by Jon Stone | @jwstone

I got a speeding ticket when I was about five miles from Three Sisters Park, the site just north of Peoria, IL where Summer Camp Music Festival has been held every year for the past ten. I was going nine over the posted 45-miles-per-hour speedlimit but there was a nice little stretch of road along the Illinois river and I was gazing out over it wondering what to expect from the weekend. A few minutes into the traffic stop, I was informed by the officer that I’d be be subject to a routine drug inspection and after a few more minutes the K-9 unit vehicle showed up and a dog sniffed around the periphery of my car. Alas, I was clean.

And really, as anyone who is a fan of the jam-fest scene might tell you, what kept me out of jail that afternoon (so said the police officer) is also, likely, what kept me from fully appreciating, and in most cases, understanding a majority of Summer Camp. I’ve never been into the Dead, I don’t own a record by Phish, and loving Wilco is about as close as I get to either  (which really can’t be that close). So, my review of the fest is more of a review of its fringes than of the numerous bands who, in one way or another, have been taken up by the masses as the the heirs of the Grateful Dead — or at least as their illegitimate offspring. So, rather than make an effort to give you my thoughts and feelings about the likes of Umphrey’s Mcgee or moe., bands that played at least five sets each over the three days of the fest and have some of the most devoted fans I’ve ever seen, I’m going to stick to what I know. If you love those bands — and surely there are talented musicians in both — it’s likely that you wouldn’t come here for reviews of their shows anyway. They seem to have a very vibrant culture being propegated in other various places on the web. But, if you’re down with Umph, you already knew that.

Somehow — and I’m tempted again to thank Jerry Garcia’s love of the genres — bluegrass and string-band music is a genre embraced by the jam-fest crew. And surely, acoustic musicians love to jam so it’s no surprise that they should be at home at a festival like Summer Camp. I saw some amazing acoustic music over the weekend and made a few non-acoustic discoveries as well. Here’s a rundown of my favorite moments and bands over the three days I was there.

The festival was unprecedented weather wise. It was overcast and in the 70s for most of the weekend which is only a bummer if you’re a glutton for sweatiness and/or toplessness. Many Summer Camp attendees are, however, gluttons for sweatiness and toplessness. The rain, which had drenched the grounds the Wednesday before the fest leaving the fields muddy and moist, didn’t return with a vengeance until Sunday morning when a thunderstorm turned mud puddles into tar pits. So folks were happy to see the sun when it finally did come out during the Avett Brothers’ set. Some also quickly became topless.

Avett Brothers. Speaking of the Avetts, what a band. They played late on Sunday afternoon as a five-piece, having added a touring drummer (Jacob Edwards) since I saw them last summer. Their set was miraculous — drawing on a range of songs, the band is always relentlessly energetic. They play those songs as if they hadn’t just played them every day for the last who-knows-how-long. That ability to sound and appear fresh and excited is one of the secrets to good showmanship — a secret that I don’t understand myself — and the Avett Brothers do it every time. Highlights of the set included an electric guitar wielding Seth Avett during “Kick Drum Heart” (which he rocked) and a lovely single-mic duet from the boys on “When I Drink.” I love seeing the Avetts and I love watching Joe Kwon sing along to every single lyric. He and Bob Crawford were also impeccable.

Hogslop String Band w/ Abigail Washburn. Earlier on Sunday, during the torrential downpour, I sought refuge under one of the few covered “stages” (really just a covered area in the middle of the camping area where some of the best “lesser-knowns” played) for an old-time group called the Hogslop String Band. They were fantastic — and as much the real old-timey deal as I’d ever seen: clawhammer banjo, two fiddlers, a washtub bass player, and one guy playing the washboard (check out these tintypes of the band). So good. Then, out of nowhere, a woman comes out of the audience and starts doing the country-swing with the bassist. Turns out that woman was Abigail Washburn, a banjo player that put out one of my favorite records this year. She sat in on a song and after holding hands with her during an impromptu round dance at the end of the bands set, I’m even more in love. She was there with her husband Bela Fleck — seeing him briefly as their various tours cross paths. It was a thrill.

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. As I mentioned, Mr. Fleck had buisness to conduct at the festival. He and the Flecktones played their first of about a year’s dates on Sunday in Chillicothe which is exciting because it’s Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, but even more so because they have reformed their original line-up, which includes world-renowned bassist Victor Wooten and the amazing percussionist Futureman but also the keyboard and harmonica player Howard Levy who left the band in 1993 to pursue what became a very successful solo career. Listening to them play is like looking at a piece of fine art and it was a privilege to have the opportunity.

