04.02.2009
Live @ Variety Playhouse - Atlanta, GA
(take 2...see below for the reason)
Crooked Fingers (set-list)
There is a certain level of comfort for seeing a musician, you have seen many times over the years, whose voice is almost like a soundtrack for your life. When I hear Eric Bachmann formerly of Archers of Loaf fame I get that High-Fidelity, mantra about music being as merely part of our lives soundtracks. We all have them, for some it's the Bee-Gees and INXS, others it's Madonna and Usher. For me it's bands like Archers of Loaf, Sunny Day Real Estate, U2, Jeff Buckley, The Replacements, The Pixies, The Rolling Stones, Wilco, Old Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, Elliot Smith, (old) Neil Diamond, Cat Stevens (back when he was cat and Corvettes and Trans- Ams and Fonzie were cool), Beethoven and so much more...hundreds if not many hundreds (the bands written about the posts below are on the list for sure too, or else they wouldn't be mentioned right?).
Every good day, every bad day, every great date, break up moment, death in the family has a song that is playing at that time or will shortly there after. For me the vocals of Eric Bachmann fill up many of the memories in my mind, 1994 - 1998 for sure, some of early 2000 and 2001 for sure, then again in 2004 and 2005 and again recently this year. Some has been Archers of Loaf, some has been as Crooked Fingers - http://www.crookedfingers.com/ (official band website - also check out their MySpace Page for quality music and dowloands and other fun slinky like toys for girls and boys!), whose music is run by and controlled by, but not in a dictator sort of way, actually just the contrary as they have decided to not go with a label on this one, but let the masses but in that of a producer who isn't trying to run the show all by himself, but collaborate in a way that makes Crooked Fingers come off as original, constantly improving and innovating in a way few bands do, Yo La Tengo, Chan Marshall (Cat Power) and Tom Waits come to mind off the top of my head that have been doing this sort of thing, this collaborating and moving and travelling and making music for music's sake not any sort of fame, fortune or glamour sake that could be so easily had if they wanted. You might catch their voice in a random late night video on some european indie rock MTV, a car ad trying hard to show it's hipness, KCRW's wonderful live music show 'The Morning Become Eclectic'", Aquarium Drunkard's XM/Sirus show (who we are huge fans of over here at the Brass Hat group) or at some late night dive bar in a town like San Francisco where the jukeboxes have actual music, not just the happy, rub your front on her back kind of stuff. That is where you will hear Eric Bachmann and Crooked Fingers over the years and most likely go to yourself, in a sub-conscoious, ass wiggling (though not like the kind mentioned above) sort of way where you think, "I like this."
Eric Bachmann and Crooked Fingers and everything musically that he has been involved with over the years sums all of that up and much more. Writing a mere article, a post on a site about this man and his current musical production Forfeit/Fortune (seen below)
available for purchase at Eric Bachmann's Website is what indie rock, as it is now known though when he first started there was not a name at like that at least not one that we consciously thought of in those early 90's days in Athens, GA where good music seemed to come to us non-stop, cheap and easy unlike the way sexy women at a strip bar come flattering and begging for our loot (not that I would know).
If you listen below to "Plumbline" of off Eric's 1994 masterpiece Icky Mettle you will see the roots and hear the sound that is still prevelant today in his Crooked Fingers work and inspired and I would say led a pack of bands that ranged from the Jeff Buckley, Cat Power, Dreams So Real, Vic Chesnutt and a host of pre-grunge soundmakers. Eric Bachmann was indie rock before the term even existed and he actually was the first person I heard use the term in a way that I felt described it and all the wrongs and eventual whoring of the sound that could and eventually would occur. I am sure when the historians of music look back on when it all started, this genre-less, we do it in our garage and we come at you from places like Austin, Raleigh, Athens, Seatle, Minneapolis and not for you or the girls or the boys and not for the cool or drugs, we do it because we like music - when they zip through the chronology of all that 'genre' they will find Archers of Loaf, Eric Bachmann and now Crooked Fingers, the makers and breakers of this 'indie rock(er) carton of muzak
(that's the way I heard Billy Corgan once spell it all drunk and half-assed when D'Arcy still played bass and the Smashing Pumpkins were still smaller...and I'm mentioning that not to date myself or sound cool, but I always kind of like that spelling if nothing else - the image comes from 'Toothpaste for Dinner' a comics genius funny ha-ha site I again highly recommend...sorry for all these recommendations, but I think they are important and like J. Edgar Hoover once said, "Just the minute the FBI begins making recommendations on what should be done with its information, it becomes a Gestapo." - sorry for the feeble attempts at wit and insight.)
