Takin’ It As It Comes: Todd Snider & Great American Taxi on the Front Range
Words: Sarah Hagerman/Photos: Lisa Oshlo (Nederland) and Dave Jackson (Denver)
On December 11th, Great American Taxi will host the 8th annual Mark Vann Benefit at the Boulder Theater. Vann, Leftover Salmon’s innovative founding banjo player, passed away in 2002. His memorial foundation assists various nonprofit groups, and this year’s benefit show will be raising money for There With Care and CareConnect. The line-up includes Taxi, Todd Snider, Bill McKay Band, Bonfire Dub, Shannon McNally & Hot Sauce, and special guests. Tickets can be purchased here.
This will be a fabulous night of music to support a fantastic cause. To get you primed for this event, the SPPS would like to look back at two very special shows that Todd Snider played with Great American Taxi at the end of October.
Night One: Nederland, Colorado 10.28.10
I drove up Boulder Canyon Road towards Nederland as night fell, navigating the endless curves in a low gear, a definitive initiation to mountain driving for this relative Colorado newbie. Suddenly, the road flattened out some, signs of civilization flickered in the darkness, and there I was, over 8,000 feet above sea level. After a few wrong turns (which if anyone could manage in a town with one main road, it would be yours truly), I pulled into the Community Center parking lot. Patches of snow dotted the ground and I watched for ice as I made my way inside, thinking about how I had left Denver that morning in a t-shirt. But it was more than worth the trek for the chance to see proud American slacker Todd Snider play with Great American Taxi in the intimate setting of the Backdoor Theater.
Put on by the folks at Silverfox Productions, the event had a palpable spirit of giving back, with Conscious Alliance on site to support local food banks and a portion of ticket sales going to Acoustic Trail. This couldn’t help but spread to those of us in the audience. Adding to this vibe, albeit unintentionally, was a totally unplugged opening by Snider and Taxi, due to a blown fuse which knocked out power to the PA system. What could have spelled disaster in a different environment created a unique, and unifying, moment, as Snider strolled on stage with Taxi in tow and said cheekily, “Eventually we will have a microphone. But we thought – fuck it.” Snider dove into “Easy Money,” the crowd providing backup. “This is real folk music, folks,” Vince Herman said with a laugh. Thanks to the hard-working sound crew, the PA was up again quickly, but we were treated to “House of the Rising Sun” and Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece” in the meantime.
After exiting the stage to give the crew space to set up, Snider returned for a few solo songs. Starting off with Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Continuing Saga of the Classic Bummer or Is This My One Way Bus Ticket to Cleveland?,” he changed the lyrics in the second verse, where the protagonist stops in a Colorado bar, to include Eldorado Springs, Vince Herman, and a case of Fat Tire. GAT and Snider have recorded a yet-to-be released album of Walker’s tunes produced by Don Was, and this was one of several Walker songs that would appear both tonight in Ned and the next night in Denver. Judging on what I saw at these shows, from the aching love song/apology “Derby Day,” to the rowdy “Takin’ It As It Comes,” it’s going to be a killer release.
Snider counts Walker among his biggest influences (even honoring him as the source of inspiration to pick up a guitar and start writing songs in his song “Jerry Jeff.”).Both songwriters drink at the same hard luck, hard living bar – and both have the self-deprecating humor and quick wit that allows you to survive being a regular there. During “Tillamook County Jail,” Snider sang, “Still sending portions of tonight’s show to the Tillamook County Jail,” and later noted that “Just in Case,” his wryly hilarious ode to pre-nup agreements, allegedly got him kicked out of his friend’s wedding reception.
As funny as he is, there’s always a frank examination these bruises in Snider’s songs. These lines from “East Nashville Skyline” struck me as especially relevant tonight, coming a few days away from the mid term elections: “Watching TV just makes me sad/Too many people treating people too bad/There’s just no hope.” A blunt admission to be sure. If you have your eyes open, sometimes the weight of the world is just too much. But this life is a constant flux, the good, the absurd, and the ugly deeply intertwined in an unpredictable slam dance, and Snider’s music can similarly do a hair-pin turn and have you grinning again.
GAT was the ideal backing band, melding their old school country rock influences with electrified gusto, equal parts rootsy and rocking. After Snider’s solo songs, Herman and Jim Lewin came out for “Sideshow Blues,” Lewin adding an extra slink to the song, before the rest of the band joined them. Lewin’s simply got ninja-style guitar skills. He’ll slip into the background so stealthily, you’ll almost forget he’s there, and then – hi ya! – he’s kicking in the foreground with some blade-sharp fret work. He and keyboardist Chad Staehly both drove straight to musical heart of the songs, from laying down honky tonky keys and pedal steel-esque weeps during “Play a Train Song” to spiraling in psychedelic flourishes during “America’s Favorite Pastime,” Snider’s ode to Dock Ellis‘ LSD-fueled no-hitter.
