Rodger Wilko and Randy Rogers (02-07-03)

Rodger Wilko at the Firehouse
(photo courtesy John Vaughn)

Okay, time to get my nose out of coding a complete site redesign with a completely new (to me) content management system, and back to the show we saw at the Firehouse Friday.

Rodger Wilko opened, and we went into the place knowing absolutely nothing about them. Well, not quite true -- the one bit of wisdom I shared with the group was, "For some reason, I think they have a female bass player."

Now we know more. :)

They're a young but very tight-sounding band, and I wound up really enjoying them (so much so that I picked up a CD). Their lead singer sounds like a combination of Pat Green and Brent Mitchell (a Denton-area Americana artist who used to play with Eleanor Whitmore, but who seems to have disappeared), and writes most of the material. Stephanie Macias, the bass player, does most of the backing vocals and occasionally takes the lead. She's a real talent, and much like our friend Libbi Bosworth, lights up the stage with a constant smile. There's the standard lead guitar, drummer, and a keyboard, making this band a fairly distinctive sounding five-piece. They played a mix of covers and their stuff, and I'm sad now that we didn't record it. Our friend Cathy goes into a bit more detail here:

Back to last night: a band called Rodger Wilko ... opened for Randy. I enjoyed their music and will definitely catch them again. The lead singer, Zack Walther, was very entertaining. He writes most of the songs and has a good voice. The band had a female on bass, Stephanie Macias, very fresh and attractive, and she had an in-tune, powerful voice which reminded me of of Alanis Morisette. I loved the way Zack introduced the band at the end, one by one, and let them loose on their instruments for about a minute each. The keyboard player rattled off Greig's Piano Concerto, followed by Fur Elise, and then Scott Joplin's The Entertainer. And when they'd all finished their cadenzas, Zack yelled, "That's us. Rodger Wilko. Whaddaya think?" It was difficult not to respond.

Fun show! Definitely go check them out -- which won't be hard, as they seem to be playing constantly! They're headlining the Firehouse on 27 February, and that one's on the PDA. Must record.

Randy Rogers played his usual inspired set, which seemed more inspired because of the large crowd. We were treated to his usual good stuff (but NOT "Just This Side Of Heaven," which I will continue to bitch about unless it's unretired, damnit!) and really good covers of Merle Haggard (I've not heard "Mama Tried" since I was a kid in Oklahoma), Bruce Robison, and some of the usual suspects. Even better, one of those usual suspects -- Roger Creager -- was in the crowd, and joined Randy for a song. Have I mentioned how much I like the Firehouse lately? Too cool. Stephanie from Rodger Wilko also joined Randy for Bruce Robison's great song "Wrapped." Randy almost always introduces that song as "the best country and western song ever written," and their duet was a particularly pretty rendition.

No political discussions with Randy this time, although John and I did say hello to him over by the merchandise table, and he seemed amused by the whole thing still. And the guys (and gal) in Rodger Wilko are super friendly folks who were all too happy to sign our CDs. Plus one of the band members had a puppy I played with. A dog-loving alt-country band is a good band indeed.

So, two up-and-coming bands that anyone interested in real country music ought to go out and see and hear.

(02-10-03) I forgot to mention Randy's cover of Kasey Chambers's "We're All Gonna Die Someday," which substituted "Kenny Chesney can kiss my ass" for Kasey's "they can all kiss my ass." Very funny.

[Posted at 19:23 CST on 02/09/03] [Link]