Friday, August 20, 2004 ... 1:02 PM
Gil & Dave Counterpoint from K.
My buddy K. e-mails me:
"Okay, Boney, I looked at the cleaned-up version of your review, but you know, the first one made sense to me too. Or I thought it did at the time! It's pretty amazing stuff because, you know, who the hell ever thought to wonder what Revelator would sound like without Dave? Their duo-ship is such a given, it's like peanut butter & jelly. Dave is some superhuman jelly, but to me, the way he carries himself onstage, his whole shy, self-deprecating manner, it helps bring him back down to earth for me. But like you said, when he lifts off, he really lifts off. But, you know, for me, Gil is not that relatable. I see her as every bit of the genius Dave is. When she sings a line like, "I can't say your name without a crow flying by," I feel like she's up there in the stratosphere with Dave. Her songwriting and her singing are just as virtuosic and mesmerizing to me as his playing. I think. Are they? I never really thought about it until reading your review. But to me there's something unapproachable about her, like she's from another time or another world, and with that flawless white skin and those blue eyes, she's like, not an ordinary woman. So to me she's maybe even less relatable than Dave. Maybe if I had a crush on her like some people I know...just kidding. I've only seen them twice, so I can't really talk anyway. But I did notice that Dave seemed more confident this last time. I attributed it to the fact that he was all warmed up and roaring to go after playing the opening set with Old Crow. Like, he carried that confidence and energy over into the main set. But maybe that's not it. Maybe there is a real shift going on. The seesaw does creak when Dave solos, that's for fucking sure. But doesn't the seesaw creak the other way when Gil sings sometimes? I don't know. Part of why I love "Throw Me A Rope" so much is its balance between Gil & Dave, and their harmonizing, it's like perfect equilibrium. Or at least that's the way I always remember the experience of that song, after I come back down to earth ... "
Brendan
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Making Notes: Music of the Carolinas
(Novello Festival Press, April 2008)
includes my essay, "Link Wray"
MUSIC
Flop Eared Mule
The Celestial Monochord
HickoryWind.org
Dig and Be Dug in Return
Modern Acoustic Magazine / Blog
The Old, Weird America
Honey, Where You Been So Long?
LITERATURE
The Greensboro Review
Mixed Animal
Night Train
Fried Chicken and Coffee
Mungo (This was the blog of my friend, the late Cami Park. Miss you, Cami.)
Staccato Fiction
Wigleaf
PANK Magazine
OTHER
Cat and Girl
Film Freak Central
