A recent clip of Tony Scherr performing "I Could Understand."
By Todd Lavoie
So so so many choices of what to do this weekend, I know, but let me throw another one your way: this Saturday and Sunday, April 19 and 20, the Independent will be hosting a mighty fine double-bill for fill all your strummed-up twang-age needs. As part of the Green Apple Festival, Brooklyn singer-songwriter and endlessly versatile collaborator Tony Scherr and Australian roots-folkies the Waifs will be playing two nights of rustic goodness at the adventurously booked Divisadero joint.
Now, the Waifs are a marvelous folk-rock group; their latest, sundirtwater (Compass), was just released over here after hitting it big back home in Australia last year. The disc offers a looser, dustier version of their familiar harmony-rich folk meditations, instead opting for deeper forays into the blues and country-soul. Particularly ear-catching is the title track, a swampy little rumba driven by Josh Cunningham's jazz-sweating guitar slinks and Vikki Simpson's lusty vocals:
I want to focus on Tony Scherr, though: the guy boasts a massively impressive resume, as a band member, collaborator, and solo artist. Before eventually heading down the dirt roads and rolling fields of country- and blues-flavored songwriting, he was a jazz bassist, adding both acoustic and electric low-end to a variety of ensembles. Scherr started off - and only a teenager at the time - as a member of one of Woody Herman's latter-day lineups, and then went on to perform with Russ Gershon's Either/Orchestra, an ensemble well-known for its anything-goes approach to interpreting the work of others. (Bob Dylan, Bobbie Gentry, Robert Fripp, and Duke Ellington have all at one point or another been given the Either/Orchestra overhaul.)
Then came a stint with John Lurie's Lounge Lizards, as well as a turn in the demented spazz-jazz deconstructionists Sex Mob, led by slide-trumpeting demon Steven Bernstein. Scherr brought delicious funk-rumbling and the occasionally lurid bottom-wiggle to the Mob's fearless (and perhaps fear-inducing) covers of formerly-jazz-shy tunes such as ABBA's "Fernando" and Nirvana's "About a Girl," as well as intriguingly named band originals. (The "Human Bidet" song cycle on the 2000 Knitting Factory LP Solid Sender springs to mind.)
Ever the intrepid improviser, he also added fascinating acoustic-guitar interplay to the group's festive delirium. As a collaborator, Scherr has lent his touch to recordings by everybody from Bill Frisell and Norah Jones to Broken Social Scene and Feist. (Fetch your copy of Feist's Let It Die and scope those liner notes - yep, her elegantly cracking "Lonely Lonely" is based on a song of his, namely "Sacramento.")
His solo albums - 2002's Come Around and 2007's Twist in the Wind (both Smells Like Records) - are indeed a bold new direction for someone so closely associated with jazz improv, though both do offer occasional glimpses of the artist's background. There are moments in his guitar playing (both electric and acoustic) that seem to reflect the extemporizations of earlier jazz-group experiences, but mainly Scherr is exploring the areas where country, blues, and folk overlap with straight-up rock 'n' roll.
Smoothing in gentle measures of warm summer-day downhome-y charms with good doses of grit-and-grumble, he's writing wonderfully road-trip-evoking roots-rock ala Alejandro Escovedo or Ryan Adams, with occasional dips into late-'60s/early-'70s countrified-boogie referring back to classic Exile pn Main Street-era Rolling Stones. Better yet, it's all delivered with an engaging, low-key familiarity, pitched somewhere between Adams and Karl Wallinger of World Party.
Come Around's highlight, for me personally, is the Southern country-blues confession, "In My Hands," a weary shuffle beginning with the resigned-sounding plea, "Don't you begin/ to tune me out again/ I've been here for a while like a weathervane/ squeaking as I spin/ Out in the rain." Then again, the downright-creepy scowl-and-stalk of "What Kind of Friend Are You" is another winner, as is the Hammond organ-glowing title track, a country/garage shuffler that only needs a few gospel ya-ya backing vocalists to seal the Dixie-groove deal.
Twist in the Wind boasts a similar easygoing spirit to that of his debut, though it is perhaps more venturesome, thanks to forays into skewed Latin-rock ("The Good Life") along with the use of lovely understated string arrangements ("Black Sheep"). There is also a radical interpretation of Cheap Trick's jukebox fave "I Want You to Want Me", its curious re-assembling of the '70s megahit a clear reminder of Scherr's extensive jazz-deconstruction background. His phrasing is also frequently jazz-informed, at times recalling Willie Nelson in the grace with which he weaves words around the beat. This is especially true on opener "Shop Girl" and the affecting "All That I Could Ask" ("It is worth my while to watch you napping/ To love you madly.")
Then there's the guitar work; Scherr's shredded-metal squalls on "I Could Understand" forge a compelling electric-blues, while the slow-burns of "Anytown" are flat-out Crazy Horse-worthy. And his aforementioned take on "I Want You to Want Me"? Let's just say I never thought the song could work as acoustic-guitar nightclub-jazz, but our man has done exactly that.
THE WAIFS AND TONY SCHERR
Sat/19-Sun/20, 9 p.m., $25
Independent
628 Divisadero, SF
(415) 771-1421
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