Three Shows in York and a new Black Keys Album
by Katie Dempsey
originally published in The Earl Magazine, March 2012
I tend to hibernate in the winter. From the first temperature drop in November to the first thaw in April, my natural inclination is to spend all my free time curled up on my couch with fifty blankets, watching Netflix until my legs cramp up from lack of use.
The move from five years of living in Pittsburgh back to Central Pennsylvania has only made it worse. Pittsburgh is filled with a lot of tall buildings protecting its residents from wind chill. Not so much around here. It’s even worse that I work in an un-insulated trailer outside a factory on the top of a giant hill and have to walk 200 yards and up a loading ramp to get into the building every time I have to use the bathroom.
But despite all these hardships, I did manage to make it out to see three shows in York during this winter season. The first, at the end of December, was at a bar called Maewyn’s, located right on North George Street on the edge of downtown York City. Maewyn’s is a traditional Irish bar with high ceilings, beautiful wood paneling and a generally warm, cozy atmosphere. It’s kind of a classy bar, the kind where you can go there dressed up and not feel overdressed but still go in ripped jeans and not feel like a total slob.
As a venue, Maewyn’s is not ideal—the bands were kind of stuffed into a small side room so about 75% of the bar patrons couldn’t even see them. If you wanted to physically be able to see the musicians, you had to crowd into a very small area right between the side room and the bar.
But crowd we did, because the headlining act was phenomenal. Garrahan’s Ghost is a Pogues-esque traditional-Irish new-folk seven-piece band comprised of two guitars, drums, a fiddle, a mandolin, a harmonica and an accordian player (the accordian player was, unfortunately, not present that evening, and I learned he is currently deployed in Afganistan).
Garrahan’s Ghost put on a great show. The bar was packed, and the crowd loved it—surrounding the band, people nodded along with the music, smiling and stomping their feet and clapping their hands and singing along. The band’s sound was great and the songs infectiously happy, the kind of songs you will find yourself humming the next day (or week). This was a fun show, and it definitely made me forget my winter blues for a night.
Then after a month of solid hibernation (made considerably more dreamlike by watching, in succession, all of the fourth season of Venture Bros, both seasons of The Mighty Boosh and the first season of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks), I broke out of my winter coccoon on the first weekend in February to see two bands at two different bars in York.
The Depot is a bar/venue not far from York College, and it’s kind of the complete opposite of Maewyn’s.
You could affectionately call it a “dive”, I guess--it’s got that rubbed-raw from overuse, rock’n’roll, smoke-filled broken-down griminess that those of us with punk-rock inclinations feel a sort of pride for, like showing off that bruise you got from being caught up in a bar-scuffle that actually had nothing to do with you. Needless to say, I felt right at home at the Depot, and it was definitely well suited to be a music venue, with a big room extending back from the bar area so everyone could see the band, even patrons sitting at the bar.
We caught the second-to-last band playing at this show before calling it a night (working first shift and getting up at 6am makes me pretty sapped of energy by as early as midnight on Friday nights). Now, I’m not generally a fan of metal (excepting the kind in Brendan Small’s Metalocalypse and..Primus, I guess? If you could call them metal?) but Sour Mash Survival had me at their mic check, where they previewed their impressive vocal talents by banshee-screaming the word “CHECK CHECK” into their microphones for what seemed like twenty minutes.
But I can appreciate any genre of music live if its performed well, and I’d say that Sour Mash Survival, a Baltimore-based band, performed very well. Despite the call-and-answer guttural screaming and roaring of their songs they were very polite and cheerful, joking around with each other and the audience and just generally having a good time. I can definitely appreciate and respect performers who seem to genuinely enjoy performing, and this was definitely the case with SMS. It also doesn’t seem to be the case with many of the other local metal bands I’ve ever seen (who definitely didn’t have the talent to warrant any kind of surly, anti-social attitude).
The Saturday after the Depot I went to the First Capital Dispensing Company, or First Cap, which is right on the edge of York City proper, next to the river. It’s a pretty random looking place to have a bar, just on the corner of a dark residential street. But upon entering, you’re transported into a very rustic-feeling, civil-war-era looking room with low, wood-beam-exposed ceilings and an old, solid feel to the walls. It’s very small and cozy, and to my shock, we walked in right in front of the band that was playing, a sort of jazz-funk rock’n’roll jam-band called Redeye.
Redeye played great background bar music. Their sound was tight and disciplined with a great funk swing (the trumpet player, who kept his instrument politely muted, was especially exceptional, and the skill of the bass player also very noteworthy). It was the kind of music that makes you drift out of your conversations to just tilt your head back and relax and listen, which I did pretty much the whole time.
Finally, the other thing keeping the winter blues away is the fact that I finally shelled out the cash and downloaded The Black Keys latest album El Camino. What can I say about El Camino expect WOW. I love the Black Keys, especially their 2010 album Brothers, and I was very pleased to hear that El Camino was a natural continuation from the sounds and themes they took on in Brothers.
The Black Keys are the sort of band that can attract a wide variety of fans. When I lifeguarded at an indoor college pool last summer, our patrons ranged from teenagers attending a camp to take college-level classes, to college athletes, to retired faculty members, to a day-camp of kids aged 4-10. We were in charge of the music to be played to the pool, I struggled to decide on what, out of all the strange and eclectic music on my iPod, could possibly be background music to appeal to (and not offend) all the different types of people at our pool.
The Black Keys were the perfect solution. I lost track of the amount of pool patrons who would walk up to me and ask what was this awesome music playing over the speakers.
The Black Keys have a great sound, and have over the years refined and changed it while still maintaining the core personality of their music. They’re bluesy, Hendrix-y rock’n’roll with an early 70s rock’n’roll feel to it while still sounding fresh, modern, and innovative. The production quality is awesome, and they play with sounds in a way that is evocative of the tinny sounds of old, damaged blues records combined with the new multi-layered “good fuzz” distortion of new production technology. Black Keys sound like if a bunch of sentient robots from the year 3,000 traveled through time while listening to French alternative band Phoenix, and crashed onto the stage of a Jimi Hendrix concert and fused with the music without missing a beat.
El Camino burns the whole way through like a good fire, crackling and sparking with energy. Heavy bass-thumps from the drum, group choruses, sweet bass-lines, raging guitars, the album has all the elements of good rock’n’roll without ever being too showy or over-the-top. You can listen to it and sing along and bob your head, or you can play it in the background while you concentrate on something else. You ever watch one of those concert cellists or violists play their instruments like it’s the easiest thing in the world, like they’re just kind of shrugging this music out? That’s what this album feels like. And it feels damn good.*
Garrahan’s Ghost can be found at http://www.reverbnation.com/garrahansghost
Sour Mash Survival can be found at http://www.reverbnation.com/sourmashsurvival
Redeye can be found at http://www.myspace.com/gustavoaguirrejr
El Camino is available on iTunes.
