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Two Gallants :: 06.06.04 :: The Independent :: San Francisco, CA
Two Gallants :: The Independent
By Charlie Villyard |
As Two Gallants wrung out The Independent's collective emotional mop last month, I was reminded of a telling scene from Don't Look Back, D.A. Pennebaker's 1965 Bob Dylan documentary. The filmmaker caught the 25-year old troubadour at a breakout performance south of London where, his detached Wayfarer cool illuminated by a lone spotlight, Dylan delivers a deadpan solo set to a pack of awestruck teenagers sitting on a café floor. They never move or speak, trapped like turtlenecked deer in the dazzling beam of Dylan's charisma. Two Gallants had a similar effect on the people around me: most could only squint and stare, ears agape, trying to absorb Adam Stephens' every phrase. The couple next to me was rapt, swaying arm in arm the whole night. And then there were the drunken college kids up front crowd surfing.
Apparently there's a wide array of reactions to Two Gallants' visceral punk folk blues. Lock in on Stephens' voice and you'll catch every lyrical jewel. Behind the words, his guitar jitters and moans, while Tyson Vogel's drums crash and sizzle like a rhythmic cardiac arrest, compelling you to move. In what amounts to a kind of sonic speedball, the two forces heave in opposite directions, and just like with good drugs their buzz is vexing and dramatic, so all-consuming it can be hard to deal with. Maybe that nervous, gut-level distress is what triggered the moshing.
Adam Stephens :: The Independent
By Charlie Villyard |
Young, poetic, and world-weary—is Two Gallants' prodigious talent the end result of doing time in the SF county public school system? Even as a fresh-faced band they have a solid book of songs to choose from, and much of their set was material not found on The Throes (Alive), their debut this show was meant to celebrate. These songs were captivating—new, but hauntingly familiar. During the second number, as Stephens sang, "I came to this city a victim of peace/But I left with your daughter, your wife, and your niece," the words made such wry and eloquent sense I was certain I'd heard them before. Later on I had to grin as he spun a tale of old time thug life, singing, "I got a brand new razor/And I got a .44 gun/Gonna cut you if you stay here/Gonna shoot you if you run." Stephens' sly bravado was soaked with dire consequence until the humor was colored gray and nearly hopeless, a mocking, morbid shrug in the face of another potential defeat.
Though the Dylan influence is clear, Stephens' rustic parables are closer to Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter's narrative story-songs, tales of innocence trampled by hard living and bad loving. The duo exhibited a studied, Lomaxian appreciation for functional music forms like the work song, the sea shanty, the barroom chant, the funeral dirge. With imagery both vividly modern and sepia-toned timeless, they rarely employed standard verse/chorus/verse structure or any other pop reference points. While at first Vogel's drumming seemed to follow Stephens' lead, a few songs in it was clear he and Stephens equally shouldered the music's burden. Vogel's shifting cymbal and snare currents added melodic depth to Stephens' sharp, angular guitar, which was almost percussive in its rough stabs and retreats.
Two Gallants :: The Independent
By Charlie Villyard |
During their epic re-imagining of "Crow Jane," a traditional murder ballad of indistinct origins, the two were backed by Jackie Gratz's sonorous, woody cello. Vogel brushed his drums, settling into a tense, ominous reserve. The somber chamber folk the trio spun had no ties to trends or consideration for levity; it sunk deep into an at-the-crossroads mystique, exhuming American ghosts both eerie and beautiful. As it mingled with the past, the music rekindled the legacy of its ancestors: Delta bluesmen, East Bay punks, and freewheeling Midwestern folkies. Gratz stayed for another tune, a whisper of a song she plucked along to, then left the stage.
Stretching into almost two full hours, the performance moved into dénouement with an SF memoir of 16th Street, "Sweet Delores," and "cops and junkies on the beat." After a full evening of sharp, clean picking on the guitar, Stephens roared with feedback on this one, kickstarting the crowd. They closed with "Nothing to You," one of The Throes most snarling, pent-up ragers, literally bringing the house down as crowd-surfers dropped heavily into the throng.
The band made a rare return to the stage, smiling broadly. "We don't like to do this," Stephens claimed of the encore, but he shushed the crowd and delved into another unhappy traditional, "My Baby's Gone." Even as we stood wringing our hands, trying to smile at his interjections to this sparse number--"I lost my floatie" was the bittersweet singalong chorus--it seemed Two Gallants took us into a dark, harrowing place, exactly where we needed to be.
Words: Jonathan Zwickel
Pictures: Charlie Villyard
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