The Kids Are Alright: grandson with Royal & the Serpent

  

grandson

    At last night's tour ending show at the Granada Theater in Lawrence, Kansas, grandson and opener Royal & the Serpent stood united selling the idea that rock and roll still exists to not only save lives but change the world. Prowling and bouncing around the stage, both acts fronted three piece heavy rock bands that played like each moment of their sets was the one that most counted. Both artists radiated vivid, nuanced emotion: Royal, a young woman defiant in the throes of pain; grandson, a young man who cuts the excitement of a legendary rocker with a kind of vulnerable physical comedy. Not only did they both rock hard, but Royal and grandson talked to the crowd, a lot, with an eye-to-eye compassion, telling all of us to take care of each other for them, for us, for what the night was all about. It was the perfect bill, Royal wielding the rock band to liberate the crowd followed by grandson trying that same thing on an epic scale, taking time to linger on how bad those we don't understand are hurting, perpetually turning the conversation to keep our unity the focus.     

Royal's set may have been my favorite of the two moment-for-moment. Lyrics I'd never heard before put a lump in my throat. Her talks with the crowd were unflinchingly honest, and that voice only leapt into another level of intensity when she sang. And I would be remiss to overlook the band's cover of the Killer's "Mr. Brightside." So many were at my daughter's age, uniquely experiencing the trauma we're all experiencing in the most formative years of their youth. Hearing that whole crowd sing that refrain at the top of their lungs, I couldn't help but think of what it meant in a new way. In this crowd just coming out of a pandemic, facing a disastrous economy, not having known anything like peace in their lifetimes, the song sounded like today--saints lost in a sea of contradiction, once comforting lullabies now just plain lies, everyone there rightfully distrustful of their parents' generation and the future itself. After hearing (and watching) that room embrace their mutual struggles and pain in song after song, that moment all-but-reinventing a 2004 Top 40 hit carried a giddy sense that everyone could also write that pain off as "the price I pay" and recognize the future as unwritten, a destiny calling. 

Royal 1

Grandson centers the show on the center of the crowd, dividing us up to respond to different calls, himself diving into the heart of a thrashing crowd to finish the climactic song. From the innocent bodies of "WWIII" to the messy determination to win in "Dirty," this music was about everyone, artist as fan and fan as artist. The narrative was a story we all acted out in the room together. At one point grandson asked who were artists in the house. He paused as if jumping thoughts, saying, "The only thing that separates the artists from those who aren't yet on this stage is a delusional belief they can save the world, and it's fragile as porcelain." 

My daughter kindly invited me to this show to see a favorite she'd introduced to me four years ago. Those were dark days for me, and I have a distinct memory of grandson's "Best Friends" keeping me upright on a nearby track I ran like it was spiraling into the Earth. At that time this music seemed a glimmer of what it's all about. Tonight, seeing these two bands perform, I watched that glimmer take shine. On the final cut "Blood//Water," Royal & the Serpent and an opener we missed (Nova Twins) all took the stage and that light exploded with warm textures of shimmering brilliance. It was no less than  a revelation to see such a light, once again, shining boldly into the future. 

Royal 2

Nova Twins, I'm definitely following now.

Knowing Where She's Going As Sure As Where She's Been: The Much Needed Vision of Miko Marks

 

When my friend David Cantwell played Miko Marks’s “Race Records” for me over the holidays, something in the sound of Marks’s voice (and her fine band, the Resurrectors) showed me what I’d all but left behind. In a world where pop music’s well into its third decade of being so micro-formatted that the concept of a Top 40 or any meaning to a Billboard album chart seems quaint, I find myself questioning why I do what I do.

But Miko Marks cannot be denied. To hear her singing Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Long as I Can See the Light” transforms everything that came before into something improbably new and, arguably, more powerful. Marks’s rallying cry here, her take on John Fogerty’s “Yeah! Oh-Yeah,” sounds as sure-footed as the tree planted by the water in “We Shall Not Be Moved,” the traditional that closed her most recent full-length, “Our Country.”

Miko Marks has displayed the heart of her vision since her remarkable debut “Freeway Bound” and its follow up (now almost fifteen years ago) “It Feels Good.” Marks has a big vision that ties generations together with a possibility found through compassion. For new listeners, her March 2021 album “Our Country” and (6 months later) EP “Race Records” serve as sublime introductions to what came before.  

