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No Name, No Problem: Don Dixon's Band
Sounds Fine
"We should name this band the Four Stages of Baldness,"
joked drummer Robert Crenshaw at the Rams Head in
Annapolis on Sunday night.
Crenshaw (he would be Stage 3) joined fellow popsters
Bill Lloyd, Jamie Hoover and Don Dixon, the last
sporting his trademark sheik-skirted towel do-rag, in a
carousing, collaborative set. For two hours, the
foursome traded vocal leads and instruments, went from
electric to acoustic and back again, and reached as far
back as covers of the '60s classics "Batman" and "Every
Time You Walk in the Room" and as far forward as
not-yet-released albums. Lloyd (formerly of Foster and
Lloyd) and Hoover (of the Spongetones) offered songs
from! their recent "Paparazzi," and Crenshaw, brother of
Marshall Crenshaw, sang lead from behind the drums --
and on acoustic guitar -- for selections from his newly
released "Dog Dreams." The multi-talented Dixon, who has
produced and played on recordings by R.E.M., Mary Chapin
Carpenter and many others, offered his hit "Praying
Mantis" as well as smart pop songs from an upcoming
project on rooms.
Dixon was the glue that held the group together. His
bass provided coloration as much as rhythm, perfectly
aligned with Crenshaw's bombastic drum sound and giving
depth to Lloyd's rockabilly-tinged axework and the
"Paisley Underground" shimmers from Hoover's Gretsch
guitar. Dixon's bluesy vocals on "I Can Hear the River"
drew their passion from experience. And Crenshaw's "25
Years Ago," about lost love, and Lloyd's "Cool and
Gone," about faded hero worship, were songs no young man
could do. They proved it's not what's on the roof that
counts -- but what's in the furnace.
-- Pamela Murray Winters
-- The Washington Post |
