Okkervil River: Off Broadway November 4 2013

Soooo..... as discussed there is nothing like live music.  NOTHING!  With Fall mercilessly upon us and winter a bad shout out away one needs something to lift out of the gun in my mouth season... with trees turning brown and leaves....falling.  But there is even more nothing better (and I intended to say it like that) than seeing live music in a small venue... as God intended.  Follow the Diner Review Rule that if the guitarist us not close enough to spit on you, than don't bother to go.  Two weeks ago I went to see Neutral Milk Hotel down at the Blue Note in Columbia and it was an epic show... but nothing like this.

My son Jon of St. Louis Wing Review fame was finishing up a brutal Fall concert schedule and was wing man.  Jon had come fresh from a dinner with my in-laws which I ...missed.  It had been a long weekend of family with everyone in town for a wedding but they were gone now and this would be a finale to 3 nights of being slightly...over served. 

Off Broadway has morphed into one of the more pleasant places to see a show.  The new management (now several years in place) has...

*Opened a courtyard and made that the entrance which improved on the rat maze feel the old entrance had...like you were coming into a closet or something.
*Removed wagon wheel light fixture which though "classic" blocked the view from the shitty balcony and cluttered the room.
*Further uncluttered by removing all the crap off the walls replacing them with iconic (if boring) posters of musicians, many of whom are flipping the bird.
*Torn out the beautiful long bar and replaced it with a much smaller and more manageable  one.  It is not as pretty and you will wait in line but there is never any question of being ignored or when it is "your turn".
They have not fixed the bathrooms which remain abysmal though clean.  They do discriminate against the "bowel challenged" (I might adopt that as a description for my celiac) but I would suspect that is a 5 figure to 6 figure fix which is hard to justify,  A port-o-potty rental for the courtyard might be an idea though or even a bathroom out there... I don't know.  Bottom line is that they have made it into a much more friendly venue, and the shows run on time which is something former management could never seem to get done.

The other nice thing about it is that if you get there for the opener, you are likely to see the headliner, or headliners, walking around.  Like Richard Gere in "Officer and a Gentlemen", they got nowhere else to go!  Unless they want to hide in the attic like green room there are very few choices.  I was there early because I was excited about the show and needed to stake out standing space for Jon and myself and got to chat up Will Sheff in the drink line.  He is a pretty unassuming guy and has boyish looks.  I was able tot ell him how much I liked his music and he was polite and friendly.  I did not make him get in a pic with me... I was proud of myself for maintaining that tiny...TINY bit of dignity.  The last time I saw Sheff was at the Pageant where he did a standoffish set and was so drunk that he forgot a verse of "Westfall" but..... I am a fan.

Will Johnson opened.  Johnson is from Kennett Missouri (If It Makes You Happy) and now lives in Austin.  He interested me 15 years ago with his main band Centromatic but has a lot of solo stuff out as well as a tribute CD he did with Jay Farar.  Bottom line was he played solo and he was...great.  Kind of a Kenny Logins (Logins and Messina) voice but then he would get all dark and whispery and his guitar is just...haunting. He played about a 50 minute set and was impressive enough for me to buy his new CD. 

I had been off to the side of the stage but after Johnson left the weak willed or weak bladdered headed off and I moved in and camped front row (standing) slightly off center and was thrilled, once again by the tininess of people who go see live music.  Whether it is a genetic thing with music lovers or whether it is because they are more apt to abuse themselves with cigarettes and alcohol stunting growth... it is great to be over 6 foot at a live show.  Jon showed up and we had nothing but these sweet, elf size music lovers in front of us, so much so that I that I was able to move several more people in front of me (because you don't want to be a dick and block other people's view just because you can) and peer over their heads.  It is, by the way, considered poor form to place your drinks on their heads.

Okkervil came on at the crack of 9:30.  Late for a school night but it had been tweeted by venue that it was the schedule, and it was, so I could pace myself mentally and cocktail-wise. Sheff came on with a crack 5 piece band and simply killed it, tore it up, beat it up bloody, right from the start.  He lit into two tracks from the new album, "It Was My Season" and "Balcony" which really got everyone going but after that he tore into some his great, old, angry songs from Black Sheep Boy, "For Real" at which point he owned the audience and the show.

