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Hot
Tuna
The
Egg, Dec. 7
Reductivism is a hallmark of any artistic endeavor. Think
of a sculptor chipping away at a stone and you get the picture.
Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady have excelled at this process,
exploring country blues since the late ’50s when they attended
high school together in the D.C. area. They came to national
prominence in the ’60s as members of a core San Francisco
band, Jefferson Airplane, whose delicate balance of disparate
elements was undone early on. Concurrent with their Airplane
duties, the pair launched Hot Tuna in 1970 before leaving
to pursue the originally named Hot Shit (a name their record
label wouldn’t touch) in earnest.
Sunday’s show was a full two sets of just Jorma and Jack.
Billed as the Original Acoustic Hot Tuna, the first adjective
is correct, but the second is a tad free-ranging in its adherence
to the word’s meaning, as one of the key elements in their
sound is Casady’s electric bass guitar. This onetime poster
boy for Haight-Ashbury cool has a sound and approach to his
instrument unmatched in the world of rock. Equal parts woody
rumble and metallic edge, Casady’s sound was a potent force
in the Airplane: “Crown of Creation” boasts a sonic architecture
every bit as potent as the onslaught that is Hendrix’s “Are
You Experienced?”
The full house was treated to a tour through Hot Tuna’s back
catalog of country blues and originals, some new songs, some
Jefferson Airplane and several from Kaukonen’s new Blue
Country Heart. (It’s one of the year’s finest releases,
and fully deserving of a Grammy—any voting members of NARAS
reading this who fail to deliver a ballot nod for the album
will no longer be entitled to free copies of Metroland.
Well, actually, I’m not allowed to make that threat.) Unlike
the jamming of some of their Summer of Love compatriots, these
two stick to discrete song structures, keeping overt improvisation
to traditional solo verses.
And now I must return to the playing of Casady. Kaukonen’s
warm and dexterous playing and his casually purposeful singing
are rightly in the forefront of each song. It in no way diminishes
his artistry to say that he’s working within a tradition,
echoing such past masters as the Rev. Gary Davis, Sleepy John
Estes and Blind Blake. However, Casady has created something
entirely new, a sound that straddles idioms with idiosyncratic
perfection. It’s a testament to the duo’s longstanding musical
relationship that the bass playing is braided into the guitar
lines so completely as to make them sound like one single
complex instrument. Thankfully, the pristine sound in the
theater let every nuanced note be heard with the clarity of
a living room recital.
—David
Greenberger
Three
Really Is a Crowd
The Forty-Fives, Johnny Rabb and the Jailhouse Rockers
Artie’s
Lansingburgh Station, Dec. 7
Artie’s Lansingburgh Station may be the area’s best-kept musical
secret. Throughout the past year, the club has hosted a slew
of hip and happening (granted, not well-known) garage and
rockabilly bands—the Charms, the Masterplan, Downbeat Five—as
well as some of the region’s most entertaining local acts.
It’s not only the club’s well-booked roster that makes it
such a choice hangout. The place has a warm, convivial, we’re-all-loaded-here
vibe that can be hard to come by in Albany. People actually
dance in front of the stage at Artie’s, and for local color
there’s no surpassing the place. (Let’s just say that at Saturday
night’s show, additional entertainment was provided by a rather
robust bar patron who tricked unsuspecting folks—including
the good-humored singer of the Forty-Fives—into lifting up
his party hat, which triggered a ridiculously comic cascade
of popcorn).
The Forty-Fives are the latest in underrated though vastly
entertaining garage bands to swing through Artie’s this year.
The Atlanta quartet are currently on tour with surf-twang
instrumentalists Los Straitjackets (who played a separate
gig on Sunday night at Savannah’s) in support of their second
long-player, Fight Dirty. One of the best garage-rock
albums released this year, the disc is an infectious
slab of raucous party tunes that combines Detroit rock &
roll swagger, British Invasion-style harmonics and crisp white-boy
R&B.
Sadly, Saturday night’s show was sparsely attended, other
than by Artie’s built-in crowd of bar-hugging regulars. “Let’s
dedicate a song to all the livers of the people in the room
tonight,” joked Forty-Fives drummer Adam Renshaw before the
band started their set with “Hanging by a Thread.” Appearing
unfazed by the low turnout, the band ripped through their
set with an intense energy and joyous, sweaty abandon. Shaggy
haired singer Bryan Malone’s cranked-up guitar sounded far
more raw and gloriously raunchy live, and the band unveiled
cuts from their new album as well as a few stirring covers
(Otis Redding’s “Shake,” the Beatles’ “One After 909” and
Elvis’ “Let Yourself Go”).
“A
lot more people should have been here tonight to hear you,”
commiserated Johnny Rabb after thanking the Forty-Fives for
their opening set. Rabb and his crew of Jailhouse Rockers
topped off the night’s celebratory vibe with a feel-good set
that included songs from the canon of rockabilly classics:
“Ubangi Stomp,” “The Walkin’ Blues (Walk Right In, Walk Right
Out).” For holiday cheer, the band threw some well-chosen
Christmas tunes into the mix, including Chuck Berry’s “Run
Run Rudolph” and guitarist John Tichy’s own holiday tear-jerker
“Daddy’s Drinking up Our Christmas.”
—Kirsten
Ferguson
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