10.13.07
The Wright time is now
Music comes to us in a myriad of ways. Some people send us their CDs in the mail. Sometimes we stumble across MySpaces that blow us away. Our friends shove CDs into our hands and mp3s into our inboxes.
Brian Wright and the Waco Tragedies came to me through a friend effusing over him.
“Who?” I said.
“What do you mean?” She said.
“I don’t know this dude.” I said.
“AHAHAHA! Awesome!” She said.
What she meant was “I know a band that you don’t!” People love to gloat over that, as you can well imagine. But I didn’t take it to heart since she immediately hooked me up and gave me detailed play-by-play about how totes awes he was and so on. (That’s me being funny, she’s actually quite articulate.)
The actual story she related to me that made me listen to his music involved him, during a show, complimenting an audience member for requesting a song with the addendum please and him ordering shots of Maker’s from the stage. A man who prizes politeness and drinks our drink of choice? Saddle it up, I’ll give it a listen!
Oh, woes and sackcloth, folks! There was some serious misfiring that it took a random conversation with a friend to land me this act.
First of all, his voice has a very similar timbre and inflection as Joe Purdy on many lyrics, and there doesn’t need to be a second for me here, but there are many other points nonetheless.
Bluebird is the record that I have that you can’t get yet.
I think my favorite tracks right now are “Your Brother The Poet,” which I’m about to put on repeat, and “Glory Hallelujah” which I just accidentally found out is going to be on the soundtrack to a MARIAH CAREY movie. I…where do I even go with that? Pretend to not have read it? Laugh and be glad a good act is getting some cash in their pockets? Wonder what Mariah Carey’s up to getting songs written for her by Willie Nelson? That article almost reads like the most brilliant kind of parody. I don’t think it’s a joke, though.
Oh well, Brian Wright and the Waco Tragedies need to eat just like the rest of us. Not everyone can live in their parents’ basement until they’re 30 like Pete Wentz. [This is a Fall Out Boy joke for those who may not have spent the past month listening to their roommate spazz about them. Or maybe everyone knows who Pete Wentz is, and I'm just totally out of touch with pop culture?—Daisy]
Ok, I could swear that Joe Purdy is singing backup vocals on “Adeline” on this record. If not, it’s uncanny. That’s it; I’m moving to L.A. (This was neither confirmed nor denied by Brian’s agent, so if Joe or Brian or anyone else who might know reads this, just lemme know.) [Why would Brian's agent know if you're moving to L.A. or not?—Daisy]
Now, to describe to the music itself. If I was talking to you in my living room, I’d call this the newest permutation of the L.A. singer songwriter sound, poetic lyrics with sharp musicianship from a large band (when the tracks aren’t solo acoustic) with tinkle-y percussion and strings. The band sounds loose, and the sound is probably the trick there.
The problem, I find, is that right now anything that has confessional or story-telling lyrics gets lumped into a huge category that’s labeled “singer/songwriter,” and I think that’s only helpful as a guide to mean “not screamo” or “not R&B” and so on. John Mayer is considered a singer/songwriter from what I can tell, and, well, no. At the base, I think of that label indicating something real or universal, or tapping into the traditional, western system of setting meaning to a stringed instrument for ease of use passing the message along. When I say singer/songwriter, that’s what I mean—something deep and real and global, as Corb Lund says. That’s the kind of music Brian Wright and the Waco Tragedies make.
So when I heard a few tracks from this and was told rapturous wonderments about his live act, I called up my buddy JD and said “Hey, Whaddya doin’ tonight?” She was, surprisingly, free and scuttled over to the show to scout for me.
She then proceeded to send me bourbon-fueled text messages all night in order to ensure I would be weeping into my phone that I was stuck in Nashville. It takes a lot for me to wish I was in California rather than east of the Mississippi, but that night I was seriously jealous.
All of the texts were hyperbolic. All of them are saved on my phone for future blackmail purposes. Apparently, seeing him live is the way go.
Brian and the gang are on tour. Naturally, he’s going to be in Nashville while I’m in L.A. Life just works that way. But that doesn’t mean you can’t catch him either on the American South leg of the tour or on the European part.
Oct 15, 2007 Davey’s Uptown Rambler Club, with Sally Jaye Kansas City, Missouri
Oct 18, 2007 Living Room New York City, New York
Oct 24, 2007 Loppen, with Tom McRae, Copenhagen
Oct 25, 2007 Debaser, with Tom McRae, Stockholm
Oct 26, 2007 Rockefeller, with Tom McRae, Oslo
Oct 27, 2007 Driv, with Tom McRae, Tromso
Oct 28, 2007 Folken, with Tom McRae, Stavanger
Oct 30, 2007 Ole Bull, with Tom McRae, Bergen
Nov 04, 2007 Cabaret Voltaire, with Tom McRae, Edinburgh, Scotland
Nov 05, 2007 Moshulu, with Tom McRae, Aberdeen, Scotland
Nov 06, 2007 Red, with Tom McRae, Greenock, Scotland
Nov 09, 2007 King Tuts, with Tom McRae, Glasgow, Scotland
Nov 10, 2007 King Tuts, with Tom McRae, Glasgow, Scotland
Nov 12, 2007 Limelight, with Tom McRae, Belfast, Ireland
Nov 13, 2007 Whelan’s, with Tom McRae, Dublin, Ireland
Nov 14, 2007 Roisin Dubh, with Tom McRae, Galway, Ireland
Nov 15, 2007 Dolans, with Tom McRae, Limerick, Ireland
Nov 16, 2007 Crane Lane Theatre, with Tom McRae, Cork, Ireland
Dec 05, 2007 Bush Hall, with Joe Purdy, London, England
Dec 06, 2007 Bush Hall, with Joe Purdy, London, England
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