David Dondero - South of the South
Pedro the Lion - Never Leave a Job Half Done
I went to see David Bazan play a show with the Passenger String Quartet in San Francisco on Saturday night. David Dondero opened for him. I'd never seen either in the concert before, and I'd only ever heard Bazan's music (though only his Pedro the Lion stuff). Both were pretty great--totally charming in their own ways. Dondero played with just his guitar and he ran through maybe 14 songs in about an hour. Before playing each song, he would talk about its origin, or tell a weird story related to the song, which had the effect of making him seem like someone new to touring, for some reason, even though he's apparently been playing out for decades--it was funny, though he seemed nervous too, so there was a little ambient anxiety throughout his set. His songs are pretty awesome though--each one has at least two or three incredibly well observed details and his singing voice is so plain-spoken that both he and his songs come across as personable and trustworthy, even though there's a sense that he is kind of a mischief-maker too. South of the South is about Florida and it is dead-on about Florida.I know precisely one EP/LP (Winners Never Quit) of David Bazan songs well, though I've heard others in the past too. He played guitar and keyboards along with the Passenger String Quartet, and the overall effect was impressive--the quartet's sound was rich and full, and Bazan's guitar playing mostly functioned as percussion (the strumming was all you could hear, really). Bazan has a great voice, very expressive, and that was the main focus for this performance--which meant that some of the songs were great and others felt a little odd, like the string arrangements did not supply the right amount of oomph that the vocals seemed to call for; but it's cool to see an artist like him do something different. You can listen to and buy the Bazan + Passenger String Quartet LP over on his site.[BUY Golden Hits Vol. 1][BUY Winners Never Quit]