Irongrass Redux

Although I was too poor to see Spoon, too out-of-time to see SNMNMNM, too I-have-to-teach-Sunday-School-tomorrow to see The Dandy Warhols, and too annoyed to even try to see U2 (is that tonight?  The traffic is going to SUCK on the way home.  Fuck you, Bono.), I did manage to catch the next evolution in the Cast Iron Filter pioneered genre "Irongrass." (What? It was free? shhhhhhhhhhhhh)

The first CIF show I attended was the final show for Mr. Cockrill and the first show for new bassist Mason Bissett.  I had heard some live stuff before but didn't totally dig the albums, but the band live?  I was hooked. Fast forward a few years through a few more lineup changes and the band has decided to part ways for, at least, the time-being. And for a while Michael Orlando focused his mando skills on creating some true bluegrass music with The Carter Brothers. This isn't exactly my scene, so when Mike began talking about getting together with Mason (of all people!) and a drummer(!!) I was, needless to say, stoked. Stoked. There should be a word that means "stoked but apprehensive."

Actually, it's fine that it just means "stoked." Mason and Mike were able to fuse back together brilliantly. It shone especially bright on older CIF tunes with which Mason was already familar - Tamarack being, for me, the prime example. Although the songs weren't perfect and there were flubs, I thought Mason had improved tremendously as a player who is a member of a band. Mason and Mike both always seemed to really like playing a lot of notes. A LOT of notes. But this was subdued - in a really great way. Apparently Frank and Mason had been playing together previously, and it showed. Mason really held back and nailed the song down with the necessary simple walking basslines that many of the songs required. And, when the time came, it was the old Mason again flying all over the fretboard, and I loved it.

Although Mike's gorgeous little electric mandolin didn't make an appearance, we were witness to the nimbleness of Mike's fingers across a range of stringed instruments from the acoustic mandolin to acoustic guitar to banjo to the electric guitar. Ah yes, and he sang. Mike's vocal rendition of Sheila & Jake was becoming a standard at CIF shows throughout the final tour, but I wasn't quite sure what to think of Mike as frontman. He's no Dustin as far as vocal ability goes, but as soon as I started thinking that, I realized that was my problem. This isn't Cast Iron Filter, and Mike isn't trying to be Dustin. He's being Mike. And thank God, b/c that's what he's best at. (whether I - or anyone else - like it *ahem... bluegrass...ahem* or not) There were only 8 unique songs with vocals and Mason (yes, Mason) sang one of those. "My Dear Nashville" was an extremely slow number not to my liking at all, but the other songs shocked me. Most of the subject matter seemed to be somehow involved with love... either you lost it, want it, got it, can't ever have it, or can't wait to get back to it, but even a pretentious ass like myself who prefers to write about why God's a dick found it enjoyable.  Aside from the content, his actual vocal sound was clear and on key, plus I could actually understand most of the words he said.  Which was nice. Mike definitely brought more of his bluegrass taste to these songs than to songs you would expect to hear from CIF, and I think he succeeded in creating a fun and exciting new sound with which he can continue to promote the Irongrass standard.

Oh, and the drummer... the drummer turned out to be Frank Bloom who somehow manages to pull off the duality of being an extremely nice and socialable dude AND a really damned good drummer. Weird. The other guys have their place in Irongrass history... as it were, and Frank's the relative newcomer to the scene. As far as I know. While I can compare Mike and Mason to previous incarnations of themselves, I have no such crutch with Frank. He's the new variable in this equation, and he filled it out very very nicely. The venue itself may have held him back somewhat, but Frank seemed sharp and precise yet very fluid at the same time. Former CIF drummer Brian Burton hit HARD and fast and precise and, for my money, fit the late model CIF very well, but Brian's style would not, however, fit with what Mike is trying to do. Mason and Frank worked well together and there were moments of pure coalescence with the two of them just sitting back and holding the songs together.  It's nice when unknown situations turn out to be much better than I thought they could have been.

Oh.  And the fanboy in me wants to say, "OMG!  And he played with FOUR sticks at once!"
but I'm past that phase of my life and refuse to lower myself to actually finding something someone else is doing interesting and exciting.

I never would have imagined to see Mike and Mason on stage together again, but it was an extremely pleasant surprise. Having Frank Bloom round out the trio was an amazing stroke of luck and probably only the third good thing to have ever come out of Tryon, NC. (including the BBQ) Looking forward to the recording in January and hoping for more shows soon. I will only say one other thing about that. February 2, 2006 - Charlotte, NC. God that would be sweet.

I wouldn't say this is groundbreaking material nor is it REALLY pushing the boundaries of any common sensibilities, but it was good.  And it was fun.  And I enjoyed it for the sake of enjoying it.  And the very last thing?  I should reiterate: this is not Cast Iron Filter.

Now back to my Captain and Sprite.