The Wood Brothers

Posted // August 30,2012 - Oliver Wood is surrounded by a sea of boxes and packing peanuts. Things are in a bit of disarray as his family settles into their Nashville, Tenn., home of three weeks.
For the former Atlanta resident, it was due time to move to a smaller locale, to “take a family adventure,” while landing in a city with an impressive music scene, especially in the country & blues bent of The Wood Brothers Wood’s first change in residency as an adult—to Atlanta—was also about pursuing music. Oliver and his younger brother, Chris—of avant-groove New York City-based jazz band Medeski, Martin & Wood—both left their family home in Boulder, Colo., about two decades ago. Although the two learned to play under the same roof (Oliver even gave Chris his first bass), it took until the late ’90s for them to reconnect, when Oliver sat in on a MMW set.
It was “so fun and felt so natural” that not long after that, the Woods brothers struck out to write some material together during a family reunion. Their first songs including “Tried & Tempted,” a tune that made its way eventually into the duo’s 2005 debut, Ways Not to Lose.
“There’s a connection you get from playing with someone for years and years; there’s a little telepathy,” Wood says. “Chris and I felt that immediately.”
Between their split and reacquaintance, both musicians forged ahead in their respective careers and genres. Chris blazed new roads in trip-jazz and funk-bop with MMW, while Oliver sang the blues over mean and fiery-hot ’Lanta licks as Tinsley Ellis’ guitarist, and later with his own band, King Johnson.
“We cut our teeth and went to the school of the road and really found our identities—both musically and personally—so, when we finally got together, it was really fun to unite the two opposing things and see how they fit together,” Wood says. They matured separately, thereby avoiding a clichéd brothers-band (think Oasis, The Black Crowes, etc.).
“I’m hoping my brother’s family will move [to Nashville] one day as well,” Wood says. Currently, they live 900 miles apart—a distance that makes rehearsal difficult. However, they’ve managed to produce four studio albums this way, including two Blue Note Records releases: their latest, Smoke Ring Halo (2011), on Zac Brown’s imprint, Southern Ground, and an album of covers, Up Above My Head.
In concert, the brothers, now accompanied by drummer/percussionist Jano Rix, borrow heavily from classics in the American music catalog. On songs like “Ain’t No More Cane” (traditional), “Fixing a Hole” (The Beatles), “Get Out of My Life Woman” (Allen Toussaint) and more, they honor their influences while putting a creative spin on them.
“Our goal when we do a cover song is not to be true to the original necessarily at all. Our goal is to put our own stamp on it,” Wood says. “We get inspired and feel songs in the same way [as the original writers], but it comes out different because we do it in a three-piece acoustic way.”
Don’t let the word “acoustic” mislead you, though. The Wood Brothers, in their simple, refined ways, merge Southern rock, Motown soul, Manhattan jazz and Heartland folk.
Much like the covers they reinterpret, Wood Brothers originals also get makeovers and have evolved over the years, which is documented on the two-volume live set, Sky High and Nail & Tooth, released this year
“We’ve sort of come full circle,” Wood says. But he’s not talking about reinterpreting old material; he’s talking about the brothers coming back to the blues, the first genre they learned as young musicians in Colorado. The flair and bravado of the more technical music that they both went on to create are behind the musicians, at least for this project, because it “gets you further and further from the emotional core of the music.”
“We’re just loving the simplicity of [the blues],” Wood says. “[We’re] just loving songs that are real and soulful and pure.”

