11-10-2010
4Play
By Don Allred
Brendan Benson/Posies
Wednesday @ Outland
Brendan Benson and the White Stripes' Jack White formed the
Raconteurs with members of Cincinnati's Greenhornes, determined to
shake their shared garage band roots free of stale nostalgia. On
Benson's solo album, "My Old, Familiar Friend", relationships rattle
chains and rainbows of 60s/00s style, as history and mystery go steady
and unsteady. Benson's currently backed by the Posies, whose own set
includes recent songs from "Blood/Candy." Their riverside reveries and
coded constellations take a sly, hungry look at sweet machines all
around us.
Pretty Lights
Thursday @ Bar of Modern Art
Pretty Lights is DJ/producer Derek Vincent Smith, traveling with
jazz/hip-hop drummer Adam Deitch. Smith seeded 2010 with metal
chestnut "Final Countdown", which becomes strenuously life-affirming
gospel science, right before J.J. Cale's "After Midnight" calmly
pursues Gregg Allman's "Midnight Rider" over spinning borders. "Making
Up A Changing Mind" 's poetic distortion is no more paradoxical than
the blues, as a mutating sample spells out: "I know you been hurt/By
somebody else/I can tell by the way/You carry yourself."
The Blow with Melissa Dyne
Friday @ The Wexner Center
The Blow is Khaela Maricich, whose storytelling and indie art pop
songs grow through each other on stage, accompanied by environmental
artist Melissa Dyne's funky sound and vision system. It's a tricky
process, but that's the point, especially when electro-beats lure us
though the gleaming surfaces and dilating depths of her current album,
"Paper Television." Some plausibly outrageous scenes could overwhelm,
if The Blow didn't sound so innocently, inescapably observant and
hopeful.And though some too-trusted, overworked conceits don't reach
the beach, she keeps a close watch on "the thin line/Between love and
delusion."
Bottomless Pit
Sunday @ The Treehouse
Sharp lines find their way through the mellow undertow of baritone
guitar and bass, as post-punk veterans Bottomless Pit's lead player
Andy Cohen murmurs: "Backwoods in my blood/Sure as sitting ducks." The
swaggering, jagged "Summerwind" finds him hustling city slickers, and
such skills even discover new ways to deliver sincere messages like
"Kiss Them All For Me", though the meter's always running. Subtle
vocals suggest that BT is potentially a world-class backup band, so
all you budding rock gods better check them out.
