Polk salad

I treated myself (sort of) to an evening in the Polk Gulch area of the city last night, with the ultimate goal of seeing Bart Davenport play by himself at the Hemlock Tavern, one of the city's best small venues.

After consuming a tasty saag/daal masala concoction at the unfortunately-named but well-enough-reputed Indian Aroma, then wandering into a couple of bookstores, I stepped into the Hemlock on one of its mellower nights. Sometimes the place is fairly aggro and full of Ramones; this night it was a little gentler. Someone kept playing X and the Minutemen on the jukebox (one way not to get your money's worth, in terms of dollars per second of music). I wonder if it was Michael Azerrad, who was there to play drums with the second band, King of France.

This Union Standard, a two-vintage-keyboard band, played first. I enjoyed their well-thought-out arrangements, though I couldn't really discern much in the way of lyrics. Sometimes it seemed like they were channeling the 10cc or some other 70s Music Explosion-type band. There are an awful lot of local San Francisco bands that seem to substitute retro references for actual creativity, and This Union Standard did occasionally tread that line, but ultimately I wound up on their side. I got the impression that six or eight years ago they would've been doing an alt-country thing, but that's so over now, right?

I didn't see all that much of King of France (hmm, they put "Critics" right next to "Home" on their Web site!), although I liked their guitar-keys-drums sound just fine. I think I would have liked them a lot more ten years ago, but that's mostly just me. Their singer projected a hell of a lot more than the Union Standard guys did, but he may have gone too far into the realm of the irritating on occasion too. I'm pretty sure the woman who was at the soundboard during the first half of their set turned into their bass player by the end. Odd arrangement.

Bart Davenport's songs are very strong, in terms of wordplay, musical creativity, structural integrity, and most importantly emotional commitment. There are times when he clowns a little onstage, and there are times on record when he dresses up the songs in obvious homages to Great Rock Records of the past. Sometimes it doesn't matter, because the fellow can write. Playing alone, without any Love horns or CSN harmonies or whatever, it's easy to see just how far ahead Bart is of nearly every other solo singer-songwriter I've seen in the city. (Perhaps Sean Hayes is in his league. I saw him in the catacombs of the Albion Castle in Hunters Point once. I can't really separate the rest of that experience from Sean's music, but it was captivating.) Bart brought out some new material too -- some bossa nova-type shuffle songs, some pop stuff that makes me think he's listening to Cole Porter, some that could be rock songs if he let them go that way. People loved it. I wonder why he's not huge sometimes.

I'm hoping to see the Salton Sea documentary tonight; will report back soon if I do.


FMFM: Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil. The band's fantastic control and dynamics really make the title track happen. Five stars from me.