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Event
Kevin Morby
This is an intimate living room performance in a private residence. Full details on the location will be provided at the end of ticket purchase.
TICKETS:
No paper tickets will be sent.
ADMISSION:
Print and bring your confirmation which will include the address and other details. Please don't share this info with anyone! In addition, your name will be on a list at the door. All tickets will be listed under the purchaser's name. Groups of two or more must arrive with the purchaser (example: Jackie Treehorn +3). No one will be allowed to enter unless their name is on the list at the door. No additional tickets will be sold at the door. You must buy tickets here to get into this show.
SHOWTIME:
8:00PM
SEATING:
This show will be general admission floor seating. Feel free to bring a pillow or cushion to sit more comfortably on the floor.
ALL SALES ARE FINAL. SORRY, NO REFUNDS:
Due to the limited number of tickets please make sure you can attend before you make your purchase. If you can no longer attend a show you can give or sell (at face value) the tickets to a friend. Contact us (toby.carpenter@gmail.com) before the show to transfer your tickets. We'll cancel any tickets resold for higher than original price.
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Considering his career, Kevin Morby's own shift from buzz band sideplayer to existentially peripatetic frontman is an interesting one. Once upon a time, the Kansas City-bred musician was based in Brooklyn, playing in groups like Woods and the Babies. Now, he lives in Los Angeles and has written Harlem River, a love letter to New York City that transforms its eponymous subject's long stretch of water into a metaphor for a wandering heart.
Within Woods' discography, Morby's bass-playing wasn't necessarily meant to suggest the existence of a richly detailed interior. Meanwhile, the Babies were formed from an inside joke and have been self-described as a party band. Harlem River has the same emotional looseness as those groups, but its instrumental texture is more focused: it's made up of intricately plucked acoustic guitars, shimmering organs, and electric guitars cutting through the negative space like a foglight. And, given the proper room to breathe, Morby's voice reveals its lazy-day Kansan cadence, sounding not unlike Cass McCombs, Kurt Vile, or any guy with a guitar who's got something to tell you.
What Morby has to say is unspecific, but no less true. On "Miles, Miles, Miles," he alludes to the darkness the song's protagonist has come from, while offering a wishful portrait of the place he'd like to be. The title track is slow and ponderous, Morby's voice reduced to a muted creep as he seeks answers from a path showing no end. On "Slow Train", he sings of not wanting to be destroyed by his temperament while wondering if he's already missed his chance at redemption. That title, borrowed from the most spiritual of Bob Dylan albums, is surely no coincidence. The song features Cate le Bon, a similarly-minded singer who on her most recent album offered the mournful admission: "I forget the detail/ but know the warmth." That, more than anything, functions as an explanation of Morby's creative ethos.
Harlem River is mostly concerned with different shades of subtlety, which makes the rare overt moments stick out like an anarchy patch on a wedding dress. This is an album which references Easy Rider and Bob Dylan and has the temerity to sing a song called "Wild Side" (which is largely concerned with walking) in a recognizably Reedian drawl. That also means Morby's perhaps quixotic intent to refashion himself as a 60s-era nomad is sometimes undercut by the limitations of his arrangements: the repeating breakdown in "Wild Side" is rhythm-disrupting brittle, and the cowpoke shuffle of "Reign" is a little too on-the-nose in its attempt to tell a modern outlaw tale. But those moments aren't too distracting. Morby largely succeeds at taking us on his journey, imploring that the big "Where am I going?" question isn't so daunting so long as you keep collecting suggestions.
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LocationTo Be Announced (Long Beach, CA)
displayed after purchase
Long Beach, CA 90814
United States
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