POTTY MOUTH/PERFECT PUSSY, KILBY COURT, Tuesday, May 20, 7 p.m., $8
The two young bands topping this bill give me hope for the future. Both Potty Mouth (pictured) and Perfect Pussy blend the energy of punk with some insistent pop hooks, and both Potty Mouth’s album Hell Bent and Perfect Pussy’s Say Yes to Love are among my favorite recent releases from new bands. Potty Mouth hails from the same Western Massachusetts musc scene as Dinosaur Jr., and while their indie roots are the same, Potty Mouth is much more of a pop project that Mascis and Co. Perfect Pussy hails from upstate New York, and singer Meredith Graves has a great shout as a vocalist, a sound sure to fill Kilby Court to great effect. Fossil Arms open the show.
GODS, HEROES AND MONSTERS, STUDIO ELEVN, Saturday, May 17, 6 p.m., Free
Salt Lake City-based photographer and curator is opening the doors on a new conceptual art exhibit this weekend that is designed to explore the ideas of gods, heroes and monsters from every conceivable angle. Twenty local artists, working in a variety of mediums, will explore both classical and unconventional interpretations of gods, heroes and monsters at Studio Elvn, located at 435 W. 400 South Suite 304 in Salt Lake City–an art space run by videographer Michael Ori.
The following artists will be showing new works as part of the show: Steven Larson, Matt Monson, Philip Lambert, Jenevieve Hubbard, Hilary Jacobsen, Joshua Johnston, Jeffrey Hale, Mesun Choi, Deborah Brinkerhoff, Adrian Prazen, Zeke Higham, Sri Whipple, Jon Lang, Isaac Hastings, Tyler Bloomquist, Vio Wolf, Lisa Collett, Portia Snow and Randall Lake. There will also be performance art from Hubbard and Jorge Rojas, and a music installation tied in to the theme of the evening.
Proceeds from any sales will benefit Equality Utah, a group dedicated to securing equal rights protections for the LGBT community, and there will be donations accepted as well. This opening party will include food and beverages, and is free to the public.
This might just be the booze talking, as can happen at an Old 97s gig, but as I was watching the band rumble through a fine set of songs old and new Thursday night at The Urban Lounge, I came to realize the Dallas band might be the rock ‘n’ roll version of fine ’80s flick The Outsiders.
For those who haven’t seen the movie based on S.E. Hinton’s excellent book, it’s about a group of rough-and-tumble “greasers” who band together to find a sense of family and community they don’t have at home as a means to face the challenges of life. They were popular enough with the ladies and successful in their own way, but they still found themselves on the outside of the world the rich kids in town inhabited.
In the book, it’s a vivid tale of class and misspent youth. In the movie version, the themes remain true, but the Outsiders themselves were an impossibly attractive batch of young actors in the roles of the scuffling young toughs–Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon among them. It was just a little hard to buy the idea of Tiger Beat-bait as a tough street gang.
The Old 97s are a straightforward rock band with a dash of twang straight out of Texas, but because their songs are more poppy than gritty, and because primary singer/songwriter Rhett Miller has matinee-idol looks, it seems the band doesn’t get the same kind of respect as many of their Lone Star State peers. This despite 20 years of releasing consistently good-sometimes-great albums and collaborating with real-deal icons like Merle Haggard.
As a fan, that’s a bit of a bummer, because the strength of the band’s catalog is such that the band should be much bigger stars by this point. At the same time, it sure is great to be able to see them at places the size of The Urban Lounge when they come to town. And if the band is at all disappointed in how their career has progressed, it sure doesn’t come through on stage, where they are an energetic blast of good humor, great riffs and consistently great performances from all the men in the band–Miller, bassist/vocalist Murry Hammond, guitarist Ken Bethea and drummer Philip Peeples.
Thursday night, Old 97s showcased a slew of songs from their new album Most Messed Up, a rollicking set of whiskey-soaked tunes that lent themselves easily to the live environment. And the old favorites had the crowd geeked, hoisting bottles in the air and buying rounds of shots for the band so often it inspired Hammond to ask the other guys “How hungover do you want to be at the airport in the morning?”
After opening with “If My Heart Was a Car” from their 1994 debut and “Streets Where I’m From” 1997’s Too Far To Care, the band brought the crowd into the present with the new “Longer Than You’ve Been Alive,” on which Miller announces how good the rock ‘n’ roll life has been to him.
