Friday, August 12, 2005 ... 2:46 PM
Tim and Chris, Charlotte, July 2005
Last month, my bride Betsy and I sent young step-Earnest to his grandmother's house for a week, and took happy advantage of two alt-twang opportunities that hit our little city at just the right moment for us to catch them. It's too bad, for the artists and the listeners, that nobody else in town took notice.
Tim
Tim Easton gave his earnest, raspy ballads up to around 10 people, including bar staff. Ironic, since before he could take the stage, he had to wait out the early evening open mic songwriters' night, a full house of balladeers and ostensible songwriting enthsiasts, who each made a buzzing bee-line for home to watch the VHS of his own performance. Though Tim, who wandered around the neighborhood with his girlfriend waiting for the caterwauling to wrap up and rabble to clear, sort of disingenously pointed out onstage that it was good to see such an active songwriting community here. Betsy and I had sat outside the doors listening to that activity, and I agreed -- good to see, maybe, from a distance.
A couple hours before the show, we ate flash-fried alligator at this Louisiana kitchen across the street, and paid way too much for a few Crown and Cokes, and Tim and his girl sat eating salad at the next table. I had the discretion this time to wait until he wasn't in the middle of a bite or a private conversation, and caught him returning from the restroom to let him know that his CD, The Truth About Us, was the soundtrack for my first date with the now-Mrs Earnest. He seemed genuinely pleased. Maybe a little awkward. What do you say to that? But he congratulated us, and from the stage dedicated a couple of tunes to our union, with some wryness. "That record's full songs about love gone wrong," he said, "but it's soft enough, I guess." All right, but look: "Don't Walk Alone" (penned, like a lot of Tim's numbers, by JP Olsen) is as fine a courting song as any I know, Jay Bennett's saloon piano and all.
Besides the serenades, Tim pushed some sunlight through Townes's cloudy "No Place to Fall," and illuminated about ten or twelve of his own tunes. His delivery is equal parts soft upholstery and road-grit. Not as sweet as, say, Grant-Lee Phillips, but then less audacious too.
By a sight, he's more affecting on a stage alone than backed and bathed in music on his studio records, which sort of move beneath a glass lid of produced restraint. Lesser singer-songwriters need sidemen to free up their tunes from strummy acoutic sameness, but Tim's self-accompaniment has a sympathetic band's sense of dynamics. His picking is flashy and spectacular without ever veering far from its simple rusty roots, and opens up wide spaces for his comfy but lonesome middle America voice to roll, seep and soar into.
Visit his site and check out the MP3s of the folkabilly number "Lexington Jail" and alt-country-blues "They will bury you" for a touch of the dark Americana moods he builds so well.
Chris
If the headcount at Tim's show was disappointing, the turnout for country royalty Chris Scruggs's honkytonk three-piece was a crime. I mean around 5 -- five -- spectators, including the Earnests, showed up before the lights went down. It was an early show, underway by 8:30, and some curious frat-types wandered in, but if it made a lonesome fucking sight from the stage -- and how could it not, truly -- the boys didn't let on.
They rocked out. Period. I don't know the backing dudes' names -- an electric bassist and a snappy trap kit hitter with slicked hair and western-cut shirts, but they were game for swing, rocknroll, or straight country, and pushed up and out without hestitation. The setlist pulled from Chris's rockabilly originals such as "Ain't Got Time", from Chuck Berry, from Bob Wills, Earnest Tubb, and of course from Hank -- "Window Shopping", which might have been directed at the wanderers by out on Davidson St who peeked in at all the rockin, and then moved on.
Half a year ago, before Chris left, BR549 similarly lit up the vast by comparison Neighborhood Theatre, literally across the street, and several dozen honky hippies and oily haired cowpunks turned up to give them a decent reception. Where were they the night Chris came to town? Shame on you, Carolina. When Toby "The Ignorant Cracker" Keith sells out the God damn city arena, while true musicianship matched with old fiery Bakersfield work ethic can't put fifty butts on bar stools, it's no wonder we have a five month stretch between any out-of-towner shows worth getting excited about.
Anyway, keep an eye on Chris's website for the next pressing of his terrific CD, Honky Tonkin' Lifestyle. It makes a good booster rocket for your next long summer drive.
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
Modern Acoustic Magazine / Blog
Faking It
Honey, Where You Been So Long?
whiskey-girl
Porchlight
Charlotte-related
Emily A. Benton
Laurie Koster's Charlotte & Area Events
Evening Muse
Neighborhood Theatre
OTHER THAN MUSIC
Rusty Barnes
Mixed Animal
Cans and Jars
Night Train
Cat and Girl
Tom Drury
Ian Frazier
Film Freak Central
November 9, 2007
Eilen Jewell
The Evening Muse, Charlotte, NC
***review!***
June 16, 2007:
Carrie Rodriguez w/ Tim Easton
The Evening Muse, Charlotte, NC
***review!***
June 2, 2007:
Mt. Airy Fiddlers Convention
***review!***
July 10, 2005:
Chris Scruggs
The Evening Muse, Charlotte, NC
***review!***
July 8, 2005:
Tim Easton
The Evening Muse, Charlotte, NC
***review!***
February 19, 2005:
Neko Case and The Sadies w/ Visqueen
Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA
***review!***
September 17, 2004:
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings w/ Old Crow Medicine Show
Theater At Lime Kiln, Lexington, VA
***review!***
August 17, 2004:
Sweet Harmony Traveling Revue
Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA
***review!***
August 7 & 8, 2004:
Newport Folk Festival
Newport, R.I.
***review!***
July 11, 2004:
Cowboy Junkies
Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA
***review!***
Various Artists:
Friends of Old Time Music: the folks arrival 1961-1965 (at HickoryWind.org)
Neko Case:
Live From Austin TX DVD (at HickoryWing.org)
Old Crow Medicine Show:
Big Iron World
Sampson Pittman:
"Highway 61 Blues"
Baby Boy Warren:
"Stop Breakin Down"
Nina Nastasia:
The Blackened Air
Ryan Adams:
Jacksonville City Nights
Robert Wilkins:
"Rolling Stone"
Neko Case:
Furnace Room Lullaby
Etta Baker:
One Dime Blues
Steve Earle:
The Revolution Starts Now
Grey DeLisle:
The Graceful Ghost
