I don't normally like the blues-tinged, folksy rock that Johnny Cash propagated, so I was surprised to find myself enjoying
Isobel Campbell's (of
Belle & Sebastian) and
Mark Lanegan's (Screaming Trees) new one, "The Ballad of the Broken Seas." It's pretty much the aural version of sweet and sour pork, or
Chubby Hubby ice cream, both of which blend together two opposing flavors to pleasing results. The constrasting sweet and sour (or sweet and salty) brings out and enhances the opposing taste. Lanegan is this great, rumbly, sunburnt, prickly cactus of a voice that is clear on the other end of the spectrum from Campbell's watery pixie murmur. And it works great.
Lanegan was not in the hizzouse at Schuba's last night, with Eugene Kelly (above) pinch-hitting. Isobel was thoroughly entertaining on her own, with her Scottish accent and Small/Cute (TM) mannerisms. Melody put it best: "I can totally imagine what she was like when she was six years old." I tend to like it when performers can laugh a little onstage, show some normal human emotion, which she did in light of some technical difficulty. I was tempted to get a picture with her after, but... I'm too cool for that. Beats watching the Oscars.
