[written by colfer]
Jim Waive and friends were phantasmagorically fun. I don’t think there was a person there that did not at least have to suppress their joys of having fun. The fun was skittling around the plank floors and running out the light poles. Fun was riding the air and surfing sixteenth notes down the breaks of the Waive of humanity.
Now I have not been out anywhere the last few years where people really let loose, that’s hard to do when everybody’s got a video camera in their phone & there’s a senseless war spilling blood with our names on it. But at times at these events, you do get a community vibe & a sort of contagious mellow beauty that is different from the nineties. Some of these kids brag about their “second generation alternative thinking” or whatever, but let’s get to the music.
BC (Barling and Collins) opened up with junky, silly songs about losing beers or somebody’s an asshole or whatever. Kind of Adam Sandler by way of Hank Williams Jr. by way of Pauly Shore. They’re the perfect opening band in a three-act show, because they’re professional enough (play every Sunday at Miller’s), they don’t take themselves too seriously, they don’t hurt your ears, and you can’t wait for them to get off the stage with their uncromulent songs. After a while. Because of course you are there to see the main act, or in this case, acts both. Nothing extreme in the way of positioning an opening act to fall gracefully for the glory of the second. No no, that was Sharon Jones at the same venue last month, who used an opening band so grating and trite that it made you wonder whose business plan you were stuck inside of.
Jim Waive is all business, but not that kind of business. First however, rode in on their white ponies, the second act, the All New Acorn Sisters. The Sisters lineup is now someone named Sugar and someone named Cookie. Previously the Acorn Sisters were Sarah White (Sarah White and the Pearls) and Sian Richards (Matchbook Poets). The All New Acorn Sisters are the same personnel, borrowing the soulful, epigrammatic singing style of White, and the dulcet pure lines of Richards into a sort of blackbird pie of phantastically affecting songs. The crowd was well nigh brimming with pleasure, driven to dancing in all various configurations, coupled, leaned against a wall, spun out from the bar, or just standing sideways to the flat earth in the general mob. There was some embarrassment that the Sisters might upstage the still forthcoming Jim Waive and the Young Divorcees. Now by the epigrammatic singing of Sarah White, I mean that she can take an old time classic, they picked two or three from the Carter Family, and make it live musically. The technical aspects, rasps, breaks, grace acmes, etc., are uninteresting. What makes it live is that it is in service of a musical intelligence. So when’s she’s not singing her own rock-n-roll, go see Sarah White sing country. Other highlights were an Emmylou Harris song at breakneck speed, and something I haven’t even mentioned yet. Sugar and Cookie do a stage banter that would sound corny if I even tried to describe it. At one point they had us picturing Jim Waive airing out his freshly polished fingernails backstage, etc. It rolls out naturally between the two of them as they make little conversational duets, but not facing each other. They face the crowd. This stuff is right out of the original Grand Old Opry, the Louisiana Hayride, the Old Dominion Barn Dance, and all the rest. Phun times for the audience.
The All New Acorn Sisters left the crowd happy, and after some milling about – smoking is outdoors, so when you go out for fresh air, you’re in for a surprise in that alley – up to stage turned Jim Waive and the Young Divorcees. Waive had been graciously making the introductions throughout the evening, and it was great to see him relaxed and quietly engaging behind his beard & cowboy top, as ever but still so. The band features the incomparable Charlie Bell on dobro and pedal steel, and the inestimable Young Divorcees, Anna Matijastic and Jen Fleisher, playing fiddle and big bass, respectively. Everybody sings.
Part 2
From the git-go, after a brief electronic glitch with the amplification, Jim Waive’s groove was funnarific. It was melodic, it was harmonic. It was melded, it was syncopotic, it was copacetic, and it was mostly written by him. Now I used to go to his shows mainly just the hear Charlie Bell, and to watch Waive make his Buck Owens eyeballs at the crowd. Since then the band has evened out into a seasoned quartet. The old Bakersfield sound has been transformed by their own personalities & extravagances. I miss some Charlie Bell-ishness, sorely, but I appreciate young Matijastic’s more holler sound, and the addition of young Fleisher working the bass. Who played low rhythm before? I can’t even remember, must have been Waive on the bottom strings, or Bell & Matij. kicking the floor in their pointy boots.
The Jim Waive set was perfectly sculpted to the audience’s funbone, putting the peg a notch up even from the catapultinous crowd choreography of the All New Acorn Sisters. That is to say, people danced. People danced without pity and without sorrow. People danced in tight little eddies round their own sympathetic aural cascades, and those of their closest neighbors. I saw the always non-dancing make sudden inspired dance moves that reduced their friends to gales of giggles. I’m including one of the musicians, now off-stage, whom I happened to be standing close by! It was that kind of night.
