overlap

Nearly missed this one, but a chance check on the website meant I only knew this gig was on just over a week before it happened. New venue to me, apparently been running since around the turn of the year, but I've had no reason to pay attention to it before. So there's a small concern when the venue website specifies that parking is limited, and local knowledge suggests that getting to the recommended road for parking will take some doing, so I allowed plenty of time, and ended up about the seventh person through the door. Eventually Jason turned up, the room got a bit fuller and by the end a good thirty or maybe even forty people were watching. I mentioned seeing Jason and the Scorchers earlier this year, but the intimacy of Jason's solo shows is a level above that. What we got was two hours split by a brief interval for Jason to sell and sign CDs and t-shirts, and take requests for songs to do in the second half of the show. He signed the CD I bought and the sleeve for another that I'd brought with me, and said he thought that particular Scorchers show was as good a show as the Scorchers have ever played. I'm reminded of a conversation I had recently about someone meeting a musician whose work he admired, and finding his liking being somewhat tarnished by the guy in question being at best disinterested. Some people can turn it on because being vaguely friendly is a part of the job, but Jason is not just a true pro, he's also a thoroughly decent, friendly chap who'll chat as long as you want because he likes that rather than because it's part of the job. Jason's diversion into music for children is heavily hinted at by this, his cover of Roger Miller's England Swings, so it's a good guide to what you'll get if you go and see him. Nothing staggeringly new, except this time I got some decent video and will put a couple more tracks on youtube when I get a chance, but full value for money and some good honest Tennessee humour and warmth. And you really can't ask for much more than that. * "Running down the highway, running down the line" is from Farmer Jason's 'Punk Rock Skunk', from his second album for children of all ages!

Labels: gigs, Jason and the Scorchers, Jason Ringenberg