One of the best things about seeing Hiss Golden Messenger is that it’s a different line-up every time and, also, whoever is in the band on any given night is like family to frontman MC Taylor. This shifting collection of players are encouraged to offer their own sense of the songs, so makes it certain that you’ll hear new textures on songs that have made their way into your bones. (If you haven’t yet checked out the amazing collection of Hiss shows on nyctaper.com, please do: there’s a solo show, and many iterations of full-band shows.) This particular line-up was masterful. Phil Cook is, of course, Phil Cook. Josh Kaufman on lead guitar can do pretty much anything. Michael Libramento, on bass, is so creative and just brings so much joy to the stage. And Matt McCaughan on drums: holy god.
But more than anything technical, it was a great feeling at The Sinclair. They opened with three songs from three different albums: “Biloxi,” “Red Rose Nantahala,” and, “Jenny of The Roses.” What I love about these songs as the beginning of the set is that they are all open and vulnerable and grooving at the same time. It’s also nice to get a broad swath of the catalogue right off the bat, bringing in old and new fans at the same time.
The crowd was right there with the band the whole night, reveling in new songs, like “Happy Birthday,” written for Taylor’s daughter, Ione, and keeping the whole place quiet for a solo rendition of “Balthazar’s Song,” from the first Hiss album, Bad Debt. God damn, that was beautiful. “Are you with me now?” the song begins, “I’m working like a mule. / I’m pulling slow, on a rain black road, / With a load I can barely feel.” These are the kind of lyrics that grow with the singer and the listener too and it’s what I have come to truly love about Hiss Golden Messenger: the songs won’t keep still.
This was true for me that night especially with “Cracked Windshield,” Taylor’s part-homage to his late friend Jason Molina. Before the song, Taylor reflected the reality that the music business treats everybody pretty harshly–some make it through and some do not. The lyrics reflect this sense that one can end up in a variety of places, none of them certain: “I was a dreamer, babe, when I set out on the road; / But did I say that I could find my way home?” What really struck me in this rendition was that it starts with just Taylor and Phil Cook on stage, and as the song progresses, the rest of the band comes back out on stage and they kick in together about halfway through the song. While I don’t think this was an intentional message, part of what occurred to me watching this group come back together is the incredible importance of a community to sustain any artist. I don’t mean this to be simple–it’s not as if those who make it have community and those who fall do not; but it felt resonant to have this song start spare and end up full. This is what I mean about songs that won’t keep still: I don’t think the song is about that at all, and yet it was something that it communicated to me that night. You just don’t get that from songs that are, as Joe Pug would put it, “too on the nose.” And, honestly, maybe that’s all projection, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
The show ended with a sing-along: “Brother Do You Know The Road?” one of my favorite tunes. It’s simple and deep; as I get older, there’s part of me that feels like the simplest things are the deepest. It felt hopeful–something as we encounter 2019, we could all use. And it allowed Matt McCaughan to uncork himself in a way that he hadn’t all night. For much of the night, his drumming was as intricate as it was subtle–the kind of rhythm that has you moving simply because you’re compelled by it. And then on “Brother,” he took us away with a performance that literally lifted him out of his seat, and knocked the rest of us flat. It was special and felt like there’s only a handful of people who have the range that he showed all night.
If you follow MC Taylor on social media, you’ll get treated to a poem every few weeks. He said he’d spent most of his day off in Cambridge at Raven Used Books, across the street from The Sinclair. So, it feels only right to end a review of a Hiss Golden Messenger show with a poem. This one is from Natasha Trethewey and her stunning collection Native Guard:
Theories of Time and Space
You can get there from here, though
there’s no going home.
Everywhere you go will be somewhere
you’ve never been. Try this:
head south on Mississippi 49, one-
by-one mile markers ticking off
another minute of your life. Follow this
to its natural conclusion–dead end
at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where
riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches
in a sky threatening rain. Cross over
the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand
dumped on the mangrove swamp–buried
terrain of the past. Bring only
what you must carry–tome of memory,
its random blank pages. On the dock
where you board the boat for Ship Island,
someone will take your picture:
the photograph – who you were –
will be waiting when you return.
Good luck in 2019, everybody. As of this writing, there are still some tickets left to see Hiss Golden Messenger (with Erin Rae opening! Holy shit!) solo this spring in New England. He’s played solo shows at One Longfellow Square each of the past few summers and those have been some of the best nights of music I’ve ever had. The solo tour comes to The Knickerbocker Music Center in Westerly, RI (March 2), Gateway City Arts, in Holyoke, MA (March 3), 3S ArtSpace in Portsmouth, NH (March 5), and ArtsRiot, in Burlington, VT (March 6). Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones going to one of the Billsville House Concerts in Manchester, VT on March 7–if so, soak it in.