Flanfire

Good Golly, Miss Molly!
I first heard the name Molly Venter when I was helping out friends with some shows at [] coffeehouse during SXSW week. I totally missed her showcase there, but she did hand me a five-song sampler from her forthcoming CD, "Love Me Like You Mean It." Next thing I knew, I learned that Miss Molly was a member of Body Choir, home to the much beloved John Slatin and to my old pals Laura Rose and Bruce. Then I went to Molly's CD release (done without the actual CD) at the Cactus Cafe and met Molly's brother Josiah (also a singer-songwriter).

By this time I was already captivated by this amazing woman, who spent months down in Guanajuato, Mexico, honing her craft and who is currently on tour on the East Coast. The photo here is Molly singing a brand-new song (not on the CD) and playing a grand piano at a well-known Austin address -- and Molly admits that she has a long way to go as a pianist. But she looks (and played) GREAT! It was on this day I finally got the full CD -- and now I can hardly wait till she is back in town.

Bukka Allen plays piano, accordian, and other keyboards on this wonderful recording, and Andre Moran the electric guitar. Rick Richards is on drums, and Michael Hynes on bass -- and Megan Melara lends her voice to a couple of these great songs. Hynes also produced and engineered at The Hideout, and the legendary Dez Dickerson (Prince and the Revolution, Starsong Records) oversaw the entire project for Pavilion Entertainment up in Nashville.

But all that is really important here is Molly's captivating voice and her SONGS! I have to start with "Good Mother," a woman whose story my own mom is living today -- "Would you understand me if I could not speak? Would you feed me supper if I got too weak? Would you drive six hours just to watch me sit and stare? If I got to that point would I even care ...." Molly goes on, "What is the essence of this soul, when the years have taken their toll, I am afraid, trapped in this broken mind, And all you can do is just be kind to me .. be kind ...." But at the end of the song, we are astonished by these words: "What is the essence of this life? Can you feel the joy beneath the cutting knife? I see you trapped in those pretty working minds, And all we can do is just be kind ...."

Molly begins the record with "Shaky Ground," a place she admits to being all too familiar with -- "As the chaos subsides, I am sorting out lies I have come to believe ...." Next she begs her man to "Love Me Like You Mean It" rather than "balk and ... back down" "like you're trying to keep yourself from getting burned." "Happier Now" is a song about growing up but on a deeper level of finding a love that is there "through my darkest night so black." "Write a Letter" is all about a romance going in the wrong direction -- "I don't know why we don't work, I don't know why we're still hurting and why we keep trying long after it stopped working." Personal stuff.

Same for "Tonight," "In the Snow," and "Playing for Keeps." Molly first says , "What I learn about myself is I feel solid as a friend .. I can tell you things that make me cry ... But I'm not as grown up as I try to be ...." "Snow" is just a sweet love song, and "Keeps" is actually about not playing for keeps. Which gets us back to songs that transcend -- In "Great Ocean" Molly notes that "I come to the choir with no part to sing, I come to the feast but my hands are empty, Do you have a firelight to keep the darkness out, Through all of this noise, do you hear me shouting?" Molly is writing this on the road, seven hours into an 11-hour drive, watching the telephone lines and thinking that her heart "is a hundred thousand lifetimes strong."

"Real Anymore" and "Hello Fear" both grapple with the larger issues, too. "Real" asks "What do you do when the veil is taken off? What do you see when the great whale has been caught?" Or to put it another way, "We are missing the heart of it, and shutting out everyone else" out of suspicion that leads all too often to real conflict. "Fear" confronts envy ("every time I bury you, you pop up in my face again"), craving ("it sets me up for feeling like a failure every night"), greed, loneliness ("I think I'll be facing you over and over and over again"), and fear itself ("my guess is you will stay forever .. but I know you keep me safe some of the time").

"Stars" is anthemic in both its scope and its energy -- after meeting an angel, Molly soars: "I am freedom, I am lightness,I am scared for him to go..." But the angel says, "I can't tell you anything you didn't already know." Indeed, as she sails along, the realization comes as the storm hits and the waves come crashing down -- "You have your moment in the mystic, You have the music in your mouth." And what music it is! After listening to this woman, whether live or even on the record, you will surely feel like wet laundry being wrung out and hung up to dry - with the glorious sun hitting you square in the breadbasket.



Dao Strom's Long, Strange (and Wonderful) Journey

The good news is that the new Dao Strom recording, "Everything That Blooms Wrecks Me," is a HUGE leap forward from her debut CD, "Send Me Home," which showcased her bluegrass roots as a woman born in Vietnam of a Vietnamese mother and American father who grew up in northern California and has written intimately personal -- and award winning -- novels and short stories. The bad news is that Dao is living in Alaska and that maybe not until winter there will be have a chance to be blessed in person by her wonderful songs and gentle aura. The good news again is that she is happy with her husband and handsome son Lincoln.