"Kickin' Back," Freeway Bound

“Ancestors” opens “Our Country” establishing a sense of purpose, certainly as a Black woman (even further, as part of a movement) working within a tradition often associated with whiteness. The emphasis on primal drums and percussion keeping the singer “walking the weary road” calls on the entirety of the tradition touched by the African diaspora, from freedom songs to country to rock and soul. Marks takes a perspective she’s had since her first album, looking back to gauge her way forward and offers a rare sense of clarity—“I know where we’re going sure as I know where we’ve been.” Ancestors video

Her cover of Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times,” takes on the complex legacy of America’s pop music for its central metaphor. Singing through a thicket of cascading arpeggios with a bass line guiding her way, Marks names “the song, the sigh of the weary,” tying the age-old field worker’s struggle to the Flint water warriors of “We Are Here.” This music underscores what music, at its best, helps us do--find the strength to fight and a unity that just might win. "Hard Times," on both albums, performance video

That strategy is there at play in the following raucous “Pour Another Glass of Wine, Jesus,” and it’s there when we’ve all but given up, as in the biting, elegiac ”Goodnight America.” Always, as on the gospel centerpiece “Mercy,” it’s drawing together the people to “raise up a nation,” to “move every mountain,” to keep on “fighting, fighting, fighting for better days.” By the end of that performance, the piano, organ and Marks’ voice and choral backing have built to a state near jubilation, an army of the meek not just inheriting but, potentially, saving this weary old Earth.  Mercy lyric video  

But the path from here to there is a hard one, and “Travel Light” tells of  the fighter scrambling home to regroup. The strong narrative that runs through both these albums makes sure we hear the difference and the connection between that shaken traveler and the mothers, children, and unemployed workers in “We Are Here,” fighting for their lives at home. In one sense, they are every bit as defeated as one another, so they do what they have to do to (what they can) to survive, using music to “hold on to faith” and “cry, we are here.” "We Are Here"

Moving far from Marks's onetime home Flint to some place way down the Mississippi, the ragtime “Water to Wine” follows, declaring the singer’s conviction to “be planted by the water til that [potentially poisoned] water turns to wine.” With that, she ushers in the closing traditional, “Not Be Moved.” “Like a tree planted by the water,” this anthem roots not only the album but Miko Marks’s vision. Shoulder to shoulder with all these frail souls, she warns those in the way, “Boy, you are weak, and you won’t hold on much longer.” All our ancestors are in this righteous choral refrain, burning with guitar, smoldering with organ, and high-kicking with piano and percussion.  Not Be Moved

The six covers (released six months later) that make up “Race Records” amplify the story told above by calling directly on the ancestors again and again. All songs made famous by white artists, they are also songs that would not exist without the African aesthetics, including call and response, that define American popular music. The title references both the genre label for any song cut by a Black artist for the first half of the 20^th Century and the segregation of music marketing that generally remains to this day, vividly evident in Marks’s own beloved country music but also the historical dividing line between rock and R&B.  

With the Stanley Brothers’ “Long Journey Home” we get the weary traveler from so many songs before accompanied by harp and acoustic guitar and haunted by that death that’s been waiting in the shadows since the beginning of “Our Country.” It’s the threat that keeps these characters moving. Coupled with the concept of home here, it’s also a place of life and inspiration, a source of strength, the place of the ancestors. Long Journey Home video

Playing with Willie Nelson’s psychedelic blues take on Johnny Bush, Marks revels in “Whiskey River,” a stubborn celebration in what seems like the deepest darkness yet. As she bites down on “I’m drowning in a whiskey river,” Marks delivers the metaphor as all but literal. Still, swaying as hard as “Water to Wine,” there’s life, even delight, in her ability to sing it. Plunging into even more treacherous territory, her honky-tonk “Tennessee Waltz” recognizes the music itself as capable of producing heartache. The important thing, though, is the tragic-comic acceptance of this vocal—when Marks’s voice soars in celebration of the “beautiful, wonderful, maaahvalous, glamorous” song that took her baby away. Tennessee Waltz, Race Records

