The Bands @ Return of the Byrne: Free Dirt

Return of the Byrne: A St. Louis Fundraiser for Burn Your Bookes at the Schalfly Tap Room is only a few days away. (Thursday, March 11 at 7 p.m.)

In the lead up to the gig, we'll have a look at the bands who'll be playing. Today it's Free Dirt.

* * * * * * * *

By the mid-1990s, I was sort of burned out on what had come to be known as "alternative country."

I know, I know. It's a contested term. You could argue that everything from George Jones to Gram Parsons to the Blasters was "alternative country." Hell, I saw Mary-Louise Parker interview Elvis Costello the other night and she argued that Almost Blue was the beginning of alt-country. I almost fell out of my chair.

What I mean here is the particular wave that started with Uncle Tupelo and blossomed into the No Depression movement, named after the Tupes' first record. My burnout on it shouldn't really shouldn't come as a surprise. As one of the critics who helped boost the first wave of No Depression bands, I had done a lot of heavy lifting. And I was getting less and less enamored with the bands that followed that first wave. The edge was being lost. Plus, I felt like I was getting pigeonholed. I wanted to write about the other stuff I loved: trip hop, French pop, art rock, the Mekons.

The successes of Uncle Tupelo and the Bottle Rockets (who both signed with major labels) did prompt a lot of Midwestern bands to try and duplicate what they had done. The ones I gravitated towards -- despite my burnout -- were the ones that attacked the music with ferocity. Omaha's Frontier Trust are just the sort of band I loved at that point: furious tractor punk. The Waco Brothers, too.

In St. Louis, the bands who cut through the droning alt-noise for me in that era were Stillwater (more on them in a future post) and Free Dirt (Dan Niewoehner, guitar; Tom Buescher, guitar; Greg Vernon, drums; Dave Harris, bass). Their recorded output is a couple songs on justly-celebrated compilation, The Way Out Club, (which also feature the Highway Matrons, Johnny Magnet and the Trip Daddys among others) and an eponymous record -- both on the Rooster Lollipop label.

I had gotten a demo tape from an earlier incarnation of Free Dirt called The Maurys, but it didn't really penetrate my consciousness. The first time that Free Dirt really made me sit up and pay attention was a night at the old Way Out Club in St. Louis in the mid-90s. (I think it was Halloween, but I won't swear to it.)

They were pretty wonderful that night -- the band's songwriting chops survived and even shone through a sloppy but incredibly powerful set. And they sealed the deal with a simply devastating cover of Devo's "Uncontrollable Urge." I still prefer Free Dirt's version of this song to the original, and it was their version that stripped the uptight neurosis from the Devo version and revealed the spinal column of Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop" at the core of the song.

That night turned me into a believer. The songs were edgy scenester odes -- slightly seedy, slightly sozzled and yet knowing and reaching for something higher. (That pretty much summed up my existence at that particular late 1990s moment.)

And as I dug deeper into their songs, I discovered a lot of gems that are still on my iPod to this day. Niewoehner's "Rude Pets" is a jaunty ode to his past bands that had ill-fated dreams of getting past the classic rock that dominated the radio of that era. Buescher's "Slippin'" starts with chiming chords that his voice grinds down as the lyrics pursue their dismal and fatalistic race to the bottom. And when Buescher and Niewohner's sensibilities collide on "Settin' Myself Up/Medicine," it's one-two punch of undeniable power: Buescher's world-weary ode to decline is carried on waves of chords and then surges into Niewoehner's deftly-painted journey through a drugged -out landscape and its insufficiency to cope with life's enduring pain. It's just terrific.

I've always regretted that I wasn't able to single-handledly drag Free Dirt into a bigger spotlight. They really had that mojo that gets you signed... especially in that era. Check out "Untie My Head," which is up on their MySpace page. This song came late in the band's heyday and while this studio version is terrific, it doesn't quite capture the transcendent version that they'd crank up live. I remember seeing them do it live in Belleville one night and it nearly took my head off.

No Depression magazine eventually took notice of them but my recollection is that Free Dirt sort of imploded eventually and everyone went on the pastures and projects new. So I am delighted that they are getting back together for Return of the Byrne. I saw them play tight, blistering sets and I saw them veer toward shambles on occasion, but I never saw them play without passion.

Can't wait to see that again on March 11.

Free Dirt (from left): Dan Niewoehner, Tom Buescher, Dave Harris, Greg Vernon

Help Me (and Taffety Punk) Put on a Show

My show, that is. I am so excited that Taffety Punk Theatre Company will produce my play about alchemy in Renaissance Prague, Burn Your Bookes, at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in spring. (Opening night: Friday, April 30, 2010.)

We had a standing-room only audience for the sneak preview of Burn Your Bookes at the Kennedy Center over Labor Day weekend. If you didn’t see it, a video of the performance is here at the Kennedy Center's web site. (Note: Real Player required.)

