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By: Dennis Cook
Howlin' Rain/Citay/Phosphorescent :: 07.15.07 :: The Attic :: Santa Cruz, CA
Howlin' Rain |
Sympathetic resonance can take a single joy and make it manifold. Begin with the right mustard seed, give it clean water and sunshine, and watch the tendrils grow. Most concert lineups feel like a haphazard assemblage based on local availability, the whim of headliners and other prevailing winds. However, there exist rare souls like (((folkYEAH!))), who've been putting together brilliantly sympathetic bills in Big Sur and other open-minded Bay Area locales for the past few years. Tapped deep into the so-called "freak folk" scene, (((folkYEAH!))) has worked with the likes Vetiver, Chris Robinson, Devendra Banhart and most recently Pegi Young's inaugural shows for her long awaited debut album. On a deliciously balmy Sunday night in the counter culture oasis of Santa Cruz, they strung together a triple band assortment that built with a quiet grandeur that made one feel happy to be out and about.
Phosphorescent (Matthew Houck) |
Anchored by the ionized, dark light chooglin' of Howlin' Rain, the solo-but-hardly solo-sounding atmospheric folk-rock of Phosphorescent (aka Brooklyn's Matthew Houck) started us off, singing, "Mama, there's wolves in the house" in a softly charming drawl that splits one like dry wood and lets the world in. Armed with an acoustic guitar, a fine beard and well-placed effects, Houck situated us in the couch-strewn bohemianism of The Attic. Pieces like "Joe Tex, These Taming Blues" had the feel of country death songs carefully muddled with feedback and primal howl. While often incredibly tender, he let loose some heartbroken wails that gave us a collective shiver. Lines like "I could freeze in the place that lets me free from the taste in my heart" stick with you, and he had plenty of them. From a rain of delayed guitar, he settled down on the slow building audience with a mood similar to solo Jim James (My Morning Jacket) or Will Oldham (Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Palace). Phosphorescent is creakier in a cool way, more bark on its bones and warped roots below. Many tunes built to noise codas, beautiful crumbling cataclysms that said as much as his words and dropped us on the shores of the middle act.
Citay |
San Francisco's Citay make a massively inviting hullabaloo full of breezy flourishes and fanfares built from rock sediment, mini-xylophones, womanly choirs and judiciously exercised bombast. While often thrown in with wispier acid folkers, Citay is more like Tim Buckley steering a double-decker bus filled with the Polyphonic Spree, Flaming Lips and Jefferson Airplane. As with past Citay performances, I felt physical weariness and mental fatigue slough off within minutes of their set's start. There's something akin to the acoustic edge on Led Zeppelin III, a full rock band vibe that prompts us off the beaten path to wear a little shoe leather off in the woods.
Citay is a big group and you feel the force of their numbers. Guitarist-singer Ezra Feinberg leads a jolly juggernaut of two full-throated female back-up singers (who also work all manner of percussive devices), two electric guitarists, a keyboardist, electric bass and trap drums. One senses there's an even larger musical army inside Feinberg's head but he's managed to make this one fully battle ready in the meantime. At times, they sound like Espers if they ever cracked a smile or George Harrison produced by Joe Boyd, warmth in every corner with the force of full sunlight or a strong wind, never coy or underpowered.
Howlin' Rain :: 07.15 :: By Britt Govea |
The quicksilver guitar runs stitched together the sharply turning compositions, which moved with a disciplined logic that skirted the meandering, randomness of many peers. When they headed for the outlands, as they did on the third number, it's exactly what should be playing if we ever get back to doing proper Acid Tests again – billowy, intoxicating, cerebral smoke that carries us off like a cartoon dog levitating after a delicious scent. Thanks in large part to the incredible rhythm team of Diego Gonzalez (bass) and Warren Huegel (drums) – i.e. SF's answer to MMJ's Two Tone Tommy and Patrick Hallahan – there's very non-hippy toughness to many pieces like their closer, a balls-deep space trucker of lighter lifting immaculacy that evolved like "No Quarter" for the 21st century, perfectly setting up the '70s FM leaning headliners. The aforementioned Lips and Spree would be wise to book Citay as openers for a national tour, where their kindred spirit would add a fabulous glow to things.
Howlin' Rain's MySpace blurb announces, "We are largely influenced by the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. And Science Fiction. A dip in the hot tub certainly doesn't hurt the creative process." Toss in chief gale force operator Ethan Miller's assertion that their new material is based on "a loose literary theme of outlaw-ism" and you start to pick up the flavor of the Rain's irreverent back-in-the-saddle again update of classic rock tropes. Before their set, Miller told me, "We're all about the populist jams!"
Howlin' Rain :: 07.15 :: By Britt Govea |
Dropping out of Joel Robinow's incense-and-peppermints keyboards, Howlin' Rain put four to the floor right from the starting line. Miller, Robinow along with Ian "The Moose" Gradek (bass), Mike Jackson (guitar) and Garrett Goddard (drums) have all done time in Bay Area clubland faves like The Cuts, Drunk Horse and Comets On Fire. They know how to shape the energy in a room, and their collective focus in Howlin' Rain is to sweep the chair-sitters forward and make them move until they sweat. Channeling Austin Powers, I blurted out, "It's their happening, baby, and it freaks me out!" There's something so tangible, so right here, right now about this music. There's none of the usual cynical whining or navel gazing common in today's indie rock. They're informed as much by early ZZ Top as by boisterous Guided By Voices. Their songs inspire us to put the top down and floor it until we're 30 miles over the speed limit and perhaps one toke over the line. If you don't happen to own a convertible the amps will tear your hard top off but that's a small price to pay for something that reminds us of rock's primal hurly burly.
The new material from their forthcoming sophomore album is stunning, free of stylistic barriers but always definitively rocktastic. Upstairs at The Attic, we got a face full of their irony free windmillin' glory. Miller continues to build on his once fractured vocals in Comets On Fire, showing himself a singer with the sputtering passion of Joe Cocker, the rough edges of Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers) and Jon Spencer (Blues Explosion) and a growing bubblegum twist that's pretty endearing. Robinow's perversely captivating keys are the enzyme that fully digests this strange boogie jerky. Every cut from their self-titled 2006 debut sounded better with this new lineup, all the Allman-esque twin guitar parts and slinky bridges fully catching fire. In their hands, "Indians, Whores and Spanish Men of God" became the "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" of the Nirvana generation. An especially off-the-rails "Roll On The Rusted Days" was further sweetened by Robinow, who gave it a "Life Is A Carnival" Band vibe. While they focus on collective playing, what solos there were made you want to smoke a cigarette afterwards.
It's a treat to catch Howlin' Rain in a small-ish club but their sound begs for big halls, and they're already packing the Cobo Halls of the mind where hairy shirtless men do wonderful, nasty things to their instruments. Never timid or predictable, Howlin' Rain inflame the metaphorical yearning loins that first took rockin' & rollin' from the backseat of a Model T and into the American psyche. This passion was perhaps most palpable on the inspired encore of The Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On," which proved a revelation in both Miller's scorching vocals and the Big Brother and the Holding Company blue rush of the band. The cover provided satisfying final punctuation to a night where all the parts were fine and the sum total of elements even finer.
JamBase | Santa Cruz
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