As she reiterates with the Carter Family’s “Foggy Mountaintop,” the very power that can take her “all around this whole wide world” is the same power that can leave her stranded and alone. It’s the bluegrass strut bolstering her wide-open vocals that tells us she’ll be alright. Marks’s voice is a wonder: with a light touch, she delivers grit and gravity, always soothing where she cuts. Foggy Mountaintop, Race Records

The way she maintains that sound and vision renders her absolutely convincing when she cries “I won’t, won’t be losing my way” on “Long as I Can See the Light.” Over these sixteen songs released in the dark days of 2021, Miko Marks forges a coherent narrative out of the whole of the American music story. She insists on the strength in our vulnerability, carrying us toward a certain peace glimpsed just over the horizon. Long As I Can See the Light video

 

If You Wanna Move, It Has to Get Uncomfortable: Ana Egge's Between Us

In a world where we have all the tools for communication at a level we never could have dreamed of before, Ana Egge’s “Between Us” asks why we understand each other less and less.

In some ways, this question’s crystalized in the parent/child, mechanic/helper memories of "The Machine." The two characters love one another, as best they can, but they can't quite connect. The resignation in the child, that they will never know each other as well as what seems so necessary meets the resignation of the mechanic, his usefulness threatened by new technology and new ways of thinking.

What Egge does here, exquisitely, is fight against that resignation with an intense, ongoing focus on the art of communication itself. Like most great music, this starts with the collaboration that goes into building a song, a performance, and a record. This album started with a set of songs written on FaceTime in collaboration with Irish songwriter Mick Flannery. Then, Egge found a keen co-conspirator in producer Lorenzo Wolff. (To illustrate his reach, Wolff has worked with both Taylor Swift and Kanye West.) The studio collaboration interweaves an exciting array of musicians and eclectic sounds to suit Egge's own Brooklyn-by-way-of North Dakota, New Mexico, and Saskatchewan vision. At times bordering on ethereal electronica but always grounded by its plainspoken soulfulness, "Between Us" maintains a certainty of direction as coherent as its roots in Egge's development.

One way to tell that story starts with another collaboration. In 2017, Egge wrote the song "We Are One" with Nashville songwriter Gary Nicholson, an impassioned call for unity, citing those times when our common humanity overrides all other concerns. In response to the divisive political climate the whole world had been suffering, it dreamed of a time when "we finally figured out all that divides us is delusion." It asked, "Don't you want to feel, beneath your skin, that all our differences are nothing in the face of love?" The video--which shows a great cross-section of humanity on New York streets, boardwalks, and parks--revels in the beauty of our diversity and a particular joy when these strangers meet and play around on various musical instruments, tools we use to speak beyond words. [We Are One Original Video]  

In 2019, our divisions deepening, Egge recorded the song with the First Unitarian Brooklyn Choir. It's a beautiful performance, the vocal call and response growing increasingly emphatic and hopeful. [We Are One with First Unitarian Brooklyn Choir]

Then COVID-19 hit, and most of us experienced a new level of isolation and distrust. In the United States, our 2020 elections showed an electorate split in thirds--two thirds divided between two parties, the remaining third altogether alienated from the electoral process. Distrust ran so deep we couldn't even unite to fight a pandemic. 

An eloquent and necessary extension of "We Are One," Egge's "Between Us" is about all that keeps us divided, searching for what we need more than ever: unity, in the face of economic, political and environmental crises that threaten to permanently rob us of our hopes and dreams and potential. 

Key to that search is an inclusive sensibility. The Memphis-style horns that announce album opener "Wait a Minute" suggest the record's spiritual vision over lyrics that fight the chaos of the media that surrounds it. In a breakneck world, the singer asks, "Why don't we take a little time?" In a world of shouted certainties, Egge almost whispers, "I'd love to be sure, of an answer/I'd love to be sure of even one answer." The plan of action comes with its own warning: "If you wanna move, it has to get uncomfortable." [Wait a Minute video]

Tackling that sort of discomfort, the soulful, modest intensity of Egge's vocals play off the diverse instrumentation. It's in the dialectic between the vibrant details of "The Machine" and the stuttering snare and searching keys that punctuate the distance between the two characters. The quietest moments revolve around such contradictions. It's telling that the album's most decisive break up, "Don't Come Around," punctuates its narrative flight with keyboard beeps like searching radar.