Soundcheck Series

Workshop series for music industry advice

Posted // August 31,2012 - “You must surrender the sickness of wanting to be creative to a higher power,” said Nashville songwriter Jason Deere at  Soundcheck Series’ latest workshop Aug. 8 at Metcom Studios in Salt Lake City. The standing-room-only audience used pens, pencils and keyboards to eagerly jot down words as Deere waxed on the makings of a successful songwriting career.
The Soundcheck Series is where many local musicians can receive industry advice that they can’t get by playing in area coffee shops and bars. Soundcheck promises to “bring Grammy winners, producers, publishers and other industry pros from places like Los Angeles and Nashville” to Salt Lake City and Utah County for workshops.
Soundcheck director Russ Dixon says that by attending the various Soundcheck Series workshops, local musicians can “make amazing connections and learn a lot about the music industry without flying out to Los Angeles or Nashville, spending all their money and coming back having only met one or two people.”
Since its resurrection in 2010, after a brief launch in 2006, Soundcheck has held near-monthly workshops with industry folks like Finn Bjarnson, Tyrone Wells (on being an indie artist vs. major-label signee) and Neon Trees’ Tyler Glenn (on songwriting) on a wide-ranging base of topics.
The most recent workshop with Deere, however, felt as much like a motivational sermon as a workshop on becoming a published songwriter. Deere, who has worked with big names like Katy Perry, Jessica Simpson, Lady Antebellum and LeAnn Rimes, spent most of the evening relating his success in the music business to his unwavering faith in God. Dixon introduced Deere as the “most passionate” person in the music industry, and that manifested itself in the form of tears from Deere five or six times throughout the two-hour lecture.
While this has rarely been the case at the roughly 40 previous workshops, know that your mileage may vary. Dixon says that some artists want to tell their story, like Deere, while others relate more logistical information.
Deere did share a few strategies of making it in the music world. He told the room that aspiring musicians must have “TRT: Tactful Relentless Tenacity,” and they must find out how to get as much of themselves through the “commercial keyhole” in order to make it.
The Soundcheck workshop is not just about teaching the logistics of the music industry, it’s also about getting inspired—be it by personal anecdotes or hearing success stories in the struggling music biz—and networking at the events.
“There are people here who are great studio musicians, vocalists and songwriters, and you wouldn’t know it just by looking at them, but I know it,” Dixon said. “Guys and girls in this room have done amazing things together.”

 

All Together Now

Sacred Harp members find their voice.

The human voice is the most natural instrument; the first device we use to meet our most primal survival needs as well as to relay individuality and emotion. While vocal music has long provided an avenue of expression for human aspiration, it was the revolutionary spirit of American colonists that created a new form of choral expression, one that would reflect the rules and regulations of a new world. Just like a democratic form of government, Sacred Harp singing was intended to make all voices equal. Created in 18th century England, it didn’t really gain in popularity until coming to America with the colonists. Initially a method to teach singing to those untrained in music, it had critics in New England and finally migrated to the South in the latter half of the 1800s. Eventually The Sacred Harp, a repertoire book referred to as the Cooper Book by the Utah chapter, solidified the style of simple harmonies, and “shape note” singing has withstood assaults by those who would “improve” it ever since.

There are now Sacred Harp groups all over the country, and the local one is organized by Jenny Jenson, although “organization” isn’t quite the word to use for it. Jensen explains, “It’s not a performance, there is no lead voice, and people can participate whenever they want.” These people sing for the sheer joy of it. She admits that it’s all one volume; there are no dynamics and it can sound a bit harsh at first.

The texts are overtly Christian, but the group is nondemoninational, and their meetings are not religious services. “We sing in churches because they’ve opened their doors to us,” she explains. The group has been at All Saints Episcopal Church for four years, and before that at This Is the Place State Park—where Sacred Harp members were also welcome—for five. The fewest number of people required is four, one for each part of the vocal harmony. “We’ve never had to go home for too few people,” she notes. Their last gathering included 13, although they’ve had as many as 400. “Some people are regulars, and some only visit once. You either love it or hate it.” Anyone in the group can pick out a song, and they arrive at “singing the pitch’s convenience” in a range that they can all sound comfortably. No one brings an agenda, and she has found “I’ve made some nice friendships I wouldn’t have made otherwise.” The group usually flourishes in college towns, and she says it has become especially popular among BYU students.

Sacred Harp singers from all over the country connect on Fasola.org, an online community that also hosts get togethers including an annual summer singing camp in Alabama.

“We have found it easy to communicate over the Internet,” Jensen says, “but there’s also the possibility to mutate. Things outside the tradition tend to stay outside.”

With occasional new additions to the repertoire, it’s a tradition that appears alive and well. The movement gained some notice several years ago when it was featured in the movie Cold Mountain, and the DVD extrasincluded Sacred Harp gatherings. The documentary film Awake, My Soul came out in 2008 after seven years in production.

All this demonstrates that there is still an urge within people to let the vocal chords flail in expression of something deeply held inside. It’s one of those things you can’t quite fathom until you’ve witnessed it for yourself, and then you understand their fervor, and the freedom the lack of criticism gives them. Like democracy, every voice is heard with equal weight, and though the results sometimes aren’t pretty, there’s a value in the activity taking place. The unpredictability can be exciting: “You never know who’s going to show up; anything could happen,” she explains.

“It‘s different every time. The first few years, we sounded really ragged. But, once you get it in your ear, when you try to sing something else, it’s difficult.”

