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One of the most striking live performances I've ever witnessed took place when postmodern troubadour Mark Growden performed his apocalyptic cabaret act at the late, lamented Wreck Room during the winter of 2003. Weather was bad and the crowd was small, but the composer and multi-instrumentalist held us all in thrall with a highly individuated approach to music making that cut through his music's folkloric trappings - as though Harry Smith, Kurt Weill, and John Cage had been reincarnated in a single body. He sang into the back of his banjo to generate sympathetic vibrations from its strings, dropped and slapped his lap steel while playing it for percussive effect, and ended the night standing on the bar, serenading the last-call holdouts with his accordion... read full review |
