By: Andrea Myers
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Mike Nicolai at Dusty's - Photo by Andrea Myers (click for full size)
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I sashayed into Dusty's in Northeast on Saturday night unsure of what to expect and found myself in a room no larger than 20 feet long by 10 feet wide. I leaned over to the aging woman behind the pull-tab counter and asked her if this was where Mike Nicolai was playing tonight, and she insisted it was. There was no stage, and the room was empty except for a handful of older folks drinking off the work week at the bar, but the bartender said that the place would be transformed when Mike came, and that he would be playing at “that booth over there.”
I took a seat front and center as people slowly trickled in. I was worried the show was going to be either 1) severely under-populated or 2) seriously lacking seats for everyone, but people seemed to manage just fine, filing in and standing in groups around the room. Within the hour my friends and I had running jokes about the square footage of the bar (both the bar and the bathroom were exactly three steps from my seat), and the room was packed.
Mike Nicolai came in, pulled the table out of a booth in the middle of the room and set up his equipment in a makeshift stage area.
The crowd mostly talked over the opening act, an acoustic duo called Super Sack which consisted of Shane Gallivan & Tony Zaccardi from Kruddler. They played a short, solid set of folksy blues tunes with some interesting lyrics. I especially enjoyed the line, “Wine is fine, but whiskey screams ‘I love you.’”
I was surprised at how quiet the bar got when Mike Nicolai took the stage; it's clear that he has cultivated a dedicated following of fans. He started right into the first track of his new album God Fatigue in the Post Atom Age, for which this concert was a release party. The record starts out with a great spoken-word part that goes,
Some folks live their lives like a roll of the dice
Some folks decide by making plans
Some folks chart their course by the cards in their hands
And some folks, well, deny, deny...
It is easy to see that Mike Nicolai is a straight-forward kind of guy. He sings with a voice that is unfaltering and honest, with a rough edge reminiscent of John McCray of Cake or maybe Elvis Costello. He writes the lyrics of his songs in the liner notes of his album without any titles to distinguish the different songs, and ends it with a terse “The End.” He played his CD release show with little fanfare, starting with the first track and burning right through to the last, making it as much a listening party as a show.
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Mike Nicolai - Photo by Andrea Myers
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After listening to the new album live at the performance, once on the way home and then twice this morning when I woke up, I can assure you that this is an accessible record. The first track, “Tarot's Road,” has a great melody and fairy-tale imagery. It’s one of my favorites on the record because of the bare-bones composition of a man and his guitar hard at work.
Other songs on introduce more instruments and production by Rich Mattson of Ol' Yeller, which is mostly a good idea. The third track, “Post Atom Age,” is a fun and catchy assessment of our shell-shocked society and features a screaming electric guitar and a driving bass line. The cynical “Life-Sucker Waltz” comes alive with a plunky piano part, pounding out the three/four time. If I could change one thing about the album, it would be to take the overdub off of Nicolai's voice in songs like “Mass Blues,” and let his voice ring true like it does in live performance.
By the time Nicolai finished running down his track list and ducked out for his post-set cigarette, people had started ordering copies of the album with their drinks at the bar. People seemed to receive the new record really well, as exhibited by the following review I was able to get out of a drunk fellow concert-goer: “...he's just too good.”
Mike came back with a group called the Northeast Folk Trio, which consisted of Nicolai, Rich Mattson, and Baby Grant Johnson. The group played a series of covers, including songs by Waylon Jennings, Uncle Tupelo and a great rendition of Johnny Cash's “Blistered.”
But for me, the best part of the evening was when Nicolai played alone, pouring out his soul to a crowded, tiny room on this cold night in October.
Mike Nicolai set list / God Fatigue in the Post Atom Age track list
Tarot's Road
The Depths of Love
Post Atom Age
Life-Sucker Waltz
One Second Ago
Mass Blues
Silly Putty
House of Ears
Snakes
Son of Erotica
It's Your Blue, Swing It
Location Info:
Dusty's Bar
Artist Info: Mike Nicolai
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