First Listen -- Neko Case, Travis, Lady Gaga

By Kara Tucker

Neko Case – “The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You”
The new album, Case’s sixth studio release plays like a greatest hits collection, both in its overall quality and in the way its tracks reflect various moments of her career.
The lead single, “Man” is a stunner, exploring gender politics (or perhaps even identity) over a propulsively hooky track that would have made for a killer contribution from her on any New Pornographers album. Oh, and  "I am the man in the fucking moon/ 'Cause you didn't know what a man was/Until I showed you” ranks as one of the better drop-the-mic-and-wipe-dust-off-the-shoulder lines.
“I’m From Nowhere” features Case’s gorgeously timeless voice in a reverb-soaked sound that recalls her earlier days, even if the song itself goes more into soulful classic pop than torch-and-twang.
“Local Girl” goes farther into classic girl group sound (bells, glockenspiel, etc.), tinged with twang.
“Bracing For Sunday”, a swaying mid-tempo number with horns wouldn’t have sounded out-of-place on 2009’s “Middle Cyclone” or, with a more spare arrangement, on her first couple albums.
“Nearly Midnight, Honolulu” goes spare, going a capella with a chorus of Case’s vocals multitracked.
The languid lovely “Calling Cards” would have fit nicely on “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.”
Case trots out a wonderful cover of Nico’s “Afraid.” It shows that more spare instrumentation  suits her just as well as more elaborate. It’s as gorgeously beautiful as anything she’s recorded.
Things get a little less straightforward at the end of that album. “Where Did I Leave That Fire” evokes different moods in 3:27, including the line “I wanted so badly not to be me. I saw my shadow looking lost, checking its pockets, looking for some lost receipt.”
Ragtime starts off like it’s going to be a  subdued guitar pop track, but manages to be inspiring and cacophonous at the end (as the song picks up even if not in clichéd fashion), as Case repeats the last lyrics of the album -- "I am one and the same / I am useful and strange.”
For its varied styles, the album remains cohesive, tied together by that voice and by Case’s sharp songwriting, where she’s capable of loveliness and cutting sarcasm, accessibility tempered by enough artsy touches to keep things interesting.
Case hasn’t released a bum album in her career. With the always engaging and often excellent “The Worse Things Get…”, she might just have put together one that tops “Fox Confessor” as her best yet.

Travis – “Where You Stand”
It’s the first album in five years for the Scottish band who, at various times in its career, represented a more polite Oasis minus the coke or, more often, a less overtly anthemic Coldplay (the latter’s Chris Martin referred to Travis as “the band that invented my band and lots of others.”)
The second album from Fran Healy, Andy Dunlop, Dougie Payne and Neil Primrose, 1999’s “The Man Who” represented the career peak with some top-notch songcraft. They had some high spots in the intervening years, but sometimes seemed too settled, too comfortable in its niche.
“Where You Stand” shows that Travis still isn’t back to the peak of its early years, at least it’s starting to round back into form.
It has a better combination of energy and hooks than it’s had in a while, even if it doesn’t…quite…reach..the old spark.
“Mother” is a catchy enough beginning, avoiding the bombast of pop acts like fun. and, well, Coldplay.
The album deviates from its immediate predecessors, fittingly, in the little details – the whistling on the intro to “Reminder”, the combination of almost-Portishead intro to “These New Shoes” or the way the latter gets into a slinky (and here’s a word not often associated with Travis) groove.
“On My Wall” is one of the album’s highlights, as punchy as they’ve sounded and years and in service of a good tune to boot. “Warning Sign” gets the head bopping. “A Different Room” shimmers in the way that Travis excels at in its best moments.
The album can’t quite sustain its momentum to the finish as “The Big Screen” sort of lays there looking pretty without sinking in or soaring. The preceding “Boxes” would have made a better choice of album closer, even if it doesn’t kick much up must dust, either.
Even if Travis isn’t a band that screams “Wow Factor” or “rocking out,” it’s not a band without its charms. “Where You Stand” manages to be pleasant without (for the most part) being bland.
It’s not “The Man Who”, but it’s worth checking out. It’s enough to make fans of the band or even people who remember their salad days to say, in response to what Healy sings in the chorus to “Mother” – “Yes. Why DID you wait so long.”

