Dressing dirty dirty

After watching the travesty in Chicago last night, I made my way down to the Great American Music Hall for a little Dirty Three. (In between, I warmed up at Ha-Ra, home of the City's most cantankerous bartender now that the guy at the Persian Aub Zam Zam Room has passed. Ha-Ra's bartender was not so amused by the endless repetition of the Josh Paul event.)

Quick hit on the D3: Australians. Amplified violin, guitar and drums. And there's a Dirty Fourth, who plays mandolin and bass. All instrumental, all the time. I've actually seen them once before -- it was probably 1998, and I was there primarily to see the opening act. They were a little two-piece from Tucson that used to be Giant Sand's rhythm section, and had just released their second album. Whatever happened to them, anyway?

There were times when I thought I was hearing music from the Windham Hill catalog, and there were times I thought I was at a Sonic Youth show. There were even some Zep-like moments. The drummer reminded me of Elvin Jones, though it may be becoming a cliché to say that about drummers. (We watched his reflection in a mirror most of the night due to an unusual seating arrangement at the GAMH.) The violinist talked a great game in between songs -- he made you wonder why he doesn't write lyrics, in fact -- but also played with his back to the audience virtually throughout the show. The guitar player was often the only person who held the music together, filling out the sound with arpeggiated structures, frequently with odd-timed riffs. He's the kind of player that really needs all six strings, if you know what I mean. The Dirty Fourth sometimes played lead, sometimes added flesh at the bottom of the sound.

The D3 seemed to spend as much time playing arrhythmically as playing to any specific meter. The spacey sections of their songs did go on rather long. I can't recall a single hook or melody from the entire night. And yet I left fully satisfied. The overall sound can sweep you away, and can be physically fulfilling. I was totally bushed by the end of the night -- and even skipped the encore, which I almost never do -- but I don't feel like I left lacking at all.

There was one rather telling moment during a pause between songs. People shouted out requests, and one guy near me asked them to "play the first song on Horse Stories, whatever that one's called." This is the way people call out requests at Dirty Three shows, apparently: in complete sentences, without knowing the titles of the songs.


FMFM: The Chambers Brothers' The Time Has Come, which is much stronger than I ever would have expected