Punch Brothers. I’ve said a lot about the Punch Brothers on this blog so you can imagine how excited I was to see them at the festival. They played on Friday when it was still a bit chilly out and while their set was fantastic, as usual, it seemed pretty — I don’t know — safe, maybe? It felt like the hits — “Punch,” “Alex,” “Next to the Trash” and Strokes’ “Reptillian.” It was the kind of set you’d hear at a festival, which is where we were so i’ll stop making this sound like a complaint. The pretty blonde making eyes at Chris Thile the whole set and telling me how she once had to turn down an offer for “drinks” the last time she saw them play was pretty entertaining in and of itself. Thile’s gots groupies!

Greensky Bluegrass. Kalamazoo’s Greensky Bluegrass played right before the Punch Brothers and I have to say that they were the best straight-up bluegrass band I heard all weekend. Something about the likes of Cornmeal and Yonder Mountain Stringband (two of the “bigger” names that played over the weekend) don’t do it for me. I’m hard pressed to give a good reason other than personal taste. It bugs me, I guess, when a band’s effort to be cross-over seems like more of a gimmick than a creative endeavor. Greensky Bluegrass has no gimmick, but they do play some really great acoustic music. Dobro player Anders Beck and Mandolin/front-beard Paul Hoffman especially. These guys are the real deal and I’d pay to see them again.

The Mother Hips. My good friend and oft-times concert partner Cory has been trying to get me to listen seriously to the Mother Hips for years. I never did. Then, after the Punch Brothers, I happened upon a band that was just killing it. About half-way through their set it dawned on me: this is the Mother Hips. If you’ve never heard them, you should. Even better, try to make that first listening experience a live one. I’m never good at playing the “sounds like” game, but I can’t imagine there being bands like Dr. Dog without bands like The Mother Hips. They played several times over the course of the weekend and I always seemed to find myself there when they did.

The rest of the weekend is a bit of a haze (literally). I saw at least one more good bluegrass band (Chicago’s Hen House Prowlers), and one really incredible stoner-funk/soul outfit (The Main Squeeze). Also great was Nicki Bluhm, a soulful singer and wife of Tim from the Mother Hips. Girl’s got pipes. I also listened in on Huey Lewis’s first few songs (he didn’t play “Power of Love”, but rather seemed to think he was a member of the Band playing both “Cripple Creek” and “The Weight”). I saw Bruce Hornsby as well, but no matter how loud I yelled, he wouldn’t play “Beth/Rest”. Weird.

So, Summer Camp. I went. It was a good time. I managed to miss nearly all ten sets of Umphrey’s Mcgee and moe. I hope you’ll give me a pass on that. Here are some photos I took while I was there. In addition to the great music I saw, I’m considering it a muscle-memory warmup for Bonnaroo next weekend, which I’m also covering for the site. Stay tuned for a preview on that. See you there!

By Jon Stone | @jwstone

grass|roots ep. 9

When I first started writing the grass|roots column last year, it was with the admission of my limited knowledge in the “genre” and that part of my interest in writing about the genre is the way that one great discovery leads to the next. Though I have learned a lot since then about the tradition (I’ve even begun research for a dissertation that focuses on the rhetoric of traditional American music), this principle remains true. Case in point: A few nights ago, I saw Tony Rice Unit perform. I went, of course, for the opportunity to hear the legendary Mr. Rice play – which was amazing – but I left having witnessed the genius of Rob Ickes’s dobro playing and the charm of Josh Williams who’s know for both his work on both guitar and mandolin. Now I have two new artists to get acquainted with.

Chris Thile’s collaboration with Michael Daves on the pair’s new record Sleep with One Eye Open offers the same opportunity. I’m a long-time fan of Thile’s (as you likely know), but Daves is a newcomer both to me and to the bluegrass community at-large. But this is Daves record – it’s his high-and-lonesome voice that props this thing up. Thile is Thile which is to say, he’s fantastic both vocally and mando-ly, but his ego seems checked on Sleep. He gives us plenty of room to get to know Daves a move that seems almost gallant considering the hubris of what it must mean to be Chris Thile. Bravo, Chris.

The record, a collection of bluegrass standards the likes of “20/20 Vision” and “Cry, Cry Darling,” is both a serious and playful update on what Mando Lines over at No Depression calls “your grandfather’s bluegrass” (great review, by the way, Lines). This sums up Sleep, quite well, really. It does its best to be both old and new. We get the old alongside a succinct lesson in traditional music and in Daves high tenor.  The new sneaks its way through in the progressive take on the instrumentation that Thile and Daves so deftly employ.