Roll Call

Dave Payne’s Old-School Tracks

Sometime after 6 a.m., David Payne is on Fox 13’s Good Day Utah. It’s disorienting.

Payne’s just not a 6 a.m. dude. Salt Lake City’s own Thin White Duke is most often out late, rocking onstage with one of several bands—Red Bennies, Glinting Gems, Ether Orchestra, Starmy and Purr Bats. He strolls casually next to Fox 13’s jolly Big Budah—a stark contrast to Payne’s tall, lanky, blackclad figure and casual deadpan demeanor.

It’s very Interview With the Vampire. Indeed, Payne seems to feast on Budah, denying any knowledge of old school hiphop artist Kurtis Blow—“I know who he is,” Payne says later—and, playing along with the local news morning show hijinks, themselves contrary to Payne’s, for lack of a better word, hipster cool. More askew, however, is Budah’s use of the word “principal” when addressing Payne. Like he’s suddenly the head administrator of an educational institution, the Principal Skinner to someone’s Bart. Turns out Payne is in fact the big man on campus—at the Rock ‘N’ Roll Academy. It’s a role for which he’s well suited. The son of a 1970s singer-songwriter and vocalist mother, he has a slew of musical siblings, Payne has also played in umpteen local rock bands. If there’s one guy in town who should be running a school for potential rockers, it’s Principal Payne.

A day after Payne’s Fox 13 appearance, he’s outside City Weekly’s satellite office (aka my humble abode), swinging in silhouette on the adjacent playground. Dismounting his perch, Payne approaches in a gait that combines rock & roll swagger and Transylvanian nobility—with the faintest hint of videogame-geek awkwardness. He holds a spool of 50-75 compact discs. “I actually don’t have an iPod,” he says. “But I have a stack of CDs in my car that is pretty random.”

No matter. There’s enough variety among the stack or pre-recorded silver discs and burned CD-Rs with scribbled titles. Many of the discs are by Payne’s own bands and fellow locals like Tolchock Trio and defunct punk group Knvs. There are several CDs by his father, Marvin Payne, and the cover band he and his sons recently formed. One disc—from Time-Life’s The Story of Soul collection—jumps out, as does a copy of Tears for Fears’ The Hurting. Both, the new Portishead, a Small Faces album and a little sumpin’-sumpin’ from bass funkateer Betty Davis (suh-weet). I play “shuffle” and select a few for review as Principal Payne briefs me on his activities.

“I became a father,” he says of the twin daughters born to him and wife/Glinting Gems bandmate Leena two years ago. Fatherhood has slightly impacted his rock & roll lifestyle. Each of his bands remains active, and he estimates he plays between one and five gigs per month including a weekly event at The Urban Lounge called “Time to Talk ’Tween Songs.”

“I like to talk to my friends at shows,” he says, “but I hate to have to yell over the music.” It’s a strange declaration from the guy who fronts one of Salt Lake City’s loudest bands (the Bennies), but he has a point, and the idea of seeing a revolving cast of local bands play at a reasonable volume is appealing. Especially since it means hearing some bombastic Bennies songs and Gems gems rendered in entirely new arrangements—like a whole “Indian thing,” replete with electric sitar.

Fatherhood also inspired Payne to get a day job playing shepherd to Salt Lake City’s upcoming rock royalty. He started as a faculty member at Paul Green’s School of Rock in Sandy. When one student’s father approached Payne about opening another school, “I moonlighted there for a while until they fired me—as well they should have.” Payne enjoys his work at the Academy where he can—alongside fellow local musicians Mike Sartain (Starmy), Shane Asbridge (Laserfang) and Greg Midgley (Rubes, Rodeo Boys)—teach youngsters that music is about “personal expression” and not stardom. “That’s the root of my own musical experience, so that’s the best place to start teaching them.”

Retribution Gospel Choir

Loud Learning: Retribution Gospel Choir steps out of Low’s comfort zone.

Alan Sparhawk is still learning how to become a responsible performer. As the man who has guided solemn indie-rock act Low for more than 15 years, he is no stranger to the stage, but in the younger, livelier Retribution Gospel Choir, the guitarist/vocalist is exploring areas he isn’t certain how to navigate. “There’s some little luxury in Low,” Sparhawk says. “I was able to trust in the moment.”

In his older band, Sparhawk could “completely fall apart with an arrangement” during a show, and if he did, his wife/Low drummer Mimi Parker would be there to rescue him. This is not the case with Retribution. Instead, if Sparhawk screws up, his bandmates (bassist Steve Garrington and drummer Eric Pollard) are more liable to keep on without him. Thinking that something can go wrong and not be repaired immediately is an idea that gives the frontman an adrenaline rush. “Those moments still happen one out of eight shows, and it confuses the hell out of me,” Sparhawk says. “Part of the excitement of the band is that it can be that risky.”

