One of the blessings of life in this area, as I’ve said many times before on this blog, is the listener-supporter public radio station WEXT, 97.7 FM. If it weren’t for them, I would not have been likely to venture to Central Avenue in Albany to finally visit the converted bank, now music hall, dubbed “The Linda” one cold February Saturday night recently, to see the California-based band MILO GREENE. It was a revelation and a pleasure for my wife and I, and I am now hooked on yet another group after seeing their live act.
Like most of the audience (I’m guessing), I knew them only from one song played prominently on WEXT, which is a haunting, jangly harmonic song called “1957”– and that title is still a mystery to me. They were described as a “Folk-Pop” aggregation from LA, which is and was a gross understatement, but then attempts to categorize music are always a bit hazy. Local writer Brian McElhiney also helped pique our interest with a Thursday preview my wife picked up on in The Daily Gazette (a fine Schenectady newspaper, for those of you outside our immediate area), so thanks to him as well.
After a great and enthusiastically received warm-up set by solo artist (for this show at least) MaryLeigh Roohan, the headliners came out and launched into a torrent of intertwining guitars, rhythm, and drum-thunder which bore no resemblance to the adjective “folk”. The closest “folk-pop” reference I could come up with days later was maybe The Byrds, circa 1966, but then then David Crosby, Chris Hilllman, Roger McGuinn, Gene Clarke and the rest did not have a female singer like Marlana Sheetz to balance their male rock energy either.
The group was touted as being thoroughly democratic– no leader, or four leaders, depending on how you looked at it– and everyone but the drummer (the excellent Curtis Marrero) took a turn at the front-and-center mike, and they interchanged instruments on a regular basis to prove their versatility, and create a variety of sound tapestries.
Robbie Arnett was seemingly the spaciest rocker of the bunch to start with as he strummed an acoustic with ferocity and roamed the stage, wearing mismatched print shirt and slacks that looked like rummage sale pickups. I would’ve thought he was the northern Cali guy of the bunch at first, but no, he was the L.A. representative. To his left on the stage was superb guitarist Andrew Heringer, with a close-cropped reddish-brown beard and hair, a neater look than the dark-haired leftover-hippie style that Arnett wore so well. The tallest member with long black bangs swept to one side was Graham Fink, who started out on bass and later played guitar quite emphatically as well, and seemed like the anchor of the group, while the lovely blonde Ms. Sheetz started out somewhat in the background on keyboards, picked up a guitar now and then along with percussive devices, and slowly moved more into focus after the boys got their rock groove going on the long instrumental opener. From the barrage of sound which with they began, I would’ve called the music “Psychedelic Funk” more than any form of folk, which was too tame a phrase for the power they exhibited right off the bat.
The song titles were not really announced as they started out, and only later, after acquiring the vinyl debut album did I put together what some of them were, but it didn’t matter much while we listened; it was an enchanting sequence. On the second song Graham Fink caught my attention with an Edge-y guitar (like U-2-ish, I mean) and I never did figure out what that tune was. The third selection featured wicked harmonies as they sang a line “Maybe when we’re older/ Can I still come over??” and that turned out to be entitled “Silent Way.” Marlana stepped forward to sing lead at the start of a great tune called “What’s The Matter?” which repeated that questioning line and then the lyrics:
“All your love is never good enough/ All your love is lost on me…” which caught my ear, and as it accelerated with intense, twining guitars into a frenzy at the end I recall Graham
Fink really taking over the vocal lead with full-throttle, reaming the chorus– “WHATZ THE MATTER!! WHATZ THE MATTER!!”, and inspiring a rousing reaction at the climax.
I might have the order wrong here but my scribbled notes-in-the-dark indicate a phrase with the words “olive branch” in the next song, with the chorus line: “I will never run, I will never run you away” and the liner notes tell me that was called “Son My Son”, for whatever that’s worth. My wife and I had been talking earlier in the day about where the peace-making significance of “olive branches” had originated, so I thought that was a sweet detail of synchronicity.
The following tune was another harmonic beauty, more of a ballad, called “Don’t You Give Up on Me”– which on the album features the female voice but in concert was a group vocal that gave us chills– a song about hanging together in a relationship through thick and thin, apparently: “I’ll dig our own little hole/ and put the walls around us/ and call it our home/ ’cause you’re all I got/ and time won’t stop.” Nice.
Then they took a breath and performed a cover by a guy I didn’t know named Sufjan Stevens, called “Chicago.” Again, great guitars, and something I have to hear again on YouTube if I can, as apparently it’s a common thread in their performances.
Another piece that started out ballad-like and evolved into what I likened to a Band-of-Horses vibe was noted as the last tune on their album– “Autumn Tree.” I was really starting to love Andrew Heringer’s guitar work and high-quality vocals by this time– if there was a star of the group it was him, for me, but there was no ego involved on his part at all– they truly seemed a democratic bunch.
One of the supreme moments was the last tune they played before the encore– a rousing vocal and instrumental extravaganza that I noted seemed to start with an electronic clave kind of sound as Marlana chanted something to the effect of: “As Years Go By…” which is from the tune called “Perfectly Aligned” on the CD and album, which then, if I’m not too confused, segued into a longer jam which then later featured all the singers aligning to wail:
“And even if your heart stops/ I’ll be there to hold you up,/Even as the world turns/ I’ll be there to watch the fire burn/ I slipped softly through/ All I’ve waited for my dear is you…” It was amazing, an uplifting ending, and I discovered later the last tune was called “Cutty Love.” The lyrics from the album notes end like this, a cryptic Valentine’s Day poem if there was one:
“All your doubts will fade away/Questions bred by years at bay/ I can be an answer to it all”
But what I remember was all four of them up front singing, led by Fink, who looked large enough to do so, on top of the thundering cascade, repeating over and over again:
“EVEN IF YOUR HEART STOPS, I’LL BE THERE TO HOLD YOU UP!” and I could not think of a more soul-rending testimonial to rock’n’roll love than that.
