Things we like: John Stevens, Darrin Kobetich

Back when I was freelancing for the FW Weekly, my editor once told me, "You can't just write about your friends." The occasion was a review I submitted of a CD by the late Mick Farren and the Deviants. My immediate response: "I can't help it if I make friends easily." Farren's response when I told him: "Every movement in art since the beginning of time has been fueled by people writing about their friends." 

Every creative endeavor is a way of shouting at the Universe, "I'm alive!" This is more challenging than usual when live performance becomes an opportunity to infect and be infected. Thus, the pandemic year has brought forth a plethora of live streams and recording projects. (Thank Ceiling Cat for Bandcamp Fridays.) These two, by local performers whose careers I've been following for a couple of decades now, have special merit.

I first encountered John Stevens when he was 19 and working in a music store where I used to trade. While I was on DUI probation, there was a circle of cats who used to come out to my divorced dad duplex in Benbrook to jam, and one Sunday, John came out and impressed everyone with his gift for mad fluid blues guitar invention. He was playing in a Stevie Ray bag then, and had every move from the Live at the El Mocambo vid down. Later on, he'd levitate the old Black Dog Tavern downtown with Confusatron during their regular Thursday night exorcisms, and go on to play with local eminences like Sally Majestic and Carey Wolff and the Morning After. The association that paid off the most for Mr. Stevens, however, was with Lannie Flowers, who once fronted local power poppers the Pengwins and coached John in songwriting while utilizing his talents for numerous tours and recordings that included Lannie's 2019 album Home. 

I was pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago to hear John's first solo recording, Living Room, which he just released digitally, with limited edition vinyl to follow. While I knew him for years as a fiery, groovin' guitarist, I'd only heard him sing a couple of times before, with the eclectic jam band Nuthin' Special. But on Living Room -- recorded with multi-instrumentalist Taylor Tatsch at Taylor's studio outside Austin -- John sings his own songs like "Heart On My Sleeve," "If I Sing," and "American Dream" (the last of which got him an "explicit lyrics" tag from Amazon) with great assurance and expression, in a country/Americana vein. Properly promoted, he could be another Vince Gill. And his instrumentals, which comprise about half the album, have a cinematic sweep that makes him a good candidate for filmmakers seeking an atmospheric composer. If there's a non-snazz aspect to the record, it's John's drumming, which is functional but doesn't lift the songs the way some of the drummers John knows might have. We'll call it a pandemic thing.

In my area code, the king of guitar-based instrumental music is Darrin Kobetich, my fellow Long Island expat who's continued touring his acoustic solo thing through the pandemic, and whose records always represent whatever he's been working on during a particular window of time. The Yucca Tapes has particular resonance for me because I got to observe, from the periphery, the circumstances of its creation. One of the last live shows I attended, pre-Covid, was one of the Rage Out Arkestra's rare Shipping and Receiving stands, in which Darrin served as the rock wildcard in the band's jazz-fueled improvisational stew. Last year, I was one of a handful of cats who'd occasionally jam at the house on Yucca Ave., across I-35 from downtown, where Darrin lived for a couple of years. Sometimes, when the regular drummer didn't show, he'd sit behind the traps and demonstrate a good sense of dynamics (no surprise from someone who grew up listening to Bonham and Peart).

You can hear that on "1977," the centerpiece of The Yucca Tapes, which started out as a Rush-inspired acoustic solo piece but developed into a multi-layered homage to some of the players who inspired Darrin in his formative years (Roth, Schenker, Page, Beck -- have fun playing "Spot the influences!"), including an oud solo. The album also includes three pieces from Hip Pocket Theater's production of Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang. Darrin's a big Abbey fan, and it was a gas seeing him perform a live soundtrack to the play. Writing for theater has really opened up Darrin's compositions since percussionist extraordinaire Eddie Dunlap first called him for the gig. Overall, the album makes me realize how far Darrin's progressed from the days when he used to hold down a Friday happy hour gig at the Wreck Room (RIP). One of the things I love about live music is being able to watch artists grow and develop over time -- something we'll hopefully be able to get back to by the end of this year. At least John and Darrin's releases give me something to listen to and cogitate on while I'm waiting for the call from Tarrant County Public Health to come get the vaccine.