All in all, this is a great record to start your summer with. It has Dukes-of-Hazard dirt-road chasers to get your blood going (“My Little Girl in Tennessee”) as well as lemonade-sipping instrumentals to enjoy as you porch sit and watch the sunset (“Ookpik Waltz”).  Sleep with One Eye Open is out this week from Nonesuch and, because these dudes mean business, was recorded to tape in Jack White’s Third Man Studios in Nashville.

Buy: Chris Thile & Michael Daves – Sleep with One Eye Open

Wednesday night at Urbana’s Canopy Club, Timothy Showalter of Strand of Oaks warmed the crowd for Joe Pug as part of the pair’s epic 44-date tour. Though his face was shadowed under the brim of his snug Lionshead cap, his voice and subtle humor charmed. Check out his performance of “Alex Kona” above from the amazing Pope Killdragon.

I snapped some photos of both performers as well. If you’re lucky you’ll see them tonight at the sold out Chicago show at Lincoln Hall. They’ll aslo be at the High Noon Saloon in Madison on May 1st.

By Jon Stone | @jwstone

Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy

On the self-titled debut by the Fleet Foxes, the band captured wide attention by releasing, arguably, the most well-crafted, vocal harmony-based folk-rock record we’ve heard since the heyday of Crosby, Stills & Nash. Those harmonies, led by the combination of Robin Pecknold’s striking voice and intensely catchy and singable melodies on songs like “White Winter Hymnal,” “Ragged Wood,” and (one of my favorite songs of the last decade) “Blue Ridge Mountains,” secured the band’s spot on the top of critics’ favorite lists, on sold-out tours, and as the headliners at a number of festivals all between its release in early 2008 and late 2009 when they finally packed things in. Two short years and the band went from relative obscurity to becoming one of the biggest acts in indie rock.

I saw the Fleet Foxes at the Newport Folk Festival at the end of summer ’09 and was impressed by how well, even in that large, outdoor setting, they recreated the sound and aesthetic of the record. And so, for the last several years I’ve been waiting with trepidation – hoping that the band can do it again. That expectation, as I’ve written before, is probably not fair, but it’s what we do with our darlings – we hold out hope that the years haven’t changed us and that our reunion will be as sweet in spite of the now-fading memories of time spent together. Nevertheless, with a record and love like Fleet Foxes, it’s difficult not to hold the band to a high standard. Admittedly however, reports of delays due to illness, nit-picking perfecting, and at least one back-to-the-drawing-board report caused those expectations to deflate, if just a little.

It’s tough, then, to describe my reaction to Helplessness Blues (out May 3rd on Sub Pop) without sounding heart-struck. The new record is being released at the best possible moment. I started listening to it a few weeks ago just as winter was releasing its unrelenting grip on central Illinois, so the warmth of Helplessness Blues seemed to be responsible for the budding trees and singing birds rather than the rotation of the earth. As summer comes, and judging from the reactions I’m starting to see from folks listening to early streams, others are likely to have the same dissociative experience. The Fleet Foxes will bring sunshine to the masses this year.

The opening track, “Montezuma,” is the perfect example of this. In some sort of animated alternate reality, the song would burst from the clouds as a sunrise, gently casting its rays into cold corners and waking up yawning wildlife. Man, that’s corny, but that may be the secret to this record: It is a musical act of shameless sincerity. When some artists make the attempt, sincerity comes off as disingenuous and cheesy — like a peck on the cheek of your mother-in-law. But Helplessness Blues is art without irony, which, given the saturated irony market, is an achievement in and of itself.

It just grows from there. Nearly every song is wonderful and positive, but I especially like the second track, “Bedouin Dress,” which shifts from that sunrise into an up-tempo midmorning jaunt toward optimism. “Sim Sala Bim,” which follows, has such a lovely lyric/melody pairing:

He was so kind, such a gentleman, tied to the oceanside
Lighting a match on the suitcase’s latch in the fading of night
Ruffled the fur of the collie ‘neath the table
Ran out the door through the dark
Carved out his initials in the bark

Pastoral? To be sure. Try listening more than twice without joining in (and considering the purchase of a collie).

The record’s centerpiece, touchstone, and namesake is “Helplessness Blues.” In addition to being musically anthemic, its message is fascinating. The song argues for a revision of American Dream thinking — one that deemphasizes the mythic American Individual in favor of useful anonymity. The functioning cog and sore orchard farmer metaphors hint toward a new collective good, “something beyond me,” that still emphasizes hard work and toil, but with different results that mere individual prosperity. Indeed, that song may be a socialist masterpiece.

