Le Noise

If you've read any of these other posts you already know I love to contextualize the music experience. Where I was, what I was doing the first time a record grabbed me, the artist's backstory and who collaborated on a record all contribute to my appreciation (or dislike) of a record or performance. Obviously I'm no fucking purist.

Case in point, Neil Young's new album Le Noise is a great record who's greatness grows the more I think about it. Neil's now in his mid-sixties, his place in the history of rock 'n roll firmly entrenched. It'd be easy, even reasonable, to rest on his mighty reputation and put out agreeable acoustic folk records that have always garnered him great acclaim, or let a younger influence pilot the twilight years of his legendary career through the hazards of the modern music industry a la Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash. Hell, he could even retire like any sensible sixty-something year old with piles of money would. But this is NEIL YOUNG, the massive man with the fragile voice, the stubborn sonic explorer. So he set aside his acoustic guitar, and he set aside Crosby and Stills and Nash, and he set aside his electric guitar, and he set aside Crazy Horse, and he picked up an electro-acoustic guitar designed by fellow sonic adventurer Daniel Lanois and started another exploration. Alone with that guitar and his reedy, vulnerable voice he laid down the tracks recorded by the genius producer Daniel Lanois. Informed by a personally devastating year in which Mr. Young lost two very close friends, and allegedly only recording on nights with a full moon, Lanois captures perfectly a raw and powerful capstone on Neil Young's glorious career. Guys a third his age would kill to put out a record this urgent and relevant.

Le Noise couldn't be more suitably titled. Lanois and Young are both already famous and sophisticated purveyors of Sound, and this record listens like a manifesto. By stripping away everything else, Lanois and Young focus on the NOISES Young's voice and guitar and Lanois' recording equipment can make. There's the guitar and the voice for sure, but distortion, feedback, echoes and fingers on frets take prominent position as well. The argument is made for noise, for the beauty of imperfection, for the necessity of abrasiveness and dissonance as a counter-weight to harmony.

Woven Hand

David Eugene Edwards has to be one of the most interesting men in the Rock N Roll business these days, despite being mostly ignored by people in the rock n roll business during his 20+ year career. Mr. Edwards has been a cornerstone of the rich and deep music movement (often referred to as American Gothic, or Southern Gothic) centered in Denver, Colorado. That scene produced acts like Edwards' own Sixteen Horsepower and Woven Hand, as well as The Denver Gentlemen, Jay Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots, Devotchka, and Slim Cessna's Auto Club. These groups shared much in common including often sharing members and gigs. They also shared influences, aural aesthetics, and a common approach to performing. Informed by Appalachian Folk, snake-oil salesmen, shape note singing, gospel music, eastern gypsies, traveling preachers, and country music these groups reflected an image of Denver as a frontier town in the late 20th Century. When I listen to this music I always imagine Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady)'s increasingly industrialized and developed, but still wild and virtually lawless, Denver hometown from Jack Kerouac's classic On The Road. Unlike Kerouac, these artists (except for maybe Devotchka) have enjoyed little commercial success for their portrayal of the underbelly and forgotten past of the America's New West. Which bears mentioning because it means a chance to see them perform is a rare delight oustide of Denver and Europe, where they carry a strong following.

Enough of the history lesson. Woven Hand played Mohawk last Thursday night and it was a spine-tingleing experience! David Eugene Edwards was raised by fire-and-brimstone traveling Nazarene preachers and has integrated their convictions and histrionics into his live performance, all to great effect. Rock and roll hasn't seen performances like this since the days of Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Jim Morrison. What's better is his affectations don't feel like contrivances in the name of creating a rock-god mythology. They feel genuine. From a project that's often been stark and skeletal, Woven Hand's last record is a huge, booming thing. They brought that feeling into this show. Perched on a chair, face twitching and ticking, in a flat-brimmed cowboy hat adorned with a long feather and swapping between banjo, electric guitar, hollow bodied guitar, and some sort of mandolin Edward's spouted Old-Timey Christian incantations, Native American chants and throaty conjurations. All this in front of a punishing rhythm section and keyboard that jumped wildly between middle-eastern, balkan, native american, country, and gospel arrangements. Nick Cave and his Grinderman co-horts have a harder time shocking and shaking me with vulgarity. It was the kind of show that rattles your mind, perception, and rib-cage all at the same time. Like being rocked to sleep by turbulence and a carnival barker. Whew. Can we do that again please?