An hour and a half of Bill Callahan's intense, controlled and deliriously beautiful songs is about as much as any poor man can stand. This was a memorable performance by any standards.
With bass player, guitarist and Jim White (drums) any further embellishment to Callahan's sensuous voice and subtle guitar could be too much to bear. As it is we had a definitive presentation of the current SMOG repertoire. This consists of pretty well the whole of the latest and very fine album "A River's Not Too Much To Love" and king size chunks from "Supper" (2003) and "Knock Knock" (1999).
Callahan stands stage left, straight legged and straight eyed, a Spanish guitar held chest high. Occasionally he moves to one side, bends his knees Phys Ed style, or leans slowly and impossibly to right or left. He flickers an occasional smile at a face in the gently sweating crowd. He doesn’t say much. But, as in his songs, there is a perfect economy of spring-coiled effort. No more needs to be said: so he doesn’t say it.
The first song is "Held" from 1999's "Knock Knock". A terse rendition suits it very well. The sense of urgency and pressure is a good lead in to the first section of tonight's set – seven songs from "A River's Not Too Much To Love", starting with the magnificent and poignant "Drinking at the Dam" and ending with a huge version of story song "The Well". On recordings, the shock of Callahan's rich bass voice pushes this listener into an inner certainty that here is an older man, looking back on a lifetime of lost rural innocence and spoiled opportunities. Maybe this is what Lambchop's Kurt Wagner should sound like? The tone of his voice and the gravity of his lyrics express the depth, wisdom and resignation that youth can recognise but rarely capture. Now on his twelfth album since 1993, Callahan is a veteran, I suppose. But he still has a young and slightly surprised countenance. He's still taking it all in, and still seems to find a wealth of material in the small and personal details of ravaged humanity. The urgent fastidiousness of his creativity burns very strong. You would not mistake him for anyone else you had ever heard.
His voice is the primary instrument. His style is to pause between each finely judged line, in a conversational flow of confession that could be being made here and now, for the first time in this one performance. It demands close listening. Anything else is an affront (and to be honest, a waste of your evening). The pairing of Spanish and electric guitars, underpinned by fluent bass worked very well. Jim White on drums is hypnotically wonderful - like one of those fabled cobras mesmerising his prey before the fatal bite. His trademark sweep of a high left hand, and a gently pushed brush in the right are as present and correct as ever. But the sinuous way he puts the rhythmic changes and tempo surges in and around the voice makes it all seem effortless, natural and unremarkable. He smiled quite a lot tonight, and Callahan stood aside more than once to let the front row see what a treasure he had brought out to play in his band tonight.
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I say "front row", because sadly these were pretty well the only ones who could see what was going on. The Faversham is not well-suited to this kind of show. The room, with its labyrinthine off-shoots, is large enough to collect the crowd needed to pay the wages: but in all honesty most of the audience get a pretty raw deal and some are actually in a separate room watching the whole thing on a large video screen.. Very few can see the band directly and most suffer in some way with the compromises that have had to made in creating a PA for such a space. A concert stage like the City Varieties, or a purpose built music room like the Brudenell Social Club or Irish Centre are logically the first choice for gigs like this in Leeds. Against that, the benefit of using the studentish large pub venue is that we do have a lot of fresh young faces in (many from Leeds current crop of stars – DUELS, THE LODGER, THE RESEARCH, DAVID THOMAS BROUGHTON, and BENJAMIN WETHERILL are just some of those spotted tonight). A master craftsman of Bill Callahan's quality will surely feed the range of possibilities these people are developing. If any of those present tonight had him filed forgetfully under "obscure" this show will have him quickly shuffled into the "legendary" box.
SMOG's support act tonight are Kevin Barker and Otto Hauser, from upstate New York and Washington DC and working together as CURRITUCK COUNTY. Kevin's rolling guitar and Otto's gently supportive drumming make a perfect intro to the rural/mystical/folkish aspects of SMOG. As we came in they were in the DJ booth playing guitar tunes and folk tunes (recently purchased in Glasgow) from the likes of PETER GREEN and DICK GAUGHAN. In their set there was BERT JANSCH'S "Silly Woman" and a swathe of resonant guitar tunes that called to mind such pioneers as CHET ATKINS and JOHN FAHEY. It’s nice to see an electric guitar being played sitting down, finger style, with a capo. It's perfect getting started music, with more than enough artistry to make investigation of the album "Ghost Man on Second" very worthwhile. You might also catch them playing alongside DEVENDRA BANHART at some point.
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