Concert Review: Keith Otten Live in NYC 1/31/10

New York audiences these days probably know Keith Otten best as the offhandedly fiery guitarist in Nashville gothic rockers Ninth House.Yet over the past twenty years, he’s built a reputation as one of those “best guitarists you’ve never heard of” in projects as diverse as pioneering 90s Britrock band Feed (with Tim Butler of the Psychedelic Furs), janglepopsters Six Ways to Sunday and his own group, the frequently magnificent, anthemic Gotham 4. Downtown early Sunday evening at a onetime Chinatown mob bar, he packed the place – on the coldest day of the year, no less – and turned in an often fascinating solo acoustic mix of material from all over the map.

Otten’s pensive, sometimes ominous original songs blend the classic with the modern: anthemic, melodic echoes of artsy bands like the Church, Radiohead and sometimes Oasis mingle with reverberating open chords. He has as much of a thing for Americana as he has for British bands; the Jimmy Page thing never reared its head, this being an acoustic show. Producer Eric Ambel famously remarked how a song needs to be good by itself before it can ever sound good with a band, and these held their own. An apprehensive new one about a pre-apocalyptic Manhattan opened as blue-sky country, but then the clouds and the complexity came sweeping in. The ever-widening circle of chords on the chorus of Long Enough (a popular one in his Gotham 4 days) were more than enough to keep the crowd guessing. He took that device to the extreme, but subtly, with another new one, Sweetly (there’s a stripped-down version on his myspace), bedeviling the audience with a long fade out, then suddenly bringing it back up again before reverting to tease mode. Ditch, a track from his most recent studio effort, took on a stinging minor-key garage rock feel, having been freed from the U2 style arrangement the band gave it. Otten closed with a remarkably flamencoish version of his mighty White Rabbit-inflected anthem 3001, its underlying intensity enhanced by the acoustic arrangement. Otten’s next New York show with Ninth House is at Hank’s on Feb 27 at 11; his next solo gig is March 15 at Sidewalk. Great players don’t get much more under the radar than this.

Song of the Day 2/1/10

The best 666 songs of alltime countdown continues every day, all the way to #1. Monday’s song is #178:

Scott Morgan’s Powertrane – Rock n Roll, Rest in Peace

Morgan is a legend in Detroit, a pioneer dating back to the 70s whose inimitable style blends gritty soul vocals with raw, uncompromising Murder City rock. This bruising anthem, with its endlessly, ominously circling series of chords on the way out, is a highlight from Morgan’s all-star crew Powertrane, a band that once featured both Ron Asheton and Radio Birdman’s Deniz Tek.