Single: Lady Gaga – “Applause”
The first single of Gaga’s third full length album had its official video release Monday.
As one would expect, it features numerous costume changes, a number of which feature toned down makeup. But don’t worry, she’s also seen wearing clam shells as a bikini and a leather hands bra. There’s the effect with multiple Gagas on the screen veers too close into Beyonce’s most narcissistic territory.
Actually, given the quick cuts and the massive array of outfits and looks, the whole effect screams “Look at me, I’m Lady Gaga” anyway.
Then again, Lady Gaga’s certainly been all about the fame from the beginning (what with the title of the first album and follow-up EP containing the word). So it’s no surprise to hear her repeat that she “lives for the applause.”
Rest assured, the video contains its usual dancing and over-the-top bits, too, none of which make sense other than to say, “Ooh, that looks cool, doesn’t it?!?!” The track works as a catchy enough dance tune even if the lyrics are have all the depth of an 8”-by-12” cake pan. It should be a hit, but Gaga has done better and, more to the point, one wishes she had tried a little harder than having top dollar spent on costumes, makeup and effects for a filmed version of a glossy fashion magazine slideshow. She’s always going to be glossy, but would it kill her to throw in a little more grit, a little twist, a little more depth? At this point, we’ve seen Lady Gaga. Catchy single or not (and it is catchy, make no mistake), it’s going to take her to do more than basically yelling, “Look at me!!!!” for a lot of people to keep looking at some point.

