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I saw Iris DeMent Friday night at the auditorium the next block over from my apartment building (very convenient) as part of the Six String Concerts series. Iris was great, as to be expected. The room also functions as a theatre, so it's very dark, with no windows, and it was very hot, since the room has no air conditioning. Iris wondered from the stage whether we were in a basement.

Observations from the concert:

• Iris wore a brown print dress, brown tights and black shoes. I'm sure that people from the Iris list will wander here, and they'll want to know that.
• Her new gospel CD will be officially in stores November 2, a change from the date of October 19 I had heard previously.
• Iris performed several songs I had not heard her perform before, including a semi-humorous one she had written about her marriage with Greg Brown called "I Think This Love is Going to Last." Other new pieces included one she wrote for the gospel album called, I think, "He Reached Down." Iris tends to mumble little asides onstage, and I missed her giving the title to that tune, being distracted by a bold audience member who opened a door to let some air in. She also did a new tune about her mother, "Mama Always Told Me Her Truth." When she finally gets around to recording her new non-gospel CD, she will have several really fine songs to put on it.

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Rod MacDonald seems to be one of those artists who is a singer/songwriter's singer/songwriter, as his work has been covered by many in the business, but he himself has not achieved the kind of success that his talent would seem to merit. I received a packet of his tunes, and they seem uniformly of high quality. I've added several tunes from his most recent CD, Recognition, and I'll be adding more from his back catalog down the road. He's not afraid to touch on such subjects as the bombing of Hiroshima, the death penalty, and 9/11 without veering into the trite, angry, or maudlin, as so many singer/songwriters seem to do when taking on big subjects. He also has a really fine, clear tenor voice.

Andrew Calhoun's new CD, Shadow of a Wing, is an interesting project, exploring both the bright and dark sides of love in a series of short songs that seem often more like short character sketches. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Dawn Kinnard sounds so much like Lucinda Williams that it's scary, and has put together an excellent alt-country/folk debut CD.

The new (well, new to the USA) Kasey Chambers CD, Wayward Angel, has a little more of an eclectic folk/pop feel than some of her previous work. There's a little less twang, and the production is a little slicker, but the production still doesn't get inthe way of Chambers' voice or turn of phrase. All in all a very good CD.

The new Buddy Miller CD, Universal United House of Prayer, is huge. It is brilliant. An alt-country/soul revival tent full of gospel goodness. As good as the original material is, the standout track is a cover. The late great Mark Heard's "Worry Too Much" gets a gospel throwdown, with killer guitar fills and wailing backup vocals weaving in and out. And Dylan's "With God on Our Side" seems. The cover of Dylan's "With God on Our Side" is a bold statement for a gospel album. I like it - too often artists associated with gospel music are unwilling to question the extent to which religion in this country has become entwined with politics and power. The cover of the Louvin Brothers' "Higher Power" sizzles, as does "Fall on the Rock" co-written with wife Julie, which brings the CD to a barely-controlled epiphany of a conclusion. Go buy this - it'll be good for your soul.

Speaking of music that's good for your soul, have I mentioned that Mavis Staples has a new CD out? Okay, well, then I'm mentioning it again.

Richard Shindell is this week's featured artist, and his newest CD, Vuelta, continues his string of fine albums showing off his storytelling ability. Particularly fine is "Che Guevara T-Shirt" about a stowaway. (Aside - what is is about Richard Shindell and interrogations? Is there anyone else who has written more than one song about people being interrogated? Seriously. I want to know.) He has clearly been influenced by his residency in Argentina, with one song completely in Spanish.

I got this email this week from Christine Stay, of Miami folk duo Friction Farm:

Thanks for including Friction Farm in your new adds!I tuned in last week during Hurricane Frances - no electricity but the phones worked and I had a backup battery for my laptop (pretty high tech for listening to folk!) With no hot water we were all a little smelly, and with no power to cook we ate a lot of PB&J sandwiches so with you online it was just like folk festival.

Like Dave Barry says, I'm not making this up. Not even a hurricane can stop the mighty Online Folk Festival from folkin' your world. New X-Games competition category - Xtreme indoor folk!

Got the new Richard Shindell CD, Vuelta, this week. The guy can really tell a story. I particularly like "Che Guevara T-Shirt" and "The Last Fare of the Day". There's also a wonderfully subversive cover of "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy." We had a big discussion on the FOLK-DJL recently about protest songs, and I have to admit that my taste in protest songs tends towards those that have some sort of universal application (anti-war rather than anti-a-particular-war). Certainly, adding a hefty dash of the universal increases the shelf life of a song. As Berkely Breathed once so aptly said in an early Bloom County cartoon: "Metaphor - your key to quality literature."

