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Copyright © 1998 The Seattle Times Company

Posted at 10:40 p.m. PST; Monday, February 16, 1998

Whiskeytown at Showbox fails to live up to promise

by Patrick MacDonald
Seattle Times staff critic

Whiskeytown is one of the most promising of the new alternative country bands, but too many shows like the one Friday night at the Showbox and the North Carolina sextet may never live up to its potential.

The group sounded ragged and tired, and there was too much wasted time in the short set. Long pauses between songs ruined the momentum, and there were silly, throwaway numbers, including a lengthy, unfunny re-working of "Happy Birthday" for new singer-guitarist Ed Crawford, and "Laundry," a childish parody of Neil Young's "Helpless" with scatological references and lots of swear words. The latter might have worked had it been short, but lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Ryan Adams stretched the dumb thing into a full-length song.

The band pulled itself together for two of the best songs from "Strangers Almanac," its new, major-label debut album. "16 Days," the second song in the set, sounded sweet and tooled along nicely, driven by the fiddling of Caitlin Cary. She and Adams harmonized perfectly on the vocal.

And "Yesterday's News," the band's finest song and likeliest hit, came off as powerfully as it does on the recording. The last song in the set (there was no encore), it featured Adams' best singing and strongest guitar-playing, and his enthusiasm was picked up by the rest of the band. Too bad they couldn't have built on it with a couple of strong encore tunes. Then, maybe, those remaining in the room - about a third of the audience left during the set - could have gone home satisfied.

The wonderfully wry and clever "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight" retained some of its charm, although Adams performed it without much verve. "Dancing With the Women at the Bar" tried to build some steam but never quite made it. By contrast, the slow, simple love song, "Everything I Do," had a nice sense of wistfulness.

Mary Lou Lord, well known here from her many club appearances - the Boston singer-songwriter lived for a time in Olympia in the mid-1990s and recorded for that city's Kill Rock Stars label - opened the show with her new, five-piece band. The formerly girlish singer has been transformed into an engaging, mature performer.

The singer-guitarist, obviously overjoyed to be performing in Seattle again, featured songs from her impressive new album, "Got No Shadow," her major-label debut on Sony's WORK label. They included "His Lamest Flame," a takeoff on Elvis Presley's "His Latest Flame" that made playful fun of bad dates; "Two Boats," a lilting portrait of two lovers drifting apart; and "Some Jingle Jangle Morning," on country rock.

Amy Griffin of Raging Teens sang harmony on several tunes and played the theremin - first time I've heard that weird instrument on a Seattle club stage - during the spacey "The Martian Saints."