Days Like These

Forgive my occasional abuse of the platform here and promote something close to my heart. It’s for a good cause. And it’s still…writing, right? (Thanks.)

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To me, there are certain sounds that are singular in this world. You can go to Nashville today, walk down to Music Row, throw a stick of any size, and you’ll hit, like, thirty-seven killer guitar players who can play the exact same lick the exact same way. It’s like the factory preset of music, which I suppose is fine for what it is. But you couldn’t find even one who could sound just like, say, Neil Young or Marc Ribot or (I’ve been pretty vocal in this format about my love for) U2’s The Edge. They’ve each had hordes of imitators over the years, but few who could ever do more than just ape the basic idea. That’s what I mean by "singular"—people who approach and play their instrument in such a very specific and unique way. You could say it about Miles Davis or Tom Waits’ singing (whether that’s a positive or a negative for you…) or others. Mimi Parker of Low was one of those singular sounds. I came here to just talk about her vocals, but it’s just as true about her drumming. My friend Pat Campbell often went out of his way to tell me how criminally underrated Mimi was. He loved her drumming, spoke wistfully of his first time seeing her play at some house show in Provo in the 90’s¹, and even emulated her in many ways, how she was creative and subtle, how she could be wallpaper one minute and shocking the next. She had, especially early on, a deliberate minimalist approach but, no matter the era, was always song-first. Oh and also: what a singer, with that one-of-a-kind voice. The first time I heard it² I was shaken by its purity, by its total lack of affect, especially in a time when so many singers share and adopt and steal stylistic affectations and accents and who knows what else, morphing their vowel sounds beyond recognition. The factory presets, again. Mimi just sounded like…Mimi. When her cancer bared its teeth and she passed last year, that sound left the earth. It’s like if, say, huckleberries disappeared forever. This artful, unique, wild and pure thing is just... gone. That’s what it is to lose Mimi Parker. (And that's just speaking musically, much less on the familial, human level those who truly knew her experienced.)

When news came that she'd passed, I spent an inordinate amount of time listening to Low and thinking about why they mattered so much to me. I wrote here that few bands taught me as much about patience & atmosphere, authenticity & evolution, courage & voice, simplicity & commitment...as Low did.

When Corey Fox called me up and asked if I’d be willing to help put together a night of our music scene paying tribute to Low at his venue Velour, it was pretty daunting.

I’ve spearheaded tribute shows for worldwide superstar artists with loads of hits, but it’s something else to do it for a beloved indie band with a cult-ish following and no bona fide “hits.” I often think about Low in the same vein as they used to say about Velvet Underground (“not many people bought Velvet Underground records, but everyone that did started a band.”)³

We found some of those Low-inspired acts for this show. From bands that actually played with Low in their early tours, like Maya Shore and Coastal, to Sunfall Festival (whose guitarist Scott Wiley is the reason I went down to Orion Records and picked up The Curtain Hits The Cast, my first Low purchase, on CD) to younger artists like Talin Everett, Mia Hicken, and Goldmyth.

It’s a validation of the strength of Low’s entire discography that, as we were putting this show together—because we didn’t want any repeats of songs—I’ve had to press our artists on which song they’re going to play, and, as the answers have come back, the range of songs and albums we’re pulling from is career-spanning. It’s not like some bands where there’s a clear cut Best Stretch of Albums. We have artists tackling beloved songs from the early records as well as artists tackling songs from Low’s most recent record, and everything in between. I don’t know if you could have a greater tribute to a band’s quality than to see how well represented each era of their discography is.

History’s list of bands that stayed curious, stayed relevant, stayed creatively interested and interesting, kept pushing themselves over a 30-year music career is pretty short⁴. Almost nonexistent, in fact. Most bands lose the fire, simply run out of gas, or—perhaps worse—keep siphoning fuel from their glory days, trotting out retread after retread, trying to remind people that they were great once. Some bands just lose the scent or, in the words of LCD Soundsystem, lose their edge.

Low kept the fire.

They’re a band I look up to in pretty much every way.

Come listen as we pay tribute the best way we know how, through the songs⁵. Tickets go onsale Thursday at 10am on 24tix (link below).

Proceeds will go to Alan and the kids.

https://www.24tix.com/venues/velour-live-music-gallery

1. Pat was too good at namedropping. And his names were always so legit. I’m like, “I saw Kanye once at an editing house” and he’s like, “Oh cool. I played on this one song with Willie Nelson.” I miss it so much.

2. Harmony on “Anon” and then singing lead on “The Plan”, tracks 1 and 2 from The Curtain Hits The Cast.

3. Alan also thinks about Low that way, as he said in the quote I’ve already shared on Substack: “When we started the band, we knew most people weren’t going to want to listen to this, or have the patience for this, but that there’d be a few people who would resonate with it the way that we do.” I love that so much. Low knew who they were.

4. Bowie. Byrne. Prine. Dylan. Mavis. Cohen. Costello. Cash. Waits. Simon. Raitt. Who’d I miss? Plant? Neil (pretty uneven…)?

5. I’ll be there hosting and then playing a medley of “Breaker” and “Monkey” with the guy (Scott Wiley) who introduced me to Low on electric guitar, Marcus Bently on bass, Aaron Anderson on drums, and Amy Greetham singing the Mimi parts. Dream team.

And I know a guy who can tell you with 88% certainty that you will hear some of the best Low songs out there: Sunflower, Holy Ghost, Dinosaur Act, Fly, Days Like These, Disarray, When I Go Deaf….