We all took some deep breaths and I looked around at the clapping, cheering crowd at that point– noting that it was one of the most well-balanced in terms of age that I’d ever seen, other than at a Dave Matthews’ concert at SPAC. There were many bearded and grey audience members, as old or older than me, and also college kids, 20 and 30-somethings, couples and groups of young fans, everything in between, and an even mix of males and females. Somehow, that was gratifying to me, as a testimonial to the egalitarian reach of WEXT, who had had Laura from the “Hello, Pretty City” show introduce MaryLeigh Roohan, and Chris Wienk– one of the founding masterminds of Exit977.org — introduce Milo Greene themselves.
When the band exited to the rear out a door that led to the parking lot, I recall thinking– geezus, they’re from California, they’re going to freeze out there, and fortunately, they hustled back inside and played two or three more songs. The first was a Wilco tune about late-night drinking and subsequent hangovers, I believe, and had a real country feel. There may have been one other in between, but by then everyone was hanging on for the big closer, the most familiar tune they had save for last: and when they finally broke into the gorgeous opening stanza of “1957” :
“Your house that sits behind me/ is covered in… ivy green…/ the windows that we watch from/ are old and chipping at the beam…” it seemed everyone in the crowd wanted to harmonize with the enchanting chorus: “TAKES ME AWAY…TAKES ME AWAY…TAKES ME AWAY…”
and when the simple songlines continue– (with Marlana and Robbie so earnest in mutual alignment, Andrew and Graham behind…) “the scent you wear moves in lines from/your apartment in-to mine…/ You act like you don’t know me/ My God you tempt my anxious mind…” and then the series of ascending ahhh/ ahhh/ ahh/ ahs– it became almost rapturous.
The “Takes-Me-Away” chorus returns again, till they sing a line we have all felt about SOMEBODY we were dangerously in love with in our youth– “Would it be much better/ if I knew/ NOTHING about you??” a few times through, the tension mounts, and they take it out with a group harmonic chant: “I’LL GO I’LL GO I’LL GO I… I’LL GO I’LL GO I’LL GO I…I”LL GO I’LL GO I’LL GO I!” and then it abruptly stops, and they put down their instruments, and you know it is over, there is no more, and yet you want to hear it again. That is what good tunes are made of. Whew.
***
In listening to the vinyl version of their self-titled debut album which came out in 2012, I realize that the folk-pop (or cinematic-pop, as they prefer to call it) label is actually appropriate for the recording, although the concert was really pure rock. The vocals of Ms. Marlana are featured on the album more than they were in concert, and frankly she was subdued that evening compared to the more dynamic alpha males, but that was fine. The tunes are short and to the point on the vinyl, and they improvised upon and extended them out nicely with some jams. The short instrumental tunes on the recording, which are just interludes, really, like “Orpheus”, “Wooden Antlers” and “Moddison”– which was the name of their short film– are vehicles for stretching out live as well. While the album has been stuck on my turntable for a week afterwards, it does not capture how good the concert was, just hints at it. I would see this group again in a heartbeat, and for $15. per ticket it was one of the best bargains of the year.
I spent some time on their website and was shocked how little they promote themselves individually– no pictures with names, no brief bios, no traces of who wrote which tune or who is featured on any of them– it is all a collective, inter-mixed with no pretentiousness or ego whatsoever. Even on the liner notes, all tunes are written by Milo Greene, their fictitious group moniker. I commend them on that, and how well they make it work.
Knowing their talent level, I guess I wasn’t surprised to see that they had already been featured on The David Letterman Show (t.v. debut last July), The Tonight Show with Leno, and Conan O’Brien’s Show, though I will forgive them for the latter, since I can’t stand him. If it weren’t for YouTube I wouldn’t know any of that as I just don’t stay up and watch late night TV.
My wife told their equipment manager, whom I had freed from the back of their traveling van–as we walked out to the frigid parking lot and heard him yelling inside!– that we thought we’d be seeing them on Saturday Night Live someday soon– and he is the one who gifted us the copy of the vinyl. Thanks to that dude, too. The only problem with vinyl is that you can’t listen to it in the car on the way home, so I’ll be looking for that CD soon. Check out this band if you haven’t already. A couple hundred people in the packed Theater that night know what I’m talking about, right?
Thanks again to Chris Wienk and the WEXT staff, and the great hosts at The Linda, a dynamite place to see music, for introducing us to this band. Even though I’m writing this for a website promoting Saratoga Springs, NY– keep in mind that we are all part of the Capital District in upstate NY, and Albany’s music scene is well-worth a 30-40 minute ride on certain specific occasions!
PS– For those of you reading this in the first week it is posted, WEXT will be featuring an interview with the bandmembers of Milo Greene, and presumably a few live studio songs, on Friday, Feb. 22nd, 2013, at NOON, during the beginning of Chris Wienk’s time slot–check it out!
Copyright Wayne Perras 2013