Pink Houses vs Clovis Mann

I haven't been out to see live music in some time. Part of this is blatant laziness and my desire to be in bed by 10pm every night. Most shows in these parts don't even start until 9 or 10pm. And I've been on the wagon for a little while now, so staying away from show venues (read: bars) has just seemed easier. Nothing cures the boredom of waiting for your favorite band to take the stage like getting shit-faced drunk...and that's something I'm trying to avoid these days.

But Saturday night I decided I needed to not be such a lame-o, so I went out. Two shows peaked my interest, Pink Houses at The Badger Bowl, and Clovis Mann at the Lazy Oaf Lounge. The reason for my interest in both was the same, also being the reason that this post qualifies for this blog, that being that I wanted to watch the drummers.

Pink Houses, to my pre-show understanding, is a John Cougar Mellencamp tribute band. I'm not a rabid JCM/JC/JM fan, but I do enjoy the man's music more than average. He's had several drummers over the years, but one of the more steady ones has been Kenny Aronoff, who plays a kind of no nonsense rock and roll. Not very fancy, but well done. I wanted to see how the Pink Houses drummer pulled off Aronoff.

It was a bizarre experience to say the least. The show was at Badger Bowl, which is, well, a bowling alley. The room was packed, perhaps with about 125 folks, all ages 45 to 65. Plenty of them dancing. I have rarely seen these people at live music shows in all the years I've been attending them in Madison. I wonder if they just hang out at Badger Bowl all the time. I was suddenly aware of a vast cultural divide in this town...between places like the High Noon Saloon/Frequency/etc and places like The Badger Bowl.

And then there was the band.

Pink Houses is a ten piece band. Two guitars, bass, keys, drums, percussion, fiddle, mandolin, and two backup singers. The percussion guy occasionally pulls out a sax. The mandolin player sometimes adds a third guitar. And everyone...and I mean everyone...plays tamborine. In addition to these ten members, there were 3, perhaps 4, crew members. CREW MEMBERS! Yes, they had a sound guy, a light guy, and a guitar tech (the 4th person seemed like they might actually be the Badger Bowl sound person). I'm not sure how a band at the level of Pink Houses can afford to pay such an entourage (at 6 bucks a head). The economics makes no sense to me. And the capper...they all were using in ear monitors. The concept of in ear monitors at a bowling alley gig is just so funny I can't stand it.

The first couple of songs were just fine. JCM/JC/JM tunes. The lead singer belted them out from behind an acoustic guitar through a headset microphone. Jeans, cowboy boots, bald spot, and plenty of attitude. And god bless him. The drummer, my reason for being there, was servicable, but not remarkable. The parts were simple and not anything that I couldn't play. They were recognizable, but not the parts that Aronoff probably plays. I also didn't care for the sound of his snare, but that's personal preference. The bass player too wasn't doing much above and beyond the standard rock playbook. But together, the ten of them pulled off what they were trying to accomplish. They were a JCM/JC/JM tribute band that sounded reasonably like the real thing. And they were rocking the house.

And then things went terribly wrong. They morphed into a generic mainstream rock cover band. They played some vaguely Christian music...and then went full steam into schlock. The backup singers took turns at the lead. Half way through We Will Rock you I had to leave. I'm not sure why they didn't stick with JCM/JC/JM...lord knows the man has enough tunes to fill a 2 or 3 set show. For what it is worth, I doubt that the crowd cared. They may have, in fact, loved the schlock. I don't think of myself as a musical elitest, but I also find it shocking when people sink so deeply and so unironically into stereotype.

Counterpoint...Clovis Mann.

I left Badger Bowl and drove straight across town to the Lazy Oaf Lounge, a bizarre little venue that used to be a Mexican restaurant. The geometry of the room is kind of odd, with a full third of the space hidden behind the bar, which is in the middle of the room. There were, perhaps, 12 people there watching Clovis Mann. Rather, there were, perhaps, 12 people in the entire bar. Probably only five of them were watching the show.

Clovis Mann is a blues/rock/jamband on the verge of jazz. They play mostly originals. They are musical. EN, behind the drum kit, had a light touch on his small Gretsch jazz kit that I'm pretty sure wasn't mic'ed (in contrast to the over playing of the Pink Houses guy, made even LOUDER by amplification). His parts were more ornate than I'm used to seeing him play, very jazzy. Tons of ghost notes. He took a full, but tasteful, solo. He was classy, or as classy as a guy in kind of a hippy band can be. At the Lazy Oaf there's no sound guy. No lights other than a red spotlight shining from the floor right into the musician's eyes. Never mind in ear monitors, there's no monitors at all. I didn't stay long. They aren't really my cup of tea, even though I think they do a great job.

It was just about the biggest contrast I could imagine. A totally bizarre night. And I was still in bed by 11:30pm.