I showed the new record off to Lonesome Hero Landry McMeans, who of course hand-cut the wood in the jacket of the Heroes' new CD (not officially released yet) -- and she was as stunned as I at the hand-made outer jacket (an Alaskan totem photo affixed to this heavy brown textured paper), the equally awesome inner jacket (a birchwood paper with a photo of Dao), and the card that contains the song titles (a sepia photo, taken by Kyle MacDonald, of Dao amidst the wreckage of which she sings).

More photos on the sheet with all the lyrics -- and there we learn that the record was produced by (who else?) Darwin Smith, recorded by Jimmy Way in San Marcos (with Darwin adding more of his magic later on), and features her nine? year old son Lincoln on the final track. Musicians include Billy Brent Malkus (who first introduced me to Dao's music) on dobro and electric guitar, Darwin Smith and Kevin Fox on guitars (Kevin also plays bass, and Darwin adds bells, whistles, and vocals), Jimmy Way on drums, Joseph Santori on cello, Kullen Fuchs on accordian, piano, and Rhodes, Brian Beken on violin and mandolin, and the lovely Aimee Bobruk on vocals.

Anyone looking for another bluegrass record may be disappointed for half a minute -- but Dao's gentle voice and the amazing music -- and her lyrics -- will quickly turn doubters into shouters! Dao says that there are moments of darkness and moments of reprieve in these songs, just as there were in the experiences that led them into being. The songs come from California, the Oregon coast Baja South, and of course the Texas Hill Country.

I have to start with the stark a cappella "Traveler's Ode," which is the nearest thing to the Appalachian music Dao first started singing in public. And yet this song is about Dao's flight from Vietnam as a young child. Well, "Fields of California" is also a bluegrass song, with Brian Beken and Brent Malkus swapping licks on mandolin and dobro -- as Dao spins a tale about "a man who bears no secret 'cept the one that stole all hope from a girl he sees now falling, falling back ...."

The capstone of this record has to be "Only Angel" -- "Even the oceans can turn to rust and what'll we do with the salt and dust that is clinging to our clothes?" And that wonderful chorus, "If you believe we were made to love, then you'd be the only angel that I ever had a dream of, and I've dreamed about a thousand loves and they're all of you...." Santori's cello is all over this song, adding warmth that makes this song just glow.

But there is so much more -- "Caller of Spirit" (Dao's version and Lincoln's too -- "on a mountain in the moonlight, sitting down on stone for breakfast, I saw a caller of spirit crying if they don't forget to say, God smile"). The guitar work here is absolutely beautiful (both versions), and Dao sings these mystical lyrics about venturing "into dark territories" and maybe not making it all the way back ... "tightrope walking on a slack line, I never thought I'd fall this close to earth." "Slow" is a true folk love song, with fiddle (Beken calls it a violin) - a waltz, at that!

The title cut, which Dao says is "a halo spinning around one's heart, the curse of being able to feel but not konwing what to do in the face of suffering, the curse of being witness to but unable to alleviate anyone else's pain, let alone your own ..." This, too, is a showcase for Santori's cell0 and Fuch's piano work -- in juxtaposition. "Silver" Dao says is a song that honors her mother and all single mothers "walking a less traveled path." It was she who first told Dao that some of us prefer silver to gold -- "cuz what is wealth if you're always in need and you count on love more than you ever count your money?" Kullen is here on accordian.


"Sweetness" -- could this be a dual song about her man and her son too? "You bring me pictures becuz you don't wanna talke too much; Words were never enough to say all you saw and all the flowers you gave ..." "Seeds in the Ashes" Dao says is about "the hope of planting something, re-finding something, despite all of the wreckage we have gone through." Here we get another delicious taste of Malkus' dobro. Driving through the countryside near "Lebanon, Missouri," Dao remembered an old friend with whom she had once made a promise to meet on top of a pyramid but never got there -- until four years later their paths crossed again. This is the most electric song on the record. And yet even here the energy is masked -- Dao's music leaves us as if we had been gently hand washed with 100% cleansing cream.

Oh, and speaking of Billy Brent Malkus, fans of the Texas Sapphires ought to glom onto a copy of the band's new DVD (filmed by ME TV in April 2007), "Sorta Live from Austin, Texas," which has a dozen songs. Newcomers to the band will glory in the joyful singing of Malkus and the irresistible Rebecca Lucille Cannon -- and the rest of the band is smokin'. The band is also at work on a new set of songs that may see the light of day later this year.

Gotta go -- more on my musical ramblings next time. But don't forget to see Po' Girl one or both of the last two Tuesdays (at 7 pm at Momo's) this month!



Flanfire -- Bringing LIFE to Austin music.