Music Day 2: Tim Easton

There are tacos for breakfast on the patio at the Club DeVille, but I head straight inside for a Lone Star and a look at who’s playing. It’s Tim Easton, a veteran roots rocker with ties to Lucinda Williams (he was on tour with Williams, apparently, when he recruited his guitar player, Kenny Vaughn). Easton’s new album, Porcupine, is as much rock as country, not surprising when you realize that his new drummer, Sam Brown, used to play in New Bomb Turks. Chugging “Northbound”, about the touring life, is gritty and hard kicking and laced with singe-ing slides. Vaughn writhes like a fish on a hook as he plays, turning fast bends and pull-offs into a loose-elbowed, spastic sort of dance. And there’s real dancing, too. A couple breaks out into a spontaneous two-step, complete with turns and dips, in front of the stage. Easton tells stories during the breaks, about a pizza waitress in Athens, Georgia he admired from afar… and who might be very surprised to learn that he had written a song called “Stormy” about her. What he really wants to talk about, though, is his paintings, on view at the Yard Dog Gallery a few miles away. “Take one of these postcards,” he says, scattering them into the audience. “I made them myself, and I’m very proud of them.” Nice.