Manby’s Head is loud, fast, tight, and means business.
I love this band. Best of all, they play chords I know and seem to have telepathically lifted most of their progressions from all the years I spent blowing out my ears jamming solo. That means a lot to me. If I hadn’t been raised by farm animals, I coulda been a contendah too. So I’m a fan, all right. And last night I finally got to know these guys a little better: it even turns out that one of them was at the same concert I went to years ago in College Park, MD, where Screamin’ Jay Hawkins opened for the Clash!
I don’t know how you put things like that together if you’re God, but Taos is like that. You end up here for reasons of affinity with an unseen order–more often the case with all of us than most realize or admit–but being aimed in this direction means a special kind of destiny or punishment. (Did I just define karma?) And if you stay here long enough, you’re ruined for re-entry into “the world.” There’s no way to explain it, and I’m not going to try, but it clearly has to do with being strong-armed by demons and tough motherfucking angels who don’t mess around. Just ask anyone. It’s totally insane to live here, but experiencing this makes every other place feel even worse! So why was Manby’s Head playing with Art of Flying [of whom more directly] at Shadows Lounge & Grill in Taos, New Mexico, instead of manifesting in some other sphere?
Who knows?–but I’m glad they did.
(Shadows is too small for this, I think. The sound was better at the record store gig for some reason: a bit more crisp, distinct. Less roar, more sledgehammer. Maybe that impression arose from the lack of bar noise at the other venue, as if anything could get in Manby’s way without being totally obliterated. I was grinning and bouncing like a fool, regardless. Many thanks!)
Art of Flying is something else. Not so loud, more subtle, idiosyncratic, and excellent. More high-quality art, but of a different sort. I don’t know these folks at all, but they’re been making music up in El Rito for a good long time. David Costanza’s songs sometimes had me wishing I could plug in my 12-string and “punch up” the sound, but he doesn’t need that: several numbers in particular were just spooky in the way they seemed to be accompanying a much larger, louder unseen band of ghosts! Just the way he likes it, I’ll bet.
So that was my Saturday night at the bar. While I was swilling margaritas and wolfing down a fine charred burger (just the way I like ‘em), listening to the above, my wife the pianist was accompanying the Taos Community Chorus performing beautiful, sophisticated works by all kinds of people I can’t pronounce. A strange thing, all this, in the terrible high desert. Art and toughness dried to spirit jerky at 7,000 feet!
(That’s what’s missing in Des Moines…)
Related posts:
