By: Jon Behm
 |
| William Elliott Whitmore - Photo by Jon Behm |
I was at a seedy liquor store when I first heard that William Elliott Whitmore was going to be playing at the Triple Rock on Saturday night. I don’t think that there was a more appropriate place to catch wind of that whiskey soaked bluesman from Iowa, unless perhaps I was in jail. Not that I am insinuating that the man is in any way an alcoholic or an outlaw, but his songs certainly lend to that theme. Then again, when I was younger I thought that Tom Waits was some kind of salty old pirate in real life, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I were wrong in this case too.
The lineup for Saturday night was an interesting one. A local band, A Second from the Surface opened the set. They had already started when I walked in the door, and I was greeted with a wall of heavy guitar distortion and pure noise. I’m sure that there are people out there that can appreciate grindcore music better than me, so I will leave it to them to decide the merits of A Second from the Surface’s music. Though it makes me feel like a square, I thought it just sounded loud. Instead of listening, I went next door to the bar to have a few drinks and nearly ran into William Elliott Whitmore himself, having a drink of his own while chatting with local fans.
Whitmore is a young, tattooed singer who plays banjo, harmonica, and guitar equally skillfully. He hails from the little town of Montrose, Iowa. To hear him sing, though, you would think that he was an ancient son of Louisiana itself. His deep bass is so weighty, it seems to belie decades of hard drinking, cigarettes, and loves lost and unrequited. His blues is so genuine that you can’t help but wonder if he sold his soul to the devil at some dark crossroads in the Delta in exchange for mastery of the art. Though he and I are both from the same state, I feel like he and I must have lived in two completely different worlds altogether.
Immediately after taking the stage, Whitmore began to take requests from the crowd. He claimed to dislike playing a set list, and therefore took bids from whoever could shout the loudest. In this vein we heard some crowd favorites such as Diggin’ My Grave, the oft requested Johnny Law and Black Iowa Dirt. Like many blues songs, his were personal stories; particularly Johnny Law, which was about an unfair arrest.
Throughout the show, fans kept buying William highballs of whiskey. He would jokingly accuse them of trying to get him drunk and make as if to set the drinks aside, before slugging them down with one gulp, grinning slyly. “Mmm, you went for the good stuff,” he told us. The man appeared to be able to hold his liquor quite well, though, and held the crowd enthralled until he all too soon was gone.
I had never heard of the headlining act that night, Red Sparowes, but I figured that if they had Whitmore’s endorsement, they couldn’t be all bad. Unfortunately, his was a tough act to follow.
Red Sparowes are a post-rock group out of Los Angeles, made up of individual members of a bunch of different bands, most of which originated in the LA metal scene. The Sparowes’ rock is very heavy, atmospheric, and as far as I could tell, completely devoid of lyrics. While the songs were very moody and serious, the melodies weren’t really all that complex and the repetition, at times, really started to drag.
Behind the band was a video made up of various incongruous images such as children, plants and cold war leaders. The images seemed to be designed to convey the idea of control in some way, but the exact idea was never totally clear. The whole thing seemed very tortured. The friend accompanying me told me that they reminded him of his little brother’s high school band, who took themselves extremely seriously but who were all too self conscious to actually sing any lyrics to any of their songs. I didn’t think that they were half that bad, but I could definitely see where he was coming from.
I don’t think that lyrics are a necessity in music, but in this case I think something more is needed. It’s easy to play foreboding music and show images of political leaders, but I think that if you want to be taken seriously you need to be clearer with what you are trying to say. Whether this is done with lyrics, music, or visual messages, is completely up to you.
I count the evening’s show as one hit and two misses. Maybe the opener and closer just weren’t my style, but I definitely didn’t feel any need to stay for either’s whole set. Fortunately for me, the William Elliott Whitmore show alone was enough to leave me satisfied.
Location Info:
Triple Rock Social Club
Artist Info: A Second from the Surface, Red Sparowes, William Elliot Whitmore
Share this story:
Article comments powered by Disqus