Vinyl Diaries XII: Bill Callahan

Photo by fernando [pixelstains]

Bill Callahan
The Factory Theatre
Wednesday, November 7

If you're in or around Sydney and wondering what that low, humming sound is, you will find one Bill Callahan to blame. Weaving together painterly strokes of life, photographic snapshots taken through windows of strangers left open to catch the breeze, these misleadingly straightforward songs carry deep into the part of our minds that is responsible for our humming cords.

You'll have to excuse the mixed craftaphores above, but Callahan's songs seem to draw heavily on the visual as well as musical arts - subtle gradations of and shifts in colour, light and shading are of utmost importance.

With dark humour and a light touch he deftly opens our eyes to pockets of the world that exist mostly on the periphery of our vision (if at all), leaving traces of these lives indelibly printed on our hearts.

Having toured previously in solo mode as Smog and (Smog), this was the first chance to hear Callahan working with a band, drawing closer to the sounds of his prolific recorded output. The strength of their performance was quite remarkable given they were all local musicians, no doubt fairly hastily cobbled together for a short run of shows. On drums was the ever-more ubiquitous skinman savant Laurence Pike (Triosk/Pivot etc), with Tim Rogers (better known to most as Jack Ladder) on bass. The 'strings' billed for the show were fiddlers three, including Lara Goodridge of Fourplay.

Opening the set with 'Our Anniversary' from Supper, Callahan shares the droll tale of an anniversary night where the car keys have been hidden to keep itchy feet from fleeing:

It's our anniversary and you've hidden my keys
This is one anniversary you're spending with me

'Diamond Dancer' is an odd yet infectious little groove, and you know Callahan's into this ghost of Bowie number because his left leg does a little back kick from the knee - like that in a kiss on a bridge in a film you once saw.

And that's one point to mote about Callahan's music - it's odd. I suggested earlier it's an open window, but perhaps more accurately it's a fractured mirror. We're staring into it and while we may occasionally catch fragments of our own reflection, we're seeing, layered over this into a composite reflection of humanity, the lives of those beyond, the yet-met, the long-forgotten.

'Held' bounces in like the big old baby to which Callahan compares himself, the bass bumbling it along just so. It's a cheerful, smoky, Texas-flavoured chomp on a side of beef with lashings of sticky barbecue sauce.

This showier side warms the night up nicely, but the special moments are those that quieten, and a hush falls as the finger-picked opening to 'Teenage Spaceship' marks the first such moment.

Adept at turns of phrase that lift the corners of our mouths, Callahan lets the shell drop and twilight fall. You realise that while he looks closely at the audience between lines, drawing connections and truly appreciative for the interest, his eyes reflexively close as he sings each line. Though closed the lids remain wide - they're not clenched but veiled, alligator eyelids that he can somehow see through.

This twilight seems a natural fit for Callahan, reflective yet optimistic. The upbeat 'Sycamore' from this year's Woke on a Whaleheart pulls on the going-out boots, which we wear down to the stables for the rather insistent 'Let Me See The Colts'.

Throughout the ste, as those familar with his work would expect, there's something wonderfully soothing about Callahan's voice. He has a warm, mesmerising baritone that can't help but put you at ease. It seems drenched in honey, but even richer - royal jelly perhaps, a bee conspiracy.

Hand in hand with the loping, looping music it evokes autumn time and falling leaves, reds, oranges and browns, golden light under silver skies. He uses it beautifully in 'The Well', in which a foolish act spurred by frustration leads him to chance across an old abandoned well in the woods that demands to be yelled into:

I gave it a couple hoots
A hello
And a fuck all y'all

I guess everybody has their own thing
That they yell into a well

It's these moments in his story-telling that you think about your own life, its pace and direction and whether you are still in touch with enough of the simple things - when did you last let a river carry you in its current, how long since brambles nicked at your knee, what are you doing that can possibly match the joy of swearing down a well?

These questions and images travel with us as we weave down Callahan's river into b-side 'Bowery' and the haunting 'Say Valley Maker'

With the grace of a corpse
In a riptide
I let go

We let go too, feeling currents warm and cool cross paths. They steer us downriver into the splendid 'Bathysphere' where we reach the open mouth, our seven-year-old selves dreaming of life at sea, between coral, silent eel, silver swordfish.

"My home is the sea" we are assured... until, at the very end:

When I was seven
My father said to me
'But you can't swim'
And I've never dreamed of the sea again

That last line always slices like a knife - a twist in the tale that abruptly sends us crashing back to earth. Catpower's wonderful cover of the song on What Will the Community Think is perhaps more driven, hence a heavier crash at the end, but Callahan's near-whimsy in the lead-up makes it a more surprising turn.

We're now well and truly in the palm of his hands, so it's with tingly, overbrimming joy that I realise he has started playing 'River Guard', so minor and delicate a piece I had never dared hope it would make it to a live set.

But here he was, the prison guard with a heart of gold, sitting in the tall grass while his charges gain a rare glimpse of life as it could otherwise have been.

When I take the prisoners swimming
They have the time of their lives
I love to watch them floating
On their backs
Unburdened and relaxed

The gooseflesh he experiences later that night, standing on a cliff, watching wind rip the leaves from the trees, is the same we feel now, and that stays with us as he and the band leave the stage.

This is the Bill Callahan I love - that, if he retains a belief in his craft and his gift, could have him one day wearing the boots of Johnny Cash that no soul has been able to get near. He's got a long way to go and many more roads to travel (he's nudging 40), and may very well toss it all in for a back porch somewhere with lady-friend Joanna Newsom and a horde of shoeless mud-caked little people, but it's worth tagging along for the journey for as long as we're invited.

There is a truth, honesty and integrity to his stories, songwriting and performance that while not necessarily peerless, certainly stands heads and shoulders above the bulk of the singer-songwriter field. Which isn't to say we're privy to the full picture - there's more burbling beneath the surface than we've yet been allowed to discover; but in time...

To some, Callahan comes across as dispassionate, echoing Lou Reed in steadiness of tone and play with meter, but the passion is buried within and well worth scratching around to discover. At heart and adding to its likely longevity is a defiant optimism. It's small-scale and complicated by dreams that are a little beyond our reach, but it avoids all traces of resentment or bitterness. We see this in 'Hit the Ground Running' (not in tonight's set), in which he calls bitterness the lowest sin and paints a gruesome picture of the bitter man who rots within: "I've seen his smile/ Yellow and brown/ The bitterness is rotting down".

Returning to the stage, his foolish heart dives into the glittering 'Rock Bottom Riser', coming up for a breath of fresh country air 'In the Pines'. This gorgeous traditional song has a fragile moonlit beauty and a strange effect - anaesthetisising yet invigorating at the same time.

Closing out the evening, the upbeat near-jauntiness of the slide up the frets that is 'Cold Blooded Old Times' ensured toes would be tapped through the rest of the night, dreams would be hijacked with golden light-painted country cottages and days would be spent humming jewels from the treasure chest.

Having wondered what to expect of Mr Callahan finally stepping out from behind the Smog handle, there need have been no fear. The mask has dropped, the Smog has lifted; we are still in safe hands.