From there, the band bounced back and forth between songs new and old. “Stoned” was an early highlight, and Hammond introduced his new “The Ex of All You See” by calling it his “Who song” from the new album. “Bird in a Cage” and “Niteclub” were both excellent, as was Hammond’s “Iron Road.”
Throughout, the band and crowd seemed to feed off each other’s energy, which obviously makes for a great show. Miller and Bethea made their way toward the shots offered by fans on occasional, while Hammond begged off: “That’s the old Murry.” Miller is a fine frontman, hair flying and body convulsing with his guitar playing. Bethea is calmer, but is an absolutely stellar guitarist. And Hammond evokes Paul McCartney for me with his unique bass-playing, pulling his instrument high while he plays.
Among the night’s other highlights: “Every Night is Friday Night (Without You),” “Question,” the Hammond-sung cover of Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried,” and the new “Wasted.” “Barrier Reef” is probably my favorite Old 97s song, and they killed it, as they are wont to do. “Champaign, Illinois,” the band’s reworking of Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row” was great to hear live.
All told, another fun, rollicking show from a band that’s probably rarely ever had an “off” night on stage.
22. Let’s Get Drunk adn Get It On
23. Doreen
If only all child performers could age as gracefully as the Nickel Creek trio.
It’s hard to believe, but the group–mandolin player Chris Thile, fiddler Sara Watkins and guitarist Sean Watkins–originally formed 25 years ago as a kiddie bluegrass group. And even though Sean Watkins is the oldest of the group at 37 (Thile and Sara Watkins turn 33 this year), Nickel Creek has been around long enough to become fan favorites for acoustic-music lovers, release enough albums for a “greatest-hits” collection, and take a seven-year sabbatical so the members could explore other musical frontiers. It’s truly amazing how much ground the precocious crew has covered, individually and as a whole, before any of them hit 40.
Bringing what Thile called their “indefinite hiatus” to an end this year, it would have been easy for Nickel Creek to just hit the road and play the old favorites. No one missing their distinct and mesmerizing harmonies and instrumental acuity would have been disappointed in that kind of show. So give Nickel Creek extra credit for first crafting a stellar new album, A Dotted Line, that holds up with any of their older releases–maybe even exceeds them.
Wednesday at Kingsbury Hall, the band’s confidence in the new material was obvious, as they both opened the show with a new tune (Thile’s “Rest of My Life”) and ended their encore two hours later with Sara’s excellent cover of Sam Phillips’ “Where Is Love Now.”
In between, the camaraderie among the three (and touring bassist Mark Schatz) was reminiscent of past tours, with the trio poking fun at each other between songs, and each taking their respective turns chatting up the crowd. Thile and Sara are most natural, but the generally low-key Sean had some good one-liners, too.
The musicianship? Pretty incredible, as expected. Thile is a mandolin wonder who spent his hiatus working with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma and fronting another stellar band, Punch Brothers (playing Deer Valley July 6). Sara’s fiddle-playing (and one-off effort on ukelele for “Anthony”) was passionate and a blast to watch, and her voice has matured into a more powerful force than before the hiatus to my ears. Sean’s nimble guitar served as a solid foundation throughout, with occasionally bursts of intricate solos coming through.
Thile joked about the band’s inability to come up with good names for their instrumental songs as the reason Nickel Creek’s hiatus was necessary; thankfully, plenty of those songs dotted the set. Older favorites like “Scotch and Chocolate,” “Smoothie Song” and “Ode to a Butterfly” were joined by new one “The Elephant in the Corn.” Together, those instrumental songs were definite highlights of the show.
Older fan favorites like “This Side,” “The Lighthouse’s Tale,” “Reasons Why” and “When In Rome” all came in the first half of the 23-song set. While it was hard to believe the band could keep up that kind of pace, it proved easy as songs like “Somebody More Like You,” “When You Come Back Down,” “Doubting Thomas” and “The Fox” filled out the second half.
The new songs had no problem holding their own alongside the familiar. Sara-sung “Destination” was excellent, with Thile and Sean’s harmonies providing a perfect accompaniment. Sean’s “21st of May,” a light-hearted look at the apocalypse, was a winner, as was Thile’s “You Don’t Know What’s Going On.”