Their new album, "Down The Deep River" is a really mature work and it hearkens back to the earlier days of the band with a lot of accessible introspection.  Sheff has been all over the rock press and NPR promoting this and everyone seems to make it out as this loveable look back at growing up in a small New England town.  Can New England be pastoral?  I don't think so and I would argue that Sheff does not either.  There is joy, sadness and God bless him, teen angst.  The songs recall all types imagery from the 80s and they are sweet... with an edge.  I don't know what this was.

This show was a killer.  An artist who is re-peaking after a little thrashing around who really knows how to put on a live show.  This size venue is PERFECT for him, and for the audience.

Will Johnson Opened!

Concert Review Number 8: Okkervil River

Concert Review
Okkervil River with Damien Jurado
Logan Square Auditorium
September 18, 2007





Why you might ask does daddy need to drive to Chicago to see one of his favorite bands? That is an excellent question and indeed a very sad one that pounds home the point that St. Louis is of course not, and never will bill a first rate city. I mean when an average indie rock band on the Jaguwar label can snub this town for years, then what can we do? What can we say?
Sooooo....you miss some work, you skip some school, you find a place to crash and you disappear for 18-24 hours for a solo road trip to see some good music. I am obsessed by Okkervil River. Will Sheff fascinates and confuses me. He writes some of the darkest most complex songs out right now. So I headed for the Logan Square Auditorium, one of the few venues in Chicago I have not been to. It was a cool venue for something called an “auditorium”. I got to drive up 55 all alone listening to their new CD. Is there anything worse then the drive up 55 to Chicago? It is the ass end drive of the world. Nothing to see, nothing to do...just a strong cross wind over fields of soy and corn. Lousy dirty towns and a Mc Donalds every 10 miles. White trash backwards ass Illinois countryfuck heaven. On the other hand... it is the way to Chicago.

I was heading up to downtown (I like to say that) to rendevous with the Knipstein and the frightening law student Adam Smith and the beautiful and talented Rachel Lauber. We dined at Peace Brewery and met up with young Jon Becker and two friends from school. Much pizza was consumed before hopping on the train and heading a few stops to Logan Square. We could not find the place but I finally asked for directions and was pointed to an innocuous building where we walked through a narrow door and up a set of steps to what appeared to be an old school gym revamped into a place to hold wedding receptions and small concerts.

Damien Jurado opened for them. I was not familiar with this guy prior to the show. I listened to his CD on the way up as well. Kind of a wispy voice with these over raught, heartfelt songs. He came on stage with a amped down lead guitarist and a girl who was percussionist, background singer, keyboardist and sometimes admonisher of the crowd for not paying attention. She was just insufferable and poor Damon who starts with mopey songs...just seemed like he should have a gun in his mouth...a really ugly gun...like a cartoon gun. Anyway the whole thing was surreal and it was so tiring. the show was supposed to start at 8:30 but they moved it back to 9:30 and with how slow and boring and whiny big old Damon was.... well I was just exhausted.

But... he finally got done and there was a brief break, and another Budweiser and I went and looked at the merchandise and their was a cool poster comemorating the show and then Will Sheff and his bad made there way to the front of the gym...because there was no back stage or for that matter even a stage...and they trailed up...took their places, thanked everybody for coming out...and tore into the new CD “Stage Names” with the opening track “Bad Movie”.... and we were off!
Sheff is an ugly man. Thinnish, lank haired bangs that hang over slightly beady pig eyes but...it works. he strums the acoustic guitar...plays with the microphone and rocks...woefully...plaintively...and awesomely. He has a a band full of multi instrumentalists including keyboards, trumpet, percussion, guitars, percussion, bass, percussion and background vocals. He alternated songs from Stage Names with his back catalogue and Stage Names is solid enough to work with. Great songs including ”8 Chinese Brothers” where he uses song names to tell everyone that no one cares...
“Nobody cares about your 97th tear”....the 100th Luftballoon, the fourth time you were a lady, the 51 ways to leave your lover...”.

