Tag: kassi valazza

Sunday 25th August 2024

Bluebird Bakery, York, England

If I could sit down and write a long review it would have everything in it. The Bluebird, a working bakery converted into a music venue at night, with black sheets covering the windows to keep out the plainness of the road outside; a sign saying closed tonight except for ticket holders; the low, warm light from the candles which are lit in glass jars on the tables; the beautiful, dark-haired woman at the door. It would have the cool breeze that comes in when the door is opened to admit latecomers and it would have the bottles of wine and beer on the tables and the applause between songs and the guitars waiting patiently in their stands on the stage before the music begins.

It would have, if it were possible to write about music without killing what is good in it, the sound of Kassi Valazza as she sings of a “castle of stone” in ‘Roll On’, a mile from the ancient walls of York. It would have her crystal-clear voice as it sings of canyon lines and spinning circles and the small town of Chino, Arizona, and it would be able to describe the way she blends the lyrics with the melody so each song sounds purer than the silence it replaces. It would have Lewi Longmire’s slide guitar making ethereal chirruping noises as the song ‘Birds Fly High’ builds to open the night and it would have Tobias Berblinger silent behind his keyboards as he closes his eyes and constructs the soundscapes that allow Kassi and Lewi to roam. It would have Kassi switching between her two acoustic guitars and plucking a deep, mantra-like rhythm on the willing strings, and it would have her tapping out the rhythm in her thick-heeled leather shoes. It would have Lewi’s harmonica strung around his neck as it blows out a yearning, lonesome note on ‘Room in the City’ and it would have the classic Californian folk-rock sound coming from his electric guitar; a gorgeous vibe that no one seems to want to make anymore and which in every resounding note makes you wonder why.

It should make clear the chord changes and the fragile texture and composure of the songs and the way they fit into the gentle ambience of the night; and it would also show how they don’t simply belong to that ambience but also move it and shape it, as Kassi, ten years removed from her job in a bakery in Portland, finds herself in another bakery taking the material she has and kneading it with her fingers and making it rise. And alongside the music as it swells the review would also have the small and banal things; the white t-shirt Kassi wears bearing the face of her friend Chris Acker, the black t-shirt Tobias wears bearing the name of their tourmate Vincent Neil Emerson. It would find a way to mention in passing that I plan to see Kassi again a couple of days later alongside Emerson in Manchester, where I live, and that I drove over the hills of the old enemy to York only to hear her music at every possible opportunity, just as I travelled down to the Biddulph valley to hear it last year in a church in Staffordshire.

But above all, if it were good writing it would be able to describe the final song of the night when Kassi Valazza takes the stage for an encore and, singing alone, provides the purest moment. As her two travelling friends sit and look on in admiration from off-stage, Kassi strums her guitar and, closing her eyes, sings ‘One of These Days’ by Neil Young. One of these days, she sings, she’s gonna sit down and write a long letter, to all the good friends she’s known. And she’s gonna try and thank them for all the good times together, though so apart they’ve grown.

And the review would be able to explain only at great length what the singing of that song is able to communicate intuitively in a single moment. It would explain the hushed silence in the room from the audience; silence in the room, for the sound of Kassi and her guitar comes from another place. The writing would be able to press into the mind of the reader the thought that comes to the writer of the review with vivid clarity in the moment he hears the song, pressed as gently as Kassi presses it; the feeling of gratitude from the artist at the troubadour life they’ve chosen to lead, and a weariness tempered by sweetness, and a feeling of gratitude from the listener also as you experience the special moment that draws you to these artists in the first place, where they provide you with something you always wanted and perhaps needed but did not even know existed until they shone their light on it.

The writing would be able to evoke all the various memories which flood effortlessly through the mind as this song, lasting a few minutes, spreads itself out over an eternal time. The various memories made possible only because of the sacrifices these artists make, most of whom play small venues to a few dozen people and earn little to no money for the effort, and still decide to leave home for weeks and months and travel across an ocean to play and sing for people simply because people wish to hear them play and sing. And it would mention all those memories made in choosing to follow these artists to York and London and Staffordshire, and to hear them play at home in Manchester, and it would not just be memories such as Kassi playing in St. Lawrence’s Church in the darkness under pools of light, her song ‘Rapture’ soaring high into the eaves, but memories made possible by the decision to go at all, such as cresting the Biddulph valley in my car in the dark of the autumn night and seeing the town lit up in lights below; and finding my way to the church and walking up its path into the welcoming porchlight; or through the window of the train back from London the day after hearing Tyler Childers when I saw a red horse turn in a field and begin galloping, that I intended to put in a story somewhere; or spending the day today in York, walking its close, cobbled streets up to the skyscraping stone marvel of York Minster. And if it were good writing it would not invent anything but would mention how by the time I arrive in the late of the afternoon the cathedral would be closed to visitors, but that I would hear through the open doors the Minster’s choir sounding like angels beckoning to a better place, and yet I would know it would not be the sweetest music I would hear before the day was finished. And it would mention how I could not see the choir, only the darkness of the door and the candlelight within, and it would be able to show how truly this was enough.

