Seeing that we just moved to the neighborhood about six months ago, we didn’t know what to expect when we received a neighborly letter informing/reminding/warning us about the annual Thirth of July Street Party that was to go down right across the street from our place on Ordway and North 12th Street.
All I can say is it was really fun. There were Jolly Rogue Sneaux Balls, people twirling sparkly sticks, and live music. Though we didn’t indulge (meat is murder, duh), they even had BBQ from Oinker’s/Crazy Calvin’s for the carnivores out there.
Thee Phanton 5ive and The Minor Keys played, but we missed them and only caught the last two bands, Heypenny and the Eastside Bulldogs. I captured a short video clip of Heypenny playing “CopCar” and you can watch it below.
The proceeds ($10 at the plastic fence) went to East Nashville Flood Relief. And in the morning, it was like nobody had even been there. Magic. I recommend everyone and anyone to come down next year and enjoy the festival.
I recently got a call from my brother Corey, a drummer in town, telling me he was going to sit in for a song with a band called Kink Ador down at Mercy Lounge. Most, if not all, of Kink Ador call East Nashville home, and I always love checking out the local cheese.
My wife Ginger and I met up with Corey and his wife Jen across the river at the Mercy Lounge. The room was spaciously empty, and since I’m such a rebel, that made me happy. We were there early though, which allowed ample time for the place to fill up just enough to make you feel the energy of other people without having to fight for basic survival resources like oxygen, points of escape and elbow room at the bar.
Another reason the audience had a chance to grow was because the band got started a little late, creating a buzz of annoyance/anticipation that seems to be a prerequisite for any decent show these days.
East Nashville's own Kink Ador (Photo: Ray + Wendy)
Once the sound of the crowd murmuring became a sufficient hum, Kink Ador appeared from backstage. I was surprised to see that they are a trio. I guess I expected a troupe playing keyboards, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, a washtub bass, synthesizers, xylophones, a harmonica, a laptop, their iPhones and whatever other noisemakers people pile onto a stage these days. No, Kink Ador do it simply. They are a drummer, a guitarist and a bassist/singer. The guitarist and the bassist also played trumpets from time to time. Really cool.
Guitarist Andrew Sovine had a few tricks up his sleeve and seemed to play mostly textural riffs and patterns which allowed the guitar to have its own voice, ornamenting the rhythm section rather than sitting all over it and being just another thump in the beat. There were occasional, tastefully done guitar solos which followed melodic themes from the song. He played some beautiful sounding vintage instruments, though I can’t tell you what they are offhand. In addition to the electric guitar, he also played a lap slide. Whatever the instrument, Sovine was adept and capable on his instruments and knew how to translate his skill into emotive playing.
Sharon Koltick on trumpet (Photo: Ray + Wendy)
As far as the vocals go, it was pretty hard for me to hear what vocalist Sharon Koltick was saying. Whether it was due to the house mix, her pronunciation or our position in the room is something I don’t know. From what I could hear, there was a girlish poppiness in the melody, vocal delivery and stage presence. Koltick’s vocals sat in the rhythms well, danced above them when appropriate and supplied a unifying thread for the audience to lock onto. Every so often, Sovine would sing backup. Their voices might have blended well together in other circumstances, but in this case his voice was mixed louder and sounded clearer than hers, creating a feeling of insubordination and imbalance when he chimed in.
Koltick’s duties also included the bass guitar. I am always impressed by that feat – it’s like simultaneously being rain on the roof and a brontosaurus. The bass lines were a punky throb which clung pretty closely to the songs’ chordal triads and orbited the kick drum relatively tightly. There was some more melodic movement present in the riffish licks she threw in here and there.
The solidly pounding tempo, subtle accents and dynamics, and advanced cymbal technique left me impressed with Brad Naylor‘s drumming throughout the set. His beats were designed to make us move and delivered with a restrained, focused intensity that made me wonder half-excitedly and half-fearfully what would happen if he were to let absolutely loose.
One of the benefits of being a trio is there is room to bring in other people for collaboration, and Kink Ador used that to their advantage. They brought up two unique female vocalists for a song each and my brother joined their drummer on the penultimate song to create an explosively percussive piece.