But I’m posting this message because we need your help to get the play up and running in late April.

Taffety Punk was the first theatre company that I contacted when I finished Burn Your Bookes in April 2008. Why? The same reasons that I’m asking you to help support the company today.

Commitment to excellence: Taffety Punk is about taking artistic risks and making them pay off for audiences. Whether it’s rethinking Shakespearean classics like Romeo and Juliet, Measure for Measure or Troilus and Cressida or tackling new work (like Burn Your Bookes or Gwydion Suilebhan’s plays Let X and The Faithkiller, or our recent critical smash suicide.chat room), Taffety Punk possesses a keen sense of adventure and a knack for showmanship. Critics and the D.C. theatre community are taking note. Taffety Punk performances have garnered raves in the Washington Post., the Washington City Paper and elsewhere, attracted the attention of local television and radio, and won the company a Helen Hayes Award as Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company in 2008.

Don't believe me? Ask Washington Post critic Peter Marks, whose review of suicide.chat.room in early February summed it up nicely: "The energetic evening is brought to you by Taffety Punk Theatre Company, a resourceful D.C. troupe that looks for ways to supplement the fairly conventional diet on which audiences here tend to be restricted."

Low ticket prices: Taffety Punk artistic director Marcus Kyd knows that the fierce competition for entertainment dollars – and young audiences – means that theater needs to be priced for maximum accessibility. Taffety Punk performances always feature a low $10 ticket price – live theater that’s cheaper than a movie. And some of our most innovative performances, including out annual Shakespeare bootleg (check out this rave from D.C.'s Examiner here) are absolutely free!

Emphasis on text and performance: As a playwright, this was a key selling point in asking Taffety Punk to do Burn Your Bookes. Taffety Punk is an actor’s and a writer’s theatre company. They love the text – whether it is the Renaissance language of Shakespeare or the contemporary language of new playwrights – and savor the wit and audacity of great writing.

I hope you’re moved to make a generous donation to Taffety Punk Theatre Company. Even with our scrappy, lo-fi production ethos, it still costs a few thousand dollars to produce a show. (Especially with $10 ticket prices.) Your contribution is targeted to ensure that actors and technical staff get paid – and that more people hear about the great work that we’re doing. We don’t have paid staff or other overhead at Taffety Punk. When you donate to us, it goes to producing great theater. Period.

Donating is easy. Click on this link -- or you can send a check to Taffety Punk Theatre Company at P.O. Box 15392 Washington, DC 20003. (Be sure that you write “Alchemy” on the dedication line on the web donation page or on the info line of the check, so we can track the support for Burn Your Bookes.)

Taffety Punk is a 501(c) 3 organization, so your contribution is tax-deductible.

Thanks so much in advance for any generosity. Burn Your Bookes has already had some major successes -- from a one-act version winning the Expats.cz and Prague.tv Prague Playwriting Festival to the full house at September's sneak preview. I hope to see you in April!

Richard Byrne for Taffety Punk Theatre Company

(Image is a drawing of John Dee's Hieroglyphic Monad -- a key element in Act One of Burn Your Bookes.)

suicide.chat.room: Only 4 shows left!

The snow that has knocked the Washington DC metro region for a loop has also cut down the number of performances of Taffety Punk Theatre Company's critical s/mash-up of music, text and dance: suicide.chat.room. There are only four (4) performances left at Flashpoint's Mead Theater Lab, starting tonight: Thursday, February 11 at 8 p.m. (The show will also run on Friday at 8 p.m. and on Saturday at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.)

Obviously we think you should brave the weather and the Metro to see our work. But don't just take our word for it. The critical reception for suicide.chat.room has been extraordinary.

Here are a few examples:

Trey Graham, Washington City Paper:

You’ll have gathered, perhaps, that suicide.chat.room is designed to provoke debates and questions, not provide answers or prescribe solutions; it’s an impressionistic 50 minutes, an invitation to a necessary conversation, not a thesis about what we ought to do, assuming anything needs doing, about the shadowed realms it considers.

The synth-heavy score, by Chad Clark of the D.C. band Beauty Pill, and Paulina Guerrero’s choreography, developed in concert with the ensemble, are linked expressions, alternately lyrical and convulsive, of an agonizing way of being. The chat-room transcriptions, both sampled and spoken live, get phased and manipulated and distorted to the point that the speakers often can’t make themselves understood—which makes a certain painful sense as metaphor, even as it provides a perplexing, even distancing aesthetic experience.

In short, it’s not an easy place to be, this dark room where the ritual greeting goes “Welcome—sorry you’re here,” and where the people reach frantically out and then push one another away. It’s also, I suspect, not going to be an easy place to forget.

