How To Disappear Completely

howe gelb: the best old sound anyone has ever seen

ARIZONA AMP AND ALTERNATOR

we'll put a clamp on your old fret
we'll recharge the battery in your tremulator
we'll tune up your rusty machine head
we'll get right to it sooner or later
if you all feel mostly misunderstood
through it all you know it's too good
to just nix it
well... if it ain't broke
don't fix it.

if the white one thinks you're black
and the black one thinks you're white
and the country man thinks you're rock
and the rocker says you're just not right
if the yellow one thinks you're green
and the green one says you're yellow
and the kind one thinks you're mean
and the mean one says you're mellow
does the red one think you're true blue
and the blue one thinks you're well read
well what were you to do ?
compromise your hue instead ?
do you alternate somewhere in between
with the best old sound anyone has seen ?
then that is your country.
that is our zone.
ARIZONA AMP AND ALTERNATOR

Sunday night, Howe Gelb of Giant Sand played at the Horseshoe Tavern in downtown Toronto. The venue itself was a cozy affair, tucked in between a FCUK outlet store and a CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce--I use this bank). However, I began to feel that the location was less than ideal when, as I tried to locate the place, I saw homeless people walking up to cars when the lights were red. I don't mind talking to homeless people, but I'd rather not do it at night when I'm by myself. If I venture up to Toronto again, I'm definitely taking someone with me, even if they've never heard any of the music I like. 'Twill be my mission to enlighten.

The concert listing styled Howe Gelb as an alternative country troubadour. I guess that eclectic description just about sums it up. The former lead singer and lyricist for Giant Sand has a gravely baritone that entones his lyrics rather than pitching them on a melody. Think Rex Harrison, but an octave lower. Unlike Harrison, who always sounds as though he is reciting Shakespeare for a class play (must be the British accent and the crisp, precise diction), Gelb plays around with vocal timbres: he whispers, he gravels out, he distorts and amplifies his voice with microphones. His instruments were a guitar and a keyboard. He played both, sometimes at the same time.

I honestly must say that the gig was not quite what I expected. I've only heard Howe Gelb in the context of his band, Giant Sand. He was playful, I knew, because he played with words, sounds, meanings. But for some reason, I expected him to be serious in concert. Yet Gelb was, well, funny. Almost Victor Borge funny. And the high/low, serious/comedy prejudices in me were gently shaken.

Gelb, in bolo tie, black button-down shirt, blazer, jeans, boots, and derby hat, started off at the keyboard with an improvisatory, jazz tune. A nice little boogie, 12 bar blues. He worked the audience, till everyone was tapping their feet and generally not paying much attention. Then, the blues "crushed" notes hardly disguising the tune at all, the strains of "Are you sleeping?" sneaked into the theme. What the heck?? I think. But "House of the Rising Sun" immediately followed. Then I realized that the bass hand was doing a rhythmic and harmonic pattern that reminded me an awful lot of something Chopin would do, moments before the strains of the Funeral March hit my ear. But never to stay with any one theme for too long, Gelb leaned into the microphone and started singing "Summertime, and the living is easy. Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high..." The effect was really a musical collage, or else a game of "Name That Tune." Midway through, Gelb started wiggling his fingers and did a glissando with his index finger, sliding up the keyboard until his lonely finger stopped on the last key. "He is not imitating who I think he is!" I inwardly protested, but then Gelb winked at the audience and, deadpan expression, cut off my argument: "Chico. Not Harpo." Fragments taken from all genres and references to pop and high culture wove their way in and out of that opening jam.

Gelb was relaxed, experimental. If he didn't like the way a song was going on the guitar, he just quit. A trip to the keyboard and a few bars of "Moon River" put him back in the mood for another song. He meant to start off with a medley of songs about marriage. He plugged his guitar in and experimented with reverberating synthesized sound for a few minutes. "That was the first song about marriage," he said. Then he sang "a live muss" followed by "tower of song."

At one point, Gelb was messing around with a cool-sounding harmonic riff. "This is good," he said. "I should write a song for it." Having both hands full playing the guitar, he walked over to the keyboard and began picking out a melody with the headstock of his guitar. He probably could have kept it up for a while, but he quit while everyone was impressed and moved into "a quiet remote."

"We used to have a joke back in the States," said Gelb, and he strummed a few chords on the guitar. "I really like school; it's just the principal of the thing I can't stand. And that about sums up America today. [Pause for laughs.] I've decided that political boundaries shouldn't exist. Switzerland. America. Ireland. Melbourne. Canada. [Various other countries whose names I forget]. We all listen to the same music. Whatever music you listen to, that's what your country should be."

And he sang about a zone where no one quite fit into any of the boxes established by other people. It was a zone where "the country man thinks you're rock, and the rocker says you're just not right," an Ari-zon(e)-a zone. A true country song...about countries.

And that song of ecleticism summed up Gelb's performance for the night.

Not quite classical. Not quite jazz. Not quite rock. Not quite country.
A little of everything and something for all.
Play with sounds.
They are our friends.