Also got an excellent CD from Canadian singer/songwriter Jory Nash. He has a brand new one coming out soon, but he sent me his previous CD, Lo-Fi Northern Blues, which contains a nice blend of sparsely produced acoustic folk and blues. I particularly liked "The Robbery", which features a driving banjo backbeat, and "Northern Blues", which contains some really nice acoustic blues picking. I look forward to receiving the new one.

In the Queue

Been a busy week for CD acquisition. I got three CDs from Rod McDonald, a box o'CDs from Waterbug Records, a new CD from Al Petteway and Amy White plus I stopped at Best Buy and could not pass up the new CDs from Mavis Staples and Kasey Chambers. Plus I found the Dawn Kinnard CD today at Used Kids for $3. I really dig the song of hers on the Paste Sampler - her voice is a dead ringer for Lucinda Williams. Bottom line - I've got a lot of listening to do.

I also picked up the new best of from The Talking Heads. It's not folk music, but it sure is glorious, quirky rock and roll. My only complaint with the set is that "Stay Up Late" didn't make the collection. And the remastered a capella opening to "Road to Nowhere" continues to give me chills.

Some words from Mavis Staples and David Byrne to close . First, Mavis:

"He said...accept responsibility
Don't forget humility
At every opportunity
Serve your artistry
Don't subscribe to bigotry, hypocrisy, duplicity
Respect humanity
That's Pops recipe"

And the days go by...

Saw Railroad Earth last night at The Newport. Some assorted comments and observations:

• Railroad Earth is fantastic live. They put out a phenomenal bluegrass-inspired wall of sound, and every member of the group gets ample opportunity to display his solo chops. Particularly impressive was the group's signature song, "Head" where the fiddler and mandolinist traded solo licks back and forth.
• Is it the beer? The marijuana? The 60s-inspired "summer of love" hippie clothing? What is it that makes people at jamband concerts do that twirling dork dance? You know the one. You can't get within a square meter of someone doing the twirling dork dance, usually in some Stevie Nicks-inspired gypsy outfit.
• Then there is the masculine version of the twirling dork dance, which is the spastic space-out, in which the guy stares forward into space, arms extended, and occasionally spasms (may or may not involve head bobbing) more or less in time with the music (usually less).
• First time I've ever been offered a hit. I declined. I must not have looked like I was enjoying myself enough, perhaps because I wasn't doing the spastic space-out or the twirling dork dance.
• Why must bar shows start so late? At both Little Brother's and the Newport, doors usually open at 8, so if you actually want to sit (instead of stand all evening), you need to be there at 8 (or for a really popular band, at 7:15 to wait outdoors). The opening band comes on at 9 and plays for an hour. So, now it's 10 pm, you've worked all day, you've been sitting for two hours, and you still haven't seen the band you came to see. Then there's a half hour to tear down the opening band and set up the main act, so the concert really starts at 10:30 pm. I don't know about you, but after working from 8 to 5, I run out of steam about 11:30, just when the band is really getting tight. I left the Railroad Earth concert at midnight, and the band was still going strong, simply because I was exhausted.
• May I just say that it is evil, evil, evil that Railroad Earth and Brave Combo were both playing in town the same night and that I had to choose just one of them? Not as evil as Art Modell and the Baltimore Ravens, but evil nonetheless.

Recent Adds

*Greg Brown: In the Hills of California - It's hardly a news flash, but it's worth saying again - Greg Brown is a great live performer. If you can't go see him, buy this two-disk set, recorded over the last several years at the Kate Wolf Folk Festival in northern California with backing artists including Nena Gerber, Karen Savoca, Pete Heitzman and Shawn Colvin. Excellent mix of classic Greg Brown songs and well-chosen covers and traditional tunes, several of which have never been recorded by Brown anywhere before. Profits go for a charity that exposes schoolchildren to live musical experiences.

*The Jones Family: From Earth to Heaven - Family group from Maryland that does an excellent job covering a well-chosen mix of traditional tunes and some surprising covers. Most family groups would not have the chutzpah to record covers by Leonard Cohen, Richard Thompson and David Byrne. It got my attention.

*Nancy K. Dillon: Just Let Me Dream - This is a really fine album of singer/songwriter fare with a bit of an old-timey feel in spots. I like this CD a lot. The songs are well-written, tuneful and intelligent.

*Soulscript: Bleeding on Paper - Nice folky rock and roll. A little more produced than most of the music I play, but I like it nonetheless.

*Colleen Geraghty: Deep Ravines - My apologies to Colleen. This disk got stuck in a pile of stuff for a couple months and I just found it recently. A little too thick with the new-agey spirituality for me in some spots, but there are several really excellent songs here.

Fairport Convention featured next week. Just got the Cropredy Box. Richard Thompson playing with Fairport on the old tunes - Choice!