Shearwater at the Echo
Shearwater are a youngish band out of Austin, Texas, who’ve been getting a lot of jaw based on their powerful opening sets on the recent Coldplay tour. Formed by two members of Okkervil River, singer-guitarist Will Sheff and accordion/keyboard player Jonathan Meiburg, in order to focus on largely acoustic, folk-oriented sounds, Shearwater have released five discs, the latest of which brings us more of a caressingly melodic middle rock that on the surface is nothing too radically different. Yet the arrangements on the songs prick the ears, and draw one back in with their surprising little tonal twists and artfully nuanced performances. In recent times, Meiburg, an advance-degreed ornithologist, has taken the reins and written most of the material; the band’s Palo Santo album was partially written at the Galápagos Islands. Their latest, Rook, taps into a lovely and subtly dramatic world that really does sound as if it’s evolving with nature, as the wind swirls around, the waves break on the rocks, and lightning flares on the horizon. (John Payne)
Also playing Wednesday:
MAD JUANA at Alex’s Bar; JANEANE GAROFALO, BOB ODENKIRK at Largo; Ollin, The Happy Casualties, Hard Goodbyeat Mr. T's Bowl.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 28
Nicole Atkins: Mer girl
Inside Out
Kings X marks the spot.
Annie Ray
Shearwater: Evolutionary
Junior Brown: Ax him why.
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Junior Brown at the Key Club
Honky-tonk renegade Junior Brown is the consummate misfit. Beating the hell out of his one-of-a-kind guit-steel ax (the custom ax that he had built after it appeared to him in a dream), roaring lyrics with coarse, chain-saw toned vocals and always displaying the sort of nimble fingered facility that makes guitar geeks around the world go limp and twitchy, the Arizona-born, Texas-informed, Oklahoma-based musician works a drastic mixture of hard-country philosophy and heavy-gauge rock & roll. It’s a combination so wildly disparate that only a certified genius could make it work, and Brown has deftly exploited it: Winning an award from the incestuous, highly politicized Country Music Association is a small feat, but he took its Video of the Year honor for 1996’s “My Wife Thinks You’re Dead,” conferring a degree of legitimacy that Brown has subsequently (and wisely) done little to further. The man strictly goes his own way, and every jaunt is like a Tilt-A-Whirl ride to a gaudy, absurdist and perfectly realized country-music realm. (Jonny Whiteside)
Also playing Thursday:
RADIOHEAD at Santa Barbara Bowl; Matthew Sweet, Greg Laswell at the Echo; Nortec Collective, Bostich, Fussible at the Knitting Factory; CARLOS GUITARLOS at Eastside Luv; Toots & the Maytals at Santa Monica Pier.
