The Red and Black

February 26th, 2008

Memories that turn your bones to glass

Bill Callahan’s rich.

MP3: Diamond Dancer (press that little play button).

“My wallet’s gotten too fat from this tour,” Callahan said last night at The Red Light Cafe in Atlanta, removing the girthy thing from the breast pocket of his jacket and replacing it in a back pocket. The joke was quiet and unexpected, yielding lengthy, bewildered laughter from the audience.

Callahan, who performed and recorded for years under the name Smog, doesn’t talk much between songs. Typically, a smallish “thanks” stands in where other frontmen might wonder how are we tonight, Atlanta.

The venue - oblong, cozy, with a capacity of about 150 - was packed. Sorry to the suckers who showed up late and stood crowded ’round the bar toward the back out of necessity, and high five to those of us who staked claims at stage-side tables.

Callahan, guitarist Jonathan Meiburg (see Shearwater) and drummer Thor Harris each wore black suits. In them, long-haired and bearded Harris was adorable, Callahan a natural, and Meiburg lanky.

Through slitted eyes Callahan peered out at nothing, or at least not at any of us. High notes and drawn out syncopation made his face screw up, handsome features contorted.

And okay. So Callahan missed a few high notes (”I have a cold”), restarted a song (”My guitar disappeared”) and mixed up verses in another (to what seemed to be Meiburg’s grinned, but unspoken, “Oh, Bill”). Didn’t matter.

He two-stepped, marched-in-placed, kicked and strutted his songs hard and without fail. Where Meiburg’s frantic kinetic energy suited his electric guitar, Callahan maintained infinite, calculated composure on his tiny little acoustic.

And if he’s going to play it live, he’s going to make it new. Pulling from his newest Woke on a Whaleheart, released under his own name, and heavily from his last as Smog, A River Ain’t Too Much to Love, Callahan also reached further back with “Our Anniversary” and the closer “Cold Blooded old Times.” Rarely was a song delivered precisely in the way its album representative was recorded. It was a fun game: Is he gonna make it? Will he delay that line and miss the next? He always made it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Music, Variety Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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