Peter Marks, The Washington Post:

The energetic evening is brought to you by Taffety Punk Theatre Company, a resourceful D.C. troupe that looks for ways to supplement the fairly conventional diet on which audiences here tend to be restricted. They've accomplished that with this original piece, which strives to achieve a physical language for the death wish. Think of the hour you spend in Flashpoint's Mead Theatre Lab as Martha Graham meets Jack Kevorkian.

Missy Frederick, DCist:

It all sounds a bit bizarre, but movement and dialogue interact with success in suicide.chat.room, which interweaves Paulina Guerrero's choreography with actual lines taken from such Internet sites. The dancing provides a compelling emotional illustration, effectively articulating the tortured subjects' feelings of imprisonment, their isolation, and their uneasy connections with their fellow chatters, with none of it ever feeling too literal. Eerie, pulsing music drives it all along, and the cast works more as an ensemble in service to the text than a collection of established characters.

Erin Trompeter, Express:

It's heavy stuff, but Taffety Punk tackles a forbidden subject with stark artistry.

Though we wish that we could extend and add more performances to make up for the whiteout, we just can't do it. So bundle up and trundle out to see us, will you? You can reserve tix (only $10) by emailing us at tix@taffetypunk.com or calling (202) 261 6612.

Help Me (and Taffety Punk) Put On A Show....

My show, that is. I am so excited that Taffety Punk Theatre Company will produce my play about alchemy in Renaissance Prague, Burn Your Bookes, at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in spring. (Opening night: Friday, April 30, 2010.)

We had a standing-room only audience for the sneak preview of Burn Your Bookes at the Kennedy Center over Labor Day weekend. If you didn’t see it, a video of the performance is here at the Kennedy Center's web site. (Note: Real Player required.)

But I’m posting this message because we need your help to get the play up and running in late April.

Taffety Punk was the first theatre company that I contacted when I finished Burn Your Bookes in April 2008. Why? The same reasons that I’m asking you to help support the company today.

Commitment to excellence: Taffety Punk is about taking artistic risks and making them pay off for audiences. Whether it’s rethinking Shakespearean classics like Romeo and Juliet, Measure for Measure or Troilus and Cressida or tackling new work (like Burn Your Bookes or Gwydion Suilebhan’s plays Let X and The Faithkiller, or our recent critical smash suicide.chat room), Taffety Punk possesses a keen sense of adventure and a knack for showmanship. Critics and the D.C. theatre community are taking note. Taffety Punk performances have garnered raves in the Washington Post., the Washington City Paper and elsewhere, attracted the attention of local television and radio, and won the company a Helen Hayes Award as Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company in 2008.

Don't believe me? Ask Washington Post critic Peter Marks, whose review of suicide.chat.room in early February summed it up nicely: "The energetic evening is brought to you by Taffety Punk Theatre Company, a resourceful D.C. troupe that looks for ways to supplement the fairly conventional diet on which audiences here tend to be restricted."

Low ticket prices: Taffety Punk artistic director Marcus Kyd knows that the fierce competition for entertainment dollars – and young audiences – means that theater needs to be priced for maximum accessibility. Taffety Punk performances always feature a low $10 ticket price – live theater that’s cheaper than a movie. And some of our most innovative performances, including out annual Shakespeare bootleg (check out this rave from D.C.'s Examiner here) are absolutely free!

Emphasis on text and performance: As a playwright, this was a key selling point in asking Taffety Punk to do Burn Your Bookes. Taffety Punk is an actor’s and a writer’s theatre company. They love the text – whether it is the Renaissance language of Shakespeare or the contemporary language of new playwrights – and savor the wit and audacity of great writing.

I hope you’re moved to make a generous donation to Taffety Punk Theatre Company. Even with our scrappy, lo-fi production ethos, it still costs a few thousand dollars to produce a show. (Especially with $10 ticket prices.) Your contribution is targeted to ensure that actors and technical staff get paid – and that more people hear about the great work that we’re doing. We don’t have paid staff or other overhead at Taffety Punk. When you donate to us, it goes to producing great theater. Period.

Donating is easy. Click on this link -- or you can send a check to Taffety Punk Theatre Company at P.O. Box 15392 Washington, DC 20003. (Be sure that you write “Alchemy” on the dedication line on the web donation page or on the info line of the check, so we can track the support for Burn Your Bookes.)

Taffety Punk is a 501(c) 3 organization, so your contribution is tax-deductible.

Thanks so much in advance for any generosity. Burn Your Bookes has already had some major successes -- from a one-act version winning the Expats.cz and Prague.tv Prague Playwriting Festival to the full house at September's sneak preview. I hope to see you in April!

Richard Byrne for Taffety Punk Theatre Company

(Image is a drawing of John Dee's Hieroglyphic Monad -- a key element in Act One of Burn Your Bookes.)