06.14.06

Cory Branan at the 3 Crow Bar in East Nashville

Posted in cory branan, hot live action - June 14th, 2006 at 12:32 pm by Mimi

Dear lord. On so many levels.

Before I launch into this review, I’m gonna complain about something totally unrelated. Then I’ll complain about reviewers, fangirls, and the internets.

I grind my coffee in the morning in one of those little Mr. Coffee grinders with the press-down button on the top. I don’t do this because I’m hip or from Seattle (unlike someone around here who doesn’t even barely drink coffee), but because my family are hillbillies and have always bought coffee beans. Why that is, I have no idea, other than they didn’t know they could buy it preground? When I was younger, before the whole movement for “freshness” and crapola like that, they were the only people I knew who bought coffee beans. Anyway, so they still do and therefore I do. I guess that’s sort of like how I’m a Baptist I guess.

Right. At any rate, our apartment has no grounded wall sockets. That means they’re all the kind with two holes instead of three for those of you not conversant in electricity. Therefore we have these ghetto adapters stuck in the wall all over. Now, not only are our sockets not grounded, they also sit cattywampus in the wall so the adapters don’t fit in right. So when I try to grind my coffee in the morning I have to do a little dance where I hold the adapter in the wall with one hand and the button down on my coffee grinder with the other. Since I am covered in bruises to prove how uncoordinated I am, I’m considering stocking up on Tums so I can just eat the beans directly out of the bag from now on since this whole system takes more than superhuman effort.

Maybe I should go back to Redbull.

The above? That’s just me complaining about being alive.

Sometimes fangirls provide a useful service to the world by making websites with detailed (stalkerish) information about artists that facilitate people like me click-click-clicking and finding someone’s entire life history down to their pets’ names and shoe size in thirty-seven seconds. Sometimes, though, they aren’t helpful at all because all they do is post pictures they took with their camera phones on Flikr. Guess which kind of fangirls Cory has?

Saturday, June 3rd, we went with a couple of our friends, Bunny and Daisy, to see Cory Branan at the 3 Crow Bar with The Thrift Store Cowboys. We didn’t actually attend this show to review it because we are devoid of any ability to be critical or reviewy when it comes to Cory—Cricket has an ID bracelet with one of his lyrics on it (more on that later) and I might get a tattoo with another lyric of his to prove my utter besottedness. So. We went to make asses of ourselves and embarrass our friends. [We have to embarrass our friends because we have no shame ourselves.—Cricket]

Mission accomplished.

The place was totally packed even though we got there super early. At least I think it was super early, I have no real concept of distance or time, but it seemed early. The bar is laid out like side-by-side shotgun rooms—on the right side is a room with the bar along the far wall and across the back, on the left the stage is on the front wall and the bathrooms are against the back wall. Standard little club layout. The stage is tee-tiny, maybe ten feet across? Again, don’t quote that. [Yeah, maybe 15 or 20 feet.—Cricket]

There are a few low, round tables on the venue side all crammed together and standing room behind that where people alternate dancing around, jostling other patrons and wedging themselves in like salt fish.

We stood in the doorway between the two rooms to watch the opening act, Thrift Store Cowboys. They’re from Lubbock, Texas. Is there anything I really have to add to that at this point? Everyone knows where I stand on swingy-rocky-bluesy bands from Texas, correctamundo? These kids sang and played their hearts out to a very drunken crowd who seemed confused about what kind of band they were seeing. Half the crowd were standard East Nashville hipsters in Chuck Taylors and “clever” slogan’d t-shirts, too scared to do more than drink their beer and look bored. One quarter of the crowd looked like Vandy chuckleheads and their chucklette girlfriends—I suspect the seventy-foot tall boy who spilled his damned beer on me was anyway. The rest of the crowd we thought were the families of the kids playing, but in the end we were wrong about that—so there were some random old-timer cowboys and cowgirls in the audience out on the town who really enjoyed the Thrift Store Cowboys.

We liked them enough to buy their CDs. [And fawn all over them.—Cricket]

We liked them way more later when we met them and they were the sweetest boys.

More on them when we review their album.

After the Thrift Store Cowboys skedaddled from the stage, one of the sets of old-timer cowfolks vacated the table directly abutting the stage and we happened to be standing right the hell there.

Pity Cory. We were a foot from the stage for his entire set.

He doesn’t play a setlist–instead he just plays whatever he feels like at the time and takes requests from the audience (in this case a certain set of drunken women sitting so close he can’t ignore them). For most of the show, it was just him and his guitar and his self-depreciating bumpers and intros to songs. He’s as funny and smart with his commentary as the songs are themselves, and that’s really only to be expected from someone who has made the body of work he has.

I think probably the highlight of the actual show was when we hollered out for “Attack of the 50 Foot Hangover” and he launched right into it with the commentary “This is the worst song I ever wrote,” with a laugh and a shake of his guitar. He sang it all the same, stopping throughout the song to warn the audience about the crappiness of the lyrics or about how the next bit might offend people. [Crappy or no, still one of the most hilarious songs ever written.—Cricket]

The stripped down, acoustic version of “Muhammad Ali” might be better than the one on the album. But then again, I think Cricket and I are two of the few people who still think that The Hell You Say is just as good as 12 Songs. It’s just a little different, but both are all good.

I didn’t scream out for “Wayward and Down,” which is my only regret about the show, but next time I am on that like white on rice.

[Sidebar for the fangirls looking for the kind of info we couldn't find on the net: he also played "A Bad Man Would Do You Good," "Miss Ferguson," "The Prettiest Waitress in Memphis," "Cracker Jack Heart," and "A Girl Named Go." I think. Sadly I didn't write it down and I have a memory like a sieve, so I suspect I'm forgetting a couple songs. He did reject some of our requests like for the "Kiss Song" and "All the Little Cowboys." A search for Cory on youtube.com will bring up some songs that aren't on either of his albums if y'all are interested in fangirling a little more.--Cricket]

The show was sort of like having your favorite singer show up out of the blue at your birthday party and then indulge you and your friends with the concert of your heart. Go see him when he comes to your town next time, and you’ll probably feel the same way, unless you totally suck and are too cool to ever enjoy yourself.

After the show, Cory drew lightning bolts on a Mucklewain poster while we talked his ear off and then he took pictures with his phonecam of Cricket’s fangirl ID bracelet. Cory is pretty much everything we love about independent music and artists, and he made us into his biggest fans without even knowing he was doing it.

He’s just a guy, y’all, just a very talented, very humble guy who writes amazing songs and puts on a freakin’ fantastic live show that you should haul your asses to see when he comes back to town. I hear he lives here now, so maybe that will be before Mucklewain.

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