The last time your reviewer encountered Howe Gelb - at a small arts centre across town from here - he happened to sit down at a table where the remains of the great man's sushi dinner were still on the plate. It was a typically oblique and surreal moment and proved a good omen for a strange and brilliant night where the Tucson maestro pulled all kind of magic from the bag; sampling himself onstage, mutating Neil Young's "Out On The Weekend" with Marty Robbins songs and making X's "Johny Hit & Run Paulene" sound like the saddest song ever recorded. As the old cliche goes, it was that kind of night.
Tonight, in the large and considerably plusher confines of the cavernous Savoy Centre, the first thing that happens to your reviewer is another near-encounter with Howe Gelb, when the plaid-shirted one walks by unnoticed by fans, puffing surreptitiously on a harmonica. Excellent. With a new-ish album "It's All Over The Map" to be promoted and an all-new, three-quarter Scandinavian line-up to show off, surely this is another of those unlikely good omens which must spell genius coming this way.
Or perhaps not. "We're gonna play songs from the past, present and future tonight," mutters Gelb in his curious, slightly sinister mid-western Peter Lorre drawl and GIANT SAND take to the stage at an alarmingly early 8.15 or so. He seats himself at the piano and the band flex their muscles with a pleasant, but unlikely jazz piano workout. Right. Well, yeah, Howe's into playing the piano these days isn't he? Surely his obscure solo albums attest to that.
So we give him the benefit of the doubt, but it's beginning to look kinda squiffy when he mutates a cocktail jazz-meets-Chas'n'Dave version of "All Along The Watchtower" into Peggy Lee's "Fever" and things hit an early nadir when Howe invites Brett and Rennie Sparks onstage for a (to be kind) hit and miss version of Johnny Cash's "Ring Of Fire". Well, at least that's what Brett sings. The rest of the band are too taken up with medley-ing it into The Beatles' "Hey Jude" to notice. Rennie, plucking helplessly at her banjo, simply looks embarrassed. This really isn't looking good.
Of course, anyone expecting anything other than the unexpected at a Giant Sand show ought to have stayed away altogether, so we continue on unruffled, certain that Gelb will turn it around when he's ready. And sure enough, when he drags himself out of spontaneous cover version mode, things do begin to improve, with the new Scando Sand trio finding their feet and instilling some of that longed-for desert-rock sorcery into a spooky "Hangin' By A Thread."
But it's only the first of a few frustrating flashes of brilliance tonight, as it turns out. Yes, Gelb fulfills his promise to visit "the past, the present and future" by seeking out everything from a punky and precarious "Down On Town" from 1985's debut "Valley Of Rain" album through to a new song called "Chromosome", "which we haven't written yet" (and it shows), but then what's a game of creative Russian roulette between friends and paying customers, right?
Ironically, the best moments come when Gelb dons his Blacky Ranchette alter-ego and dips into that loose collective's back catalogue for a lovely, snappy and Country-fried "Loving Cup" and a fragile, solo "Steadfast" about the "girl called Pearl pumpin' gas". Both are shot through with the wayward wonder of his best work, but only make you long for more of the same. Sadly, in his desperation to shape the future, Howe's attention span is impatient with that delectable back catalogue, and elsewhere a still rather sublime "Shiver" provides another yearning highlight. But it's the exception, rather than the rule.
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So far, so underwhelming, then. But it's depressing to report that Giant Sand's scattershot glimpses of transcendence prove utterly inspired compared with THE HANDSOME FAMILY'S lazy and static hour onstage.
I should say at this juncture that writing this really pains me, because I love The Handsome Family to bits and this is the seventh time I've seen them play over the past five years, but on this showing it's only devotion that is getting them through. And even that will run out before long if they continue in this vein.
Things get off to a disappointing start when Brett takes to the stage and sits down for the whole set. Yes, you feel for him, as he is suffering from gout and is thus denied beer. Bizarrely, he's drinking wine as a substitute and repeatedly moans about it. OK, we can live with that, but not the fact his performance is so wooden. Rennie, meanwhile, is still gamely acting the raconteur ("We're just back from a relaxing few days in London" she notes sardonically, in the face of the recent suicide bombings), but tonight the lengthy spoken intros dwarf the songs during what is sounding like a desperate and dated set.
Actually, it's bad enough that these songs sound like the Handsomes simply going through the motions, as they reel off predictable staples like "Up Falling Rock Hill", "So Much Wine" and "My Sister's Tiny Hands", but the fact they're played in such a lacklustre, can't-be-arsed way is nigh on criminal. What's a lot more worrying, however, is that this is basically the same set they've been touting since the release of their last album "Singing Bones", and that was in the autumn of 2003. New material is conspicuous by its' absence and tonight it's a tired and bored Mr & Mrs.Sparks playing these songs, mostly on autopilot.
Yes, with a back catalogue stuffed with the kooked and folksy quality that the Handsomes display, it's difficult for there not to be the odd ray of wonder poking through the clouds, but tonight they're few and far between. Early on, only the spooked, supernature-fuelled "24 Hour Store" takes off, while the final stretch includes a nicely poised "Forgotten Lake" and a deliciously fatalistic "I Know You Are There", but when they take their leave you're merely wondering why they never seem to want to tackle amazing tunes like "Passenger Pigeons", "There Is A Sound" and "My Ghost" anymore. And more importantly, why there aren't any new songs being premiered. Surely in this apocalyptic world of ours, Rennie can't be running out of tragedy to home in on, can she?
Well, in terms of answers to those moot questions, we leave for home empty-handed tonight. In terms of their lengthy and eclectic back catalogues, both Giant Sand and The Handsome Family are two of Americana's finest exponents, but they both threw away their potential lap of honour in a manner more fitting of Mark E.Smith tonight. And that's not good enough at all.
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