woodeye's last waltz
"good bands shouldn't have to break up," my friend damien sez. "they just don't have to play together all the time."
a few months ago, i was thinking what a great band woodeye is. surely, i thought, we here in the fort are fortunate to be able to hear 'em whenever they venture out every few months. carey wolff's heart-wrenching songs and sarcastically self-deprecating wit (as if to say "i really don't care about these things" when you know he _had_ to, to have written about 'em), scott davis' economical raunch 'n' twang, graham richardson's cowpunk grace, and kenny smith's unerringly solid riddim: so much to appreciate. who cares if they're never gonna be the "next big thing?" _fuck_ "next big things." they've got something better: a real connection with an audience that happens to be "us."
then a coupla months ago, i started hearing rumors that woodeye was gonna celebrate ten years as a band by folding the tent. in a certain way, it made sense. carey and graham both have new babies, after all, and carey's about to finish his schooling in, um, forensic anthropology or something equally arcane. scott and kenny are both playing together in chatterton, quaker city, and singer-songwriter jason eady's band, and scott just laid down some lap steel on a track local composer paul boll wrote and produced for the currently-in-production film of joe coomer's novel the loop. (the loop in the title is none other than our own 820; from the description on amazon, the plot sounds like something out of a woodeye song, but the protagonist is gonna be played by people mag sexiest-man-in-the-universe matthew mcconaghey. go fig.) everyone's busy enough that maybe they just don't have _time_ to be woodeye anymore, i thought. but that didn't stop me from selfishly not wanting the party to end.
suspicions were confirmed when the posters -- a collaboration between pussyhouse propaganda art criminal ray liberio and wreck room artist-in-residence and woodeye album art creator jesse sierra hernandez -- appeared on the windows of the wreck room (and subsequently on the walls of numerous fans who snagged 'em, which is as much a testament to the esteem in which carey 'n' crew are held as it is to the enduring popularity of the dia de los muertos motif). yes, this really _was_ happening.
the night of the show finally came, and the wreck room was packed with pert near everyone we know that wasn't working. the eaton lake tonics sounded tuneful and rawkin', their sound veering from gram parsons-esque twang to peppy pop-punk. only delta was the gtrist's tone, which sounded like the cat was overcompensating for playing a telecaster by rolling all his highs off, resulting in an oppressive, squealing fuzzball sound. dude, get something with humbuckers that'll really ring when you run it straight through without f/x. a tele custom or an sg, maybe. just an opinion.
woodeye took the stage and almost immediately ran headfirst into tech probs, specifically the strap button on graham's thunderbird bass going south. "we wouldn't be woodeye if we didn't screw _something_ up," carey quipped as graham scrambled to tune the eaton lake tonics' bass. (during the next song, ray liberio performed emergency repairs with a toothpick so graham was spared the ignominy of playing his last woodeye show on a borrowed instrument that just didn't have the punch of his varsity axe. god bless the me-thinks and all who sail with them.) i heard most of the show from directly behind scott davis' amp (talk about a textbook example of great tone). carey was resplendent in a suit jacket (having just come from an art show at velton hayworth's warehouse), playing an electric gretsch instead of his usual acoustic-electric. i could highlight individual songs, but my sweetie pointed out the most striking thing about the evening: "how much their crowd loves them," and that's a fact. it goes beyond knowing all the words to the songs; looking out at the faces in front of the stage, you could see the way ppl had _lived_ those songs as different ones' faces would mist over during one toon or another. (mine was "the fray," and then my sweetie and i danced to "our song" just like we did when they played it at our wedding party.) i really hope carey saw that, too, no matter what he says.
graham was stalking the stage in his trademark fashion; it's been interesting to observe his sartorial evolution over the yrs, from straw cowboy hat to ballcap to mohawk. now he has a photo of his son kai taped to his bass. scott davis has really come out of himself in the last coupla yrs, and is now as dynamic a stage presence as graham is. original drummer eric salisbury, now managing director at jubilee theater, was stageside, recalling how "we were a band of guys in our 30s [prolly more like late 20s, but nevermind] when we had this kid from tcu over to play gtr and realized, 'this is the way we're going to sound'...scott really made the sound of the band." i felt like i was watching a movie a few minutes later when scott looked over at his chatterton bandmate chris edmiston during a song he prolly hadn't played in seven or eight yrs and said, "i'd never played gtr before this. i played _bass_. now i'm bored out of my mind playing this song." eric and chris jumped onstage at different points to sing backup, and kenny smith moved over to keyboards to make room for eric behind the traps. when scott had to leave the stage momentarily (nature calls even during yr last show ever), carey and graham reminisced on-mic about all the great bands they'd shared the wreck room stage with over the yrs, and you might have heard a little bit of shared pride in their voices. overall, there was a nice valedictory feel to it all.
at the end, when they'd played every song they knew, carey was typically dissatisfied: he thought his voxxx were too low in the mix. "we played a shitty show," he said. the crowd disagreed; they wanted more. "maybe that's okay," graham said. "maybe they'll come back when there's a carey wolff solo show." then they all hugged, drank yet another round of jager shots, and eventually, went home.