Gaslight Anthem/The Hold Steady, Pier 26, New York, July 28, 2013

By Kara Tucker

A matter of minutes.
That's all it took for what had been the best concert of the many I'd been to in almost 10 months of living in New York City to take an unfortunate turn.
These were two of my favorite new bands of the current millennium and it was my first chance to see each of them live.
There was The Hold Steady, ripping off a terrific opening set with songs ranging from their first album to songs off the record they're recording now.
Then came the Gaslight Anthem, similarly crossing the material from their four-album career, doing their last batch of shows in support of 2012's  "Handwritten."
Gaslight Anthem was in good form throughout the main set. The crowd, at least in our vicinity, was as joyous as I've seen a crowd be at a show here, even though they got soaked by rain.
That all changed when it came time for an encore.
Brian Fallon, the charismatic front man for the band, started if off with a little bit of banter and sing-along action. It worked well at the start, as a good number of folks kicked in with, yes, "Ice Ice Baby" off the cue.
The audience had also sung along when Fallon started the show with a bit of "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" as the crowd was getting soaked by a line of showers and storms moving through.
With the Vanilla Ice success, Fallon started with another sing-along attempt, "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga. Unlike the previous night at Irving Plaza, it didn't really take off.
Fallon's response, "Dude, that sucked. You want to try something else?"
Now, at this point, one could hear the odd voice yelling for "Bruce!.
He responded, "Please, dude. Yo, I tell you what. Those days have passed. If you're with me,  you're with me. If you don't like it, go see him (pointing across the Hudson to New Jersey). No disrespect, but seriously, get over it. That was MY awesome thing. Not yours."
A lone voice can be heard on a YouTube clip yelling for "Born to Run."
Fallon sarcastically responded, "Yeah, why don't we pull that out after what I just said. You gotta pay attention to what I'm saying. I'm not just talking up here to be an idiot."
The singer said, "We also did Bon Jovi's 'Livin on a Prayer.' You wanna do that?" which drew a mixed reaction from the crowd.
Fallon raised his left hand, extended his pointer finger out and said, "Or"
With that one word, opened the door for some in the audience, with a distinct dudebro accent, to start yelling, "Bruuuuuuuuce!"
Still, it was not a majority of the crowd yelling "Bruuuuuuuce!" Indeed, voices on the clip can be heard yelling things like "Johnny Cash!" and "American Idol!"
He ended the sing-along attempt (which had been a lead-in to a sing-along in the first encore song at Irving Plaza). He said, "You know what? Maybe we won't play anymore songs. Maybe I'll pull an Axl Rose. You wanna hear that? I'll go. You wanna hear that or you wanna listen to what I'm saying?"
His last words, with the first song starting -- "We're not going to do it. You ruined it."
That were the last words Fallon spoke to the band's audience. He had enough and was going to make sure the crowd felt it. It was that same once-joyous crowd, the majority of whom had not invoked the offensive-to-Fallon name of Bruce Springsteen at all Sunday night.
With that, the Gaslight Anthem became the Gaslight Perfunctory.  The happier crowd vibe was gone. Fallon clearly had an air of wanting to get it over with.
The band did its four encore songs, closing with, ironically enough, a cover (of The Who's "Baba O'Riley").
When that final song finished, Fallon, still clearly displeased, walked off the stage without the slightest acknowledgement to the crowd, not a word or a wave. Gone.
Now, for those not familiar, this was not like some idiot yelling "Freebird" (although I heard that and avoided temptation to go over and nudge said individual into the Hudson).
Springsteen's one of the band's biggest influences, quite obviously so on some of the songs on the band's breakout second album, "The '59 Sound" (down to a bit of lyric quoting).
To his credit, Fallon never denied that Springsteen was an influence. The band and The Boss would go on to have occasion to cross paths as well.
That said, four albums in with work on a fifth not too far away, it's understandable that the Gaslight Anthem would want to not be so tied to an image being "Springsteen acolytes" (or acolytes of any of its influences). Of course, being a Jersey band with THAT Jersey artist as an influence, it's not going to be 100 percent shakeable. You are going to get fans who, no natter what, are going to want some of that connection to be made more obvious.
In other words -- Gaslight Anthem, "Bruuuuuuuce!" is your "Freebird!"
This is not to say the band should placate such behavior. They're under no obligation to ever perform a Springsteen cover ever again for as long as they exist. That's not an issue.
The disappointment, however, is that Fallon let the behavior of a vocal minority of the audience affect the rest of his performance towards ALL of the audience. Perhaps he reached a breaking point, but the fact is that, on this night, he let the dudebros get to him.
The net result was a lingering bitter, acrid aftertaste that colored the perception of what had been a sweet experience up until then.
Fallon responded through social media, first posting a picture on Instagram with the words in type-written font.
"Tonight...
you have broken my heart.
7.28.13
nyc"
A post to the band's Tumblr page followed a few hours later.
Fallon's post is thoughtful and it becomes clear that tonight's dudebro-heavy chanters represented a breaking point for him. It's easy to see where he's coming from and agree with him on a lot of what he said.
That said, a couple of points.
First off, it's unfortunate that some people in the crowd didn't listen when Fallon told them a Bruce singalong wasn't happening. But it was certainly not everyone in the audience, Not even close. The majority of the crowd at that point had come to see what the Gaslight Anthem was doing that night. It was not there to see  Bruce or to hear covers.
Even if Fallon didn't intend it, it comes off as painting the entire crowd with the same brush.
While Fallon is correct that no fan "owns" their favorite bands or artists, the fact is that fans do have some degree of ownership. If they don't particularly care for what that band/artist is doing, they'll decide not to buy their music and/or attend their shows.
This is not to say an artist should continue to grow and improve, but the fact is that not every fan will stay along.
Almost anyone with a long career is going to have misfires -- Dylan had some doozies, Neil Young had most of the '80s, David Bowie had Tin Machine, REM had "Around the Sun."
Heck, Fallon's beloved Uma Thurman appeared in "Movie 43."
There's a difference between ownership and entitlement. Just because I cringed every time Rod Stewart put out ANOTHER "American Songbook" flogging didn't mean I was entitled to go to his shows and yell, "Play 'Miss Judy's Farm'!"
But on the other hand, there's a chance that if you're fortunate enough to have a long, successful career, you're probably going to hear requests from the crowd. It might be songs already on the setlist or songs you have no interest in playing. Some artists even put in requests into the set. Grace Potter's been known to accept submissions for upcoming shows to add to the setlist.
A reminder -- the guy asked questions like "Wanna do something else?"
The bottom line is that the artist is obligated to put out the best show possible and the fan at said show is obligated to not be rude to other concertgoers or the band. Ideally, said artist won't take it out on all fans in attendance because of the actions of one or a minority.
Barring some sort of horrific tours into the world of Autotune or dubstep, it's hard to envision the next Gaslight record being some overwhelming departure. The band has already been growing past the overt influences on display five years ago.
I hope to be in attendance when the band plays in support of its next album, but now, as Fallon said, it's a gamble.
Now, I don't know if I'll get the very good-to-borderline transcendent band I saw during the main set or if I'll get a band whose frontman gets pissed off because somebody yells "Bruuuuuce!" earlier in the set and the show takes a nosedive in quality as a result.
It was always going to be a gamble, but it now feels like a little less of a sure bet than it should be. And that's a shame. Because it shouldn't have been that way.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

