I had originally planned to use this space to talk about the Leo Kottke concert at the Carolina Theatre last Friday night, but then I realized that I’m only human. He, on the other hand, is not and I could never truly do justice to the splendor and serenity of his performance in words. It’s not often that an elderly man with only an acoustic guitar could induce repeated standing ovations out of a crowd young and old, but that’s what I saw. So I looked more to the earthly realm for worthy acts to laud or chide and that’s when I found that Holy Ghost Tent Revival (www.myspace. com/hgtr) was playing at the Blind Tiger on Saturday. Now HGTR’s reputation as a terrific live act certainly precedes them. But in a most serendipitous turn of events, there was another band on the bill whose performance would demand an earnest second look.
That band was Reidsville’s
own American Aquarium (www.myspace.
com/americanaquarium), whose name
actually refers to a New England term for
inebriate. You might also recognize the
term from the notorious Wilco lyric “I am
an American Aquarium drinker/I assassin
down the avenue.” Jeff Tweedy knows the
value of a good stiff drink in easing the
pain of bad relationships and you can
bet that some of those same themes are
echoed in this band’s music.
Struck from a similar vein as Drive-By
Truckers and the Old 97s, their brand of
hard, twangy rock covers all of the ground
that you would expect from a band that
drinks just as hard as they play. Guitarist
and vocalist BJ Barham bemoaned every
no-good woman who ever did him wrong
one at a time, while strutting around stage
in the kind of zone that only an evening
spent with the Pabst Blue can bring you.
About the most impious of whom was
an angry little tune called “Queen of the
Scene.”
“This one’s about girls who think that
they’re just too damn good for you,”
Barham stated.
There seem to be a lot of ball-breaking
exes in Barham’s songwriting past. What
else would inspire the (tentatively) titled
“I Ain’t Goin’ to the Bar Tonight,” a song
about the specter of a nasty breakup
keeping you out of your favorite spot.
Even the also-tentatively titled “Whore
Song (I Hope He Breaks Your Heart)”
began with a rousing F-bomb to some
equally-deserving shrew. Some of
that may just be some spontaneous
wordsmithing brought on by the trays of
whiskey shots flowing from the audience
to the band, but I’d like to think there’s
some genuine feeling behind it.
Based on
the entire band’s emphatic howling of the
song’s subtitle, I’d say that there is.
“I’ve got a lot of songs about girls and
drinkin’,” Barham joked. “That’s it, that’s
all I got.”
Of course there’s more to the band
than just songs about emotional dealings
with devil women and the resulting
inebriation. They turned up the good
mojo on crowd favorite “California,” a
hopeful nod toward the band’s future.
They even ventured into Pink Floydian
territory with the atmospheric “Louisiana
Beauty Queen.” Show closer “Clark
Avenue” was a heavy honky-tonk number
about, well, drinking and women, but
this time with a much more positive spin.
As far as there being any other themes
prevalent over the evening,
they did tease Bruce Hornsby’s
“The Way It Is” over and
over. Organist Zack Brown
actually sold me on it at one
point and I was actually a bit
disappointed that they never
got to it. What can I say? I’m
a fan.
There was also a great
band from Mississippi
called Come On, Go With
Us (www.myspace.com/
comeongowithus) that
preceded the boys from
Reidsville, though they weren’t
on the actual bill. I got there
right after 10 p.m., the slated
show time, but they were
already eight songs into an
11-song set. I suppose the
early bird special isn’t always
on the menu. In any event, their rootscountry
style paid a nice compliment to
American Aquarium’s harder, bourbonsoaked
sound. Lest we not forget the
show’s headliner, I still feel compelled to
dedicate some time to Holy Ghost Tent
Revival. That may have to wait, however,
because this time belongs to someone
else.
To comment on this story, e-mail Ryan
Snyder at Ryan@yesweekly.com.