GAT certainly stoked Snider’s rowdy side. Herman would sidle up to Snider, mandolin in hand and a huge grin on his face, and Snider would dance to his picking, fists pumping excitedly in the air. It was a genuine blast to watch.
By the end of the show, folks had long abandoned their seats to shimmy wildly in the aisles, making The Backdoor Theater resemble a scene from one of those movies where a rock band makes all the kids get up and dirty dance while some crusty old principle hollers in disapproval. The encore of “Great Balls of Fire,” couldn’t have been more appropriate then, as Snider yelped the lyrics like Jerry Lee Lewis and stomped joyfully around the stage, before gathering the members of the band, plus his road manager Elvis, for a mic huddle chorus of “Will There Be Any,” another Walker song. The cheering crowd prompted them back on stage for a second encore, “The Devil You Know,” a vivid portrayal of the rough edges of the East Nashville neighborhood where Snider lives.
He shook my hand, I shook his back
I felt like I was about to have a heart attack
Until he finally drove away I thought, “Goddamn” -
Helicopters over the house again!
At this point in the song the protagonist has given away his car to a poor black kid who’s broken into his house while on the run from the cops. Snider threw his jacket down defiantly on the stage as he sang that last line, his mic stand tottering as he wove between the members of Taxi. It was a definitive rock-and-fucking-roll exclamation point, sending us into that cold Nederland night on a raucous note. Snider had assured us at the beginning of the show that no matter what happened with the technical difficulties, “We will play til the cows come home,” noting, “It’s not that they don’t come home, it’s that they don’t call that’s so upsetting.”
Unplugged Set: Easy Money, The House Of the Rising Sun, When I Paint My Masterpiece
Main Set: Continuing Saga of the Classic Bummer…, Can’t Complain, Tillamook County Jail, Just In Case, Sideshow Blues, The Ballad Of Cape Henry, Just Like Old Times, East Nashville Skyline, Derby Song, Play A Train Song, This Land Is Our Land, Slim Chance, America’s Greatest Pastime, Looking For A Job, Conservative Christian…, Don’t It Make You Wanna Dance, Takin’ It As It Comes
E1: Great Balls Of Fire, Will There Be Any?
E2: The Devil You Know
You can stream or download a recording of the show here.
Continue reading for coverage of the next night’s show in Denver…
Night Two: Denver, Colorado, 10.29.10
From the cold, pine-scented air to the balmy neon speckled concrete, the next night’s show at the Gothic in far south Denver (technically, Englewood) was a markedly different setting. It was a Friday night, two days before Halloween, so folks were raring to tear it up on the weekend. The crowd was dotted with devil horns, wings, wigs, and various glowing accoutrements. There was even a grim reaper whose scythe could be spotted throughout the night, bobbing a good few feet above the crowd. My favorite costume was Homer and Marge Simpson, who even got a shout-out from Drew Emmitt during his opening set, guitarist Tyler Grant teasing ‘The Simpsons’ theme in their honor. Emmitt had accurately described the evening as a “Pre-Halloween Extravaganza,” referring to Leftover Salmon’s Zombie Jamboree slated for the next night at the Fillmore (which unfortunately this writer was unable to attend, but you can check out a review with some pix here), and even those of us not in costume were feeling more uninhibited for it.
With a band as impressively solid as Drew Emmitt Band, it’s difficult to pick a standout. They all pull equal weight, but tonight I was particularly impressed with Andy Thorn on banjo. Thorn switched effortlessly between aggressive, driving breakdowns and finely detailed, almost jazz-like, picking. His open-minded approach to the instrument marked him as a musician to watch.
Emmitt meanwhile jumped chameleonically between fast-picking acoustic mando, screaming electric guitar, and zydeco-tinged fiddlework from song to song. His music is infused with an honest-to-goodness road lust and longing for wide open spaces, which admittedly is a songwriting concern I often grow tired of with roots-orientated bands, but with Emmitt the spaciousness of the sound fits the theme perfectly. His songs can be bloody exhilarating, such as “Get Me Out of This City,” which was a song I listened to a great deal when stuck on trains while living in London, or “Long Road Back to You,” which zipped forward on Chris Misner’s percussive drive. Applying the same approach to his cover choices, a highlight for me was Supertramp’s “Take the Long Way Home,” which featured Grant laying down some thick wa-wa guitar.
The between set buzz of conversation gave way to a excited hollers as the lights came down, the members of GAT striding on to the stage. As hands waved in the air, Herman scraped his washboard, crying “Awww Friday night!!” He sang Snider onto the stage, and as Snider took his place behind the mic, the band launched into “Mission Accomplished,” a talking blues shuffle with a beat built for rump shaking and an end chorus built for shouting along:
I don’t know but I’ve been told
Might meet a little fox in an atheist hole
I don’t know but I’ve been told
I don’t know but I’ve been told
I don’t know but I’ve been told
I don’t know for sure, I’ve just been told
“Free your mind so your ass will follow,” was the M.O. from the get-go. On stage, the band moved almost as much as the crowd. Snider would wail on the harmonica, one bare foot bouncing, or simply groove to the side, taking it all in. At one point during “Doublewide Blues,” he simply leaned on Herman, a beaming grin on his face while Herman furiously picked his mando.
