Bands performing here this week. Listen at
washingtonpost.com/music
BETTYE LAVETTE “Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook”
Injecting Motown into Brit rock
Kindred spirits: Tina Turner, Merry Clayton, Patti LaBelle, Bonnie Bramlett Show: Thursday at the 9:30 club. Doors open at 7 p.m. 202-265-0930.
www.930.com.
Bettye LaVette’s new album,
“Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook,” is a triumph not because the veteran soul singer is a longtime fan of British rock-and-roll but because she isn’t. LaVette never paid much attention to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones while she was recording one terrific R&B single after another in the ’60s and ’70s, albeit with minimal commercial success. As a result, she viewed such famous recordings as little more than songwriting demos she could adapt as she pleased. She didn’t care what the songs had been; she only cared what they could be.
DAMIEN JURADO “Saint Bartlett”
Kindred spirits: Red House Painters, Smog, Will Oldham Show:With Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground Sunday at Iota. Show starts at 8 p.m. 703-522-8340.
www.iotaclubandcafe.com.
Indie singer-songwriter Damien Jurado has made a decade-plus career out of bleak, melancholy songs. But his latest album, “Saint Bartlett,” is an engaging listen, even though it doesn’t stray far from his reflective tradition. Jurado’s laid-back style often recalls the
detached slacker-folk of Bill Callahan’s Smog, without the gloomy monotone. Instead, Jurado’s voice is wavering and understated; he channels the psychedelic pop of the Flaming Lips on the dreamy “Cloudy Shoes” and gives a
hint of Americana on the desperate “Kalama.” And backed only by a simply plucked guitar, his voice has a haunting air on the album-closing “With Lightning in Your Hands.”
Above all else, though, Jurado has a knack for the dreary. On the sparse “Kansas City” he murmurs, “I know some day I will return” with a dejected air of resignation. His vocals are interspersed with snippets of what sound like radio static, making Jurado seem even more remote and inaccessible, and the static engulfs his voice as the song trails off. It’s a bit of an abrupt ending, even for Jurado, but it does underscore the song’s isolated tone.
— Catherine P. Lewis The spark for the “Interpretations”
project came Dec. 6, 2008, when LaVette performed “Love Reign O’er Me” as part of the Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey. She transformed the drum-rumbling declamatory anthem into a gospel-soul ballad, working her way from whispered confessions of despair to wailing supplications for heavenly succor. That performance closes out the new album. She also transforms the Beatles’ “The Word” into a stomping funk workout, Led Zeppelin’s “All My Love” into a bluesy, piano-dominated torch song and Eric Clapton’s “Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad” into jittery disco. She personalizes every song simply by shifting from clear-voiced assertion to raspy-throated ache at just the right moment. — Geoffrey Himes
SAMANTHA CRAIN “You (Understood)”
Kindred spirits: Mary Gauthier, Bonnie Raitt Show:With Frontier Ruckus on Thursday at
Iota. Show starts at 8:30 p.m. 703-522-8340.
www.iotaclubandcafe.com.
Samantha Crain has parted ways with her band, the Midnight Shivers, but who would notice? Since the 23-year-old Oklahoma native burst onto the scene with her 2007 release “The Confiscation,” a five-song EP, she has been a one-woman musical force of nature. Harmonica, tambourines and other folk instrumentation favored by Woody Guthrie (one of Crain’s musical idols) are mainstays of her arsenal. On her new album, “You (Understood),” she lets electric guitars and drums edge their way further into the spotlight. The result is 11 songs that would seem incredibly disparate were it not for Crain’s rich, husky voice and lyrics filled with fiery emotion, dramatic temperament and longing.
Consider some of the songs on Crain’s
palette: the slightly grunge-flavored rocker “Equinox,” the Bonnie Raitt-style, blues-heavy “Santa Fe” and the garage-band-sounding “Two-Sidedness.” Not many artists can pull off such a musical feast, yet Crain does so while keeping it all genuine. “We don’t do take after take,” Crain said in an interview. “I just want the raw emotion to come out. I guess I’m like that in everyday life, too.”
— Nancy Dunham
NewMusic
7
CAROL FRIEDMAN Bettye LaVette covers of some of rock-and-roll’s biggest hits.
HOLY GHOST! “Static on the Wire”
Kindred spirits: LCD Soundsystem, the Juan MacLean, Miami Sound Machine Show: Saturday at U Street Music Hall. Show starts at 7 p.m. 202-588-1880.
www.ustreetmusichall.com.
The two full-time members of Holy Ghost! have performed with LCD Soundsystem, both live and in the studio. But their debut mini-album, “Static on the Wire,” doesn’t share LCD’s taste for undercutting its tunes with ironic self-mockery. Holy Ghost!’s Alex Frankel and Nick Millhiser take their music seriously. As seriously, that is, as anyone can take neo-disco jams about dancing and romancing. The two Brooklyn musicians turn back dance music’s clock, but not in an arty, self-conscious way. They just like the warm feel of analog synthesizers — the spongy wah-wah tones of 1970s funk and polyrhythms that sound more like a Latin-jazz orchestra than the product of a computer. On stage, the duo expands to include guitars and live percussion, and it’s hard to imagine the album’s salsa-rooted closer, “I Know, I Hear,” played any other way. Holy Ghost! doesn’t peel its music to
beats and loops, in the manner of house music, or enlist the disco divas usually associated with yearning thumpers such as “Say My Name.” Frankel and Millhiser sing the songs themselves, as if they were earnest indie-rockers. They aren’t, of course, but their music has a sincerity that is as distinctive as it is cleanly rendered. — Mark Jenkins
BEACH FOSSILS “Beach Fossils”
Kindred spirits: Real Estate, Crystal Stilts, the Cure Show:With Frog Eyes on Wednesday at DC9. Show starts at 9 p.m. 202-483-5000.
www.dcnine.com.
Beach Fossils play songs that shimmer and glide. It’s a sound that fits in with a number of current indie-rock microgenres, but the Brooklyn group is not beholden to any single one. This is unquestionably chill-out music, but there’s more body and verve than the mostly electronic creations that are categorized as chillwave. The recording quality is lo-fi, but never distractingly so. Any slight background hissing only adds to the intimate, casual feel.
Guitars are never strummed. Individual notes are plucked on single strings, creating ascending and descending melodies made all the more relaxing thanks to a healthy, but not overwhelming, dose of reverb. Frontman Dustin Payseur never emotes much when he sings, squeezing out a high-pitched coo between what sounds like barely separated lips. Then again, he’s not exactly dealing with subjects that need much emoting. Such song titles as “Vacation,” “Lazy Day” and “Daydream” couldn’t be more indicative of their subject matter. “I go uptown on a quiet day / Just to gather my thoughts when I don’t know what to say,” Payseur murmurs on the latter. That’s about the most conflict in any of his songs, but that’s exactly what makes them so appealing. This is worry-free music for those vacations and lazy days he sings about.
—David Malitz
THE WASHINGTON POST • FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010
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