Gillian Welch + Old Crow Medicine Show

Old-Time Music For President The boys from Old Crow Medicine Show don’t seem like they’re performing for a paying audience so much as they do for a barbecue in their backyard down in Nashville. Although they are probably better versed in Jack Kerouac than the Farmer’s Almanac, they have the look of plow hands fresh from the thrift store, all dressed up for some city dancin’. They’ve revived the old-time string band and infused it with a vigor not seen since the Pogues took traditional Irish music down the dirty road to rock and roll. Headliners, and now-veterans of the scene, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings have given Appalachian folk a similar rock and roll treatment, but in a far less rollicking incarnation. The two acts together made for one of the most compelling, intimate, and spontaneous nights of music in recent memory. Produced by David Rawlings (fellow Nashvillian and fill-in for Critter Fuqua on banjo), Old Crow have been doing their Americana homework, no doubt sipping good bits of corn liquor along the way. Their story is not unlike that of a true old-time string band: they were discovered by country-folk godfather Doc Watson performing on the street in front of a Boone, North Carolina pharmacy. The three-part harmonies characteristic to bluegrass feature prominently in the front-porch, foot-stompers they belt out with the speed of a silent film train chase In the dark age of recordings, singers had to pitch their voices good and loud, well above their natural ranges, in order for the recording diaphragm to vibrate sufficiently for the stylus to etch a groove onto the blank wax cylinder. The nasal, squeaky voices on those old 78s were a result of necessity, not a style choice. So, when we hear singers adopt that voice today, with all the ultrasonic recording devices available to them, it’s purely for stylistic effect. Which in Old Crow Medicine Show’s repertoire works to perfection. Old Crow have no frontman, per se, but fiddle player Ketch Secor seems to like playing that role, complete with the lightning-quick, grandiose introductions of a Grand Ole Opry master of ceremonies: “Kevin Haaayes everybody! The best guit-jo (guitar/banjo hybrid) player this side o’ the East River!”. Alternating between traditional and original tunes, Old Crow make the kind of pre-war music Angus Young of AC/DC might make if he stripped away the bombast and picked up a banjo. And unlike Aerosmith, whose recent album of old blues covers is still an unmistakably trashy, microphone lick-fest (but a cheap thrill nonetheless), Old Crow’s music is implicitly scratchy and actually captures the sound and feel of that mythical era of devil women and crossroads. They seamlessly jump from the sparely arranged, country blues of “CC Rider” which seems to emit from the horn of an old gramophone, to the more modern-sounding polish of “Wagon Wheel” which would fit snugly alongside the country-rock of an early Whiskeytown tune. The Vietnam War-themed “Big Time In the Jungle” could be a companion to any of Phil Ochs’ protest folk songs. Three-part harmonies dominate the Stanley Brothers-esque “Hard to Love”, and Robert Johnson’s plaintive warble echoes throughout “Trials and Troubles”. The crowd response to this quintet was incredible. On girl in the balcony kept yelling “You guys are hot!”. “Well let’s get it nice and greazed up now” was Secor’s response. Headliners Gillian Welch and David Rawlings opened with a swoon-inducing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You”. From the very first note they dominated the room. The dark, thunderous beauty of “Caleb Meyer”, a tale of murder and rape in old Appalachia is juxtaposed by the life-affirming “Miss Ohio”, about a beauty queen freeing herself from the strictures of the sash and taking to the highway. In their recent performances, they have begun to incorporate some often left-field covers into their already rich catalog of gothic folk songs, bluegrass, country and traditional standards. Much like Old Crow Medicine Show, Welch and Rawlings betray the influence rock and roll had in shaping their young lives; another incredible Dylan cover was “Copper Kettle”, off his absurdly underappreciated album Self Portrait. Welch apologized in advance for the song they were about to do next because “we tried to do it last night and it…well, it sucked”. Right. A stunning version of Radiohead’s “Satellite” ensued. To hear it in such a stark, acoustic setting reaffirmed not only these performers’ hipness and versatility, but harkened back to a time when musicians frequently paid tribute to their contemporaries by singing their songs at gigs and even including them on their albums. Such sharing and collaboration seems to have gone the way of protest music; too much at risk, it would seem. But this entire evening hinted that change was blowin’ in the wind; perhaps unity will soon emerge from the mire that has consumed popular music. In the old days of rock and roll, set lists seemed to serve as more of a loose structure for the performance, but these days they have become a step-by-step mechanical instruction. But a smart audience will always appreciate spontaneity. As Rawlings tuned his guitar between songs he played a couple chords that Welch remarked sounded like “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton. The crowd latched onto the notion and the room exploded in cheers. Rawlings obliged by strumming and singing the first few verses of the ’80s country classic and began an exhilarating sing-a-long. “David Rawlings everybody” said Welch, “the bravest man in rock and roll.” The fulfillment of the prophecy came when Old Crow joined them on stage for a the last few songs. The most straight-on rock song that Welch and Rawlings do is “Wrecking Ball” off Welch’s new album Soul Journey. The album version features an electric guitar and drums but a full old-time string band was a worthy replacement. Ending the evening with a lusty and languorous version of J.J. Cale’s “After Midnight” could not have been more apropos — Eric Clapton’s version was, dare I say it, put to shame. If it is necessary to define prominent figures of the present in terms of their logical predecessors, then David Rawlings and Gillian Welch are the Bob Dylan and Joan Baez of this generation — we could subsequently call Old Crow Medicine Show the Band of this generation as well. What’s lacking in the new kids, of course, is the politics. Musicians, in any significant collective capacity, gave up on the idea that music was a potential tool for social and political change when the Vietnam War was unable to be stopped. All those protest concerts ultimately became charming but ineffective footnotes in the anti-war struggle. We are, of course, at war all over again and the groans of dissatisfaction and disillusion, while still only half-audible, are growing every day. Some people are brave enough to use their fame as a vehicle for change but they are in the minority. As Yan Sham-Shackleton says in her PopMatters column Accelerated Asia: “Why just a free Tibet? How about a free China?” The Beastie Boys have done an admirable job of raising more awareness for the Tibetans’ plight but indeed, what about looking at the larger picture? Of course, in order to tackle the larger problems, many more people need to be involved. ”Each man for himself” is the maxim that’s been fermenting since selfishness and greed became, in effect, socially acceptable in the 1980s. Now it has tightened its grip and made overcoming it that much more difficult — it extends to the musical community perhaps even more so since the financial stakes are so high. But when the popular music of the country is becoming more and more that of independent labels, where the financial stakes are considerably lower, and where speaking out for one’s beliefs can be done without resulting in a lawsuit, there is no reason for silence. The spontaneity and communion, not to mention the raving crowd, that I witnessed at this Bowery Ballroom show was an embryonic glimpse at the great big roar our generation has the ability to produce. Music seems like such a logical vehicle for change, that to use it only as entertainment seems criminal. Old Crow went as far as writing a song about a farm boy enlisting in the Vietnam War only to get there and realize he’d been duped by the promise of a “big time in the jungle.” It’s certainly a start, but what I wouldn’t give to hear the crystalline voice of Gillian Welch sing the story of a farm boy being duped into believing that “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was actually what it claims to be. Someday soon, perhaps.