GAT slipped into more straight-up classic rock influences than they had the previous night. The Stones in particular seemed to be snaking through tonight’s show, especially in the “Shake Your Hips”-style grooves through “45 Miles,” while a feisty take on Dylan’s “It Takes A lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” had a loose bar band ‘tude that saw more than a few glasses raised.
The set ended on a double shot of the rousing “Bring ‘Em Home,” a sentiment that we’ll be singing for awhile from the looks of it, and “Conservative Christian Right Wing Republican Straight White American Males.” During the latter, Herman, a look of mock accusation on his face, pointed and wagged his finger at those who shot their arms happily upward, proud to be counted amongst the “Tree-hugging, peace-loving, pot-smoking, porn-watching lazy ass hippies.” By the end he was laughing heartily, as the band strolled off the stage to catch their breath before the last set. At this point it was well past midnight, but we weren’t slowing down any time soon.
The last set was an all-star jam featuring Snider, GAT, and Drew Emmitt Band. Opening with Townes Van Zandt’s “White Freightliner,” where Snider and Emmitt traded verses, it was a set that payed homage to some musical influences, with the Stones (“Dead Flowers”), Muddy Waters (“Got My Mojo Working”), and Rusty Weir (“Don’t It Make You Wanna Dance,” a song Snider owns completely when he plays it). In anticipation of the Zombie Jamboree, we were also treated to some Salmon tunes. Emmitt, Herman and Lewin jumped up and down to Thorn’s picking during “Boo Boo.” Snider blasted on his harmonica and Emmitt laid down swirls of noise on the fiddle during the outro to “Pasta on the Mountain.” As the band jammed on with locomotive energy, Snider yelled, “This is the third set! We’re not responsible for anything that happens!” There certainly was some wicked spirit strutting through the Gothic, topping up everyone’s drinks and calling folks to the dance floor with crooked fingers.
During the encore, Bonnie Paine (washboard) and Bridget Law (fiddle) of Elephant Revival, both donning neon afro wigs, came up on the stage to join the band. The Leadbelly tune “Relax Your Mind,” sandwiched between “America’s Favorite Pastime” and “Will There Be Any?”, was a timeless reminder that, in spite of the rest of the world, you just got to take ‘er easy. There’s a Dude-like side to Snider that I always appreciate, and as he cracked jokes during “Will There Be Any?” causing the other musicians huddled around the mic to crack up in laughter, I was mighty grateful for his rebel shrug.
But over the course of the four hour monster show, my prized moment was a quieter one. It was the first time I’d heard my favorite song live, if I had to pick, from Snider’s latest album The Excitement Plan – “Greencastle Blues.” In a nutshell, it’s a story about feeling like you’re too old for this shit, in this case, an arrest, but you can project just about any kind of trouble onto it. It’s a song for those times when wrestling your own demons turns into letting them take the wheel and drive you to the nearest bar, the simple chorus question of, “How do you know when it’s too late to learn?” hitting hard. As much as the outside world confounds us, often our own selves confound us the most, and sometimes the greatest thing art can do is simply remind us that we’re not alone. Snider has a knack for making his stories your stories, leaving the door open enough to remind you there’s a similarly imperfect person, with good intentions, inside.
To pull a line from, “Just Like Old Times,” Snider writes about those who are, “Living out a different kind of American dream.” It’s an alternative to what we’re fed by the culture war profiteers on TV, or by power-hungry politicians who think they have the right to decide who’s a quote-unquote “real American” and who’s not (the latter being more essential to their purposes). In this climate where many of us are being cast aside in that narrative, storytellers like Snider are only going to become more valuable. A song probably can’t change the world, but it can offer – and even joyfully celebrate – a different perspective, give voice to those who are usually left out of the conversation. There’s something comforting, and incredibly empowering, in that. That feeling hit me several times during these two shows on the Front Range, and when I looked at the faces around me, whether they were singing along to the lyrics, pumping fists, or simply smiling and shaking their asses, I knew I wasn’t alone.
Set One: Mission Accomplished, Is This Thing Working?, Takin’ It As It Comes, Doublewide Blues, Horseshoe Lake, 45 Miles, Ballad Of The Kingsmen, Greencastle Blues, Play A Train Song, It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry, The Devil You Know, Bring Em’ Home, Conservative Christian…
Set Two: White Freightliner Blues, Boo Boo, Don’t It Make You Wanna Dance, Pasta On The Mountain, [This Song Goes Like This Story], Dead Flowers, Got My Mojo Working
E: America’s Favorite Pastime, Relax Your Mind, Will There Be Any?
You can download the show here.
Continue reading for photos from The Gothic…
Photos by Dave Jackson
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