Random Video Jukebox

Christopher Owens at The Earl, Atlanta, June 19, 2013

Last night, Christopher Owens, formerly of the band Girls and currently America's greatest living songwriter, put on a remarkable solo show at the redoubtable Earl. 

The show was truly solo in every sense of the word.  Not only did Owens play unaccompanied, just him on the stage with a guitar and occasional harmonica, but there were no opening acts, just Owens alone for 90 minutes.  The event was billed as "An Evening With Christopher Owens" and the Earl's stage was as barren as I've ever seen it.  The drum riser was moved up to the front of the stage and there were no drum kits or amps anywhere to be seen, just Owens sitting on a chair behind a mike.  

For the uninitiated, Owens was formally the frontman for the fine band Girls, but after that endeavor broke up, he released a solo album titled Lysandre, followed by a stripped-down acoustic version of the same album, offered for free download from his web site. Last night's performance was of the stripped-down, acoustic versions of the material.

The evening was truly magical.  Despite the set's simplicity, Owens had the small audience spellbound and attentive throughout as he spun out his lovely and sensitive songs.  Up until the encore, there was almost no stage banter other than the occasional "thank you" for the rapturous applause.  Instead, he simply let the songs speak for themselves, even as the performer himself often seemed to hide behind the hair falling in his face. One got a strong sense that the shy and sensitive person on the stage was baring his soul through his carefully crafted songs.  He exuded a vulnerability that only strengthened the bond between the exposed performer and the protective audience.

Owens clearly has a mastery of pop conventions, and is able to suggest larger arrangements of the songs through just a few well timed notes, even to those who weren't familiar with the full treatments in the original Lysandre album.  Most notably, he managed to keep all of the songs from sounding alike over the 90 minutes of his set, despite the spare instrumentation.  He covered almost all of the Lysandre material and threw in plenty of Girls songs as well, including notable covers of Lust For Life and Hunny Bunny, although sadly no new version of the Girls masterpiece song Vomit. 

He closed his set with a cover of the old song Smile ("Smile though your heart is aching, Smile even though it's breaking, When there are clouds in the sky you'll get by if you smile").  Somehow, it seemed like the perfect song to wrap up his happy/sad set. 

It truly was a special evening, and a performance I'm not likely to forget anytime soon.

Christopher Owens Coming to The Earl

Hell, yeah!  Word Productions has announced that America's greatest living songwriter, Christopher Owens, will be playing at The Earl on Wednesday, June 19, 2013.

Get your tickets now before this one sells out.  Also, and this is very cool, you can download a free, all-acoustic version of his album Lysandre at Christopher Owens' website.

As if you needed any more motivation, here's a little song you might remember from Owen's previous band, Girls:

Meanwhile, I just learned that Josh Rouse, America's greatest living songwriter, will be live-streaming his show in Nashville tonight (4-21-13) over here at 9:00 pm CST (click the "Listen Live" button and it will open a player for you).  The stream is courtesy of Nashville station Lightning 100 as a part of their Nashville Sunday Night series.

Television (the medium, not the band)

Okay, maybe this post isn't about music, but it is about pop culture, so deal with it.  The point of this post is that I own a television primarily for the Sunday evening premium channel series, and as of this week, they're all on hiatus.  

Last Sunday was the finale for the first half of this season of AMC's The Walking Dead; the second half of the season doesn't begin until February 10, begging the distinction between a "season break" and a "new season."  Whatevs.

Two weeks ago was the season finale of HBO's Treme, a show I've come to like once I realized that it's about the only series on television about both the lives of musicians and the music that they make.  Can you imagine if they came up with a similar premise, but set in the indie rock world of, say, Brooklyn or Portland, and featuring many of the actual musicians in supporting roles, like Treme does?  Now there would be an interesting show.  It actually wouldn't be too far of a stretch for HBO's How To Make It In America (also between seasons right now) to do this, basically just change the central industry from the fashion designer profession to the music profession. I'd watch it, and I bet many other people would, too.

Boardwalk Empire aired it's season finale last Sunday, the same night as the last Walking Dead.  Except for the Richard Harrow character, the series hasn't really lived up to its potential in my humble opinion, but it does have the Richard Harrow character and that's more than enough to keep me watching and bemoaning it's current hiatus.

Sons of Anarchy, a Tuesday night outlaw-biker series on FX, also wrapped up for the season last week, concluding with a run of 90-minute episodes.  

Meanwhile, HBO's Game of Thrones doesn't start its third season until March 31.  True Blood is between seasons.  The HBO comedies Curb Your Enthusiasm, Girls, and Real Time with Bill Maher are all off the air right now. Even the difficult to love The Newsroom is off until next June.

And why the hell didn't FX ever bring back its show Terriers after its initial season?  

Note that if any of these shows were on the air right now, I would be watching them and not writing whiny posts like this.