The album's vision also means lots of wonderful pop hooks. "The Heartbroken Kind" pulses with sax and bass that offer sympathy for our flaws. [Heartbroken Kind video] "Be Your Drug" delights in Latin rhythms and a joyous trumpet refrain. [Be Your Drug video] "Lie Lie Lie” counters electronic distortion with searching horn and steel guitar. [Lie Lie Lie video] The sleek "Want Your Attention" features a seductive lead vocal by Brooklyn singer-songwriter J. Hoard over a shifting rhythm punctuated by sultry horns and keyboard fireworks. [Want Your Attention "video"]

At the heart of the album lies what might be called the title track, "We Let the Devil" [a line completed by the title phrase "come 'between us'"]. It's a heartbreaking march through the dark wastelands of our shredded relationships. Menacing guitar sets the tone with elegiac horns that cry out against dark, opaque heavens. It's about what everyone has experienced in recent years--an impasse, an antagonism with those we love dearly. Egge sings, "You break my heart/You're just like me/You'd lay your life for what you believe." [We Let the Devil "video"]

She feels her way forward. Conscious empathy is a part of it, as is hope for a common grieving process. The call is to "Look me in the eye so we can get somewhere." I find myself thinking of every devil who ever (to cite "Lie Lie Lie" again) sowed division "to kill and to control." That lies at the heart of our history. And Ana Egge's determined effort to make us see each other whole offers a vision of home not behind but before us.

 

Full disclosure: My introduction to this music began watching my daughter take part in the music video for "Wait a Minute," directed by Marta Renzi. Oh lucky day!

"A Town without Soul" Sets a Caravan on Its Way

 

The Fred Wickham Caravan’s debut album is about many things, but at its core is a loneliness so complete it’s delusional. In that sense, it’s a perfect record for the times we live in, particularly because it offers a way forward. The key here is community, and that means a great band like the Caravan, a diverse group of Kansas City’s best musicians so interwoven it feels wrong to try to parse the contributions.

 

But showing how the diversity adds up seems essential to the point. Wickham’s longstanding bandmate bassist Richard Burgess and drummer Matt Brahl serve up rhythms playful or jaunty or prowling or reflective (as on “One for the Road,” a soft downbeat, brushes and a bowed sustain). Goading the fearful townspeople in the title track, Fred Jr.’s mandolin and Bart Colliver’s keys comprise another ring of interplay that will take various forms again and again, trading piano for accordion and then organ. Marco Pascolini is certainly the heart behind the searching steel on “If We Ever Happened,” but it’s a fool’s game trying to tell whether Wickham or Pascolini’s imaginative guitar play is responsible for any given cry or moan—all surprising, fresh and often painfully sharp. The mix is inclusive by design, so every addition makes natural sense, from Muscle Shoals musicians (guitar and horns) on “Just Because You Can” and “Fatbird” or the Grand Marquis horns on “I Think I Just Fell In Love.”

 

That said, as strong a band album as this is, it is focused around remarkable vocals. Perhaps at its most beautiful, “If We Ever Happened” offers refrains with Colliver’s bold harmonies given an essential aura by Muscle Shoals’ Angela Hacker, a subtle approach she builds upon in the story of a woman lost on “What Happened to Me” (in contrast to the muscle she gives “Just Because You Can”). There’s an audacity to the way Fred Wickham inhabits every foolish breath of “That One Thing” and a seasoned knowingness to the warm quaver he uses to rally the room on “One for the Road.” The first of the album’s deepest gut punches, “Progress,” calls to mind John Prine, heartbreakingly insisting we believe there’s hope in momentary forgetfulness and the ability to hold it together at the sound of children playing.

“A Town without Soul” is a record haunted. It’s yearning for something lost—everything thrown away in “That One Thing,” a relationship shattered in “Breaking Your Heart,” and things the characters aren’t even sure about—“If We Ever Happened at All” or “What Happened to Me.” The town the singer must get shut of sells lies about safety and security when the singers and the band know soul saving is messy, risky, scary as hell, and, importantly, a lot of fun.

 

On this record, those singers offering “the same tired songs” aren’t simply dull, they’re edging toward dangerous. When the band shouts down “Fatbird” with a refrain of “Tweet, tweet,” it’s making a case for the power in numbers. Everyone sings in what the liner notes call the Tweety Bird choir, all by itself a raucous sound that's food for the soul.