If the writing were able to hold it all, it would recall in that moment Sierra Ferrell in Birkenhead with flowers in her hair, looking like she had stepped out of an Alphonse Mucha painting, and it would have Nick Shoulders with a head cold playing in a pub a few days after Hallowe’en, laughing at the toy spider decoration still spinning on a ceiling fan. It would have Charley Crockett leading his band into a blistering version of ‘Trinity River’, and it would have Billy Strings finding his way through ‘Hide and Seek’ as the song builds and builds and then breaks, the crowd thrashing like sharks around blood. And it would have space for the opening acts who are sacrificing more, perhaps, because their day is yet to come; for Tommy Prine singing a song about Gandalf all in white that I’ve not been able to hear again; for James Shakeshaft opening for Kassi tonight with a polished croon in his voice and a setlist of mostly unreleased songs which suggest his own best is still ahead of him; for Josh Beddis who opened for Sierra and for Mike West who at first I thought was a roadie gone rogue when he opened for Nick Shoulders in that pub in Bolton but who surprised me with his songwriting. It would have Mike and the Moonpies, who call themselves Silverada now; the metal shutter on the bar of the cellar where they play coming up like an ambush; the bassist Omar Oyoque leading the claps in ‘Beaches of Biloxi’; the two young bartenders dancing together during ‘Dance with Barbara’. It would have the crowd spontaneously singing the entirety of ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ to a bashful Oliver Anthony the moment he steps on stage at Manchester’s Albert Hall; the London crowd singing along to ‘Shake the Frost’ with Tyler Childers; Tyler swearing as he calls out a fight developing during ‘Country Squire’. It should have him refusing as he is heckled yet again for ‘Whitehouse Road’, and it should have the look on the hecklers’ faces if they could have known, then, that he would play the song in Manchester the following year. And though I would wish it didn’t, it should have those who drowned out Tyler’s songs with their chatter in Manchester, and it should have John R. Miller if those same ignorant people that night had allowed me to actually hear him. It would have 49 Winchester and the Red Clay Strays showing that rock music was not dead but was instead being sheltered by country; it would have Isaac Gibson singing ‘Russell County Line’ and Brandon Coleman leading the audience in ‘Hey Jude’ simply because the Beatles once played there.

And what else should it contain about the music you have heard and which you love? It should have Charley Crockett’s amp blowing on stage and it should have the paper planes Oliver Anthony sent flying into the crowd. It should have John Hall of the Red Clay Strays getting a piggyback off the stage and Sierra Ferrell throwing flower petals as she steps onto it. It should have Billy Strings flubbing his lines on ‘Heartbeat of America’ and somehow making it work. It should have all those other people who went to hear the music with me, the forty or so tonight for Kassi and the thousands of others, who roared and clapped and sat quietly, and who all took away different memories from those nights and found a chord struck with a different song. It would have Billy Strings speaking to my friend after his show as she tells him what his song ‘Secrets’ means to her and it would have Kassi speaking to me after hers. It would have Billy and Kassi and Mike West reaching out later to thank me for what I wrote about them, though they had made the writing of it easy by doing it so well, and it would have the promoter Nick Barber referred to as a staff member because I didn’t know any better and I would correct it later. It would have Mike West carting his gear down a quiet road after opening for the Moonpies and the close heat of the Charley Crockett gig during a heatwave, so warm you forgot it was warm and just accepted it, and it would have the coolness of the evening at night’s end when a car turned out of a sidestreet in the Northern Quarter and a man played a trumpet through its open window. It would have the many drives home afterwards when the music I play through the car stereo cannot replace it and when I hear the songs afterwards they are always enhanced by the memories of hearing them live. And it will have these moments because it will never be the same again, even if the song or the setlist you hear the next time remains the same.

