Concert Review: Paul Wallfisch and And the Wiremen at the Delancey, NYC 2/5/09

“I started doing this so I could see all my favorite bands play,” Small Beast impresario and Botanica bandleader Paul Wallfisch admitted to the assembled multitude. For regular readers of this space, the weekly Thursday Small Beast shows at the Delancey have within the span of only a few weeks become the most exciting musical event in New York, a throwback to the days when Tonic was still open and booking edgy, late-night shows. Wallfisch also started a club in Paris back in the day, which is still open and thriving: consider that an omen.

 

Even though Wallfisch runs the show – running himself ragged, it seems, on the prowl for cables, or duct tape, or whatever might hold the candles to the top of his piano so their light can be dispersed via the disco ball above – he doesn’t shortchange the audience, this time around playing more or less solo for an entire hour. Menace may be his usual stock in trade, but tonight the piano was in, um, roadhouse tuning. So he ran with it, delivering a set of mostly warm, thoughtful, major-key gospel and blues-tinged material, much of it obscure or unreleased. The gentle Botanica ballad This Perfect Spot was augmented with the playful faux-orchestrated tonalities of an Omnichord; And Then I Met her, another ballad, lacked only the Omnichord. He debuted a new number fueled by menacingly insistent, chordal piano; a bit later, the trumpeter from the evening’s headline act, And the Wiremen joined him on a song.

 

Pete Simonelli from the LA group the Enablers was next, doing a spoken-word set over buzzsaw guitar loops, Wallfisch, adding the occasional incisive upper-register tonality. The set evoked what it might have been like to have seen the Stooges’ legendary stage debut, Iggy and the rest of the guys slinging electric drills since they didn’t have any songs (they got a record deal out of it). You may be able to eventually hear this set and Wallfisch’s as well since a French radio station was there to record them.  

 

With two guitars, keyboards, upright bass and trumpet, And the Wiremen (don’t bother googling to find where they got the name) closed the evening with a gorgeous, reverb-drenched set that mixed a couple of pretty standard indie rock songs in with a bunch of haunting, southwestern gothic compositions. Their first number held hypnotically on a single chord til its anthemic chorus kicked in, with an ominous, tremolo wail from the lead guitar. Frontman Lynn Wright has played with a million other good bands, including Rev. Vince Anderson, Bee & Flower and Cordero. In this unit, he’s taken on the role of bandleader and minimalist, darkly terse rhythm guitarist. Their brooding, pensive songs occasionally building to unbridled rage, they’re the kind of band that would be headlining Tonic on a Saturday night if a greedy landlord hadn’t put the club out of business.

 

The second song of the set was a beautifully eerie, bluesy southwestern gothic dirge, “sleeping while the world goes by,” trumpet floating over the ominous clang of the guitars, then building to a tastefully minimalist guitar solo. A couple of later numbers featured some spooky, pointillistic tremolo-picking. Wallfisch joined them on a slinky noir cabaret number and didn’t waste any time turning in the best solo of the night, a matter-of-factly macabre, flamenco-inflected descending progression that ended the song with particularly dark intensity. Such is the state of things on Thursday nights at the Delancey now: if your taste runs to adventurousness and darkness, there is no better place to be. Watch this space for upcoming shows by And the Wiremen; Botanica play Joe’s Pub, early, 7 PM on March 21.

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