The Handsome Family (Live Music)

23 June 2008

The Handsome Family
St Georges, Bristol
Saturday, June 21

The Handsome Family, aka Brett and Rennie Sparks, returned for their sixth visit to Avon, the second at St George’s, and the tenth for me, to play their most exquisite show yet.
Perhaps it was due to the relaxing day they spent in Bath chilling out at the expensively posh Spruce Goose launderette and the delightful Arabesque restaurant.. Expressing thanks to Bath during the show, Rennie said “It was just so beautiful – plus we didn’t realise Bath had so many strip joints!”
It would have reminded her of their Albuquerque, New Mexico home then.
Another reason the show was the best yet was the addition of drummer Jason Toth and lap steeler-fiddler-guitarist Steve Dorocke who, in addition to making very tasty contributions, gave Brett the backing to allow him to really play with the music.
Brett is a very adept guitarist and an absolutely extraordinary singer with a huge voice that starts bass-deep and spans octaves upward with spot-on precision.
On this night he was as free as I’ve seen, making octave leaps, jumping from nasal country high to Paul Robeson low in the space of a single phrase, not to mention singing dulcet harmonies with Rennie and throwing in a bit of free jazz guitar now and then.
But, as always, the heart of any Handsome Family show is their now vast repertoire of the most profound, thorny, bittersweet and beautiful original songs this side of the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music.
The Handsomes having been going so long, with such unfaltering quality, that they have reached that place where they can’t do all the songs you want to hear. That’s the kind of accomplishment that belongs to very few, and signifies a basic country quality of reliability and longevity.
The Handsomes, unlike almost every other performer that can boast of such a huge repertoire, remain a cult band, a sign of the times more than a reflection of their own ability to connect. It has been a long, long time since mass popularity allowed for significant quality anywhere but in third world cultures. And I’m sure we’ll get to them soon.
The press inevitably depicts Rennie’s lyrics as unremittingly dark, but I take exception: for starters, what kind of idiot must one be to be blind to the massive extinction of species currently happening so that we may continue to pursue empty lives? I’m with Phillip K Dick in concluding that God must have gone insane and left the building long ago. Blithely happy songs would be a sign of mental illness; now that’s dark.
So Rennie’s lyrics are beautiful, at times funny, reflect reality, and manifest a faith in a world that can, and probably will, get along just fine without the defective human species. Taking the larger view, it’s a very uplifting vision.

Review by Charley.