But above all if the writing were good it would have Kassi Valazza singing it won’t be long, it won’t be long, it won’t be long, because that moment contains in it all the other moments, and if the writing had that then you wouldn’t need to write it at all. The music would be it already. You would let the music play and you would listen to it and hear it and write about it if you had to, but the music would survive even if you didn’t write it and the moments would continue to be made by the musicians who travel the world for their daily bread. And because of that, you will feel it deeply as Kassi ends with that Neil Young song, even if you cannot describe it, and having felt it all you will always look to go and hear it again. While the writing cannot say all that as simply as the song plays it in that one pure moment, you can still sit down and write a long letter and then you can be sure it has been said.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing and written by Kassi Valazza, unless noted)

1. Birds Fly High (unreleased)
2. Room in the City
3. Rapture
4. Johnny Dear (from Dear Dead Days)
5. Watching Planes Go By
6. Canyon Lines
7. Song for a Season
8. Roll On (unreleased)
9. Welcome Song
10. Early Morning Rising (single)
11. Weight of the Wheel (unreleased)
12. Wildageeses (Michael Hurley)
13. Chino (from Dear Dead Days)
14. Encore: One of These Days (Neil Young) (unreleased)

My concert reviews, including all of the gigs mentioned above, can be found here.

Tuesday 24th October 2023

St. Lawrence’s Church, Biddulph, England

I advance up the south stone path in the dark of the autumn evening. I slow my pace to avoid passing an older couple on the cobbles just ahead, and enter the welcoming light of the church. But no, I am not, reader, finally seeking forgiveness for all my sins. Tonight, St. Lawrence’s Church, in the Staffordshire town of Biddulph, is host to a more secular spirit. Kassi Valazza has come from America to tour her harmonious brand of psychedelic folk and country, and tonight her melodies will grace this parish church.

I sit silently in the nave, among the gathering congregation, and take in the scene. The old stone church is grand and yet intimate, perfect for tonight’s music, and I wonder at how buildings like this are common across England, built in better days when art and architecture was exalted, and too often fallen into disrepair in our own times. Coats-of-arms adorn the walls and, through the grey arches which line the nave, stone plaques are mounted in the bays. I look up and see dark brown beams lattice the ceiling, set off by the stark white paint of the roof itself. Behind the area at the front of the church, where a stage has already been cleared and musical instruments set up, there is an oak lectern and a stone altar. Beyond this red-carpeted chancel area where tonight’s trinity of musicians will later play, the apse funnels light up towards the heavens, past carved stone angels and stained-glass windows which Cromwell’s men once tried to destroy. Kassi may have come from America, a land where country music thrives and St. Lawrence is a great river, but this modest English church has existed since America was young, and on a site where a church has existed in one form or another for a thousand years.

Tonight is a night for fine female vocalists, and not long after ‘In Dreams’ by Sierra Ferrell (who I saw live last year) fades from the speakers, our opening act, the appropriately-named St. Catherine’s Child, stands before the microphone. The stage name of singer-songwriter Ilana Zsigmond, St. Catherine’s Child is the first artist tonight to recognise and be energised by their unique venue.

Dressed in a cream wool sweater and with a blood-red scarf in her hair, Ilana stands behind her acoustic guitar and sings gently of how “all the ruins here are foreign now to me”. ‘I Know Nothing’ is the first of many songs tonight whose lyrics seem tailor-made for the venue. While St. Lawrence’s Church is no ruin, it’s fair to say such places are not the centre of communities they once were. But their lingering spirit is revived on nights like this, as though the stones remember how they once sang.

After her second song, the uplifting ‘Burden’, Ilana looks puzzled as she reads a note held up by Nick Barber, the promoter (who also takes some excellent photographs tonight). The puzzlement turns to glee as, in her best “flight attendant” voice, she asks that “the owner of the Ford Focus with registration plate… please move your vehicle”.

“I’ve always wanted to do that!” she says gleefully, before breaking into ‘Connecticut River’, her songs proving to be as well-constructed as the stone which they now reverberate from. ‘Every Generation’ will prove to be another highlight, but it is her closing number, an unreleased song about the river flooding in York, which charms the most. I’m a sucker for lyrics that evoke history, and this song’s references to Romans and Vikings hit the spot.