Well, Jim Waive is a real songwriter and of that there can be no doubt. The stage got crowded at one point with Acorns reappearing, as well as two other contributors to the new album “Strike a Match,” whose names I embarrassingly cannot recall. Then the lineup went back to the core quartet, and Waive pulled out a few of his old tunes, with an especially haunting playout of, what, “Shut Down 49″, or was it “Voodoo”? Notes were not taken, the joint was shaking! Beautiful Matij. fiddle on that one.
“I’ll Fly Away” was the deserved encore, with the full musical population back onstage. This gospel tune got a sort of lullaby treatment, as a friend who went with me pointed out. Fair enough, but it’s still stuck in my ear! Even after a good sleep.
Related posts:
- Why I Hunt – A Sneak Peak at the Upcoming Jim Waive CD
- Upcoming Satellite Ballroom shows
- Satellite Ballroom’s Lease Rumored to Not Be Renewed
Acorn Sisters = totally cromulent… even cromulicious
[Part 2, also, Thor, typo in the 2nd paragraph above I made, lose/loose. Thanks for posting this!]
Thor’s edit: part 2 added to original post above.
Colfer (I don’t who you are, although you know me — very unfair) Thanks for this review. Fabuluso
I heart Jim Sarah and Sian!!! Sorry I missed your big show but I have been home sick ever since my referee gig, Shit takes a lot out of ya.
OK Gotta go
cromulicious? i think i’m in love…
“so grating and trite that it made you wonder whose business plan you were stuck inside of.”
i’m boycotting the new downgraded blockquotes, but that line right there is just fantastic.
Yeah, they were some kind of faux gypsy or polka or mazurka or whatever thing with endless accordion riffs. Since Charlottesville has seen Gogol Bordello (twice I think), it was just ridic to try to bring that second rate stuff here. But, you know, they were an opening act (for Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, that is). They gotta be bad just a little, it’s psychological. Taking one for the team!
Not that anyone cares, but the opening band for Sharon Jones, the Ivan Milev Band, was personally hand selected by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings – it’s a package bill i.e., the Ivan Milev Band is on the road with SJ and DK. Many of the Dap Kings were sidestage during Ivan Milev’s set. The DK’s bass player told me that Ivan Milev used to be a big star in the Ukraine.
Oh yeah, the Jim Waive show was AWESOME! There really was a great vibe in the room and JW killed it!
Hey youse guys.
Colfer, I appreciate your going easy on me and Collins, but Pauly Shore?
THEM’S FIGHTIN’ WORDS!
(and my Funk and Wagnalls has no entry for “uncromulent.” – a reference to Crom, god of Conan the Barbarian, perhaps?)
Great show, we had a blast. Good job Jim & co. (300-ish tickets sold, damn good!) Acorns rocked. Great vibe. Awesome crowd. Thanks a million. Come see us at Miller’s some Sunday. And buy lots of Young Divorcee merchandise. Peace!
Colfer – I think you may have been a bit short sighted about Barling & Collins. Their message is a clear one. You wrote: “there’s a senseless war spilling blood with our names on it” and “silly songs about losing beers or somebody’s an asshole or whatever.” Um, it’s not “somebody” that is “an asshole or whatever,” it’s the president. Weren’t you listening?
I do love me some Jim Waive, but BC was by far the most original thing I saw all night – I get to hear good old-timey country music all the time, but it’s is pretty darn rare that I get to hear rock cello. That being said, their songs are stupid for sure and intentionally so, I hope. (I’m pleased to know that they play every Sunday night, especially since tomorrow’s a holiday!)
By the way, given your obvious objection to the war, I’m taken aback by your fascination with country music. My curiosity is peaked because the two opinions so rarely coincide – are you a NASCAR fan, too?
Hey BC, sorry for the rough-up, I was exercising some poetic license. You guys are fun. Cromulent is a Lisa Simpson word.
in addition to being a lisa simpson word, cromulent is also a real word. no it’s not.
can i be anti-war and pro-’merica at the same time? I DON’T SEE HOW THAT IS EVEN POSSIBLE.
every time you buy schwag pot on the street, AQI blows up a nursery in mosul. remember that.
If when you close you eyes and listen to music, you prefer to think of Regina Spektor instead of Pauly Shore, then, well, you are not alone… and that does more accurately describes the BC sound.
“Kind of Adam Sandler by way of Hank Williams Jr. by way of Regina Spektor.” There, good to go. For here.
Cromulent is not generally considered a Lisa Simpson word. First usage is attributed instead to Miss Hoover, with Principal Skinner shortly thereafter rolling the term into the immortal sentence “He’s embiggened that role with his cromulent performance.”