Brilliant. he just writes great poignant songs and the band just plays so seamlessly with him that it works in beautiful..loud...shrill...brilliant way. (I will need to do a whole blog entry just on the song “”8 Chinese Brothers...look forward to it) The band slowly peels from suits down to t-shirts as they rock on and on into the night. They finally leave the stage at Midnight before the demand of encores...it is odd when there is no back stage... and they go and stand on the side of the stage toweling off....before coming back to rip through a few more songs. The encores were awesome and they finished with “Westfall” which is one of the greatest mentally ill murder songs since...since... Warren Zevon’s “Excitable Boy” at least.
The evil law student was ready to go home and so before the end of “Westfall” I took our little group and got to the back of the gym so we could bail on the last chord. I did not even say goodbye to my son (father of the year award) and then we hightailed it out for the train and back to Division Street. I talked the boys out of a drunken White Castle run and we had one more beer and I crashed on the couch. I want to say... for the record...that 45 (almost 46) year old men should not sleep on couches. I started on the futon but actually found the hug old squisht couch more comfortable. Then up at 6 to breeze back home in time for a 2:30 partner picture in front of the foutains at Kiener Plaza. I looked great.

Record Review 13 Okkervil River: "The Stage Names"

Okkervil River
The Stage Names









Sooooo...what do you do about Will Sheff. He is leader, singer, songwriter of Okkervil River. Most of the guys in the band grew up in New Hampshire and started to play together and then split up for college before re-forming in Austin in 1998. Since that time they have come out with 5 full length albums:
• 1999 Stars Too Small to Use - Jound
• 2002 Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See - Jagjaguwar
• 2003 Down the River of Golden Dreams - Jagjaguwar
• 2005 Black Sheep Boy - Jagjaguwar
• 2007 The Stage Names - Jagjaguwar
They have a number of great E.P.s as well but their album output, is very high on over all quality. Okkervil and Sheff specialize in the atonal work that I love which is so indebted to Neil Young and a lot of their harder stuff leans strongly on Young’s tone and pacing. Sheff pens a lot of brilliant songs and as opposed to much post-Cobaine mopers ennunciates his lyrics beautifully and sometimes painfully. Sheff along with Colin Meloy and Conner Oberst are some of the most talented writers, singers, songwriters and entertainers of this current crop of talent. Each one of them has been christened a "new Dylan" at one time or another and while that is slightly (maybe tremendously) over blown it is not totally without merit.

This CD continues in the tradition although it is tighter and better produced. The CD has been very well review with Pitchfork Media concluding:

“Ultimately, The Stage Names shows how a vastly talented "mid-level band" (Sheff's words) sees itself, but there's no bitterness here, just overwhelming self-doubt and perseverance. Despite its density (they fit worlds into just nine songs), the album remains exciting and accessible, albeit highly sobering. It's about the folly of popular music and its attendant lifestyles, but these songs are so good and so moving that they only give us stupid, stubborn hope.”

That is high praise indeed. The CD merits it. It is just a really tight 9 song effort much in the same way albums used to be crafted with a nice narrative arc and a lot of feeling that rises...and falls. Will Sheff is always thrashing around in a troubled and manic way. He writes some great twisted stuff. The first song booms out....”Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe.” In the song he bemoans the lack of plot, casting and quality lighting. I think it is a metaphor. But the whole CD is good, even down to the 6th song...”A Girl In A Port” where Sheff explains:
“I am not a ladykilling sort,
enough to hurt a girl in a port.”

Reminded me of Rhett Miller of the Old 97’s singing:
“My name is Stuart Ransom Miller,
and I am serial lady killer.”

These poor guys. Anyway...the CD is full of dark hooks and nice rhythms. He broods as he wails but in a way that is rarely less then compelling. While this effort might not be quite as compelling as “Black Sheep Boy” (though it might be) it is a solid collection of songs with nice indie rock sensibility and...the occasional aching steel guitars. Lets call it 9 slingers on the 10 scale. A must buy for the year if you want to listen to stuff you will never hear anywhere else.