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Adrian Legg
Saturday · Whiskey Dick’s
It’s something of a cliché to say that a guitarist knows his instrument inside out, but as far as British fingerpicker Adrian Legg is concerned, the cliché is a literal truth.
After ditching his childhood oboe for the guitar in his teenage years, Legg developed a highly original picking style that incorporated single- and double-string bending, alternating bass and harmonics, banjo-peg retuning and alternate tunings in the service of songs that reflect a synthesis of Legg’s broad musical interests including Country, Folk, Classical, Jazz and Rock. By the mid-’70s, Legg’s performing and compositional brilliance had been recognized by Guitar Magazine, who utilized his equally stellar technical acumen by making him a regular contributor to their pages.
In 1976, Legg released his debut album, All Round Gigster, while maintaining a rigorous performing and writing schedule. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Legg was a technician at Rose, Morris Ltd., designing passive circuitry for the revamped Vox guitar line and went on to write a well-received book titled Customising Your Electric Guitar. Legg continued to record throughout the ’80s, releasing a trio of critically acclaimed albums that established and deepened his reputation as one of England’s foremost guitarists among fans, critics and his fellow musicians.
In 1990, Legg achieved the dual accomplishments of releasing his first album in the U.S., Guitars and Other Cathedrals, and he helped prototype and execute the massively successful Trace Acoustic amplifier series. Since then, Legg has managed to record eight more albums of typical beauty and intricacy while lending his technical talents to a series of instructional books and DVDs, and even landing a gig as a roving commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered.
But if you want to see where Adrian Legg is at his most passionate, catch him on stage. In typically far-reaching fashion, Legg has toured with Richard Thompson, David Lindley and Nanci Griffith, wowed the audience at the Montreux Jazz Festival and dropped jaws on the G3 Tour with Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Eric Johnson.
When you can amaze the audience as well as the performers you play with, you’ve damn well done something. And while Adrian Legg does that very thing on an almost routine basis, there is absolutely nothing routine about the things he does with a guitar, inside and out. (Brian Baker)
Annuals WITH PETER ADAMS
Tuesday · Southgate House
For an up-and-coming band, if you can’t get a million friends on your MySpace page or earn song placement on a TV show or commercial, it would be in your best interest to start saturating music blogs with your product. “Blog buzz” is starting to become as (if not more) important to new bands (particularly on the Indie Rock scene) as college radio or any other promotional opportunity. Blogs have a built-in readership of people interested in new music, making it ideal for new artists looking for an audience.
This type of Web exposure certainly aided the rise of Raleigh, N.C.-based sextet Annuals, which began as a name for singer/songwriter Adam Baker’s computer-assisted recordings. Baker began adding members, many longtime friends, who would pitch in on whatever was needed, no matter what their “main” instrument was. By 2004, the band settled into their current six-member incarnation and caught the attention of indie imprint Ace Fu Records (home to interesting Indie acts like Man Man, The Dears and DeVotchka) thanks to some demos posted — yup — online.
The deal resulted in the release of Annuals’ debut, Be He Me, a dizzyingly eclectic and multihued album that incorporates a swirl of electronic and sampled additives into Baker’s unique, dynamic songwriting style. The collagist layers of sound rarely come off as cluttered, with the samples and electronic perks being integral, not just some bizarre “look at me” decorations. Annuals benefit from another technological leap — the affordability of high-quality recording gear for home recording — which seems to have enabled Baker to get a full grasp on how to impeccably embed these flourishes.
Opening track “Brother” harmoniously brings strings and noise together for a backdrop that recalls one of the earliest instances of looping, The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.” The song buzzes along on a sea of soaring sound before crashing into the meat of the song, which comes off like a mix of Mercury Rev and Arcade Fire. The group also recalls everything from Animal Collective to Broken Social Scene, but they are far too singular for one to to draw a straight line from them to anyone on the musical family tree.
Most of Annuals’ songs rarely end up where you expect — “Dry Clothes” has a jaunty Pop bounce (lathered in textural orchestration), but the coda morphs into a hypnotic chant of the title, sounding like something Brian Wilson might have slipped into Smile. Elsewhere, “Carry Around” is a colorful swirl of candy-flavored piano and egg-shaped synth sounds, which spin around a cheery melody in awkward concord, while “Bleary Eyed” plays it relatively straight, as trippy hooks unfold over the acoustic-based scenery.
Annuals are refreshingly unpredictable, something that’s becoming a lost art in music. When it comes to bands with a kitchen-sink approach, Annuals stand above most by crafting something engaging and blissfully erratic without coming off clunky or overstimulating. Live, the group has converted many a new fan, with members switching off instruments to re-create the magnetic sound captured brilliantly on Be He Me. (Mike Breen)
Mason Jennings with Guster
Tuesday · Bogart’s
In the decade that Mason Jennings has been in the spotlight, he has effectively put a new spin on the whole singer/songwriter concept. Born in Hawaii, raised in Pittsburgh, Jennings learned to follow his creative heart early in life, picking up the guitar at 13 and dropping out of high school three years later to realize his musical dream. At 16, Jennings moved to Minneapolis because he was impressed with the scene there and began a long apprenticeship that found the young, aspiring songwriter living the life of day jobs/night gigs as he learned more about his craft and himself.
Jennings recorded his eponymous debut album in his living room when he was 22 and released it himself, garnering a lot of attention and critical acclaim. The following year, Jennings and his just-hired band landed a plum gig opening for Soul Asylum guitarist Dave Pirner’s side project, which instantly became a headlining show when Pirner’s band had to cancel. Jennings and his group captivated the crowd and impressed the bar’s management, who offered them a weekly residency. But the downside of having an adoring fan base reared its head when Jennings was recording his sophomore album, which he shelved because he felt he had satisfied his audience and not himself. Writing a completely new batch of songs with a more political slant lyrically and a bluesier, jazzier Folk edge, Jennings released his second album, Birds Flying Away, in 2000.
At that point, critics were comparing him favorably with Bob Dylan, Nick Drake and Lou Reed, the major labels began noticing and contracts were routinely offered but Jennings turned down all suitors, preferring to make his own way in the industry. Falling in love with his future wife inspired the songs on 2002’s Century Springs; an acoustic rarities collection and an EP followed soon after. In 2004, Jennings released Use Your Voice, featuring the track “Keepin’ It Real,” which he had written at the behest of the producers of Shrek 2 (they didn’t use the song in the film), and followed it seven months later with a DVD titled Use Your Van, which chronicled the making of the album and the subsequent promo tour.
In 2005, Jennings finally found a major label deal he liked, signing with Glacial Pace, the Sony/Epic imprint run by Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock, which resulted in the sublime Boneclouds, produced by neo-Folk figure Noah Georgeson and released last spring. From the start, Mason Jennings has shown an unwavering willingness to go his own way and so far the results have been undeniably satisfying. (BB)
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2007.