By Kara Tucker

Picture this.
You're Brad Paisley. You have had a long, successful career with both critical and commercial acclaim. You recently turned 40, what better time to try to stretch your boundaries a bit?
After all, you're a skilled songwriter and guitarist, so why not attempt some new things, maybe deal with tougher topics.
You wore a T-shirt of one of your favorite bands, Alabama, and got called a racist on Twitter for it, because the shirt that depicted a Confederate battle flag.
You think "Am I a racist? Is that all it takes?"
Somewhere along the line, the term "post-racial" came out, a laughable term, definitely a premature one.
To this day, there exists racial distrust, not just in the South either, mind you. Granted, that part of the country has a portion of its citizenry that makes it an easy target, but there are racists as vile as any one else in the blue states and thoughtful, decent, intelligent human beings in the red.
Where to go if you're a Southern songwriter, though? Scratch that, a Southern white songwriter. Scratch that again, a Southern white male country songwriter.
How do you address pride in where you come from (Paisley's from West Virginia) while addressing that the part of that pride, if not yours specifically, comes from a dark part of this country's history.
That's where that flag imagery comes in. While it may have morphed in some people's minds to a version of regional pride, it is still very loaded imagery because it represents a pride at the expense of other people. Literally.
It was the symbol of those in the states who fought for the right to keep owning other people as slaves, as property. It continued to be used after the Civil War, through reconstruction into Jim Crow, into the defiance against civil rights for African-Americans in this country.
Try as they might, the apologists for it could never change the fact that most people see the Confederate imagery as an expression of white supremacist attitudes, of the United Confederate States.
Which brings us back to Paisley. He decided to tackle a post-racial America that's not post-racial at all. He's capable of nuance, even facing up to this impossible task. In reality, there's pretty much no way to tackle a topic with so many angles and centuries of history behind it in one song. A whole album? Maybe you get closer, but no way in one song.
Still, Paisley was more than capable of avoiding the trip that ensnares some songwriters, whose expression of Southern pride comes across as little more than unapologetic jingoistic buffoonery or bumper sticker level sloganeering.
He came up with a song with help from LL Cool J, who has managed career longevity in the hip hop field, no small feat for those of his generation even as his music career has taken more of a back seat to his acting in recent years.
The result of Paisley's endeavors with LL is "Accidental Racist", a song off his just-released album "Wheelhouse."
The moment the track hit the internet Monday, a rather substantial negative response quickly ensued. We've seen some quick negative feedback for others (as with the leak of Beyonce's egofest "Bow Down.") lately, but not at the level of reaction this track received.
Is the negativity deserved? The honest answer to that is that, yes, a fair amount of it is. The track ultimately falls apart as a well-intentioned failure.
Lets start with the music itself. The track feels like a Kid Rock 45 played at 33 speed at times. It fails to dig deep with a real hook in any real fashion. The whole thing comes off slick and rather lifeless, especially with the muffled "Sweet Home Alabama" snippet that kicks off the track. Not a good sign to remind folks of a far superior song.
That is a forgivable offense though, in comparison to what happens with the lyrics.
The sad part is that, even there, Paisley has occasional moments that hint at what could have been. At one point, he sings, "We're still picking up the pieces/Walking over eggshells/Fighting over yesterday/And caught between Southern pride and Southern blame."
Stating the situation, that's good. Paisley's character in the song goes on to talk about putting himself into the shoes of the black man working at Starbucks who took offense to his Skynyrd shirt with the flag logo.
Again, a willingness to see the issue through the other person's eyes. Considering the issue gets ignored altogether too often, this is promising?
Where does it go wrong? Hoo boy.
To start with, Paisley's getting a lot of blame because the track is his idea and it's on his album, but LL Cool J's contributions are highly problematic at best.Now, one could make the point that LL is not anyone's first choice to drop a socially conscious rhyme. He doesn't have the track record of Mos Def,Common, KRS-One, Chuck D and others in that department. But, he is skilled and savvy enough that he should have been up to the task, right? Sadly, no. No he wasn't.
The worst might be the jaw-dropping false equivalencies that he shouts out as the song plays out.
"If you forget my cold chains/I'll forget the iron chains.", he says. Because, you know, Mr. Smith's bling is just as scary as shackles used to make sure that people were kept as property.
Seriously, forget about the laziness of rhyming "chains" with "chains" and think about it. Did LL really mean to equate racists with people who hate racism?  Because that's exactly what that lyric does.
That howler comes on the heels of "If you won't judge my do-rag, I won't judge your red flag" Translation: "If you don't complain about my fashion choice, I won't complain about you wearing a long-standing symbol of white supremacy." Again. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
It's enough to make one long for the mind-numbingly simplistic "Side by side on piano keyboard/Oh, Lord, why don't we" that Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney gave us.
Not that Paisley escapes blameless on the lyrical front. He sings, "Our generation didn't start this nation/And we're still paying for the mistakes/That a bunch of folks made/Long before we came."
Somehow I doubt that Mr. Paisley, suddenly forgetting to check his privilege, is personally paying for the mistakes of his ancestors that much. Wait. Did he say "mistakes"?!?!?!?
Losing your car keys is a mistake. Using salt instead of sugar when making a cake from scratch is a mistake.  Years of slavery and the years of racism, institutional and otherwise, that followed is a little more than a "mistake." Jim Crow deserves a little more than an "oops, our bad."
Granted, most of those who truly had to answer for such things are dead, but their deeds need greater heft from a word than "mistakes."
While the song sprang from real life, it still seems odd when Paisley acts unaware that the shirt he wears in the lyrical story (with Skynyrd subbing for Alabama) contains loaded imagery. ("What? Black people don't like the Confederate flag? Who knew?").  He's old enough to remember the fights that have gone on in our lifetimes to take down Confederate flags that flew in front of some state capitols.
Or maybe he's unaware of the irony of a West Virginian wearing Confederate imagery, but I digress.
With the sometimes awful, cringe-inducing turns this song takes, the biggest disappointment is that as well-intentioned, as open-minded as Paisley seems to be, he and LL try to wrap things up too neatly.
Even in 2013, almost 150 years after the Civil War ended, things aren't anywhere wrapped up or "post-racial" in this country. Even with all the progress, things are much trickier, thornier and open-ended than this song seems to suggest.
Yes, it would be nice if more folks would buy each other beers (or some other beverage), converse and start clearing the air, but that's going to take a lot more time, many more conversations and a heck of a lot more beverages.
The net result feels more like an excuse for absolution of white guilt than it was intended to. Hell, the first line of LL's rap is "Dear Mr. White Man,"
As the song runs through its home stretch, Paisley hints at the business unfinished, singing lines about trying to understand and wanting to make things right. But then LL Cool J comes back with lines like "Let bygones be bygones" and "The past is past, you feel me."
Actually, no, I'm not feeling you and neither are a lot of other people.
This song will go down as a punchline, a Chris Gaines-level career misfire. That's unfortunate, because the subject matter has many serious topics worthy of musical exploration. It just deserves better than the ham-fisted earnestness (at best) and clueless to its own offensiveness (at worst) on display here.
It's also a topic that shouldn't require "bravery" to take on. It shouldn't be seen as "radical" or "having cojones."
Brad Paisley does deserve credit for trying, but his own internal sense of quality control should have kicked in well before this saw the light of day. Hopefully more artists take on the challenge, including Paisley.
In the meantime, back to the drawing board.
And that's what's real and what's truth.

