Copious Notes

Bill Mallonee performs at The Dame July 1, 2009. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

At first glance Bill Mallonee looks like an amalgamation of several singer-songwriter stereotypes.

On stage at The Dame Wednesday night, the harmonica echoed Dylan, the hat looked pure Tom Waits, and trotting out songs about Jack Kerouac and Vincent Van Gogh seemed ripped from the troubadour playbook.

Muriah Rose joins Mallonee at the microphone.

But the reason Mallonee’s career has endured for decades is his  perspectives are unique, and soon after he starts playing, singing with that distinctive head shudder and blowing into his harmonica, the stereotypes float away in the pleasure of hearing an individual artist who sings every song like it was refined deep in his soul.

Wednesday’s show was supposed to be with his full band, Vigilantes of Love, but, “that wasn’t in the cards this time,” Mallonee said as he took the stage joined by his wife, singer and keyboardist Muriah Rose.

The duo performed a little under an hour of songs dating back to Vigilantes’ Blister Soul and as recent as the opening number, From Day One, which Mallonee said was so new, “the ink isn’t dry on it.”

It was a beautiful song about life that showed Mallonee still meditates on spiritual things, which has made him and Vigilantes figures on the Christian music scene in the same way U2 is. His music both affirms faith and challenges organized religion, such as the Van Gogh song, VOL’s Skin, sung from the perspective of the artists’ brother Theo, who Mallonee explained was once a church social worker until church officials determined his dressing like his clients was unbecoming a man of his position.

While the Mallonee that could rock out was largely missing along with his band, his sublime side was on full display with Muriah, who joined him on numerous numbers including the highly appropriate closer, Resplendent.

Dudley Webb gave a 15 minute prepared statement to the council then answered questions regarding the stalled Centrepointe development at a city council work session in Lexington, Ky., Tuesday, May 5, 2009. Thursday, three town criers will give their own take on Webb's statement. Photo by Pablo Alcala | Staff.

ELandF Gallery is back at it, announcing a line-up of three town criers who will read developer Dudley Webb’s letter to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council on Thursday.

Webb’s letter attempted to explain the apparently stalled Centrepointe project. In the letter, Webb stated that the project was still viable and he expected it to commence in the the near future. He also complained of being maligned by columnists, editorial writers, bloggers and others. Clearly, the ELandF criers won’t make the developer feel any better.

The gallery selected three criers, based on essays they submitted:

• Brittny Congleton, a comedic performer wrote, “By confronting this ridiculous letter of irresponsibility, we bring to the public a rallying point and reminder of broken promises, as well as our responsibility as citizens to communicate.” She said she hopes to wear a, “spectacular yellow dress — like a techni-color Alice and Wonderland (or a female Dick Tracy) searching the streets of Lexington for a purpose and a playground.”
• Elaine Parker wrote, “I can embellish the reading with snorts, groans, and eye rolling . . . “
• Alex Johns wrote, “The Centerpointe project was a huge blow to our local music scene. While both music locales and most the stores have found new homes, there is a different atmosphere and a lack of interest from the community.”

Demolition for the Centrepointe project dislocated numerous entertainment establishments including The Dame (now at the Main Street Live complex next to Thoroughbred Park) and Buster’s (relocating to the Distillery District later this year).

The Town Criers will begin their reading at Third Street Stuff Coffee, 257 N. Limestone, and then separate and read at various locations including the Centrepointe site until 1 p.m., when they will converge on the Puiblic kiosk at the corner of E. Main and Quality streets where they will read and post the letter.

The reading is the latest protest of the Centrepointe project from the gallery, which also sponsored a public mourner of the demolished buildings and other demonstrations.

Patrons at the Mother’s Day performance of Silas House’s new play, Long Time Travelling, will get an extra treat. Cellist Ben Sollee, a Lexington native and University of Louisville graduate, will perform a set before the 2 p.m. performance of the Actors Guild of Lexington production at the Downtown Arts Center.

Ben Sollee at The Dame, Dec. 11. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

Sollee’s Bend was one of the songs House cited as inspiration for the play about change in the life of a rural family. After the performance, Sollee and House will particpate in a talk-back session about the play, arts and activism.

