On Thursday 8/20 Langhorne slim played (on his 35th birthday) at Headliners with opening act Clear Plastic Masks from Nashville.
Clear Plastic Masks started at 8:20 with a blend of 60s psychedelic and 50s standard Rock. Lead man Andrew Katz rambled on between songs about his observations of Louisville, including not knowing how to pronounce the town name and how people here love horses, and at one point sneering at and harassing audience members for talking during the set. Multi-instrumentalist Matt Menold was the saving grace for this off-start by jumping seamlessly back and forth from keys to guitar and presenting the best performance of the band, aside from the talented drummer Charles Garmendia from the Dominican Republic.
Andrew Katz and Clear Plastic Masks
Langhorne Slim and The Law
Langhorne Slim and the Law took the stage at 9:30, thanking headliners for a birthday cake and gift of a personalized Louisville Slugger before breaking into title track from the new album The Spirit Moves, emulating the horn section from the recording by singing "bam bam bah bam!" to great applause. The second song of the night, Pull it Together, also from the new album, was in turn followed by favorites from his seven album catalog.
Langhorne Slim took command of the stage working the crowd into a frenzy as only a master performer can, and at times embodying the spirit of Marvin Gaye; howling and rolling about the stage before dropping into a very quiet and intimate rendition of Wolves, the last track from The Spirit Moves.
At one point the band went back stage as Slim serenaded the audience with just his guitar and several songs before the band returned for an explosive encore, beginning with the song The Way We Move; and ending the evening with the song Fire (from the album The Way We Move) while parading through the crowd in a masterful finale to a fine crafted performance.
Langhorne Slim singing FIRE from within the audience during the encore.
With winter right around the corner this Wednesday is the last WFPK Waterfront Wednesday show of 2008. WFPK has organized a hell of a line-up for a finale. Info about the artist below from the WFPK website.
John Mann Band- 6pm In his twenty-seven years, John Mann has veered both near and far from his native western Kentucky. After going to college in Lexington, Mann moved for a brief period to San Diego, before returning to Kentucky and making the move to Louisville.
With an interesting musical heritage (Mann’s cousin is former Sun Records artist Carl Mann, who had a hit in the fifties with an up-tempo reworking of the pop standard, Mona Lisa), Mann has tried to keep his music planted in the present with an always keen eye to the past.
In December of 2004 John released his second album called Hands in the Pavement, which was a favorite on 91.9 WFPK. References to Hiatt, Dylan, Van Morrison, the Band, Cash, and Muscle Shoals-among others are often coined in describing Mann’s crafting of songs. Mann is also highly sought after as an accompanying guitar player in many local bands, most notably as a full time guitarist/harmony singer with Louisville legend Tim Krekel; he has also played with Danny Flanigan, Hell’s Half Acre, and Ten Months Later.
With the release of his latest effort, Evening News, Mann and family recently relocated to Nashville, Tenn., where he’ll continue writing, recording and touring.
@ the Rudyard Kipling in May
-------------------------------------- Langhorne Slim and the War Eagles- 7:30pm Something of a one-man mixture of the Cramps, Beck’s early indie records (circa One Foot in the Grave), and the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou, singer and guitarist Langhorne Slim offers a sardonic, modern take on traditional folk, country, and blues. Fancifully dubbed “the bastard son of Hasil Adkins” in some of his early press releases, Langhorne Slim is in fact a Pennsylvania native who resettled in Brooklyn after his graduation from the State University of New York at Purchase.
After a self-released demo garnered some local and online attention (as well as a semi-regular gig as the opening act for indie novelty outfit the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players), Langhorne Slim signed with the indie label Narnack Records and released his first EP, Electric Love Letter, in March 2004. The more varied and band-oriented full-length When the Sun’s Gone Down followed in the spring of 2005. Much touring ensued over the next year, including support dates with Lucero and Murder by Death, with drummer Malachi DeLorenzo and upright bassist Paul DeFiglia (aka “the War Eagles”) in tow. In 2006, Langhorne Slim signed with the larger (though still not major) label V2 Records, which released the all-new EP Engine in September of that year, as the singer was finishing recording his second full album, produced by Josh Ritter’s keyboardist, Sam Kassirer.
"Restless"
-------------------------------------- Paul Thorn Band– 9pm The first thing you notice is The Voice, unique and distinctive, the voice of a man who has walked a long, hot span over dusty Mississippi country roads. At turns soulful, raw, melancholy, brazen, funky, circumspect, serene, brooding, and mutinous, the voice expresses the range of human emotions, from forlorn grimness to incandescent optimism. And after repeated listens, you realize that his is not merely the voice of a poet but also of a merciful prophet, a summation not unjustified. Those who follow the career of Paul Thorn believe he is both.
His newest CD is A Long Way From Tupelo, a collection of songs which once again illustrates Thorn’s versatility and authentic connection to the music of the Mississippi heartland: blues, country, gospel, rhythm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll. Thorn excels as a musical storyteller. Maybe, given his background, he just can’t help it. His songs are conduits for that gritty part of the South where beleaguered wisdom is as likely from the bottom of a bottle of Johnny Walker Red as it is from the pulpit of an old country church. And the latest Paul Thorn CD remains true to form.