Nada Surf, Dec. 15, 2012, Bowery Ballroom, Manhattan

By Kara Sprague

2012, Nada Surf's 20th as a band, was a busy one.
They released their seventh album, "The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy" in January. The band toured the U.S., U.K. and the European Union in support of the album.
The band got a little time off after doing 25 shows in 35 days throughout Europe, it got a few weeks off. Back on the road, it wrapped up the year and its tour with an eight city, ten day swing through the Midwest and East Coast.
A pair of sold-out shows at the Bowery wrapped up the "Stars" tour this past weekend. It might have been a long, tiring year on the road, but the band showed it had plenty of energy to wrap up the tour with aplomb.
I'd seen Nada Surf twice before in Nebraska, in 2003 in support of "Let Go" and 2008 in support of "Lucky."
Both times, the band was in the same three-piece formation it had been in since prior to recording its 1996 full-length debut "High/Low": singer/guitarist Matthew Caws, bassist Daniel Lorca and drummer Ira Elliott.
In the period since "Lucky" band had added a not-so-secret weapon to its arsenal in Doug Gillard.
Gillard's lent his talents to a number of bands over the years, most notably Guided by Voices.
Coming on board to play guitar on "Stars", Gillard joined the band for the subsequent tour,
As good as those three-piece shows were, Gillard is a clear case of addition by addition. His stinging, strong clean and mean leads and solos, gave the songs additional punch and his recognizable tone.
There was plenty of opportunity for the additional punch, as the band played for a long time, 26 songs in all onstage.
"High/Low" was a blessing with a catch. It did provide the band with a radio/MTV hit in "Popular", but it also meant label pressure for a follow-up hit. When the band's label didn't like the second album, "Proximity Effect", the result was the band being stuck in purgatory before finally being able to release the album four years after the debut.
While the delay might have cost the band some external momentum, it didn't show up in the finished product.
In reality, the debut album had its definite high points, but was also an uneven affair.
Over the ensuing years, the band honed its chemistry and songcraft. Instead of being a fairly standard, if smarter, band of alt-rockers the debut might have suggested, they turned into one of the best power pop bands around. They kept enough punch to avoid becoming overly twee or precious and enough modernity to avoid sounding like slavish revivalists.
The songs and the chops were on display throughout the evening, starting with the two songs that kick off "Stars" -- "Clear Eye and Clouded Mind" and "Waiting For Something."
Lorca, with his bass slung low, and the rock-solid Elliott, a key weapon on drums, held down the rhythm.
The main 21-song portion of the set was made up of mostly of songs from the band's last four non-cover records,. The band waited until midway through the set to play three songs from "Proximity Effect" in a row "Hyperspace" (a good set and mix closer, actually), "Amateur" and "80 Windows."
That was definitely well-received by the supportive hometown crowd, but pretty much every song was. It wasn't too difficult to look around and see fans singing or mouthing along to the words. It was also a diverse fan base with fans young enough to be kids (or at least nieces and nephews) of the band (and this reviewer) and fans more of, well, my age.
Hooks and melody hold no age and that's what continued to shine throughout the night -- from "Concrete Bed" and "Whose Authority" early in the evening to "Inside of Love", a "Let Go" classic and "Teenage Dreams" off "Stars."
The one album not represented though the set was "High/Low", which changed with the encore.
A surging "Deeper Well" off that album kicked it off. "Popular" followed, coming off a bit too rushed, sacrificing the universal deadpan humor of the verses for a faster, just shy of auctioneer, delivery.
Things got better quickly with the tempo dialed back for "See These Bones" and "Always Love."
The encore wrapped up with an obvious end-of-the-night choice -- "Blankest Year" a song about when things get bad enough that one just says "Fuck it. I'm gonna have a party"...with the added benefit of providing the audience the opportunity to sing "Fuck iiiiiittt" at the appropriate spots.
Stretching out the catchy little number, the band was joined onstage by some dancing audience members of varying age and dancing skills.
It was the clear end of the night, one that began with Jennifer O'Connor's pleasant and entertaining opening set of indie singer-songwriter pop and folk. One that ended with 26 songs of often terrific power pop/rock that shows the band retaining freshness two days in.
It was the clear end of the night...except it wasn't.
Some 10 minutes or so after the house lights had been turned on and people started clearing out of the Bowery, Deb and I made our way to the merch table. I made a purchase there and soon heard music starting behind me.
I  looked up and there was Caws, with an acoustic guitar, singing to the remaining fans as he stood on the stairs between the exit and the merch table.
His performances of "Blizzard of 77" and "The Future" were a nice little bonus, the cherry on top of a tasty musical sundae.
All in all, a winning sendoff to 2012 for a winning band.

Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, Bowery Ballroom, Dec. 7, 2012

By Kara Sprague

Anyone who follow's musician Jason Isbell's Twitter page knows the man has a sense of humor.
That sense of humor extended to when it came time to name his tour in support of his newest album, "Live From Alabama" is his third wiith the 400 Unit after two studio releases,
It goes back to a song called "Outfit", a song filled with love and humor inspired by a conversation with his father. The song was one of the standouts Isbell wrote during his stint in the Drive-By Truckers. It remains a perennial in his sets as he goes further into his post-Truckers career.
If you go to an Isbell show, you're going to hear "Outfit" much more often than not.
Isbell, on his website, told the story of one of those shows.
“One particular night,” he explains, “there was one guy in the crowd, he was three quarters of the way back. I could hear him yelling, ‘Play “Outfit!”’ He eventually wiggled his way up right in front of me … he got really frustrated and he wouldn’t even wait until a song was over, every time I took a breath he would yell right in my face, ‘Play “Outfit!”’ I was about to play something else, and I look down and he’s about to cry. He said, ‘Man, stop fuckin’ around and play “Outfit!”’ We figured we’d call this tour the Stop Fucking Around and Play ‘Outfit’ Tour for that guy.”
That song, part of a good cross section of Isbell's career, made the setlist for the 400 Unit's show at the Bowery.
Isbell's one of the finest Southern rock musicians out there today, not in what some people expect from the term, which might conjure up visions of compilation albums with Confederate flag imagery and busty women in cowboy hats on the cover.
Rather, Isbell works well as a literate storyteller, skillfully creating characters and drawing details into his songs,
As evidenced by the Bowery show, Isbell and the 400 Unit are capable of delivering a tour of the South musically. Bases were covered, from Muscle Shoals and Memphis soul to Nashville country to New Orleans funk to muscular folk straight ahead juke joint rock and roll.
The tour was delivered through a set of 18 songs --  ten off Isbell's albums, five of his DBT contributions and a trio of covers.
The expanded palette served Isbell well, as it has since he parted ways with the Truckers.
Opening with the solid 1-2 punch of "Tour of Duty", the last song off Isbell's latest studio release ("Here We Rest") and DBT standard "Decoration Day", the band delivered a steady set that never dipped while offering its share of high points.
One was "Dress Blues", a song Isbell wrote for his pre-400 Unit solo debut "Sirens of the Ditch."
The song was dedicated to the man it was written for, Matthew Conley, a Marine corporal from Isbell's hometown who died in Iraq, just two days before he was scheduled to be shipped home and a week before his 22nd birthday.
The melancholy song gains its power by downplaying any political overtones for a sense of loss for someone taken too soon from a community small enough to feel that loss deeply.
Isbell's skills in reflective moments, as with "Dress Blues" and the first encore song, DBT's "Danko/Manuel" made his songs a nice change of pace from the often grittier material on those Truckers' records. They played wall off the Bowery set's rockers.
"Try", off "Sirens" surged with power. The anthemic DBT track "Never Gonna Change" showed Isbell and Co, capable of turning up the volume with aplomb.
Response to newer material was encouraging. Audience members responded pretty much as enthusiastically to songs like "Alabama Pines" and "Codeine" off "Here We Rest" as they did to classic Truckers material.
The covers showed off the versatility -- the southern soul of Candi Staton's "Heart on a String", an energetic take on the Meters' "Hey Pocky A-Way" (with drummer Chad Gamble on vocals) that would have brought a smile to Lowell George's face and a capable run through Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" that closed the night.
And yes, they did play "Outfit."
Isbell told the story of the tour name, embellishing it with the occasional quip, While the story meant that some guy in the crowd was guaranteed to yell "Play Outfit!" between songs the rest of the night, the song was a highly welcome, if obvious, part of the set.
Communist Daughter, a Minnesota-based band, opened the show with a set combining agreeable folk and moments of New Pornographers-like poppiness. Even some of the band's moments clicked better than others, it served as a perfectly capable warm-up for the headliner.
As for Isbell, his songs deserve get heard by a wider audience, but the crowd that filled up most of the Bowery had to leave pretty satisfied.