As you can tell, I could go on, but I’ll just mention a few more details to be listening for: I love the flute on “The Plains / Bitter Dancer” – it’s straight off of an old Nick Drake record (see “The Thoughts of Mary Jane”). “The Shrine /An Argument” is an exercise in contrast: The vocal power of Pecknold’s line “Sunlight over me, no matter what I do” gets me every time and I find the weird horn counterpoint thing at the end (which you’re sure to hear about) utterly cool. There are glimmers of Simon and Garfunkel’s Bookends all over this record. Finally, and as a 30-something getting used to the paradoxes of activist ambitions/intensions matched against the temptation of ever-encroaching easy ambivalence, “Someone You’d Admire” seems to speak directly to me as does the hopeful message of “Grown Ocean.” Indeed, among other successes Helplessness Blues has a keen sense of audience.

One fascinating residual effect of the new album’s affect is the shadow that it casts over the debut. Helplessness Blues is so strong from beginning to end, that the first album, despite its undisputed goodness and success, feels like a “Baroque pop” relic. Many of the old songs sound now like mere exercises or warm-ups for the real thing which we now, happily, possess.

Buy: Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

By Jon Stone |@jwstone

My relationship with Arcade Fire has, for years, been a conflicted one: The hype. The swagger. The spectacle. The brilliance. All of it has fascinated, confused, and at times chaffed at my music sensibilities. Perhaps it is because if Funeral had come out in 1994 instead of 2004, it would have been precisely the kind of record I would have been hopeless for: room plastered with posters, hand-drawn reproductions of the current “Arcade Fire” font on my notebooks, matching Win Butler haircut. In 2004, though, I was reevaluating my obsessions with bands and artists — like Win, my older heart had grown colder. So, instead of adulation I hung back, like a cynical, aging, hipster-in-denial. “Mtv, what have you done to me?”

Truth be told, Arcade Fire kind of frighten me. Like many, I find their menacing steampunk appearance and the stark cultural critique on all three records eerily prophetic and often bitingly so. But the critic in me is tempted to downplay prescience and focus instead on posturing. Confidence, especially in a large, mulit-membered band, usually plays publicly as hubris. It’s been hard not to see Arcade Fire through that lens.

My perspective, though, is shifting. Since The Suburbs was released last year I’ve been watching and listening more closely to the band. Somewhere between Win and Will’s goofy but upbeat interview on NPR last May when “Month of May” and “The Suburbs” were premiered, Richard Reed Perry’s smiley appearance on stage with the National at the pre-Lolla show at the House of Blues, and, most of all, the band’s devotion to Haiti through organizations like Kanpe and Partners in Health, I’ve become convinced that they aren’t obsessively self-centered. They may even possess humility, which among arena rock stars, is a rare and precious gem. Humble confidence, it turns out, may be the perfect paradox for summing up a band like Arcade Fire.

Last night, Arcade Fire closed out their three-day residency at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago. The National opened the show with a short but intense set (see set list below). And while anyone who is a fan of The National would agree that we’d rather see them with the freedom of the headliner, they were gracious. They kept what could have been a show-stealing performance within respectful bounds. In other words, Matt (sadly) didn’t come unglued. Both Richie and Win joined them on stage during their set, the latter for some lovely harmonies on “Start a War.”

Without expecting it, Arcade Fire came out and blew me away. It’s that simple. Maybe it was the fact that I spent the first three songs of the show in the photo pit two feet away and snapping as many pictures as I could. Those first three songs, “Ready to Start,” “Keep the Car Running,” and “Haiti” will be seared in my memory. It was one of the most thrilling moments of my concert-going career. Post photo-pit, I had to move out to my more conservative (but still great) seat in the bleachers where I enjoyed the rest of the show. I quite like that perspective. Watching the crowd go all dance-party when “Wake Up” shifts from anthem into “You-can’t-hurry-love” sock hop was a priceless thing to witness.

I’m also finding that it’s the moments — the details –  that make a live performance: The white pants and unrelenting energy of Will Butler; the extended phone-off-the-hook piano intro on “We Used to Wait”; the moment when I looked around fruitlessly for the horn section during “No Cars Go” only to realize it was Régine Chassagne’s accordion(!). They closed the main set with Funeral‘s “Rebellion (Lies)” and my favorite moment of the night, perhaps, was when, after the band left the stage, the crowd continued to sing the little violin melody that closes that song. The stage was dark, the band absent, but the audience was unified by a single stirring little melody. Loved it.

