"As if in a dream..."
Beloved Minneapolis "supergroup" Golden Smog performed a surprise "unplugged" performance Friday night in front of a clearly stunned audience at a local weekly acoustic "hootenanny" in the basement of a neighborhood coffee shop near Lake Harriet in South Minneapolis. The room was already packed beyond capacity for the last hoot of the season, but virtually everyone in the sweaty basement bunker was blown away by what transpired after the scheduled group of performers gave the stage over to "some other guys" (that's how they were matter-of-factly referred to at the beginning of the night when the schedule was being announced). Some guy behind me spent the first few songs of the set on his cell phone breathlessly calling everybody in his contact list with variations on, "dude, i'm at the hoot and you'll never f***ing believe who just came on stage..." We exchanged glances and knowing nods after the set and he had the undeniable look of sweet satisfaction on his face -- the look of somebody who had just witnessed something extraordinary.
Which, of course, he had.
What transpired was a brief but breathtakingly good performance by a group of old friends who are making some of the best music in their 2 decade "uncareer," a time span that not only covers the intertwined history of the 3 core Smog bands -- The Jayhawks, Soul Asylum and Run Westy Run -- but also represents a collective personal saga that encompasses an almost unimaginable array of events, ranging from the very good to the unspeakably bad. The Smog were always something of a cross between a rock group, extended family and a secret society; together they've travelled a lot of miles -- both physical and psychic -- over the years. But all the personal issues, career games, egos and back-stage dramas now seem to be relegated to historical footnotes; Job 1 now appears to be about making the best music possible.
Which, in a way, isn't all that far removed from how it all began 20 years ago in a variety of rehearsal spaces and basements. What started as a lark -- and a diversion from the pressures of their regular bands -- eventually transformed into a powerful musical force to be reckoned with, even though there have only been a handful of official releases (3 albums and 2 EPs) and live appearances (pretty serious touring in 96, 2 short tours in 98 and 06, a smattering of local and benefit shows) since the early 90s when the Smoggers first began to see themselves as something more than a jokey side project (the first few gigs were tribute shows, including an indescribably awful one featuring the music of the Eagles).
Deep in the bowels of Java Jacks in "sexy South Minneapolis," The Smog made their first appearance since a very brief tour ended last year in support of their excellent, almost universally misunderstood/underappreciated Another Fine Day album. Lost Highway just released a follow-up EP, Blood on the Slacks, a generally pleasing collection of outtakes from AFD that evokes fond memories -- everything from the inclusion of some cool covers to the punny title -- of the Smog's first release in 1993, On Golden Smog. If you want to consider this show as "support" for the new EP, they couldn't have picked a better setting -- an unannounced, unplugged gig in a "non-standard" venue.
To prep for their first show of 2007, the Smoggers and Smogettes had assembled at the Soul Asylum rehearsal space earlier on Friday to piece together a set for a show at a benefit gig the following day. Calls had been made earlier in the week to Hoot King Jim Walsh inquiring about the possiblity of doing something on Friday night. In typical Smog fashion, Walsh was initially unavailable so Marc Perlman asked Walsh's son Henry to pencil the Smog in! Things were later suitably firmed up and after several hours of rehearsal, the Smog were on their way to The Hoot.
The Smog have never been known for a rigid rehearsal ethic, buy they definitely needed one this time for an important reason: a new drummer, G Wiz, the latest in a long line of Smog tubthumpers dating back to Dave Pirner. Wiz is an enormously talented guy who also plays with Kraig as a member of Joseph Arthur's backing band, The Lonely Astronauts. We were kidding him after the show that hopefully he wouldn't encounter the "Spinal Tap Syndrome," a reference to the hapless collection of mythical drummers from Spinal Tap who always seemed to die in the most spectacular of manners. After just a few songs at The Hoot, it was clear that Wiz was more than up to the task presented to him; at both this Smog gig and the one the next day in Waseca he was never less than spectacular. At the Hoot he added a light but critical touch -- shaking some maracas, playing a de-snared snare drum with his hand or lightly playing the brushes. He also enhanced the vocal mix with some truly fine harmonies.
