Bonnie Prince Billy: "Beware" and Concert Review

Soooooo.... Bonnie Prince Billie. Will Oldham. Will Oldham a/k/a Palace, Palace Brothers, Palace Music....and of course Will Oldham a/k/a Bonnie Prince Billie and even in at least one case, Will Oldham a/k/a Will Oldham. But lately Will Oldham has been Bonnie Prince Billie. Got it?
Oldham. A genius. Dark music. Loud music. Soft music. Sometimes dense but rarely uninteresting no mater what ideation he is in. Bonnie Prince Billie has been more of an alt-country thing. He has a new CD out called “Beware”. He also hit the Pageant last week for a show I got to see. Lets take things one at a time. The CD is really a nice effort. He has bridged the gap of ruffness that impales much of alt-country and reached way back to the alt country roots of Gram Parsons and it is... sweet.

This is a CD that anyone can like. I am not sure there 9s anything ;ife changing on it but it continues the path of observant, litlling music from last years “Lay Down In The Light”. The album cover has been found “unsettling” with comparisons to Neil Young’s “Tonights The Night”. It actually looks more like the Post Dispatch’s Bill Mc Clellan sitting in the dark. Young’s Album was seminal and brilliant and dark. This is a little dark but with the lilting melodies and sweet harmonies it is no mopus (that is a moping opus).

The CD is worth a purchase. In addition to Oldham's band (Josh Abrams of Town and Country, Jennifer Hutt, Emmett Kelly of the Cairo Gang, and Michael Zerang), the guest list on Beware! includes Dee Alexander, Leroy Bach (ex-Wilco), Jim Becker, Robert Cruz, DV DeVincentis, Jon Langford (Mekons), Greg Leisez, Rob Mazurek (Chicago Underground/Isotope 217, Exploding Star Orchestra), Nicole Mitchell (Exploding Star Orchestra, Frequency), and Azita Youseffi. It is fun and tuneful.

***

I had never had the pleasure of seeing Oldham in concert. He alluded to the last time he was in town that he played at the old Cicero’s (basement bar) and that was indeedsome time ago (1997). I went with some friends and had warned them that Oldham based on picutes and movies that I had seen him in sported a “bee beard” which might frighten small children. Instead he came out shorn down so that he just looked vaguley crustacean. Earlier in the tour he had been wearing black but tonight he came out in ill fitting white pants and a white shirt. The pants looked about 8 inches too long but pulled up but appeared that he was wearing Depends or something like that under them. He looked bad.

His band was sublime with Josh Abrams (never stops smiling) and the somewhat ethereal Cheyenne Mize on fiddle and back up vocals. Mize was given the center stage and although her voice is not a 10 on all counts she is on the other hand and 8 or 9 and the harmonies on stage were sublime. Oldham was chatty enough making several references to sleeplessness and cocaine but over all was charming.

When not singing he has kind of an odd stepdancing style that I guess goes with the “Bonnie Prince Billy” mystique. The Pageant had a middling all ages crowd likely based on Oldhams mentoring status with current indie faves like Bon Iver, Joanna Newsom and Sufjan Stevens but on this not it was all about harmonies which is not an easy thing for an atonal boy like Oldham to get done. The crowd ate it up and he performed most of the new album. After some prompting he did his version of “I See A Darkness” whichwas popularized by Johnny Cash shortly before his death on The American Recordings. All in all, an excellent show with a slightly offbeat crowd. The only disappontments of the evening were the all ages show which precluded beer down on the floor in front of that stage and the lack of Beatle Bob which always makes you wonder what show you were missing that night.

When he comes back again. I will be there and i reccomend that you do the same.