Wesley Stace

July 14, 2016
Jammin Java
Vienna, VA
USA

Lostbrook 2.0 Volume 161

Source: CA-14(cards)>CA-9200>Sony M10(24/48)
Location: 8' from stage, center

Transfer: Sony M10>Micro SDHC>PC>Sound Forge 10>WAV 16/44.1>
Trader's Little Helper>FLAC(level 8)

Taper/Transfer/Notes: Lostbrook
Covers/Notes: ethiessen1

Disc 1:

01 Don't Turn Me Loose * (2:29/cuts in)
02 The Person You Are (4:06)
03 The People's Drug > Band Intros (10:02)
04 Kill The Messenger (5:37)
05 Better Tell No One Your Dreams # (5:50)
06 We Will Always Have New York (7:08)
07 I Should Have Stopped (4:40)
08 Simple Sister % (5:16)

Disc 2:

09 Making Love To Bob Dylan (2:32/cuts in)
10 Looking For You (5:39)
11 I'm Wrong About Everything (5:06)
12 Uncle Dad (4:09)
13 There's A Starbucks (Where The Starbucks Used To Be) (6:42)
14 A Canterbury Kiss (5:21)
15 Negative Love (4:21)
16 The Devil In Me (8:28)

Encore:

17 Pretty Boy Bourne @ (7:48)
18 I'm A Believer + (5:04)

* Greenfield & Cook cover
# Unreleased
% Procol Harum cover
@ Unreleased/Wesley solo
+ Monkees cover (Neil Diamond composition)

Wesley Stace - vocals, acoustic guitar
David Nagler - electric guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
Eddie Carlson - bass
Patrick Berkery - drums

with:

Sam McIlvain - electric guitar (tracks 8, 14, 15, 16, 18)

Lostbrook Notes:

From the opening cover of Dutch duo Greenfield & Cook's forgotten 1972 gem "Don't Turn Me Loose" to "The Person You Are" (with a nod to The Beatles "And Your Bird Can Sing") to his love song to 1988 NYC "We Will Always Have New York" to the modern outlaw ballad "Pretty Boy Bourne" (which summarizes the Bourne movies in 6 minutes), an evening with Wesley Stace (the artist formerly known as John Wesley Harding) is highly-entertaining fare. Clever lyrics and witty between-song (occasionally in-song) banter is a hallmark of a Wesley Stace performance. My only regret is the two self-inflicted cuts I caused. The first was due to taking a 10 minute break after the opening act when the actual break was only 9:50. Though there's only 10 seconds of music missing as I burst through the front door, recorder in hand adjusting levels on the fly, it was enough to annoy me. This was the shortest break between acts at Jammin Java that I had ever experienced. It also indirectly led to the second cut. My plan had been to visit the men's room during the break to get rid of beer number one, but that idea went out the window. I foolishly drank beer number two during the first couple of songs and found myself squirming before long. I could have suffered through it but knowing that I already had a flawed recording on my hands made it an easier decision. (As it turned out, there was close to an hour left in the set. I never would have made it.) I was hoping to time my absence with a story between songs but the band launched into "Bob Dylan" and I missed approximately 40 seconds while I was...well, you get the picture. It's back to high octane/low volume whiskey for me.

ethiessen1's Notes:

There's a delicious irony when a man who adopted his songwriting and performing name from the title of a Bob Dylan album writes and performs a song about how he can't sexually perform if an actual Dylan song is playing. "It's partly his voice, it gives me no choice, but to focus on what he is saying... And it's partly the drone as he goes on and on with his lay lady lay lady layin'."

That playful sense of personal disparagement continues with his "I'm Wrong About Everything," a slice of life view of man's eternal misreading of women: "I'm wrong about everything, I think that I can sing... And when you hear the song, you'll wanna sing along...I'm wrong about everything, think I know what's happening...I think you'll like our song, but I'm wrong."

Wesley Stace writes songs in that quintessentially smart-assed English tradition usually filled by XTC's Andy Partridge, The Kinks' Ray Davies, Elvis Costello and a few dozen Beatles' songs. And, while unlike Shakespeare, generally no foot notes are required to understand his work, unlike Al Stewart, Mike Scott (The Waterboys) or Dylan himself, Stace's lyrics rarely cross the artistic line from cleverness over to literature (an example being "There's A Starbucks (Where The Starbucks Used To Be"). Lubricated with a few Maker's Marks, he does, however, give a really good live show, with catchy melodies and an infectious self-depreciating sense of humor, or humour as he would spell it. It may not be art, but it's damn fine entertainment.

He's released 17 albums under the name of John Wesley Harding (the title of Bob Dylan's 1967 album, which featured All Along The Watchtower), but says he now feels the need to make music under his legal name of Wesley Stace (under which he has written 4 critically acclaimed novels). The main reason he chose not to release the new material under the JWH moniker is that it is autobiographical, instead of the mostly fictional and observational songs he has done previously.

He has worked with such luminaries as Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Rosanne Cash, Peter Buck (REM), Bill Rieflin (REM, King Crimson), Kurt Bloch, Earl Slick, Chris Lord-Alge, Al Perkins, Iggy Pop, John Prine, and Bruce Springsteen, and was chosen by Springsteen as his first opening act in 20 years for his solo shows at the Berkeley Community Theatre in 1995.

Lostbrook's excellent recording cuts in at the beginning of each side, but you get 99.9% of a very memorable evening at Jammin' Java in Vienna, VA. If you play the show as background, you'll swear it's Declan McManus himself, as John Wesley Stace sounds just like him when he speaks, and many of the songs have that Elvis Costello and the Attractions vibe and rhythm to them-a good thing. If you listen closely, especially through headphones, you'll hear a nicely put together batch of well written and professionally performed songs - far beyond the puppy love songs that permeate American pop lyric writing - expertly set up by Stace's between song story telling and introductions.

This is music that rewards repeated listening, and the lyrics and melodies get into your subconscious in a Steely Dan sort of way. Even better, you get nice cover versions of Procol Harum's Simple Sister and the Monkees' I'm A Believer to boot. File this one in the good pile, next to the cd player.


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