like some cartoonish but venerable tribute to country’s legends. Corndawg’s rough, trebly voice carried his sweet, melodic, sometimes downright hilarious songs (“This one’s a little X-rated . . . I want this one to be in a Waffle House jukebox,” went one introduction), and the band sounded like a bunch of Nashville studio pros behind him. He strutted across the stage, called out for solos on every song, and turned his set into some version of a weird honky tonk revue. He even performed his final song a cappella, reaching up his hands for the gospel truth, singing high, old country melodies – and warning against cunnilingus with a stranger.

When the Futurebirds took the stage (again), it was already past 11 p.m., the crowd and the band quite a few drinks deep and feeling good. Half the band looked too young to be swigging beers, and the whole band looked too young to be playing such deep-rooted, fresh, surging country and rock & roll. There was a sense of relaxed space on stage and in the songs, like they’d been doing this since long before they were born, each of them letting one guy go off on a solo and then trusting he’d find his way back. Dennis Love looked like a lap steel guru, taking off on virtuosic solos, threading his melodies through some truly gorgeous harmonies by the band’s four singers. To watch and listen to the Futurebirds was to witness a great band, which is exactly what Johnny Corndawg had introduced them as. They were having fun on the stage: switching instruments and taking vocal leads and killing the floodlights to nail Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.”

If they could play like that on a Monday in a vibeless club, there might be some form of levitation happening among members of a Friday or Saturday night audience.

Posted by | November 16, 2010 | Concerts | Comment 

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