During the blog-blackout, Deb and Neil visited. They, I, and Michelle went to the Brudenell Social Club to see some good music being played.
I love this venue, and so did the other. It punches above it's weight in terms of quality of band to size of venue ratio, and so it was tonight that we came along to see Jason Molina fronting his Magnolia Electric Co. For you, reader, I captured some rather fuzzy images images of all three bands on my aging mobile phone (well, aging as only modern technology can; I'm sure my phone is considered obsolete even though it is only 18 months old).
I'm sorry, I can't actually remember the name of the first band. It was something like My My, but spelt differently. Internet searches are only as good as your spelling. I recall them being pretty good but not massively memorable.
Not so The Bitter Tears, who's very entrance caused befuddlement in the room. All of a sudden, singer Greg Norman is on stage, in drag, lightly strumming his guitar and singing. Heads turn - is that women's clothing he is wearing? A strange person appears to be dancing to an unheard beat in the space between the stage and the seats. He is wearing dungarees and apparently nothing else. But this, it transpires, Michael McGinley, who suddenly steps up to his position as bass player. The three other members, also in drag, materialise from various hidden recesses around the room, and they are into their first number before the folks watching can digest what is going on.
The Bitter Tears play a kind of dark county music, which seemed entirely appropriate and very right. Different, then, to the more accessible music played to us by Magnolia Electric Co. To me, Jason's songs seem very natural, like you might have heard them on a Sunday afternoon local radio show. But that's not the half of it. I love the description 'nocturnal, atmospheric music with a distinctly rural-american tinge', and I urge you to stop reading immediately and go and check out some of the band's output.
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