Simon
Joyner
Smith Memorial Center Portland State University, 1825 SW Broadway,
725-3000
12 pm Wednesday, Feb. 16 Free.
Simon Joyner, Mark Growden, Patrick
Kearns
EJ's, 2140 NE Sandy Blvd., 234-3535
10 pm Wednesday, Feb. 16 Cover.
Simon Joyner makes the sparse grow lush.
The Omaha, Neb., singer-songwriter, who's been compared
to everyone from Dylan to Leonard Cohen in a career spanning
10 years and many micro-labels, seems to figure that if
he's going to write about something, it might as well be
something. His melancholy sound couples with lyrics
tackling the Big Themes: storms, God, derailed love.
Joyner hasn't appeared in Portland since the X-Ray Cafe
days, but he's landed two slots today to promote The
Lousy Dance, an album marking his slow progression from
spare arrangements to more complex instrumentation. In Lousy
Dances' shadows lurk the aforementioned Dylan and Cohen,
Townes Van Zandt and Lee Hazlewood. It's heady company,
but you see, Joyner had one of those fathers.
"My dad was really into the singer-songwriter stuff," Joyner
says over the telephone, somewhere between a distant load-in
and sound check. "And also the more experimental, psychedelic
stuff like United States of America and the 13th Floor Elevators.
He had this huge collection of records. A lot of them he
only listened to once. But he kept them, and I was able
to cut my teeth on that."
This emporium of influences is evidenced by the list of
instruments on The Lousy Dance: trumpet, cornet,
fluegelhorn, trombone, strings, piano, clarinet, as well
as the standard guitar, bass and drums. Live, Joyner usually
performs solo, but on this tour he's backed by fellow Omahan
Lonnie Menthe, who handles violin, electric-guitar, drum
and organ duties.
Have no fear. Joyner avoids the threatened descent into
obtuse orchestral pop, both on record and stage.
"We found ways to do the songs in a stripped-down way,"
Joyner says. "Lonnie will sometimes be playing two instruments
in one song so that we can retain some of its diversity
just as a duo. It's been going really well, but Lonnie is
also really overworked."
At first glance, the archetypal meat of Joyner's songwriting
seems a real downer. Delving into the songs, though, one
finds optimism in the connection between adversity and the
effort to counteract it. In this American Gothic soundscape,
classic themes provoke classic struggles.
"It's more interesting to me to work on a level applicable
to everyone across the board," Joyner says. "There are certain
cultural images, universal themes or whatever, that everyone
can relate to. Mention Goliath, and not just the giant but
the whole story is summoned to people's consciousness. If
I tried to find a modern equivalent, I'd lose a lot of people
that way. Even if someone doesn't know exactly what I am
working at, if I'm using flood imagery, they'll still get
the general feeling."
Indeed, of all the obstacles Joyner's characters face,
none is as relentless as rain. Lousy Dance's "The
Rain Asked for a Holiday" sympathizes even with the wettest
of weather, exhausted but still left with "Whole villages
to be drowned/And someone's got to do it."
"Rain's useful as a metaphor," Joyner adds, "because people
will make their own associations with it--as a kind of a
cleansing or an imminent doom--so you can describe something
and, using that kind of imagery, you don't have to do as
much work."
If Joyner has a message, it might be something like this:
Stop your grousing, because things will get worse. Witness
"It Will Never Be This Way Again": "The lonely boarder complains
of being buried in his bed/ The fortune teller nods and
smiles as she unravels him some thread/ She says, 'Why don't
you go find yourself somewhere else that you can hang/ 'Cause
you will never be this lucky again."
That mind-set helps make sense of a man who continues to
hone his craft, despite familial and financial obligations
(he's married with three kids), in the face of persistent
obscurity. Addressing both issues, Joyner says he's meeting
his wife and children when his current tour reaches California
and attributes his lack of fame to his refusal to fit into
genre pigeonholes.
"I don't really have a stereotypical crowd," he says. "I
mean, the music isn't trendy, so I guess it's just whoever
likes it that shows up."
From Joyner's point of view, sooner or later they will
and do.
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Willamette Week | originally
published February 16,
2000
|
