Dog And Pony Episode 4: This Place Is Tilty

Dog And Pony Episode 4: This Place Is Tilty
1/24/09

The Band: Sam James - Guitar/Vox




The Scene:
Sam James is not an anomaly.

Sometimes, though, I think he should be.

One man and his guitar up on stage seems to be such an affront to the traditional four piece, to the swelling ranks of the indie-rock and indie-pop acts. And it's not just the fact that it's one man and his guitar, it's the music he's playing. Delta and Piedmont blues hollered through a cigarette stained larynx.

Take that nasal indie darlings and dulcet toned songsters.

But he's not an anomaly. Sam James is not only in good company, but his music is just as much a reaction to the scene as the indie-orchestras, as the 80s and 90s rock revivals, as the ever-present folk singer-songwriters.

Sam practices in the living room shared with his roommate. "That's Will, the best potter in Portland."

The house is covered in pots and masks. Seated on the futon around the corner from where his roommate practices his throwing, Sam practices his playing.

Sam's wild, loud style of playing is almost in no way reflected by the space he plays in. There's art and movie posters, and I noticed with pleasure a copy of Watchmen on the bookshelf. A Winslow Homer perhaps? There's a small TV.

But there's also art everywhere... these pots are on every flat surface and frankly, I'm surprised they haven't been smashed to pieces by Sam's wild foot-stomping as he cranks out dusty blues songs.

What I'm trying to say is the place is quiet. It's clean. It's not busy or loud. It's not confused or dark or smokey. His music suggests perhaps a shack or spartan bedroom.

But he plays in a living room on a futon with a TV and bookshelves and art and pottery everywhere. And a staircase to Narnia.

OK, maybe from his music you'd guess there'd be a staircase to Narnia. But I bet you wouldn't guess there'd be pottery and snowboarding boots on said stairs.

The practice space is just a space. It's clean, it's modern. It suggests that perhaps the incredible music Mr. James makes is attainable. That anyone who can keep an apartment in order could do it. I would say that BUT HERE IS WHERE IT GET'S TRICKY, good reader.

Mr. James practices four hours a day.

What do you do four hours a day? Your job? You hate that! You take breaks and read your websites. You look at that stain on the acoustic tiling. You joke about the shit coffee.

Mr. James practices four hours a day. Of his own free will. A quarter or his waking life is spent axe-in-hand. At least. What is it that draws Mr. James to pickin'?

For starters, Mr. James is half-black. And he quite happily traces his history back up that tree. His grandfather, born in the 1890s, was a bluesman. A string-pickin', post-emancipation bluesman.

His father was given ivory-tickling fingers. Was taught piano lessons. Mr. James' grandmother would encourage his grandfather to NOT play with his father. "He's learning classical music," she'd say with an air of importance.

So of course his father went on to play jazz.

So of course Samuel, as his sister calls him (his father calls him Sam) went on to learn classical piano. And then something ached inside him. Some constant burn flared up to know his history. And who hasn't been similarly afflicted? The big question here: Who has acted upon it as Mr. James has?

He picked up a guitar after years of the piano. He picked up a guitar after years of black culture leaving it behind. He picked it up and he's been trying to figure out what made black people really pick it up in the first place.

I think he's got it. I think he's figured it out. I don't know if he knows it and I don't know if he SHOULD know it. But this instrument, the guitar, mind you, this instrument used to be the epitome of classical music and also a handy folk instrument. It's size and versatility means it crossed the bridge from classical music halls to the living room. Learning classical guitar was quite a feat, but just being able to accompany the inevitable folk tune was even more important. So when former slaves picked it up and turned this once white-person's instrument into a weapon of black culture, white folks paid attention. They'd never heard this instrument played this way before.

Blacks were, of course, just using what was around. They had their history and they had this instrument. Their abilities just happened to reframe the way Whites looked at this particular instrument.

Blacks continued to define the guitar's voice until the late 50s. Then you get the Elvis and The Everly Brothers and The Beatles and so on bursting in, stealing the scene. There was a period of collaboration and then Whites took control of the direction guitar music was taking.

But this is no forum for politics.

But Mr. James wondered what it was exactly that drew Blacks to the six strings in the first place. He wondered what is so special about the guitar.

He's figured it out. He has figured out how one man with one instrument can completely captivate and entertain. How you only need one properly trained dude and one properly strung guitar to make some incredible noise that is both familiar and new. His love affair with the guitar is rooted in segregation and violence but played out in a time when orbiting satellites - satellites further above us than Boston is south of us - can snatch a picture of your mother leaning out the window to check the laundry.

Knowing what we know now about Samuel James, I think it would be interesting to hear some keys banged upon. Apart from the banjo, there was also a keyboard around the corner. I assume that means he plays it every now and again.

My guess is this probably won't happen until Blue gets a house upright piano. But I feel like it'd be interesting to see Mr. James sit down and slam out some stride while stamping his foot and screaming to the rafters.

On to Mr. James' startling lack of singularity. Portland has an cluster of acoustic, solo guitarists specializing in yesterday's music. Moses Atwood, D. Gross, Meantone and a smattering of others have all dabbled in acoustic blues at one point or another. I feel like Mr. James is their ringleader, though.

The fact that there is a cluster of this acoustic blues is indicative of something. In my opinion it's a reaction to the music of the last twenty years, which is a reaction to the music before that and that's a reaction to the music before that in a beautiful chain of reactions that goes back to when folks were just pounding rocks together and singing.

Today's music scene is loaded up with acoustic acts. With people, consciously or not, evading, avoiding or ignoring the electronic advents of the past twenty years. The synthesizers, the effects pedals, the vocorders and the auto-tuning. All of it is eschewed in the indie world for simpler music. Often just a Dylan-fan and his guitar.

It's not always that good.

Mr. James' reaction to the blossoming singer-songwriter scene is to make his guitar sound like several instruments at once. He's got a clear bassline and melody in all of his songs, and often times there's a harmonizing rhythm, too. No single strum captures the change and scope in his songs. In fact, the parts of his music generally take several people to fill them out.

The other direction on the scene are the ever-swelling bands. Arcade Fire, of course, has five or six regular members but depending where on the continent they are or what song they're playing, there are parts written in many of their songs for an additional three or four musicians.

Samuel James is just Samuel James. No bassist, no drums, no french horn. Just a man, his guitar, his fingers and his lungs belting sweet music into the ether. It's just Sam James and his guitar.

And the most beautiful part about this whole thing: the fine guitar work, the history, the semi-punk aesthetic, is his wonderful accessibility. He's delightfully prolific, playing (almost) every Thursday at the bar Blue on Congress Street. Of late he's been accompanied by one Mr. D. Gross and it's an entirely worthy experience. For the precision, for the energy and for the stories that accompany the songs. He tours constantly and he's working on yet another album.

Sam James is Sam James and he's not an anomaly.