Providence!

Newly minted: the Benedictions and Detroit Rebellion

The Benedictions sound like they’re having too much fun to go seriously wrong even though they claim to Play Devil Music on their debut CD. And for all the minor-chording and back-delta strumming of Detroit Rebellion’s eponymous debut, what emerges from the music and the lyrics is the voice of the righteous believer, the kind of guy who might live outside the law to be honest, to paraphrase the Minnesota bard.  

Both acts are from Providence, a town that in recent years has seen the emergence of lots of young bands that don’t play rock music—Deer Tick, the Low Anthem, Brown Bird, Barn Burning, to name a few.  That is to say, in their songwriting and delivery there’s a common resistance to three chord rock and maybe a penchant for country and folk musics. Beyond that the latterly mentioned bands cannot, or probably should not, be lumped together.

As for the Benedictions, the “devil music” tag is a metaphor, clearly. Implicit in it is big aspirations for their sound and conversely, the risk of overreaching.  For in such a culturally jaded place as America’s contemporary music scene, would anybody even feel it if the devil were chewing on their ass?

But one lives in hope. As G.W. Mercure, one of three very distinctive singers and writers in the band explains in the CD’s liner notes, “The songs on The Benedictions Play Devil Music share a commonality to their evocation of myth; they go directly to that myth. It’s hard folk, hard blues, hard country.”

And if that sometimes equates to sounding Stonesy or swampy a la Creedance Clearwater Revival, there’s enough jump and originality in the songwriting for the Benedictions to come across as deserving of their 2010 Phoenix Best Music Poll Award as Best Roots Act.

Mercure’s “Pawn Shop Guitar” and “Tell the Devil,” Kelly Burke’s “Lonesome Tears,” and bassist Rob Shot’s “Crying Shame” are the standout tracks, but make no mistake, the Benedictions are a unit who obviously dig each other’s songs and turn them out with collective spirit and finesse.

Detroit Rebellion, on the other hand, is the work of one anonymous fellow (there’s a picture of the singer/songwriter playing a six string on the third page of the gatefold insert and that’s it), presumably, given the populist sentiments of the lyrics, because he represents the common Joe in his rootsiest persona, at home with the blues. And admittedly, I’m stretching the word “new” here since D.R. released this in the spring. But I dare say if this record comes out on Vanguard, Folkways or Elektra and we’re talking anytime 1964 instead of 2010, nitcrits everywhere are peeing their pantses to beat the competition to the newsstand. What to say? What to make of it? It’s folksy and bluesy and tells stories of honest people on the wrong side of the law, “A Case of Mistaken Identity,” and weather, race and class, “New Orleans,” and freedom of expression, “Don’t Make Waves.”

The rhythms drive, the chords are propulsive, the assured voice at times sounds a bit maniacal, and that’s the part that might baffle the old school folk critic. Because in D.R.’s delivery there’s a tinge of the spoken word provocateur. Perhaps it’s just his version of  populist-oriented Woody G. shading, or a new take on the tradition of  talking blues, but there’s a ballsy, punky edge to it,  making D.R. (I’m pleased to say) impossible to classify. Add to the mix, the periodic references to backwoods preaching, speaking in riddles and tongues, (“Didn’t See it Comin’),  facing judgment but not wanting to go it alone, “Step into the Fire,” and  the intermittent cries of D.R.’s imagined souls to their maker, and you’ve got the voice of a seeker delivering a hell of a debut.

Tried and True: Mark Cutler

Now I must remind myself I am here to inform, so it’s probably unacceptable for me to cop and attitude about Mark Cutler’s new CD, Red. The Rhodie part of the music fan in me wants to say, “Not for nothin’, but if you have to ask, you probably don’t deserve to  know.” Although he’s penned a mixtape for us, and provided bittersweet self-analysis in these pages, Mark Cutler is first and foremost, the NE region’s most important singer/songwriter. There I have said it and the songs on his latest solo record, Red (75 or less records), prove it.

Although the mostly acoustic arrangements step away from the driving garage sound of The Dino Club and Cutler’s seminal band, The Schemers, the wrapping fits an array of shifting moods that sound, well , lived-in. Here is the boy rocker middle-aged, talking about family, relationships, one-off experiences, inviting comparisons to Willy DeVille or Rickie Lee Jones (“Cousin Mary’s Car”),  or alternately Elvis Costello and Tom Petty in vocal timbre and delivery. But for me, all the cross-referencing gets a little silly after awhile.

Here’s what you do-listen to “Hovering,” and discover Mark Cutler is a poet. Listen to “Paycheck Away,” and discover that Mark Cutler is a guy who never forgets the audience that’s made him-the ones that crowd into joints all over Rhode Island and lately, Boston, to catch him in one of his many personae—power popping Schemer, jangle rocking Man of Great Courage, slide-guitar virtuoso with The Tiny String Band. Doesn’t it make sense, historically-speaking I mean, that so many of the guys in these bands, some of whom go back a quarter of a century with Cutler, contribute to the tunes on Red?

Now if you’re passing through the Biggest Little and have a night to spend happily in Providence or thereabouts, pick up a local paper and check the entertainment listings for  one or more of the following: The Schemers, the Dino Club (oh yes!), Men of Great Courage, The Tiny String Band, or the shaking like a mountain players.
That’s right, he’s one of us too..

Wayne Cresser is a co-founder and co-editor of shaking like a mountain