Sara introduced “Hayloft”–a dramatic sonic departure on A Dotted Line, not quite as much live–by saying “Here’s a little song about getting it on in a hayloft.” The tune is more jagged and bombastic than the smooth and subtle style more familiar to Nickel Creek fans, and offers a potential peek into new challenging work the band will hopefully make in the future.
The encore of “The First and Last Waltz,” “Helena” and “Where Is Love Now” finished off what was an outstanding show, through and through. Nickel Creek’s music doesn’t really lend itself to a half-assed live show, and the energy was great inside Kingsbury Hall.
Here’s hoping the trio manages to get on a hot streak naming those instrumentals so we don’t have to wait another seven years for a Nickel Creek show in Salt Lake City.
L-R: Nancy Lemenager (Charity) and Sean McDermott (Vittorio). Photo by Alexander Weisman.
It’s not hard to see why Sweet Charity is still being produced nearly 50 years after its debut.
The current production by Pioneer Theatre Company is a frenetic, colorful blast of energy that easily transports the audience back in time to tell the story of Charity Hope Valentine, a dancehall girl who lives for falling in love. It has some of the most familiar songs in theater history–as someone who generally hates musicals, even I recognized the appeal of “Big Spender” and “If My Friends Could See Me Now” in their original context. And the dance numbers are truly impressive.
Sweet Charity depends heavily on the audience falling in love with the girl who wants to fall in love, and Nancy Lemenager makes that part pretty easy in her take on Charity. From her first scene, when her boyfriend steals her money and pushes her in a lake, Lemanager-as-Charity maintains a positive outlook on her challenges that naturally puts the audience in her corner. Granted, the scene when she hands out what little money she had to various beggars on the New York City streets was a bit egregious, but it left no doubt that Charity truly has a heart of gold.
From that rocky start, Charity’s luck starts to change–first through a chance meeting with a Hollywood idol named Vittorio Vidal (Sean McDermott), and later through an elevator encounter with befuddled nice guy Oscar Lindquist (John Scherer). Along her search for happiness, the audience is treated to a series of ornately orchestrated song-and-dance numbers. Most impressive to me was the “Rich Man’s Frug,” featuring the massive cast, adorned in excellent period-hipster costumes, coolly moving around the hip Pompeii Club, where Charity and Vittorio first get to know each other–until she passes out and he has to take her to his apartment to recuperate.
Lemenager carries Sweet Charity, her combination of acting, singing and dancing dominating the show. Even with a crowded stage on some of the larger numbers, she stood out. The aforementioned costumes, designed by Patrick Holt, are exciting enough to thrill any fashionista in the audience, and the cartoonish, colorful sets are the perfect environs for this sweet theater confection.
L-R: Nancy Lemenager (Charity) and John Scherer (Oscar). Photo by Alexander Weisman.
Sweet Charity runs through May 24 at Pioneer Memorial Theater. Tickets, showtimes and more information available at the company’s website.
OLD 97S, THE URBAN LOUNGE, Thursday, May 15, 9 p.m., $20
The Old 97s have been around long enough in my musical fandom to move from one of my “new favorite bands” to become one of my “old favorites,” and thankfully the Dallas quartet is still releasing excellent new musical every couple years to add to a catalog of songs I’ll never get sick of hearing. Rhett Miller is one of my favorite songwriters, capable of combining a great sense of humor with some searing, emotional salvos in his lyrics, and the band’s blend of straightforward rock and country twang serves them well in bars and theaters for about 20 years now. Miller and his long-time bandmates–bassist/singer Murry Hammond, guitarist Ken Bethea and drummer Philip Peeples are touring in support of a new album, Most Messed Up, and it’s full of Old 97s’ classic sound on songs like “Wasted,” “Wheels Off” and “Let’s Get Drunk and Get It On” (subtle, I know). Miller has noted the album is “bawdier” than much of the band’s past work–and that’s a good thing in my book. And even in the seemingly joyous sound of many of the new songs, there are some dark sentiments lurking for those paying attention to Miller’s words. Opening the show is rising country-rock singer/songwriter Nikki Lane, supporting her new All or Nothin’ album that was produced by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach.
Daniel Nailen 