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Virgil Shaw & John Doe
400 Bar - Minneapolis
February 27, 2003
By Al Kunz
 Contrast is defined
as "setting in opposition to show differences." For
me this night was full of contrasts. I started out the evening
in my normal Thursday night haunt, "rowdy cowboy night"
at a suburban bowling alley bar. Between occasional two-stepping
forays, I engaged in my usual activities of critiquing what the
DJ played (Steve Earle, good - Kenny Chesney, not) offering clarification
as to why line dancing is, at best, a good spectator sport, and
explaining why belt buckles suitable for use as a Thanksgiving
turkey platter are idiotic. After a couple beers, I fled the
mainstream for something edgier. The friends I left in suburbia
would say I went right up to the edge - and dove off.
Around 10:00 I wandered into the almost empty 400 Bar as the
first band finished its set. Perfect timing to grab my favorite
stool just before the hordes of students from the nearby U of
M arrived. With the exception of a few aging urban hipsters and
one aging but not so hip suburban Rockzillaworld writer,
it was a young yet surprising varied crowd. Not at all like the
age-diverse but largely conservative white-bread bunch I'd left
in the 'burbs. No turkey platter belt buckles, but there were
flannel clad guys in John Deere gimme caps, girls with enough
gold stuck through various body parts to stock the treasury of
a third world country, and twenty-something yuppie-wannabes who
started drifting in, packing the place as Virgil Shaw started
his set. No, Toto, I wasn't in Kansas (or even Burnsville) anymore.
On tour showcasing the songs from the recently released Still
Falling, Shaw and bandmates Marc Capelle (keyboard and flugelhorn)
and percussionist Danny Heifetz have a style that can't be easily
described using my normal assortment of labels and clichés.
Some describe him as alt-country. Shaw's vocals, sometimes a
slow, soft, drawl and other times approaching a yodel, might
fit within that genre. But then, often in the same song, he'd
yelp, or he'd shriek, or he'd make a sound that I've never needed
a word to describe before. Any style, tempo, or sound Shaw is
capable of making is fair game. Consequently any attempt at depicting
him using normal genre labels will be incomplete and limiting.
A fellow Rockzillaworld writer, talking about the artists
on Shaw's record label, Future Farmer, said it best when he told
me, "those Future Farmer guys are all from a different planet,
but it's a planet I like."
Shaw maximized the number of songs in his forty-five minute
set by eliminating most between song chatter, often launching
the next song just as the applause was starting for the previous
one. I often felt as if I was scrambling to catch up, liking
what I was hearing, but knowing I was missing as much as I was
registering. Shaw paced the relatively small stage, sometimes
barely strumming his guitar, at others pulling or plucking a
single string with such vengeance it looked like he wanted to
break it. Danny Heifetz was playing the drums, xylophone, and
anything else within reach of his sticks and mallets. Then he'd
pull out a trumpet and play it too. Marc Capelle would keep one
hand working the keyboards and pull out his flugelhorn. I'd almost
have a handle on where all the different sounds were coming from
when lyrics like these from "Still Falling" would beg
for my attention.
Grainy and saturated, it was blurry and animated
Like memories of coffee, it was jagged and outdated
And light curved your face
Like it would and should in outer space
Just to see how we feel
On three minutes of reel
Shaw defies expectations and flaunts convention, in one case
pausing long enough to tell us the next song was called "Owner
Operator," leading me to anticipate a truck driving song.
In a way it is. But the high warbling vocal owes as much to Tiny
Tim as Dave Dudley. And can you imagine Red Sovine singing this?
What about me, look where I am
It's like I'm sitting here, in Missouri
And just to think I learned most everything that
I ever needed to know, in the Navy
Somehow he landed the plane, drove down the freeway
Talked on the phone, and changed lanes
He didn't think I need a drink, he didn't even blink
He just let it fall
Near the end of his set Shaw commented that he'd been doing
this for a long time at 1972 wages (at least ten years since
his first album was released as a member of Dieselhed). He then
ceded the stage to John Doe, who remembers when those '72 wages
were almost contemporary (forming X in 1977).
 As a founding member of L.A.
punk band X, Doe and company expanded on the three-chords and
a cloud of dust approach of The Ramones and others, showing that
melody and musicianship could be compatible with punk attitude
and ethos. They gave more than a passing nod to the influences
of their musical roots, covering Jerry Lee Lewis ("Breathless")
and recording "Little Honey," a co-write between Doe
and Dave Alvin of X's roots-rocking contemporaries, the Blasters,
for example. His 1990 solo debut, Meet John Doe, was Americana
at its best, combining roots-rock, country-twang, and enough
attitude and edge to keep it interesting.
Doe started his set solo, taking advantage of his longer hour-and-a-half
set by interacting with the audience throughout. After the first
song Doe solicited requests, then responded "okay, but it's
that guy's fault if it's too down for this early in the show"
before playing "Take #52" from his solo debut. While
weighted toward material from last year's Dim Stars, Bright
Sky disc, Doe performed what he described as "some you'll
know, some you won't," with songs spanning his entire career.
He introduced stand-up bassist David J. Carpenter as "not
as good looking, but stronger" when Carpenter sung harmony
on "Aimee Mann's part" of "This Far" from
the Dim Stars disc. This tune ("sometimes I miss you / but
I won't be with you / a memory is a terrible thing to waste")
is typical of those on this latest Doe release - lyrically dark
songs about failed (or failing) relationships with friends and
lovers. The most compelling of these, "Forever For You,"
has evocative lyrics that grab your attention from the start
("One red drop of California wine / on a white table cloth,
across from you / slipping your hand under mine") and penetrated
even my alcohol-impaired brain ("I'd cut off my hands if
they offend thee/ I can't see why we can't see eye to eye / and
it makes me wanna die"). Doe said his daughter sang one
of these songs, "Employee of the Month," at her 8th
grade graduation. Makes you wonder how the audience reacted to
this tune about "going from employee of the month, to shooting
up the office, to suicide." At least one couple in the audience
this night started dancing, recognizing a waltz beat when they
hear it.
Doe dedicated the X song, "House that I Call Home,"
to Jim & Jennie & the Pinetops who he said first inspired
him to sing it "this way" (with a country twang and
Dylan-inflected vocals) during a past 400 Bar performance with
the Pinetops and Neko Case. He dedicated other tunes to the recently
deceased (Howie Epstein, former bassist for Tom Petty, and Fred
Rogers) ending with a cover of the Fred Neil classic, "Everybody's
Talkin'," dedicated to "the bums in the skyway"
(Minneapolis' walkway system, used to avoid weather too cold
for mortal man).
* Doe and Shaw are currently on tour with several joint shows
remaining. Visit www.virgilshaw.com
or www.thejohndoe.com
for details. Try these or www.artistdirect.com (Doe) and www.futurefarmer.com
(Shaw) for more on current and past discs. And to keep track
of occasional X reunion shows (including two in May for those
in SoCal) surf over to www.xtheband.com
Contact Al Kunz at kunz-at-rockzilla.net
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