All in all, I would recommend seeing Kink Ador – their music was well played, and the mood was assertive yet fun. Not only will you be showing support for a talented group of Eastsiders, but you also might be pleasantly surprised. They definitely surprised me.
One of the joys of life on the East side of Music City is that I’m always stumbling on new music not only from my city, but from my neighborhood. Recently a friend turned me onto an EP by a band I’d never heard, Buffalo Clover. Before listening I wanted to get an idea what to expect, so I headed over to their website and started looking around.
Buffalo Clover (Photo: Scott Simontacchi)
There were two things I saw there that made me nervous. For starters, they are described as “Nashville’s most eclectic band”. This filled me with trepidation, because I know it can’t be true and was worried the band themselves might believe it. I was also taken aback when I read that they call their music “Roots Music.” Any music called Roots, including one of my favorite genres, roots reggae, is an explicit misconception – only a primitively fundamental kind of music should be called “Roots”. I knew that Buffalo Clover probably wasn’t chanting, slapping their thighs or drumming on tree trunks, so I tried to interpret “Roots Music” as what it might mean to students of Americana, a style that relies on its own styles and conventions far from the roots of music.
Of course I can’t hold any of that against Buffalo Clover. Despite my reservations about their PR material, I was anxious to hear the Strong Medicine EP. After a week of daily listens Fool’s Gold stood out as the strongest song on the EP. It has the elemental arrangement of an old country song, with slide on steel in the background and haunting background ahhs in the chorus akin to the spooky ghost train records of the 1950′s. The choppy guitar rhythm through the verse opens up into a pleasant picking pattern through the chorus and singer Margo Price‘s vocal sounds warm and strong when she stays in her lower register. The line “Don’t try to hide who you are anymore” sounds sincere. The drums, especially the snare, have a a softer, more muted sound similar to the old drum kits used in gypsy camps or carnival bands.
Another highlight was the single Midnight Circus, though it has to be said that it may be better live than on record. The song is basically a party anthem. You know the formula: let people know there’s a party, introduce who’s involved and remind everyone of the fleeting nature of fun. It would work well at a live show, where the audience wants to be reminded they are indeed at a party and that it is, in fact, kicking. Unfortunately for me, my position was as a listener wanting a recap of what happened to our Midnight Circus pals at the event. I was left hanging because after the stage was set and the characters introduced, the story just stopped. That said, the song has a great rolling rhythm section, an energetic sense of forward momentum, an interesting transitive construction from the end of the chorus through a sort of pre-verse and back into the verse, and an open-skied instrumental jaunt with accordions and guitars and led by what sounds to be our best pal, la mandolina. I also love the final chorus, where Price hits her high register and blasts the song out of a cannon and into an uplifting instrumental ending.
Some of the other tracks like Over the Weather didn’t stand out as much. The arrangement doesn’t do much to hide its formulaic structure, and the melody and lyrics don’t cover much ground until about 2/3 of the song is over. I do enjoy the slide guitar solo and how they close out the song with the drums kicking out and the pulsating guitar carrying the mood through to the end. In 15 Reasons, I found a similar instrumentation to Fool’s Gold, but without the finesse and dynamics in structure or playing. There wasn’t much to hold my attention until a little more than halfway through the tune when a few playful bars of an acoustic guitar flit in. For the most part, the song plods forward like a buffalo without much change, and though there may be a kernel of truth to the lyrics, they feel contrived.
Some folks may not see the importance of song order in this day of MP3s and song shuffling, but 20 Tons of Blues is an example of how a little change of position could have gone a long way. With the heavy stomp of the main guitar riff and drum beat, a vocal delivery reminiscent of Tom Petty, and both an organ solo and a guitar solo, it’s from more of a blues/rock tradition than the other songs and injects a whole other side of Americana into the mix. As the last track it ended up being a welcome change of sound and mood, where if it had been placed somewhere amid the other tracks it could have created a more eclectic experience in general.
Overall, I enjoyed Strong Medicine. It uses instrumentation, vocal style and song format to cleverly pull on my nostalgia strings. Buffalo Clover may not be as eclectic as their marketing makes them sound, but I definitely recommend checking out the EP, which you can hear for free on their website.