Ilana rolls her eyes and smiles as she sings a line about having “no control”, as she had previously had to stop the song due to losing control of her soaring voice. St. Catherine’s Child is a bubbly presence all night, both on stage and at the merchandise table, and she tells us how she chose her stage name. She studied medieval art and architecture at university, and wrote her dissertation on Saint Catherine. Naturally, she is delighted to have sung at tonight’s venue, and tells us how she was handed a pamphlet on its history. I wonder if this pamphlet informs Ilana of one of the inscriptions on the church bells: My gentle voice shall lead the cheerful sound. It could serve as a fine summary of her own performance.

After a short interval, Kassi Valazza takes to the stage, to applause. She has removed the brown corduroy jacket in which she could be seen earlier tonight, as though she were wandering around Haight-Ashbury, and takes a seat behind her acoustic guitar at centre-stage. She wears a red sweater with unicorns on it, hiding a paisley shirt, and has the bluest bell-bottoms I’ve ever seen. To her left, the long-haired Tobias Berblinger takes a seat behind his electric keys, side-on to the audience like the profile of a Roman coin. His board is garlanded with flowers and a patterned white-and-red blanket. To Kassi’s right, Lewi Longmire reclines behind his electric guitar, his brown cowboy hat tipped forward. He will also provide harmonica and harmonies tonight.

The music builds, with Kassi’s acoustic strumming almost mantra-like as her companions’ refined touches begin to put together the expansive Canyon folk-rock sound which will keep us rapt for the rest of the night. “Birds fly high,” Kassi sings in a rich and melodious voice, her long blonde wavy hair falling over her face as she strums. “They’re black tails on white sails. Why do I think of you, when I’m blue, when I’m blue?” The band have begun as they mean to go on, with a gloriously mellow sound that recalls the best of the psychedelic California music of the Sixties. In the church setting, it doesn’t feel transgressive, but rather a continuation of that search for inner peace which first led to this place being built.

“That’s a bright light,” Kassi says in a slightly spaced-out voice after the song is over, looking up into the white spotlight which shines directly on her. “That’s what you see in church,” quips Lewi. But while their eyes are drawn to this light, which is tethered to one of the stone columns behind me, mine is drawn to the light behind them in the apse. This is now a pinkish-purple hue, funnelling upwards directly behind Kassi, with the rest of the room in shadow. A wooden crucifix stands tall on the altar over her right shoulder. The composition could almost be a religious painting; the three musicians on stage posing for a triptych or altarpiece.

Lewi begins the harmonica bursts that announce ‘Room in the City’, the instrument strapped to him in one of those Dylan-like neck contraptions. He adds further light touches on his guitar as Kassi weaves the lyrics together into a fine song. As the church bells toll quietly for nine o’clock, Kassi tells the congregation the story behind her next song. “You don’t know how fire works,” her friend would tell her after setting newspaper alight, and Kassi says this utterance of her “psychopathic” friend proved a nice juxtaposition to her own anxiousness.

But if there is any anxiety in Kassi, it has been banished from this place. As she sings and picks her way through ‘Rapture’, the folk song which houses this pyromania-inspired lyric, I find my eyes wandering upwards. It won’t be the first time tonight. My attention isn’t wandering – quite the contrary. Something about the scene tonight is so quietly perfect that I feel I must expand my frame to catch a glimpse of what is at work. The colours and hues painting the stone with light; the clarity of Kassi’s guitar strings as it picks the chord progression of the aptly-named ‘Rapture’; her voice as it fills this room – a room purpose-built for the highest ideals… I’ve been fortunate to attend some excellent gigs in the last year and more, but none with the uniquely restful quality tonight has provided.

Kassi follows up ‘Rapture’ with ‘Johnny Dear’, the first song of hers I ever heard and the first tonight which demonstrates her country influence. It’s a compassionate song and one which complements tonight’s vibe, but Tobias’ keys soon rekindle the psychedelic folk-rock vibe in the next song, ‘Watching Planes Go By’. “Michael blames his broken foot on lost time,” Kassi sings. A number of artists nowadays reach for that Sixties sound, but none sound as authentic as Kassi. She has an uncanny knack of delivering these lyrics, these hooks, in that startlingly clear voice, and even when the songs are new (there are five unreleased songs in tonight’s set-list, including four originals) they feel like you’ve known them before, like they’re some lost, overlooked gem from the hippie era that you heard, maybe once, on the radio decades ago. The warmth this generates as you hear them is difficult to describe. It’s akin to that sense of discovery some listeners feel within the confines of a jazz song.

