Friday, October 12, 2012
Live Actions: Reviews Live: Distilling a lifetime at Yep Roc's 15th Anniversary
Posted by Lisa Sorg @lisasorg on Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 6:28 PM
- Photo by Jeremy M. Lange
- Yep Roc founders, from left, Glenn Dicker and Tor Hansen
After Night 1 of the Yep Roc 15th anniversary festival at Cat’s Cradle, my husband and I were walking to the car, exchanging notes on the five-hour show, when he compared the scrappy indie label to the Oakland Raiders. In the 1970s and ’80s, the Raiders scooped up players no other NFL team understood—the outliers and outcasts—then proceeded to become one of the most formidable and dominant outfits in the league.
This is an apt metaphor for a label with a diverse roster with a pedigree that is impossible to peg. The eight acts that performed last night—counting a few songs by emcee John Wesley Harding—wound not only through Yep Roc’s 15 years but also traced a longer arc of indie-rock history.
I must acknowledge that the relative newcomers—singer-songwriter Eleni Mandell, whose schtick is to pen tunes about ex-boyfriends, and Jukebox the Ghost’s sunny prog pop—did not set me ablaze.
But before we judge them too harshly, we should give them time to accumulate the highway miles and lifetimes of record-listening their Yep Roc forebears have logged. Nick Lowe, Dave Alvin, Chuck Prophet, Robyn Hitchcock: Many of them are as white-haired as a snowy owl but no less youthful and energetic than I remember all of them from the wayback machine. They have been on the planet (or in the case of Hitchcock, various states of inner and outer space), and making records for longer than 30 years. Emcee/ songwriter/ novelist John Wesley Harding and instrumental surf band Los Straitjackets have endured for more than two decades.
Last night’s concert was a clinic in how talent, experience and endurance produce great work by artists who have mastered their craft: “I am the sum of the books I have read. I am the sum of the records I have heard,” sang Harding between acts.
It can take 15 years. And it can take a lifetime.
Comments (1)
Showing 1-1 of 1
- To create paragraphs in your comment, type <p> at the start of a paragraph and </p> at the end of each paragraph.
- To create bold text, type <b>bolded text</b> (please note the closing tag, </b>).
- To create italicized text, type <i>italicized text</i> (please note the closing tag, </i>).
- Proper web addresses will automatically become links.
Latest in Scan
-
Birds and Arrows, but no cello (tonight at Casbah)
Cellist Josh Starmer is departing folk-rock trio Birds and Arrows, while husband-wife Pete and Andrea Connolly plan collaborations with other local musicians this summer.
- May 23, 2013
-
Videos: Last Year's Men, The Lollipops and more gather at Slim's to support Elijah Von Cramon
After being hit by a car, Paint Fumes frontman Elijah Von Cramon gets a lot of help from a lot of friends in Raleigh.
- May 22, 2013
-
Saturday: The Backsliders, PKM raise money to battle Parkinson's Disease
Seven bands join to raise funds for The Michael Gardner Foundation.
- May 16, 2013
- More »
More by Lisa Sorg
-
Durham's ghost streets
The Museum of Durham History's website contains a Guide to Durham Street and School Names, including a section on the city's 28 "Ghost Streets"—thoroughfares, alleys and stubs that have been demolished, paved over or built upon.
- May 8, 2013
-
Some facts about the sequester and our most vulnerable citizens
Meals on Wheels could serve 4 million fewer meals to senior citizens. WIC could drop 600,000 women and children from its supplemental foods, health care referrals and nutrition education.
- Mar 13, 2013
- More »