At the show during, I met a nice married couple in their mid 30's, white affluent, still hip, most likely with hard working, but well paying day jobs. They were the ideal grown hipsters, attractive, smart and really nice - Scott and Terri of Parrish, Florida, a smaller town near Tampa, where Spanish Moss hangs from the trees and the YMCA and weekend soccer is a part of what goes on. Scott and Terri are a couple that appear to be dedicated to the the things they love, which seemed to include each other and music such as Neko Case who they drove 450 miles to hear play at this smallish venue The Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, Ga, because that is the closest she was coming to where they live. It is that kind of dedication to bands and artists like Crooked Fingers, like Neko Case that keeps the so-called 'indie rock' alive. As Scott, so keenly pointed out (he pointed out a lot of keenness during the show to both his wife Terri and myself the supposed 'expert' on this stuff), "Music has become so hard to classify into genres and honestly that is a good thing, a really good thing. Artists are less constrained because of that, because of the fact they need to feel that they have to hit a certain 'genre' or they won't get appreciated." (see what Ginger said to me at the Chris Cornell show the day before about this same thing...spooky and I don't SPOOK, easily...fyi after I posted the word spook all the content containing Tim Husmann and Miranda Brown vanished...I had to re-create the post hence losing the original tracking, sorry everyone now that is SPOOKY!)
One of the truly unique quality of Crooked Fingers and the genre less methodology they bring to their music, much the way Chris Cornell seemed to be doing in the show/review the day before, is that they tend to change the line-up for tours, even mid tour, and for albums to give a new and always evolving and developing sound, something that I personally love and am drawn to as a fan and a writer.
Eric Bachmann is famous for spreading his talent and finding other talent to surround himself with or be a part of "Archers of Loaf", "Small", The Album "Barry Black" and at lastfm where you can hear the entire album "Tragic Animal Stories by Barry Black" with Bachmann as Barry Black and a little help from Ben Folds among others (also a footnote is that the 67th Chaplin of US Senate in 2003 and the first African-American to hold the post, something Bachmann could not have predicted in '95 when the album was released). It is this dedication to trying new elements and adding new pieces that makes Bachmann unique as well.
Crooked Fingers on this tour is comprised of Miranda Brown on Bass/Vocals
(seen below from the Atlanta Variety Playhouse Show courtasy of Birdpony on Flickr)
Tim Husmann on Drums of whom I have a pretty cool live interview with that I will be posting in a future post, about the state of music, Crooked Fingers, this concept of devolving genres and anything else that I could think that night while my phantasms were being riddled to ask. Definite Podcast material.
(photo courtesy of Babyhands and a show she photographed at La Zona Rosa, Austin, Texas)
and Eric Bachmann - Lead Singer/Guitarist
(photo again courtesy of birdpony a local photographer, this from the actual Atlanta, Variety Playhouse show on 4.2.09)
Crooked Fingers opened the show with "Broken Man" a song that is a folklorist, ballad infused song that made my mind wander to the Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, type stuff that Bob Dylan practically drools over in his book "Chronicles: Volume One" (a really good read for music lovers, but that is for another post on another day ;p). The set served up ambiance and was seemingly over quickly, likely due to the fact that they opened for Neko Case and not the other way around. During their closing track "New Drink for the Old Drunk" (a personal favorite of mine) and turned to my new found pals Scott and Terri, who were hearing Eric and Crooked Fingers for the first time and asked them what they thought, and they liked it and said they would definitely be checking out more from Crooked Fingers based on this show. For a couple in love, that travels 450 miles to hear bands they like, I believed them. On this rain soaked night, while the crowd swayed as softly and asymmetrically beautiful as the songs they were hearing, many for the first time I believed in a lot.
I also want to give a shout out to Rayzzie as staffer at the Variety, Playhouse in Atlanta, GA, for his kindness and all around laid back cool approach to dealing with myself and the crowd as a whole, it is people like him who often get noticed for ruining shows, but RARELY, recognized for helping make them so damn good...thanks again Rayzzie and everyone else, the folks at 230 Publicity and Crooked Fingers, Neko Case and Eric Bachmann who took the time to talk to me and thanked me for following him and his music for 15 years first playing Icky Mettle, on 90.5 radio as a DJ in 1994, a musical must have as far as I am concerned in anyone's CD/Tape/Ipod collection. Having be able to say that Eric Bachmann's music, Archers of Loaf and Crooked Fingers is part of the soundtrack of my life, is something I feel I can be proud of and will be as I continue to grow and continue to evolve in some areas and devolve in others, much the way music and the industry as whole certainly has.
Much thanks all around...Happy Easter too!
Download: Plumbline - Archers of Loaf (Icky Mettle - 1994)
Archers of Loaf - "Plumbline" off of Icky Mettle (c) 1994
(singer/guitarist Eric Bachmann, bassist Matt Gentling and drummer Mark Price)
(Photo Art: "automatic princess" - 8.5" x 11" - mixed media - 2004 by Sanithna Phansavanh)
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