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Event
POSTPONED SORRY...House Concert with Al Scorch (Chicago)
UPDATE: Al is ill and needs to reschedule this leg of his tour. We'll post a new event. Tickets sold already will be refunded ASAP.
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We're thrilled to host Bloodshot Records recording artist, Al Scorch for an evening of high energy banjo pickin' right here at Sign of the Wagon.
Doors at 7:00 PM / Show at 8:00 PM BYOB 21+
Get your tickets in advance, please.
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Stormy, busky, brawling, City of Big Shoulders. from Chicago by Carl Sandburg
Al Scorch grew up in Chicago, with its storied history of corrupt power at the top and righteous fighters and big dreamers at the bottom. From the town that gave the world characters like Studs Terkel, Upton Sinclair, and the anarchists in Bughouse Square, Scorch adds his voice to the choir with the enthusiasm and charisma of a Maxwell Street preacher. He eyes the prize of that ever-elusive promised land thats worth scrapping for, wherever or whatever it may be. With a stentorian bullhorn of a voice, he exhorts, not with a holy book in his hand, but a banjo and guitar. Hes a messenger and a conduit, a believer that a soul-stirring song will march you forward.
Balanced on wedges of punk, old-time string band, American and European folk, and soulful balladry, Al is an entertainer, road warrior, storyteller, and one helluva musician. His second album and Bloodshot debut Circle Round the Signs is built on a sonic framework sharing an intersection with the Bad Livers lawless next-gen take on traditional country & bluegrass, and Black Flags burn-it-all-down revolt and breakneck tempos. From the train-hopping tale of Pennsylvania Turnpike - updating steel rails to concrete ribbons - to the shout-along, latenight lament of Insomnia (I toss and I turn in my bed every night/ Im sober but my minds as high as a kite), the aural dexterity is thrilling.
Woody Guthries Slipknot gets a complex, Western swing cum prog-grass treatment, led by the angular fiddling of Felipe Tobar, that would make acoustic thrash godfathers Split Lip Rayfield grin demonically. And Want One blazes down the dirt track with a Stanley Brothers fireball energy driven by Scorchs clawhammer banjoing, and the its-safeto- laugh-now adventure of meeting an intensely inebriated fan while busking across the country.
But Scorch is far more than lightning for lightnings sake. Through 10 songs of high wire musicianship, debilitating despair, wild-eyed hope, and sharpelbowed views of social (in)justice, he deftly maintains a balance of precise touch and texture, pop catchiness and frenetic intensity. That Minutemen inspired jam econo vibe embracing the freedom of art and community as long as youre working hard and bringing your friends along for the ride? Yeah, thats here too.
He shows a keen ear for the Mekons trans-Atlantic roots and marries it to the Avett Brothers big stage sound on Lost At Sea. Likewise, there is depth in the songs lyrics during the cliffhanging, reallife narrative of a best friend almost dying when the HMS Bounty sank in Hurricane Sandy:
When I heard of the wreck my heart left my chest/ tears came rolling down/ the same sun shone through the window/ I thought of a world without you around
DIY show shakedowns parallel a down-and-outon- Clout-Street message (Every bossman is on another bossmans take/ There aint no free man except the one you make) on the vaudeville-via- Eastern European klezmer door-kicker Everybody Out. With its bittersweet imagery and mournful harmonies, Lonesome Low goes beyond the blue grass and into the deep woods. While the elegiac french horn in Poverty Draft wouldnt sound out of place if it was played in a WWI trench, nor would its message of the poor being the tools of war (The fight for freedom pays more than minimum wage).
A punk rock banjo-wielding John Prine or Billy Bragg, Al Scorch writes for the everyperson. Through his acrobatically poetic politics, hopeful tales of love lost (Love After Death), or cathartic takes on urban chaos (City Lullaby), he pens rowdy campfire stories, calls for action, and draws the epic from the ordinary. Celebrate, right a wrong, or find your path and go for it. Its heavy shit, but so is life.
http://www.alscorch.com/ https://www.facebook.com/alscorch https://twitter.com/al_scorch https://www.instagram.com/alscorch/ https://alscorch.bandcamp.com/
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LocationSign of the Wagon (View)
154 EAST PHILADELPHIA STREET
YORK CITY, PA 17401
United States
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