The 8 song set Golden Smog performed was the finest evocation of the original "Smog Spirit" I'd witnessed since the old days of last-minute pseudonymous appearances in the last 80s/early 90s at the original 400 Bar and local house parties. Just a bunch of cats sittin' around, whoopin' it up and laying down some great music. In keeping with the spirit of the Friday Night Hoots, everything was "unplugged." There was even some predictable Smog-ish confusion -- keyboardist Fil Krohnengold, who has sat in with them a few times in recent years and was called on again for the Waseca benefit show, forgot a power cord at the rehearsal space so his keyboard sat unused next to the stage, in the process becoming the first "air keyboardist" in Golden Smog history, a fitting "instrument" for a band whose press releases once featured an imaginary discography.
The set included some old Smog chestnuts as well as a powerful closer of Louris' stunning AFD elegy, "Listen Joe." Relatively new Smog friend Janey Winterbauer sang on one of my very fave AFD tracks, "Cure For This" -- the lush beauty of her voice singing Marc Perlman's words combined with the band's spot-on arrangement hit the already enraptured crowd with an almost unearthly impact.
Perlman and Winterbaur also provided a nice bit of synchronicity for the Hoot -- they appeared (as the folk duo "Marc and Janey") at the very first Hoot seven months ago in front a crowd a mere fraction of the size of the multitudes jammed into Java Jacks on Friday.
"Yesterday Cried" -- one of Johnson's finest compositions that never seems to get played enough -- was also a big winner, the unplugged arrangement transforming the songs delicate beauty in ways no electric setting ever could. I think i've probably loved every single performance of this song that i've been fortunate enough to hear over the years and this reading could've have been the most moving of them all. And what was so cool about hearing it at The Hoot was that it apparently was a fluke. After a rousing rendition of "Until You Came Along" -- the Smog at their Face-ish best -- everybody turned to Danny for the next song, but he suddenly whispered to Kraig, "how 'bout 'Yesterday'," which implied that they weren't planning on playing it. Considering that the next song after "Yesterday" was indeed one of Danny's, this turned out to be a wonderfully unselfish display of comraderie and a devotion to making the most out of the moment -- in other words, a decidedly "Smog-ish" moment and another illustration of why they have the ability to be better than 99% of the bands out there, even when it's by accident.
The most memorable meshing of The Smog with The Hoot occured during Roger Miller's "Dang Me," a classic Smog cover that Kraig always seems to perform with great relish. He sang it this time to his mom, who was sitting directly in front of him. The song's sing-songy chorus and corny narrative was tailor-made for a 21st century hootenanny.
In a flash, it was all over except for the sweat and the fond memories. For most of the audience -- certainly for any of them that were big GS fans -- this was an extraordinarly special event that will likely be talked about for years. Who woulda thunk that a last-minute surprise peformance by a group that barely even exists could be so satisfying? Such is the magic of The Golden Smog...creating sheer excellence in the unlikeliest of settings when you least expect it.
More pictures, including some from the gig the next day, are here.
Youtube footage from The Hoot here, here and here.
Golden Smog
June 8, 2007
Friday Night Hootenanny @ Java Jacks - Minneapolis, MN
Gary Louris - acoustic gtr, harmonica & vox
Marc Perlman - electric bass
Kraig Johnson - acoustic gtr & vox
Dan Murphy - acoustic gtr & vox
with special guests:
G Wiz - percussion & vox
Janey Winterbauer - vox
Fil Krohnengold - "air keyboards"
1. If I Only Had a Car
2. Until You Came Along
3. Yesterday Cried
4. Ill-Fated
5. Starman
6. Cure For This (GL - Omnichord, JW - vocals, KJJ - bass, MP - ac gtr)
7. Dang Me
8. Listen Joe (GL & Wiz only)
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