Live on This (The Earlies/High Dials/Castanets, Mercury Lounge)

“This is my favorite band in America,” Anton Newcombe said as he joined Montreal’s The High Dials on stage at the Mercury Lounge.  “And I mean all of America.  North America, Canada, the United States...”

Yes it’s AGCB – Another Great Canadian Band – and this one couldn’t have pulled into town at a better time.  For some reason I feel like, lately, I’ve suffered an onslaught of acts seeking to simulate that sultry Sixties’ sound; here’s one that gets it right-right-right on, man, without sounding dated or dumb or dull.  Pitch-perfect (sometimes Whoish) harmonies and Byrdlike jangle pump along with Kinksy pop precision.  When the soft-edged vocals or a reliance on reverb – or, god forbid, a flute – threaten to throw the works down an echo chamber, a drrrty guitar lick’ll appear to keep things immediate.  The sound is rich and complete and utterly capable.

This is what your Magic Numbers would sound like were they any good.

I mean, just listen to them (then buy their latest CD, The War of the Wakening Phantoms):

• The High Dials – Holy Ground.mp3


• The High Dials – Soul in Lust.mp3

...and suddenly everything is right with the world again.  I listened to “Holy Ground” on repeat for a solid half-hour; I only stopped because over the river they were about to play it live.

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They’re not new, but they are new-all-over-again.  Formed in 1997 as a trio known as The Datsons (not The Datsuns), the group – based around singer/guitarist/songwriter Trevor Anderson and bassist/sitarist Rishi Dhir – swapped drummers, added a guitarist and became The Datson Four.  By 2003, the group had changed its name to The High Dials and released the concept album A New Devotion.  Most of that older material (stream here and here) oozes a time-warp accuracy that’s anonymous, if not useless; appropriately enough, the group was embraced by Little Steven and his Underground Garage radio regime:  They played the Randall’s Island Fest, last year, and their past tour dates page shows a gig at the Virgin Megastore with The Chesterfield Kings.

Riiiight.

Wakening, though, is better, brighter, confident and clear.  It’s the work of a band no longer satisfied with honoring a time-worn veil of anonymity.  “Our time is coming,” they sing on this CD (released in July of this year), “When the wolves catch the sun and the moon.”  And they’re ready for the parade:  The High Dials are ready to be, now; they’re reclaiming themselves from anonymity, they’re about to take their part in this wonderful, terrifyingly diverse Canadian invasion.

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So, yeah, it was a good show.

Anton’s favorite band – or did he say best?  Did he call them the best band in America? – didn’t actually need him up there, and you could barely hear his acoustic guitar.  Newcombe spent most of the Dials’ set leaning against the front of the stage, occasionally interrupting Anderson’s intros with – we’ll charitably call them playful – comments (“Is it true that issues within the band are forcing you to break up?” etc.); mostly, he just enjoyed the set, and nodded approvingly into the monitor while drummer Robb Surridge (in a Booker T & the MG’s t-shirt) stepped out from his kit to play a harmonica solo during “Your Eyes are a Door.”  The instrumental jam Anton and the Dials played together was the only hint of excess during the gig, but with Dhir on sitar, his fingers alternately ripping into the instrument’s seventeen strings and dipping into a cup of olive oil lube, everyone was too amazed to complain.

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“I’m having the time of my life,” Christian Madden explained.  “I only look miserable.” 

The Earlies were back to wrap up their first-ever month-long tour with their first-ever New York show, and a quick head count – there were still, yes, eight – showed that no one had quit.  Or been killed.

After seeing them at the start of the tour,  I’d wondered if this extended time together – the intercontinental band assembles its music via mail – would bring them closer or push them apart.  A pinch of Column A, a dash of Column B.  Vocalist/guitarist Brandon Carr and vocalist/saxophonist/otherstuffist Nicky Madden improvised a mock-tiff on stage, Madden insisting that Carr’s South Park imitations are not hilarious at 5a.m. when in a van in the middle of Montana in thirty-below-weather when “my snot was frozen solid.”

Everyone else in the band was laughing, though, so things must be okay.  Come morning, two of them fly back home to Texas, the rest to Heathrow (one song was dedicated to “Ben, who got us through Customs”).

Musically, they sounded more in front of things than they had in Hoboken (“Well, we’re not jetlagged,” Madden offered).  Though they’d added a couple new songs (recorded before the tour, but not yet released) most of what they played still went according to script.  I wish they’d loosen up a bit:  The band was most effective when The Dials’ Dhir (“the most talented musician we’ve met on this tour”) squeezed in with his sitar (Madden proclaimed the addition “Brilliant” and Carr announced they’d be recalling all their CDs so they can add Dhir to the recording) and the group had to really listen to each other to make adjustments. 

And:  The setlist was still backloaded, so that the first half of their show focused on the band’s mellower, sparer stuff.  When you’ve got that many people and instruments on stage, it behooves the band to show us of what it’s capable, up front; instead, richer (and louder) numbers like “Morning Wonder” and “Devil’s Country” were saved for the end.

All in all it was still solid... I was just hoping some more of the fun – or the angst – of a round-country trip would find its way into the music.

You can listen or watch The Earlies' 12/1 appearance on KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic."  (realaudio)

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The Castanets’ set was a mess – one of their guitarists overslept and ran up on stage during what I assume was an improvised time-killing jam – and was only made notable by a duet (“Reflecting in the Angles”) with labelmate Sufjan Stevens.

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Central Village was there for The Earlies' set and reviewed it for The Gothamist;  Kathryn Yu has pics of their set.  The High Dials also apparently have a tour blog which they update -- in bulk -- every couple months or so.

tags: sufjan stevens  anton newcombe  brian jonestown massacre  magic numbers  the earlies  high dials  

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