Garment district
\nThe Phoenix, MA<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Last night at the Paradise, I sat in a metal folding chair along with about 75 other quiet, bookish types: middle-aged dads in golf shirts with their wives, college kids with trucker caps pulled over their eyes, a patch of hipsters, some hippies, and a gaggle of girls in American Eagle tanks all hunched low in their seats, blurry grins on their faces. A fashion show it was not.<\/p>\n
Hem are one of those freak bands who have benefitted from resounding critical acclaim without ever courting commercial success. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been praised by big shots from the New York Times, and NPR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s All Songs Considered has pimped Hem\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s traditionalist Americana to a worldly listenership for years now. Buzz, yes. Sales, no.
\nThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been due in part to bad timing \u00e2\u20ac\u201d their gorgeous debut, Rabbit Songs, came out in 2001, when Britney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s abs were at their most toned. Why they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still toiling in obscurity is harder to fathom now that indie-rock chicks like Jenny Lewis have proved you can be sexy, MTV-friendly, and still hang onto your indie cred. Just as Lewis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fresh-linen singing voice is the highlight of Rilo Kiley, Sally Ellyson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alt-country pipes are Hem\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most striking element. Her voice is all warm drizzles of maple syrup, sweet without the slickness, always going down easy.<\/p>\n
Ellyson is an untrained singer without need of excessive oohs, ahhs, or show-offy belts. At the Paradise, she joked about being an egomaniac when, after Hem\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first song, she asked the tech to turn her mic up: this is a singer for whom even the most modest embellishment feels presumptuous. Hem\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tunes are written around the imperfect lilts and tones of Ellyson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice. And for good reason \u00e2\u20ac\u201d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got the kind of unabashed confidence of the most attractive person in the room who has no idea how good-looking she is. If this was high school, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d want to hate her for being so popular and talented, but you wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talk shit about anyone. Hem are from NYC but you imagine them playing on someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wraparound porch in Tennessee. Ellyson even throws in some genuine y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122alls for good measure.<\/p>\n
A slow-core, drugged-out version of Johnny & June\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Jackson\u00e2\u20ac\u009d had them at their best. The achingly pretty \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pacific Street,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a pedal-steel filled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hollow,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and a bunch of songs from 2004\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Eveningland were all bright and twangy, and as comforting as a piece of velvet on your cheek. With Ellyson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s super-high cheekbones, fiery red hair, and pregnant belly, she reminded me of some kind of Earth Mother, reminding the cynical, sophisticated world how good love and a simpler life can be.<\/p>\n
Karin Berquist of Over the Rhine dreamily noted early in the band\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s opening set that she \u00e2\u20ac\u0153likes letters\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that if you rearrange the ones in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hem\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153OTR,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d you can get the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mother.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she insisted, wide-eyed over the low laughter. Berquist is a bevy of contradictions: an Emma Bunton ringer with her blonde pigtails and huge silver hoop earrings, she ends up coming off as a semi-sweetened country version of Baby Spice. Oh, and her voice? Beyonc\u00c3\u00a9-butter without the R&B booty, injected with some of Fiona Apple\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s raw vegan smoke. She practically purrs every word. No wonder that she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get ordinary song requests: at the Paradise some random dude in the front row handed her a long-stemmed red rose with a note rolled around it. Pattering back and forth on a rug laid out on stage, she was the most songwritery songwriter here, and her five-senses attack trumped Ellyson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s natural polish \u00e2\u20ac\u201d even though Hem was what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d come to hear. Berquist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s foil is guitarist\/pianist\/partner-in-crime\/co-writer Linford Detweiler, who looks exactly like Fred Jones but happens to be an incredible instrumentalist. The spotlight, though, was made for Karin. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Born\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has that hair-on-your-arms-raising-quality, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Five O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Clock Shadow\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was probably sensual enough to eventually wow the pants off of some of the couples gripping hands.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thanks for staying out late on a Monday,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ellyson said as she and Hem wrapped things up. Already I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m watching her through pleasantly slitted eyes, wishing I had a pillow. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nearly Tuesday. The week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not yet half over. But thanks to Birquist and Ellyson, my mind is filled with adult-sanctioned lullabies about fireflies, lakeside romances, and sunlit fields of blooming corn \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and despite the no air-conditioning plus my neighbors blasting Fall Out Boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dance Dance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on repeat, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be sleeping the sleep of a righteous Southern belle after her first cotillion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Garment district The Phoenix, MA Last night at the Paradise, I sat in a metal folding chair along with about 75 other quiet, bookish types: middle-aged dads in golf shirts with their wives, college kids with trucker caps pulled over their eyes, a patch of hipsters, some hippies, and a gaggle of girls in American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n