A.C. Newman / The Oranges Band / Bird of Youth @ The Bell House

 

On Saturday night, it was time to catch up with Senor Carl Newman, lead singer and mastermind behind The New Pornographers. It's been 3 1/2 years since he's played solo or worked on a non-NP album. With two of my favorite ladies supporting on stage and on the album, he showed why he's one of the most prolific and consistent pop songwriters in music.

The night was a chance for him to debut new material from his second solo album, Get Guilty, which will be out on Matador on January 20. Like his first solo work, The Slow Wonder, the music is not that far off the New Pornographers material. The songs are catchy and concise and the lyrics are full of witticisms and cryptic meanings. The tempos are a slight step slower than the average NP song, but you can definitely see Carl's formula in both his solo work and the NP albums. The obvious main difference is that he gets to call all the shots, as suppose to sharing songwriting duties with Neko Case and Dan Bejar.  

Knowing Carl, he let his Canadian sense of humor peak out once in a while. He joked about getting a bunch of money from Starbucks for recording two songs for a Valentine Day's compilation and he has no problem taking money from the coffee giant. One song was A-ha's "Take On Me," which he didn 't play (he did a Go-Betweens cover instead), but sounds like an interesting choice. His unplanned encore, where he explained that he played every solo song his know, was "The Fake Headlines".

So I felt like a proud poppa as Nicole played the part of Stevie Nicks to Carl's Lindsey Buckingham and my homegirl Tara broke out her violin. My girls are all grows up! If Carl would like to enlist my alto saxophone playing abilities, I would be more than happy to help ... for a modest fee.

This is my first time at The Bell House, the new Brooklyn venue by the makers of Union Hall. I love it. It's located a few blocks away from Park Slope in the Gowanus section of town, obviously within earshot of the Gowanus Expressway. The joint is situated away from the residential area among warehouse and bus depot. Inside, it's like a fancy barn with chandeliers. It's bigger than I thought it would be, but they really did a nice job. It's spacious, easy to get around and plenty of bar space. They even sell meat pies, and one of the Red Hook vendors sells some strange Mexican food outside. No complaints about the place at all.

 

 

 

 

 

Two decent opening acts on the bill. In the middle was Baltimore band, The Oranges Band. It was the first act I've ever seen that had the lead singer's dad come on up on stage to announce that he's selling merch in the back. As for the band, they are a straight forward hard-rocking indie rock band.

 

 

Starting the night off was new local act Bird of Youth, whose debut album was produced of Will Sheff of Okkervil River. The music is similar in tone to Sheff's work, roots rocky in the vein of early Wilco. It took a couple of songs for the band to come together, but they have a good, easy going sound.

 

Comments

[Pupusas?]

"some strange Mexican food outside"??
Really? "Strange"? Pupusas?
(I won't even point out that they aren't mexican)

i think the A-HA thing was a joke

[G.E.D.]

I don't get it. are you related to Tara and Nicole?

[AL]

The A-Ha cover isn't a joke, it's happening!

if it's not a joke - i wanna listen to it more than the Go Betweens cover, which is much more a typical cover choice for Newman

[AC NewMan]

I heard Nicole Atkins is going on tour with AC Newman.