Kassi evokes this feeling again and again tonight, next in ‘Long Way from Home’ – with some good slide guitar from Lewi and another uncannily appropriate lyric about “echoing church bells” – and a cover of the Michael Hurley song ‘Light Green Fellow’. “Some bright light came tumbling through,” Kassi sings next, on the beautiful and expansive ‘Chino’, altering this opening lyric to provide yet another appropriate harmony with St. Lawrence’s. In this venue, Kassi’s psychedelic folk has become almost transcendental, and ‘Chino’ ends with some playing from Tobias which recalls the majesty of a church organ. “Holy prophets, with empty pockets,” Kassi sings in the follow-up, ‘Song for a Season’.

For the next song Kassi plays alone, but even without the instruments of her two companions, she maintains the spell of the music. “Still my love grows, still my love grows,” she sings while picking on her acoustic guitar. “Higher and higher watch it grow, higher and higher out the door.” In fact, it is only when I crane my neck that I realise Lewi and Tobias are not playing. “Now I sit here all alone, keeping control”, Kassi sings.

It’s the third unreleased song of the night, though so natural is the songwriting that it is only later that I can confirm to myself that I’ve never heard any of them before. It’s quickly followed by a fourth, which Kassi says is a new song from an album they’ve recently recorded. Tonight, she is quietly showcasing her songwriting talent – only the Michael Hurley song we heard earlier is not penned by her – and as she sits and sings this latest one – with Tobias and Lewi joining her again – I find myself wondering when I will next be able to hear it. After all, it’s only been five months since the release of her last album. “Roll on, roll on, my dearest soul blue,” Kassi sings for her latest gentle hook, and I begin to recognise what it is about the night that feels so different to other gigs. Between the excellent acoustics of the church hall, and the crisp playing of three musicians who have stayed seated throughout the night, it feels less like a live performance and more like we have been invited to sit in on a special recording session.

As though in recognition of where I now realise I am, Kassi begins her ‘Welcome Song’. “I’ll build you up, I’ll build you down,” she sings, sounding like Grace Slick and yet better, crisper. “The circle always spinning.”  It’s followed up with the fantastic non-album single ‘Early Morning Rising’; two songs that suggest a beginning and yet, in keeping with that cosmic circle, arriving now towards the end of the night. You can almost feel the sun and the loamy earth in the latter song, and the acoustic chords during its emphatic wordless chorus reverberate from the stone.

“It’s easier to say than practice what I know,” Kassi sings in her final song, another tantalisingly unreleased display of lyricism. “It’s the weight of the wheel, or so I’m told.”  When it’s over, the trio of musicians exit through what’s known as the “devil’s door”, a stout wooden arched door traditionally for heathens and other godless personages (“where they put the band,” Kassi had said earlier in the night, with furrowed brow and mock suspicion). But the three have not been unwelcome in this sanctum tonight, and the audience shouts for an encore.

The three enter again to applause, and resume their seats. “Turn your hymn books to page 47,” Lewi quips, to laughter. Kassi says Lewi has never been in church before, before leading her companions into a tender version of her encore song, ‘Verde River’. Rather than the honky-tonkin’ of the album version, Kassi’s version tonight is slower and more melodious, recapturing the spirit which has pervaded each of tonight’s songs. For one final time, I sit back and absorb the harmonic interstices of the night; the restful moments that seem to breathe between Kassi’s crystal voice and her crisp acoustic strumming, between the tasteful, punctuating notes of Lewi’s electric guitar and Tobias’ echoing ambient soundscapes, and between the pinkish light which pools on the walls behind Kassi Valazza and funnels up towards the top of the apse. As this final song ends, I find myself thinking that if rapture is ever called from on high, it won’t be called in blood and fire or as some awful noise, but gently and serenely, and by chords like these.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing and written by Kassi Valazza, unless noted)

1. Birds Fly High* (unreleased)
2. Room in the City
3. Rapture
4. Johnny Dear (from Dear Dead Days)
5. Watching Planes Go By
6. Long Way from Home (I’ll Ride You Down)
7. Light Green Fellow (Michael Hurley) (unreleased)
8. Chino (from Dear Dead Days)
9. Song for a Season
10. From Newman St. (Higher and Higher)* (unreleased)
11. Roll On* (unreleased)
12. Welcome Song
13. Early Morning Rising (single)
14. Weight of the Wheel* (unreleased)
15. Encore: Verde River (from Dear Dead Days)

* track titles unconfirmed