Failure is a concept that threatens to affect the one-time Utah resident and BYU student, too. When a song doesn’t work for a few minutes, it means a few lost minutes for the audience. “There are only so many shows you see in your life, and I don’t want to waste anybody’s time,” he says.

While Sparhawk had been familiar with Garrington and Pollard before forming Retribution, he fell into playing with them by happenstance. After Low was once forced to back out of a local bill, Sparhawk decided to pull in the other two players for the concert. Instantly, he knew that this combination would go on to outlast a fill-in spot.

Sparhawk describes his partners as “perfectionists” and adds that each has a knack for improv. He testifies to their abilities (Garrington, for example, has a past in jazz) in a way he wouldn’t dare speak of himself. “We’re not playing jazz or anything, but there’s something about a bold jazz background that comes into play if you’re willing to jump off the cliff with a rock three-piece,” relates Sparhawk. “There’s a level of musicianship these guys have that’s beyond my understanding. “ Aside from the fresh cast, the major difference between Retribution Gospel Choir and Low lies in the thresholds of volume each adopts. While the soporific Low sticks to subdued, docile limits, Retribution’s Americana-bred indie-rock is cranked up to quake amps. Adds Sparhawk, “With Low, it was very much about trying to sound large but be quiet,” while his current group is willing to go both large and loud.

Amplification is a key component to Retribution’s approach to music, but it’s hardly the only interesting thing about the band. The soaring guitars and crisp drums give off a wistful, agitated spark, and Sparhawk emits a cry that rotates between thoughtful and passionately pained (sometimes both at once). Comparisons to Crazy Horse have become ubiquitous in the press, which is a notion that sets off an intriguing chain of comments from Sparhawk. “I grew up a couple hours south of Neil Young and two, three hours south of Bob Dylan. There’s something about being isolated on the edge of the glacier there. You feel this will to grab a hold of and ingest this open expanse.”
Sparhawk talks about music like a man more fascinated by raw emotion than cultivated skills. In that spirit, he is not afraid of things going wrong in public. “I’ve had shit thrown at me in Phoenix. I told 25,000 people in Madison Square Garden that they’re a bunch of pigs. Sure, something could totally throw me off, but I don’t care,” he says. “It’s worth taking that chance because I want to be free.” 

Summer 2012 Music Fests

   

With Desert Rocks Festival and the Ogden Bluegrass & Acoustic Music Festival from oh-so-early in the summer behind us, the festival outlook for these hot, hot months might seem bleak. Two words: road trip! Options abound in the Intermountain West, from intimate affairs to colossal music carnivals—the choice is yours.

Targhee Country Festival
It gets pretty damned hot in Nashville in the summer, so it seemed like a good idea to bring the city—or, at least, some of its crooners—up to cooler latitudes for the first-ever Targhee Country Festival. With best-selling Dierks Bentley headlining Thursday, and country mainstay—actually, he shows these new whippersnappers the ins and outs of traditional honky-tonk and Bakersfield country—Dwight Yoakam headlining Friday, it’s sure to be a scintillating first edition. Alta, Wyo., July 26 & 27, $35-$47 per day, $67-$75 for two-day pass, GrandTarghee.com

Oyster Ridge Music Festival
While the headliners (Young Dubliners, Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers, Royal Bliss) are impressive for this free festival, the annual band scramble is even more so. Around 30 players throw their names into a hat and several bands are pulled together at random. Then, they take an hour to practice before taking the stage in competition for fame—or infamy. Kemmerer, Wyo., July 27-29, free, OysterRidgeMusicFestival.com

RockyGrass Festival
It’s been 40 years since Bill Monroe and the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society founded what’s now called RockyGrass Festival. This three-day event carries the intimate charm of the early days of the now bigger but one year younger Telluride Bluegrass Festival (run by the same folks, Planet Bluegrass), yet boasts an insanely amazing acoustic-music lineup. Lyons, Colo., July 27-29, sold out, Bluegrass.com

Sawtooth Music Festival
What had been a one-day festival since its inception, the Sawtooth Music Festival launched a Friday-night pre-festival concert in 2010, which was so successful it turned the event into a two-day spectacle—Idaho’s biggest little music festival. The Cave Singers and Langhorne Slim headline. Stanley, Idaho, July 27 & 28, $15-$45 per day, $50-$55 for weekend pass, SawtoothMusicFestival.com