The whole show, really, was one of the best in recent memory.

Additional hi-res photos from the show can be found here.

I’ve been looking at the set lists from all three nights, and while the order shifted around a bit, there were only small deviations. Monday we got “Empty Room” and “Suburban War”, Sunday’s set included “City With No Children” and “My Body is a Cage” (two of my favorites. darn!), and on Friday they played “Sprawl I (Flatland)”, which, I believe, was its live debut.

Arcade Fire’s setlist: Ready to Start / Keep the Car Running / Haïti / Rococo / Empty Room / Suburban War / The Suburbs / The Suburbs (Continued) / Month of May / Neighborhood #2 (Laika) / No Cars Go / Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) / We Used to Wait / Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) / Rebellion (Lies) Encore: Intervention / Wake Up / Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

The National’s setlist: Anyone’s Ghost / Secret Meeting / Bloodbuzz Ohio / Slow Show / Squalor Victoria / Afraid Of Everyone / Conversation 16 / Apartment Story / Driver, Surprise Me / Fake Empire / Start A War / Mr. November/ Terrible Love

By Jon Stone | @jwstone

grass|roots ep. 8

I’ve been writing this review for the last three weeks. Or at least I’ve been thinking about writing it. It’s taken me some time. And while it isn’t that Daniel Martin Moore‘s In the Cool of the Day is earth shattering or game-changing, it is, for me at least, a very important record. In the Cool of the Day, put out by a relatively new artist on a big indie label, is a decidedly religious album. Even though My Morning Morning Jacket’s Jim James (the record’s producer and contributor) glosses and universalizes the specifics of its unmistakable Christian message (see below), Moore is unapologetic in his mission: curate, update, and re-imagine favorite gospel and “spiritual” standards (and write a few new ones as well).

Here’s the blurb from James in the record’s press release:

It’s a spiritual record that may have come from growing up in one particular tradition, but is built to speak to the heart of any soul, from any tradition or walk of life, to say that God, while sometimes called by one particular name, is anywhere and everywhere one could ever want “God” to be, present always in the love we give to and receive from those around us.

I find it refreshing that Sub Pop and Jim James understand that endorsing a religious record for its artistic and even spiritual merit does not undermine their credibility. As part of a largely secular audience that buy records from Sub Pop and other indie labels, I also understand their desire to couch the release of such a record in terms that make it accessible to a wide potential audience. They make it clear that In the Cool of the Day is a record that can be enjoyed by believers and non-believers alike as far as the notions of God and Jesus can be understood as metaphors for love, service, and overcoming selfishness. I’m OK with that.

That diplomatic gloss, however, is telling of a moment when tension between the faithful and those who have thoughtfully put faith aside has reached new highs even while secular humanists and Christians (and other religious folks) seem to have much in common (arguments of science and politics usually but not necessarily aside). And while the issues that separate and vex them are often important, a little understanding would go a long way.

Maybe that’s what I like so much about Daniel Martin Moore’s record. It is a rational declaration of faith. One that, because of its context and company with other Sub Pop releases as well as Moore’s activist ethos coming off the Dear Companion project (with Ben Sollee), manages to celebrate the traditional even while it implicitly calls for greater human empathy and progressive, ethical tolerance.

All that said, In the Cool of the Day is a truly lovely record with a Sunday-afternoon sweetness. While the entire record could be described as hymnic, those hymns bounce around between utter solemnity and jazzy, celebratory swing. The album begins with several songs in the latter category including “In the Garden” and “Up Above My Head“, both of which remind me of songs folks might want to clap their hands to after a rousing sermon. But it’s the solemn songs on the second half that resonate and demand a searching of the soul. “Softly and Tenderly” is an almost whispered plea for spiritual reconciliation: “Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling… calling, ‘Oh children, come home!’” “Cool of the Day, “It is Well With My Soul,” and “Set Things Aright” all touch on the classic Christian themes of repentance, peace in spite of suffering, and victory over death — all with soft and smart accompaniment: sometimes just Moore and a piano, but often embellished with fiddle, banjo, and bass.

So, with hopes of acknowledging (and counting myself among) Christians still interested in Jesus’ advocacy for compassion, tolerance, equality, and peace, I can’t think of a more appropriate record than In the Cool of the Day for Easter.

Hope yours was wonderful.

-Jon

Buy: Daniel Martin Moore – In the Cool of the Day