House will also give a pre-show chat at 7 p.m. May 16, prior to the 8 p.m. performance of the play that night.

Sollee also has another gig at the Dame coming up at 8 p.m. May 21 with special guest Anni Rossi.

Ben Sollee at The Dame, Dec. 11. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

Ben Sollee, the Lexington-raised cellist who has carved out a unique career with the instrument, will make his national television debut tonight on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Sollee grew up in Lexington, studying cello and playing in the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestra before joining Michael Jonathan’s Folkboy Orchestra on Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour. He went on the University of Louisville and since graduating in 2006 has developed a singular career with the usually-classical instrument, integrating it into American folk and blues music. Sollee has recorded two critically acclaimed albums and an EP.

In December, he packed out The Dame for a homecoming concert. Click here to read Walter Tunis’ review.

Jimmy Kimmel Live airs at midnight in ABC, WTVQ TV-36 (Insight Channel 10) in Lexington.

Cellist Ben Solle (center), guitarist Justin Craig and drummer Jon Moore perform at The Dame Dec. 11. LexGo photos by Rich Copley.

More photos below.

If I want to see a hot young cellist in Lexington, it’s pretty obvious where you’ll probably find him or her: on the stage of an area concert hall, like the University of Kentucky’s Singletary Center for the Arts. In fact, a week ago last night, a hot young cellist was on the Singletary stage: Andrea Kleesattel, playing Antonin Dvorak’s legendary Cello Concerto with the UK Symphony.

The Dame is not such an obvious venue for hot young cello talent. The Main Street bar and music hall is a place where a lot of the musicians crank their six strings up to 11. But Thursday night, cellist and Lexington native Ben Sollee was centerstage, rocking and mesmerizing a packed house. That was a lot of people without gray hair listening to a cello — and I say this as a guy quickly acquiring my gray.

Ben Sollee at The Dame.

Sollee undoubtedly has talent. But maybe the biggest thing this twentysomething has going for him is imagination.

He took a fairly traditional route to learning the instrument, picking it up in elementary school, excelling enough to join the Central Kentucky Youth Orchesrtra, and studying the instrument at the University of Louisville, which he graduated from in 2006. But somewhere in there, Sollee heard more to his instrument than just concert and recital halls and people who patronize those venues. He heard folk, he heard the blues, he heard rock ‘n’ roll, he heard the Appalachian music his father played around the house.

And now, in his performances and recordings, we hear it.

Sollee is not unusual. Music schools these days are teeming with kids who appreciate and have mastered the complexities of traditional classical music but grew up in a pop, rock world and want to find ways to marry the two. New Yorker music critic Alex Ross called it a shuffle generation: kids who load their iPods with a wide variety of music and then let it play together in shuffle mode. We just maybe think of them trying to forge those unions in little clubs on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

But here, in Central Kentucky, it can be manifest in things like the numerous fiddlers I’ve met who are studying classical violin, and vice versa.

Sollee is doing it quite effectively, and a key to what he is doing is that he does not diminish his craft. He hasn’t reduced cello down to three chords and a six pack of beer — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

His Dame performance was full of virtuosity and a keen ear for the structure of his songs. Highlights included a rendition of Change is Going to Come, which he grew from a solo piece back into a jam with his band, building on a central theme. Maybe the most fun was I Can’t Be You, which Sollee said he was supposed to play on guitar, but he left it backstage. So, he plucked and strummed it on cello like that’s the way he always played it.

Maybe there is a Dvorak concerto in Sollee’s fingers he will someday play, if he hasn’t already. Maybe his could be a career that straddles the concert hall and club more legitimately than many artists who’ve attempted to “cross over.”

But at this moment, he seems to be taking his cello exactly where it needs to go.

Read Walter Tunis’ review of Thursday’s Ben Sollee concert.

Here are a few more pics from last night:

Neva Geoffrey and bassist Matt Duncan opened the show.

Neva Geoffrey

Guitarist Matt Duncan put a little slide into his performances with Neva Geoffrey and Ben Sollee.

Daniel Martin Moore played his own set and sat in with Ben Sollee for a number.

Ben Sollee during one of numerous cello solos in his set.

A singing cellist is not something I can recall seeing before.