Dinosaur Jr at Terminal 5, Manhattan, Dec. 1 2012

By Kara Sprague

Most of alternative rock radio long ago  redefined itself as "active rock" with playlists full of semi-indistinguishable hard rock bands with names like Shiny Mud and Stonestorm (or something like that).
With that in mind,  it would be understandable that there would be a market for nostalgia for the alt-rock of yesteryear on the concert trail.
That showed itself more in 2012. The Afghan Whigs reunited for a well-received tour, for one.
But outside of a couple of digitally-released covers (including a well-chosen, well-performed version of Frank Ocean's "Lovecrimes"), the band was touring behind nothing new. As lean, mean and tight as the 'Whigs were after over a decade apart, at this point there's only a vague open-ended hope of new material.
Less nostalgic, though not a reunion, were a few of Bob Mould's shows performed this past summer. Mould's too-short-lived band Sugar didn't get back together, but Mould celebrated the 20th anniversary of that band's seminal "Copper Blue" album by performing that album in its entirety at some shows.
Mould is no nostalgia act at this point, as his 2012 album "Silver Age" was loud, catchy, crunchy rock in the Sugar vein. It's easily his best album in years, standing alongside "Copper Blue" as his best post-Husker Du work.
That brings us to Dinosaur Jr., a band that combined elements of indie, stoner rock, classic rock, punk and more into its recorded output.
The band got the reunion part out of the way years ago, after  the '90s departures of of bassist Lou Barlow (who went on to form another beloved indie band, Sebadoh) and drummer Murph.
The original trio that made up the band set aside any lingering acrimony for a series of well-received albums, 2007's "Beyond", 2009's "Farm" and 2012's "I Bet on Sky"
Dinosaur Jr. is currently touring behind the new album, but found time for a special look back with the help of a number of musical guest stars.
The result was nearly two-and-a-half hours that provided testimony to how vital the band still is and how fresh their classic work remains. And all the while, the guest stars added, not distracted from the proceedings while showing off different elements that informed the band's work.
The occasion for the special show at Terminal 5 was a celebration of the band's "You're Living All Over Me" album, the band's first album to show them as a force and an influence.
The concert was split into two halves -- the first was a performance of that album in order and nearly in its entirety. The second half was a series of other songs from the band's career along with some covers as the special guests appeared more frequently.
The one constant in the band's history is laconic guitar hero/anti-hero J Mascis, whose combination of the air of slackerish indifference combined with loud, listen-to-me guitar wankery defined a lot of the band's sound and sensibility. Not to mention that he was and remains the key songwriter. Even with Barlow much more established as a writer, Mascis carries the bulk of the writing credits post-reunion.
Mascis was his usual self, tossing out minimal stage banter, but plenty of shredworthy solos, fuzzy noise and general heroics.
Just two guest stars appeared in the album performance part of the set. Suzanne Thorpe, known for her work with Mercury Rev, played flute on the non-"Living" track "Thumb" and ex-Sonic Youth member Lee Ranaldo who took lead vocals on the second song of the night, "Little Fury Things."
The original album (and it's follow-up "Bug", for that matter) were often abrasive, edgy affairs whose production made them even edgier.
In a live setting, the songs from the album (minus only its cover of the Cure's "Just Like Heaven", sadly) gained depth. The band members, now all in their mid-to-late 40s, have enough years behind them to make up in power for the youthful edginess no longer there.
Barlow periodically thanked the packed crowd for "coming to our special show,"
At one point, Mascis said, "All right. Thanks a lot. That was side one."
Almost deadpan acknowledgements of the crowd aside, the band showed off a solid chemistry and its appreciation could be seen in the smiles that popped up, particularly on Barlow's and Murph's faces.
Barlow closed off the "Living" portion alone with "Poledo," which he not inaccurately described as the "awkward ending to amazing album" (though more because the song sounded like a dry run for some of the terrain he'd explore in Sebadoh).
With the Barlow-and-ukulele number out of the way, it was time to start bringing out the guest stars in earnest.
Frank Black of Dino's Boston-based compatriots (and masters of the earlier-in-the decade nostalgic cash grab faux-reunion tour) Pixies came out first.
