Thursday, June 11

DOUG PAISLEY
This will be the Philadelphia debut of the Toronto-based country-folk songwriter best known as half of the Will Oldham-championed Dark Hand and Lamplight, a live performance collaboration with visual artist Shary Boyle which features Boyle creating live drawings and animating pre-drawn images on an overhead projector while Mr. Paisley sings and plays guitar.

Tonight, Doug will be playing songs from his gem of a debut album, released late last year on No Quarter Records, as well as new songs. Doug’s first LP, an enduring favorite at Arthur Philly HQ , garnered four stars from Andrew Male at Mojo magazine, who saluted its “lilti​ng melod​ies,​ comforting​ Guy Clark​ drawl​,​ and lazy Bears​ville​ arrangemen​ts… ​ [There’s] nagging details within these love songs​ of union​ and division—great​ fireb​alls,​ waves​ risin​g up, birds​ falli​ng from the sky, unima​ginab​le thing​s burie​d in the groun​d,​ deeds​ that can’t​ be undon​e,​ cold,​ sound​less rain and somet​hing on the horiz​on ‘we will surel​y see coming/​in the wide open plain​.​’ This mood of proph​esy and foreboding​ lends​ Paisley’s debut​ an eerie​ power​ and stren​gth,​ meani​ng that as you retur​n to his charm​ing and encha​nting​ country melod​ies—and you will —they’​ll continue to throw​ up their​ weird​ detai​ls,​ glint​ing symbo​ls of doom on the horizon of the Ameri​can west.​”

And here’s Mike Wolf in Time Out New York: “Comparisons between musicians usually do a disservice to all involved, but ignoring the minor detail of one sui generis decades-long career, Doug Paisley and Neil Young share many key traits. Both are Canadian and have a grasp of American roots-music traditions so deep you’d think it comes from their bones. More important, Paisley, like Young and few other singer-songwriters, has the power of immediate communication: When he opens his mouth, you believe him utterly—that he has crossed the rivers, climbed the mountains, come through the fires, lived every molecule of what he sings.

“Paisley’s self-titled album is last year’s most extravagantly unadorned piece of music: plain as dirt and direct as sunlight, and no less elemental. “Frost leaves a sign on your window/Now you know the summer’s been and gone/You wonder when you’ll see another one/Where did the sweet love go?” he sings on “A Day Is Very Long,” fan-dancing the profound behind the mundane. There are few highs and lows in Paisley’s economical songs; he’s whittled out his space in the middles, where all the forethought and aftermath that sandwich life’s big events go on, though gravity and shadow loom toward the edge of the sky.

“While his album is gorgeously spare—bass, drum and backing vocals on some songs, plus his guitar and keyboards—Paisley will be playing solo at these shows, which is only fitting for the purest voice to come down the pike in ages.”

GREG WEEKS
The Espers guitarist, producer and record label mogul makes a rare local solo performance. “Prolly acoustic guitar,” he sez. “Simple and straightforward.”

WILLIE LANE
“Epic martian love call transmitted by steel strings & flanger” is how this frequent MV & EE collaborator and Child of Microtones scene member, now based in Philadelphia, describes what he’ll be playing tonight. Willie’s just-out LP, Known Quantity (Cord Art), is a favorite in many houses. Arthur Magazine “Bull Tongue” columnists Byron Coley and Thurston Moore call it “a total blast. Willie’s mostly solo (save for some licks by Samara Lubelski) and his playing ranges from Wizz Jones power-pluck at its cleanest to Michael Chapman electro-smear at its phasingest. But Willie knows his stuff cold and this instrumental slide through the gates of Neverland is one of this year’s great rides.”

SONDRA SUN-ODEON
This New York City-based singer/writer/guitarist, best known for her work in Silver Summit, will open the evening with what she calls “a loosely fingerstyle guitar & vocal set conjuring rain…big sad drops of water with dark, hazy, haunting song clouds that speak of death, love, parting, and paradise. ”