PAUL K


ARTIST FACTS
http://www.paulk.bravepages.com
saratoga 1999
wilderness of mirrors 1998
love is a gas 1997
garden of forking paths 1995
achilles heel 1995
the blue sun 1993
blues for charlie lucky 1993
the big nowhere 1991

 


ON THE ROAD TO TOWNES??


r.d.roth
explores the wonderful world of paul K & tvz

Making my way across what had been the Ashland Avenue bridge, I felt just a little less lost. The bridge, for the most part, was gone. In those days Chicago was still luxuriating in pork baths provided by Congressman Rostenkowski, and one by one all the major bridges spanning the Chicago River were getting completely rebuilt. The river swam far below me as I walked a two foot wide strip of iced concrete.

It was late and cold. Freezing rain had been falling all night, but even that couldn't keep me from walking from my apartment in Bucktown to The Elbo Room. It was about two and a half miles, not really all that far, but for almost any other show I would have stayed home.

This was different. Four years of art school were followed by two years of drunken, stuperous rambling. Having worked full time while taking a full load at school, I had almost completely cut myself off from music. My tastes were limited to the mass market drivel oozing out of the radio, and though I was sure there was great, vital music being made, I had not clue one how to go about finding it.

I got lucky, though, because I had a friend from Detroit who was wired in. He cracked open the door for me, and gave me a glimpse inside. I heard a ton of new music as a result, much of which was mediocre at best. Then one fateful night I heard the music of Paul K. It was the early Nineties, and I was desperate for a muse.

In those days ground zero for indie rock was a small record store up on Southport Avenue called Pravda, later to be renamed Blackout! Records. Back in '90 and '91 you could wander in there and see The Old '97's, or Smashing Pumpkins playing live in-store. Leafing through the bins was like a journey through an insider's "best-of" list. From Hank Williams to Iggy Pop to Gram Parsons to Afghan Whigs to Palace Brothers to Nirvana (before they were huge) to Union Carbide Productions (before they were Soundtrack of Our Lives) and on and on and on. For a while you could find Janet Beveridge Bean (Eleventh Dream Day, Freakwater) working there. The place was a hive of hip intelligentsia. I was a square misfit, but I knew energy when I saw it, and I haunted this store regularly. I had seen this kind of thing before. Back in my high school days I was swamped with classic rock and arena soft metal. Then, in '81, my senior year, my friends and I discovered Punk Rock. We didn't understand the cultural significance of this movement, and we didn't care - it was music that represented us, and it made us move. Wandering into this record store was like a return to those vital days.

Jillian Matson, the store's owner, would stand behind the counter and spin. "Have you heard Fluid? Check out Mudhoney." It was almost too much to process. There was a buzz about the place. Have you seen the movie adaptation of Nick Hornby's tremendous "High Fidelity?" That was almost a carbon copy of Blackout!, and I would bet that John Cusack bought more than one CD at Jillian's store. A lot of that music just washed over me, and an awful lot of it just sounded the same. Many of those bands I grew to love dearly (Pavement, the Whigs, Palace), but there was one artist who I got, and right away.

Paul K had three records out at the time. "The Big Nowhere," which was mostly acoustic, and predated the whole No Depression scene, got under my skin right away. "The Killer In the Rain" and "The Blue Sun" are both electric albums - straight-ahead Rock 'N' Roll. I attached myself to this music like a drowning man, and in a sense I was at sea. Many years later, when I made my first record, I covered a song from "Blue Sun" called "Haunt Me 'til I'm Gone." I changed it from a waltz to 4/4, added female harmony vocals (Libby Reed) and a trumpet (Joe Lill). It was the last track on the record. It was a gesture of appreciation of sorts, referring back to that icy night when I met Paul and caught a glimpse of the future.

By the time I walked to and from Elbo Room to see Paul play solo I had already seen him once already at a place called Phyllis' Musical Inn. Years later I would play several shows there myself, and Paul and I actually shared a bill there once.

I had never seen anything like this before. Tall, lanky, direct and soft-spoken. The songs fell out with a relaxed, literate lyricism which spun tales and cautions. It was this series of shows, as well as "The Big Nowhere," which played an essential role in my motivation to pick up the guitar and write songs. "Poor Man's Eyes" was the very first song I figured out on my own, and I attached myself to the reality of these songs with devotion. Art is such a varying standard, and what connects with one person is met with indifference by another. These songs, and the manner of delivery, provided an example of something real, legitimate and alive. Whether dealing with personal loss, doubt and regret, or the plaintive resignation of gamblers who lose, I connected with the authenticity and vitality revealed there. I had found a starting point in my new musical journey - here was something I could safely say was great, no matter who I was talking to, no matter how hip and condemning they may be.