Targhee Bluegrass Festival
At 8,000 feet above sea level and sitting in the shadows of the Grand Tetons, Targhee Bluegrass Festival’s locale is as cool as the caliber of musicians it attracts—and without all the fuss over the other, bigger mountain bluegrass festival in Telluride. Truth be told, even the artists feel like they’re on vacation. Leftover Salmon, Del McCoury Band, David Grisman Quintet, Infamous Stringdusters and Donna the Buffalo lead a killer lineup. Alta, Wyo., Aug. 10-12, $45-$65 per day, $119-$159 for weekend pass, GrandTarghee.com

NedFest
Nestled in the Front Range just west of Boulder, Nederland is a place all its own. Homegrown brews—among other “homegrown” things—and music make it magical. The powerhouse trio of Steve Kimock, Keller Williams and Kyle Hollingsworth along with Melvin Seals backed by the Jerry Garcia Band make this fest one not to be missed. Nederland, Colo., Aug. 24-26, $35-$55 per day, $105 for two-day pass, $130 for three-day pass, NedFest.org

The Mynabirds

Omaha band makes a return flight

 The Mynabirds' Laura Burhenn

Posted // August 2,2012 - A catchy tune is always welcome, but it’s even better when the singer brings something personal to bear. Secretly, you want to believe that beyond the artifice of the stage and the performance, there’s a real person whose art communicates something authentic. So, let it be known that  The Mynabirds' Laura Burhenn is just as wild, soulful and seductively intelligent in conversation as she is on her two very different albums.
Her latest, Generals, departs from the lush, baroque ’60s pop and sultry Dusty Springfield-soul sway of 2010’s What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood into a moodier, grittier, more exotic, less orchestrated sound. Center stage is Burhenn’s smoky, shimmying croon, sidling over songs that highlight the political and social fissures quaking beneath our feet.
“It does kind of go all over the place and we have different people or inspirations in mind on different pieces. For example, I feel on ‘Disaster,’ there’s just as much Tribe Called Quest as Low-era David Bowie,” Burhenn says from her Omaha home between discussions about string theory and love. “I think of this album as an expressionist album, where the last album was more like paint-by-numbers in that we picked colors—we drew the outline and we filled it in. It felt very much like a cohesive thing. This one, it was all kinds of different canvasses from moment to moment.”
She wrote the album—much like the last one—largely in the shower. She had been trying to get away from writing on guitar (as she’d done most of her life) when she discovered her new hot-and-cold rehearsal space. She confided at the time of her debut that she was also wandering around her house banging a tambourine trying to make up songs.
While she still relied on the shower, she also purchased an old drum set with the intent of making this a more rhythmic album. You can hear it on tracks like “Body of Work,” bouncing over a sputtering Latin-tinged beat with pulsing keyboards that recall the electro-folk of Beth Orton.
Burhenn received a lot of help with the arrangements from Richard Swift, who also produced her first album. A talented singer/songwriter in his own right and touring keyboardist for The Shins, Swift shepherded Burhenn through the rough patches and intermittent catch-as-catch-can recording schedule.
“At one point, I lost my voice for a week or two. I’m writing this album totally about having a voice and totally losing mine,” she chuckles. “It was intense, but at that point Richard and I were really close friends and we kind of holed up in the studio, and we kind of went to the next level of consciousness that week.”
Originally from Washington, D.C., Burhenn had self-released some solo music before she connected with John Davis (Q & Not U) to form the duo Georgie James. They imploded in ’08 after one very well-received album. The band’s breakup accompanied a romantic dissolution for Burhenn and she fled to Omaha, right into the arms of Bright Eyes. After licking her wounds and touring with the band for a while, she started anew with The Mynabirds, vowing to keep her eye on the prize this time.
“We were both surprised at the success of the project, and pleasantly so. Then to have that pulled out from under me was a shock,” Burhenn says. “Suddenly, I have this fear, I’ve been making music for 10 years, and what if I don’t bounce back? What if that’s the pinnacle of my musical career and those are my glory days?
“What I did is I just set out to write a record that was in my heart, so if the record failed I could at least say that I made something that was 100 percent true to what I was,” Burhenn continues. “I felt like it was sort of what I was meant to say, what I was meant to do with my life. As long as I felt I was true to that, then I didn’t care if I sold a single record.”
If she keeps making music this sultry and inviting, she’ll sell a lot more than that.