"People pay to see others believe in themselves."

That's a quote from Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, and a quote I'll apply to last night's Devendra Banhart gig at Bimbo's 365 Club. He's a wandering spirit, often a fascinating songwriter, but his greatest gift (or skill) is his total commitment to his material, no matter how idiosyncratic it may be. That, friends, is inspiring.

Devendra and band attracted a few hundred people to this tour-ending homecoming show. I suspect I was in the five oldest percent of the crowd -- I guess that means there were maybe fifteen or twenty people older than me there. Devendra himself was born in the 80s, which means that the 70s touchstones he sometimes uses as a stylistic base are a cultural memory to him, not things he actually experienced. (Just think, he was six years old when R.E.M.'s Document was new. Six! But I digress.) Maybe it's easier to discern the good and bad things about a past era's styles when you haven't actually experienced them yourself.

Which is not to say that Devendra's work is totally retro. I know he likes prewar folk music, i.e. Harry Smith stuff, and its influence on him is apparent; the warm, natural sound of his band does say late-60s-early-70s to me. But the guy's bread and butter is, essentially, his own weirdness -- his ability to tap into an interior creative voice, and his conviction that that voice is telling the truth more clearly than it could be told any other way. His throaty, tremulous vocal tics and bizarre songwriting devices are the most prominent evidence of that, but his knack for turning simple words into poetry is a subtler sign. Plus he knows that folk music used to be dance music too.

There is one person who kept springing into my mind during the show, and that is Shawn Phillips. (I've never even gotten a glimmer of recognition in anyone's eye when I mentioned that name, but he did sell a fair number of records on a major label in the early 70s. I guess he's in the great lost record store, in the bin beside Judee Sill and Val Stoecklein.) The similarities between Banhart and Phillips can be eerie, but I suspect Banhart will leave a deeper impression when all is said and done -- in some ways, he already has.