yeah, a bittersweet night.
a few months ago, i was thinking what a great band woodeye is. surely, i thought, we here in the fort are fortunate to be able to hear 'em whenever they venture out every few months. carey wolff's heart-wrenching songs and sarcastically self-deprecating wit (as if to say "i really don't care about these things" when you know he _had_ to, to have written about 'em), scott davis' economical raunch 'n' twang, graham richardson's cowpunk grace, and kenny smith's unerringly solid riddim: so much to appreciate. who cares if they're never gonna be the "next big thing?" _fuck_ "next big things." they've got something better: a real connection with an audience that happens to be "us."
then a coupla months ago, i started hearing rumors that woodeye was gonna celebrate ten years as a band by folding the tent. in a certain way, it made sense. carey and graham both have new babies, after all, and carey's about to finish his schooling in, um, forensic anthropology or something equally arcane. scott and kenny are both playing together in chatterton, quaker city, and singer-songwriter jason eady's band, and scott just laid down some lap steel on a track local composer paul boll wrote and produced for the currently-in-production film of joe coomer's novel the loop. (the loop in the title is none other than our own 820; from the description on amazon, the plot sounds like something out of a woodeye song, but the protagonist is gonna be played by people mag sexiest-man-in-the-universe matthew mcconaghey. go fig.) everyone's busy enough that maybe they just don't have _time_ to be woodeye anymore, i thought. but that didn't stop me from selfishly not wanting the party to end.
suspicions were confirmed when the posters -- a collaboration between pussyhouse propaganda art criminal ray liberio and wreck room artist-in-residence and woodeye album art creator jesse sierra hernandez -- appeared on the windows of the wreck room (and subsequently on the walls of numerous fans who snagged 'em, which is as much a testament to the esteem in which carey 'n' crew are held as it is to the enduring popularity of the dia de los muertos motif). yes, this really _was_ happening.
the night of the show finally came, and the wreck room was packed with pert near everyone we know that wasn't working. the eaton lake tonics sounded tuneful and rawkin', their sound veering from gram parsons-esque twang to peppy pop-punk. only delta was the gtrist's tone, which sounded like the cat was overcompensating for playing a telecaster by rolling all his highs off, resulting in an oppressive, squealing fuzzball sound. dude, get something with humbuckers that'll really ring when you run it straight through without f/x. a tele custom or an sg, maybe. just an opinion.
woodeye took the stage and almost immediately ran headfirst into tech probs, specifically the strap button on graham's thunderbird bass going south. "we wouldn't be woodeye if we didn't screw _something_ up," carey quipped as graham scrambled to tune the eaton lake tonics' bass. (during the next song, ray liberio performed emergency repairs with a toothpick so graham was spared the ignominy of playing his last woodeye show on a borrowed instrument that just didn't have the punch of his varsity axe. god bless the me-thinks and all who sail with them.) i heard most of the show from directly behind scott davis' amp (talk about a textbook example of great tone). carey was resplendent in a suit jacket (having just come from an art show at velton hayworth's warehouse), playing an electric gretsch instead of his usual acoustic-electric. i could highlight individual songs, but my sweetie pointed out the most striking thing about the evening: "how much their crowd loves them," and that's a fact. it goes beyond knowing all the words to the songs; looking out at the faces in front of the stage, you could see the way ppl had _lived_ those songs as different ones' faces would mist over during one toon or another. (mine was "the fray," and then my sweetie and i danced to "our song" just like we did when they played it at our wedding party.) i really hope carey saw that, too, no matter what he says.
graham was stalking the stage in his trademark fashion; it's been interesting to observe his sartorial evolution over the yrs, from straw cowboy hat to ballcap to mohawk. now he has a photo of his son kai taped to his bass. scott davis has really come out of himself in the last coupla yrs, and is now as dynamic a stage presence as graham is. original drummer eric salisbury, now managing director at jubilee theater, was stageside, recalling how "we were a band of guys in our 30s [prolly more like late 20s, but nevermind] when we had this kid from tcu over to play gtr and realized, 'this is the way we're going to sound'...scott really made the sound of the band." i felt like i was watching a movie a few minutes later when scott looked over at his chatterton bandmate chris edmiston during a song he prolly hadn't played in seven or eight yrs and said, "i'd never played gtr before this. i played _bass_. now i'm bored out of my mind playing this song." eric and chris jumped onstage at different points to sing backup, and kenny smith moved over to keyboards to make room for eric behind the traps. when scott had to leave the stage momentarily (nature calls even during yr last show ever), carey and graham reminisced on-mic about all the great bands they'd shared the wreck room stage with over the yrs, and you might have heard a little bit of shared pride in their voices. overall, there was a nice valedictory feel to it all.
at the end, when they'd played every song they knew, carey was typically dissatisfied: he thought his voxxx were too low in the mix. "we played a shitty show," he said. the crowd disagreed; they wanted more. "maybe that's okay," graham said. "maybe they'll come back when there's a carey wolff solo show." then they all hugged, drank yet another round of jager shots, and eventually, went home.
yeah, a bittersweet night.
posted by stashdauber at 11:07 AM
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