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Words by: Dennis Cook | Images by: Josh Miller
Tea Leaf Green/Poor Man's Whiskey :: 12.30.08 :: Mezzanine :: San Francisco, CA
"Just like we are supposed to be."
 Trevor Garrod :: 12.30 |
Happiness and freedom are the unstated parts of the Tea Leaf Green lyric from opener "The Garden (Part III)" above. Those ideas ride in the context of the song but are felt as much as blurted outright. There are plenty of bands that have championed these notions but they frequently do so by ignoring all the heartache, bumps and blood in the mouth that getting through the day requires. TLG actively examines all the messy things we bite back or bite into (or have bite into us) in their music AND then finds a crooked path towards freedom and happiness within all the reality.
Standing amongst their increasingly rabid followers a stone's throw from a New Year, it wasn't hard to see how they've become THE band for a small but steadily growing audience. Watching them later through the smoke and hard, white light surrounding "Keeping The Faith," I was struck by what a fundamentally perfect rock quartet they are – four very skilled players with a fantastic (and ever-growing) catalog that simply play with rock's primordial DNA, shifting and warping and streamlining to serve their collective needs, but always up to their elbows in the raw elements that make this genre the enduring, affecting beast that it is.
On this particular evening they had ample help raising pulses and kicking up heels from Poor Man's Whiskey, who fired up on the stroke of 9 p.m. and proceeded to tell us we were pretty much screwed with a grin. There's a rapid evolution occurring in PMW these days that's building neat, crazy shapes onto their twang core, which now supports baldly metal sojourns, sweaty boogie and considerably more. But like The Pogues or The Gourds, they meld these flavors in a way that seems of one set of chefs, a harmonious if variously spiced menu. In fact, the band they most remind me of today is the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, whose broad range covered the cornpone and cosmic with equal facility and technical wow (note: the uninitiated are encouraged to check out the Ozark's 1973 debut or 2000's excellent Time Warp anthology).
PMW offered up tune after tune that welcomed us to grab a barstool... and then quickly kick it away in loose-legged excitement. The familiar hillbilly facets are now pumped up by fleshy, snaky electric guitar work perfect for closing one's eyes and just taking a glorious string ride. When they slow, talking about how life's sweets are "easy come, easy go," they groan with the rundown weight of good Drive-By Truckers, particularly Jason Isbell's ballads. They can still gather 'round the mic acoustic picker fashion, as they did on "Jesus Was A Hippy," but they appear increasingly disinterested in any limiting schtick, and it's always encouraging that every single time I see these guys play they're just a bit better in every regard. Keep an ear to the ground for Poor Man's Whiskey as they branch out from their Northern California base in 2009 with their fabulous reworking of Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moonshine, and a whole bunch of new original material due for release in the coming months.
 Tea Leaf Green :: 12.30 :: San Francisco |
Tea Leaf is the embodiment of exuberance. The blood of young, ambitious, ceaselessly clever boys runs in their veins, and they impart their verve and drive in a way that carries across on the receiving end of their shows. It's not just the lyrics or Trevor Garrod's classic, radio perfect voice, but an intangible you can really feel. Presence cannot be manufactured and several times during this performance, notably during "Earth & Sky" in the first set and during the breathless transition from Elton John's "Ballad of a Well Known Gun" into "Keeping The Faith" in the second set, the whole room seemed saturated with the band's unique mojo, which carries something of The Faces, The Beatles and Thin Lizzy but ultimately shines with their own hue. It should be noted that the Elton cover was grand fit for TLG, who are the rare group that can play with the lusty, highly sophisticated glitter grind of Elton's early '70s band, which proffered high-ceilinged, unrepentantly emotional fare that's strikingly in tune with much of TLG's body of work.
For as many times as I've seen them, there's usually a few new twists each night and this show's pleasures included a Hendrix-y delicacy to Josh Clark's guitar on "If It Wasn't For The Money" and the marshmallow center inside the Humble Pie stomp of "Piss It Away." And the new songs, "Arise" and "Enemies At The Gate," show they remain as fiercely forward marching as ever. "Arise," in particular, has all the markings of a classic rock song, not just by TLG but any band past or present. There's a lot of these far-reaching resonances to TLG right now, starting from the foundation of the finest rhythm sections anywhere in music today, uber-bassist Reed Mathis and the under-recognized but equally devastating Scott Rager (drums). As I mentioned earlier, the fundamentals are all in place, track after track, improv after improv, composed bit after composed bit, but never more so than in the rhythmic thrust of their music, a force that demands movement. Even if you don't dance, there's almost no way to stay still when this band plays. Thankfully at Mezzanine folks were cartwheelin' and caperin' freely. Watching lovers kiss and young Americans sing-along as they shuffled, I was reminded of a Jackson Browne lyric:
 Josh Clark :: 12.30 |
I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing but I can't help listening
And I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round
Crying as they ease you down
'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(There's nothing you can do about it anyway)
Mortality and jubilation. This pair moves together in Tea Leaf Green, wrapped up in "Red Ribbons" or "Flippin' The Bird" as they blow past us. Standing at the end of one year and about to welcome in a new one – especially one so saturated with hopes and promises you can practically feel it collapsing under our collective expectations already – I felt good, and more over, I felt understood and less alone wrapped up in TLG's windswept sound. Few things this endorphin rich also refuse to dumb down the conversation. Over time, this band is only becoming more complex and less easy to peg, and I'm not sure about the rest of us but 2009 feels like it's going to be a hell of a year for Tea Leaf.
Tea Leaf Green :: 12.30.08 :: Mezzanine :: San Francisco, CA
Set I: Intro, The Garden (Part III), I've Got A Truck, Earth & Sky, If It Wasn't For The Money, Piss It Away > One Reason, Make A Connection, Ocean View, I Try So Hard, Arise*
Set II: Standing Still, Let's All Ride Together, Been So Long, Loony Bin, Hot Dog, Ballad of a Well Known Gun**, Keeping the Faith, Incandescent Devil, Enemies at the Gate*, Gasaholic
Encore: Flippin' the Bird, Can You Guess It?
* = debut
** = Elton John song
Click here to listen to or download this show on Archive.org.
Continue reading for more pics of Tea Leaf Green on 12/30...
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