See, e.g.,
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cromulent
It is now a “real” word. Real enough, at least, to appear in Webster’s dictionary.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cromulent
Well, I didn’t understand half of the words used, but appreciate the positive review. A little shocked that anyone remembers the Poets, you must be a townie from way back. I had an awesome time and thought BC and Jim Waive were fabulous and the crowd was too! Couldn’t have been more fun. Those Divorcees put on great show.
“The Jim Waive set was perfectly sculpted to the audience’s funbone, putting the peg a notch up even from the catapultinous crowd choreography of the All New Acorn Sisters.”
Colfer, is there a source/etymology for “catapultinous,” or is it an adjective of your own devising?
Either way, it’s delightfully vivid and evocative. The imagery certainly cocks my catapult…
yeah, that chick from the matchbook poets was hott. I remember watching her play upstairs at Pete’s Monticello grill in the old dairy building way back in the day.
I just wrote evil egg pile on a fiver for y’all tonight (BC).
“Evil Eggpile,” eh?
Consider it done.
(we’ll do almost anything for five bucks)
colfer, I am glad that Mr. B chimed in himself…Not trying to beat a dead horse here (since you’ve already semi-kind-of-like-taken the comment back) but I do think the music Barling and Collins play is original and inspiring. While I wasn’t at the show on Friday, and I realize we all are entitled to our own opinions regarding music, the Pauly Shore bit is a little over the top, imho. They have great social commentary and while I can only speak for myself and my personal experience hearing them I do think that your take was perhaps a little harsh. Those bros ARE distinctly C-Ville fo sho.
Your comment about Gogol Bordello, however, was right on (throwing you a bone here…ha ha). I saw them @ Terminal 5 in the NYC on NYE and it was one of the best concerts I have ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot. Maybe BC just isn’t your thing, but I love ‘em…
The interwebs can be harsh sometimes
OK I totally take back the totally Paul Shore thing. That was random. Regina Spektor instead! Even though she plays piano, I hear the same sort of floridly wanton chords of classical goodness on that big cello in BC. Charlottesville is so deep in personality, we even have another crossover cellist or two don’t we? Mark Rock/Peter Markush in his better guises, and somebody else that used to play at the Mudhouse, maybe connected with Morwenna Lasko and Jay Pun? Now don’t ask me to go back on anything else I said!
Great show last night, Barling. You guys are too much fun.
I feel compelled to throw in another nod towards BC – lots of fun and great tunes played by talented guys that have their tongues planted in their cheeks and are smart enough to know how to tackle serious subjects in funny songs without coming off as pretentious.
Colfer, great comments, but I don’t think morwenna / jay play with a cellist or mark rock, but I wish they played more often! Do you know when they’re in cville next? Mr Waive rocks as does the Before Christ band… Though they didn’t look that old!
Maybe that young cellist at Mudhouse grew up to be one of the BC.
Here’s a Lasko/Pun schedule. Why do bands update their MySpaces more promptly than their “real” websites? Easy web tools trump design I guess…
http://www.myspace.com/morwennajay
Mar 1 2008 8:00P
Purple Fiddle Thomas, West Virginia
Mar 21 2008 8:00P
Little Grill Harrisonburg, Virginia
Apr 10 2008 8:00P
Jammin’ Java- w/RobinElla (Tentative date) Vienna
May 16 2008 8:00P
Jefferson Center- supporting Frank Vignola Quintet Roanoke, Virginia
Jun 7 2008 5:00P
Private Charlottesville, Virginia
Jul 25-27 2008 8:00P
FloydFest Floyd, Virginia
I saw them last year at Fridays After Five. Some classical/rock crossover strikes me better than others. On the serious-meter, they’re different from BC, that’s for sure. But I already like classical itself.
Wow, H.O.H., that’s high praise indeed. Thank you.
But you forgot to mention “incredibly, devilishly handsome.”
I’ve never known Brandon Collins to play at the Mudhouse (even back in the day), but it’s possible. We’ve been together as a duo since 1996, and I’ve played with him since he was in high school. He is easily the world’s most dangerous vegetarian cellist.
There’s also those boys in Red Beet. They’ve got two cellos. And then there’s Cathy Monnes, formerly of the Marzaks with Peter Markush, both of whom whip a mean cello.
Mr. Brown: Thank you. But B.C. stands for Barling and Collins, which is our “actual” name. -as opposed to our acronym. (Let’s face it, two jerks playing corny music and alt/pop don’t need a band name. Or a religion, for that matter.)
Alternately, it could stand for Bush/Cheney, the finest political minds of our era. Deep, powerful men with taut buttocks and rippling thighs, standing on the faces of the working poor, determined to bring the United States to its knees in service of global corporate hegemony. Debt, schmebt. Hail Caesar! War is Peace! Freedom is Slavery! Stupid is Genius!
Oooh, maybe Brutus/Caesar would be better.
American as fuck! as usual Mr. Duck.
/bionic childhood?