Good Grief!

Last week’s BR-549 show at the TLA was pretty much what you’d expect from a concert performed by an aging hillbilly band. Much of their material is formulaic, but that’s not so bad if you like the formula. A fun night out, though I wouldn’t follow them around on tour or even buy any more of their records (and I only bought that last one because it was $2.99 in AKA’s used CD bin).

The best part of the evening by far was The Avett Brothers, who opened. It was the Avett Brothers, not BR-549, who got the show a City Paper mention, and deservedly so. The Avett Brothers lead singer had the bandanna-and-long-hair Willie Nelson (not dead!) look going on, the bass player, dressed in khakis and a white button-down shirt, looked like he was in the wrong band, and the other guy filled the role of required shaggy-looking dude. Together they played some original, energetic twang–the best kind. The band’s website has some mp3s, and you can keep an eye on their tour schedule here.

It’s a good winter for twang here in Philly. On February 12th the Asylum Street Spankers will be at World Cafe Live. The Spankers are hard to describe:

The magnificently indefinable Asylum Street Spankers began in 1994 at a booze and hallucinogen-fueled party at the Dabbs Hotel in Llano, Texas. There Christina Marrs and Guy Forsyth met Wammo. During a night spent singing and playing along the banks of the Llano River they made a pact to keep the all-night-sing-along-anything-goes spirit of that party alive.
[snip]
Since the departure of Forsyth in 1998 the band began venturing out into the wider world. Since then Christina and Wammo have pushed their ever-evolving troupe from simple country-blues revivalism toward smart, challenging music of boundless variety, sophisticated arrangements, stunning showmanship and determined inventiveness.

Not only that, but some of the band members have blogs. And they have a myspace thing (I’m still not sure what a myspace is, exactly). The Asylum Street Spankers are most entertaining, and on this tour they’re rejoined by Guy Forsyth, who is helping to promote the Re-Assembly DVD.

Finally, Fred Eaglesmith is playing the Tin Angel on Friday, February 10th. I’m not an official Fredhead, but this Canadian twang-ish singer/songwriter puts on such a fun show that I’m thinking about braving the dreaded Tin Angel to see him again.

The new Good Grief! mix of the week celebrates all of these happenings:

1. Avett Brothers - Kind of in Love
2. Fred Eaglesmith - I Like Trains
3. BR-549 - Georgia on a Fast Train
4. Avett Brothers - Moving
5. BR-549 - Out of Habit
6. Asylum Street Spankers - Trippin’ Over You
7. Fred Eaglesmith - Steel Guitar

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 at 11:12 PM and is filed under arts, philadelphia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.