He joined the band for a "Almost Fare", one of the songs off the new album before tearing into a ripping version of the Pixies "Tame" (it's not as if his old band sucked on that cash-grab tour, after all).
Opening act Kurt Vile was the next guest, giving Mascis a second guitarist to play off of in a wanktastic guitar showcase with Al Cisneros of Speed on bass and  Kyle Spence of Harvey Milk sitting in on drums.
Barlow and Murph returned for "Don't Pretend You Didn't Know" and "Watch the Corner" before it was time for the next of the next big name alt-rock heroes to come on stage.
Johnny Marr, whose excellent guitar work helped make the Smiths the seminal band they were and has worked with all sorts of people in the 20-plus years since, came on stage, as did Kevin Drew of that Canadian musical conglomerate Broken Social Scene.
Drew took lead vocals on "The Wagon" (from 1991's "Green Mind") and a cover of the Smiths' "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" that translated well enough, even if it was a departure from the jangling swooniness of the original.
The group followed by going deeper into its history to a cover of "Training Ground", a song from Deep Wound, the hardcore band Barlow and Mascis were in as teenager.
Guest stars were overlapping by this point, as Dale Crover of the Melvins handled the drums on the Smiths and Deep Wound covers, thus marking the only time those three bands have been in the same sentence.
One of the striking things about the evening was the fact that things were mostly free of glitches, outside of one instance where Barlow had to be brought back from offstage because he didn't realize he was singing lead vocal on a song.  All involved generally deftly handled the changing faces.
The next contemporary to arrive was Don Fleming, who worked a bit with the band in its immediate post-Barlow days. Fleming delivered more hardcore, this time with lead vocals on a cover of DC hardcore band Iron Cross' "Crucified."
Following up two hardcore songs was the most intense guest star of the evening.
One of Kim Gordon's real strengths in Sonic Youth was her ability to pull of quiet cool and raging intensity, depending on the song,
Saturday's appearance from Gordon was all the latter, as she brought to life to "Don't."  A song that seemed more of a listener endurance test in its recorded incarnation on "Bug" was much better in Gordon's hands.
With no concessions to age, Gordon ripped through the song with vocal cord-shredding fervor.
Even if the song did drag on a bit past its natural end point, it was one of the evening's highlights and a perfect way to end the main set.
It wasn't an end to the evening, however, as a rather interesting lineup took the stage. Mascis took his normal spot with guitar, but a whole bevy of new faces joined him. There was Tommy Stinson of the classic Replacements and the not-so-classic Axl Rose-hired backing band calls Guns N Roses these days on bass. On drums? Fred Armisen, known more for these as a performer on "Saturday Night Live" and "Portlandia" but who started out as a punk drummer. On vocals was rock veteran John Petkovic of Cobra Verde and the more recent Sweet Apples (a project with Mascis and others).
This was no alt-rock Asia, as the foursome delivered an energetic version of the Stooges' "TV Eye" with Petkovic bounding about the stage as usual.
With all of the guest star highlights, this was still a Dinosaur Jr. show after all and the original trio finished the night together with two classics from years gone by.
First, "Start Choppin", the "Where You Been" track that was one of the band's catchiest and one of the closest things to a hit they had. It retained its catchy punch.
To wrap things up, the band wisely went with "Freak Scene," arguably the band's high point on record.
The song so deftly captured either the messiness of a relationship between two people or within a music scene..or maybe both.
A line in the last verse goes, "Just don't let me fuck up will you?/Cause when I need a friend it's still you."
On a rare night with so much and so varied talent onstage, the band and its guests produced music that was never less than good and was quite stellar more often than not.
Rest assured, Dinosaur Jr. didn't fuck up and left the house with 3,300 friends who'd been highly entertained and filed out of Terminal 5 grateful for the opportunity to witness a historic night where the living history was very much alive.

X With Reverend Horton Heat -- Irving Plaza, Manhattan, Nov. 30, 2012

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to see the show with THE seminal LA punk band along with the road-tested veterans Rev. Horton Heat and Co.
In lieu of that, enjoy Rock 'Em Sock Em Robots!