As coincidence would have it both Paul and I had grown up in the Detroit area, and he lived a dozen or so blocks away from me when I lived in the Cass Corridor. I was working my way through art school at the time, and led a relatively hermetic lifestyle. It was rare that I went out to live shows, and almost never bought records. We knew some people in common, and chatted off and on for the next year or so when he would come through town.

Within a year of the Elbo Room gig Heidi and I were living together in a large industrial loft near the Edens Expressway and the Metra tracks. I had a small sculpture studio in the corner, and spent long hours in there building sculptures for shows in Chicago, NYC, Detroit and Columbus, Ohio. Paul had taken to mailing me demos of his ongoing studio work, and these were tremendously productive years for him. "The Garden of Forking Paths," "Love Is A Gas," "Blues For Charlie Lucky," all were cut at this time, and the demos would get regular rotation while I made sawdust and glue globs.

I used to do a lot of walking in those days. Our loft was at Armitage and Elston, and the El station was, and is, located at Damen/Milwaukee/North. Snaking my way through the backstreets of Wabansia and Hoyne and Wood I would be listening to Paul's demos, and I knew I was making good time if I could make the miler before the tape ended.

Thus it occurred on one of these walks, in the middle of February, that my trip took a bit longer than usual, and I let the tape run after the music stopped. After about five minutes of hiss I heard three songs that transported me right off the street. I had no recognition of the material, but I had a good idea who it was. Paul had been telling me for years about Townes Van Zandt, and I had never had the good sense to follow his advice.

Everything that I had been electrified by in Paul's work was there in Towne's, and little wonder. Paul had known Townes, and the influence had been profound indeed. What followed was an odyssey of musical and personal discovery which would take me to Nashville, Austin, and beyond, and introduce me to the likes of Vince Bell, Guy Clark, David Olney, Eric Taylor, Lyle Lovett, and many others. These men, without fail, were kind and friendly, and I learned as much from their performances as I did from their interpersonal skills. The music only reinforced the sense of orientation I had experienced from connecting to Paul's work, and it broadened my musical vocabulary considerably.

Still, in the end, there's my friendship with Paul. Over the years we've partied, collaborated, argued, swapped books and CD's, hashed out the world's problems, and argued some more. And though I've tried in my way to help him when possible, there's little doubt that I've gotten the better end of the deal.

To watch Paul K perform is to witness something both selfless and intentional, lyrical yet germane, ephemeral yet substantial. There are those who would have you believe that the role of the artist is to tell the truth, but I've learned otherwise. Rather, I would say that the artist's job is to reveal the truth, and this is often accomplished through artifice and fantastical construction.

I won't describe Paul's records or performances in detail - I can't help you to appreciate those wonderful gems. About all I can do is tell you about what it did to this listener. Others will take up the challenge of recounting his brilliance, and they have been many. In the end all art is a communication between individuals.

The Ashland Bridge has long since been completed, and I live in Evanston now. But in a way I'm still walking that narrow I Beam across the frigid water, energized by something real, and desperately alive.

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FIN

 

 



 


BOB CHEEVERS DESCRIBES TWO HOUSE CONCERTS HE GAVE LAST YEAR

In America, the "House Concert" concept is beginning to take hold and flourish. The driving force behind that concept is having places across the country for serious musicians to present their art in an atmosphere of quiet...a true listening room experience. I've done many house concerts in America and suggested to friends of mine in England that we try one at their house....more





ANDREW PERRY GIVES HIS ACCOUNT OF MICHAEL FRACASSO HOUSE CONCERT IN GREENFORD 23 FEBRUARY 2003

The house concert - a success ! Tangibly a success, I'm pleased to say. A remarkable number of American folk arrived too ! I met a delightful young lady who, prior to following an Englishman (“he's an intellectual but it’s hard to tell”) to the UK, was a resident of Austin, plus Gail Comfort (a Canadian fromWinnipeg) a Virginian and her daughter, (I guess that's two Virginians) another Canadian lady and the rest of us were Brits. Oh yes and some geezer called John Graveling.........more

Beards, business men, lovers, turtlenecks, sweaters straining, miniskirts, net stockings, leather boots, vinyl thighs, and electricity, high heels, bell bottoms, crossed legs, wide-eyed attention, now rapture, all that audience, teeny boppers allowance spent, sweet girls, students, fans, all there, devouring this man, love eyes looking, love ears leaning forward to listen.
-----From Robert Markle's liner notes for Gordon Lightfoot's The Way I Feel. Written in Toronto, 1967.