Alejandro Escovedo Live at Mc Cabe's

If Alejandro Escovedo ("AE") makes it near your 'hood, don't miss this concert - a unique & amazing show.

A little AE history:

He was a founding member of the early NoCal punk band The Nuns which had a cult following and moved to NYC where they became part of the same circle as The Sex Pistols and Iggy Pop. (He offers some details of their years together in the Chelsea neighborhood in NYC on his recent solo cd "Real Animal")

He moved to Texas to start the early Alt Country/Cow Punk bands Rank & File and, later, True Believers.

Somewhere in there he led the very noisy rock band Buick McCane.

His solo records blend all of the above with a strange sound based on electric guitar, acoustic guitar,steel guitar, cello (?!) and bass/drums. Think Los Lobos meets mid-period Lou Reed meets X meets Townes Van Zandt and you'll be on something like the right track.

Last night's show featured two (Chuck Prophet later joined onstage to make it 3) acoustic guitars and Cello - no rhythm section, no electric guitar. The songs were split between old solo numbers and recent tunes from Real Animal (that titular animal being Iggy Pop). The cellist varied between mournful scraping acompaniment and wild lead solos. I can pretty much guarantee that no one makes 2 acoustic guitars and a cello rock like this guy! Just flat out amazing.

He is also a much better singer than you'd ever guess from listening to his CDs. His voice is much "rounder" and more resonant. He's not Caruso, but he can sing this type of material very, very effectively. This is one case where live sound was really rewarding.

AE is also a great "raconteur" and filled the between song breaks with hilarious tales of his life in show biz - he has 11 siblings who are mostly all professional musicians (older brother Pete is a well known jazz bandleader and younger brother Javier was the head of the cult San Diego punk band The Zeros). I'd love to be a fly on the wall at that family re-union.

In sum, AE really puts on a great show. It's variously rocking, mournful, nostalgic, beautiful and funny. For an encore the entire band walked out into the audience and did a great sing along version of "All The Young Dudes" with a wonderful acoustic guitar reproduction of the original (IIRC) Mick Ronson solo.

If you can see this one, it is very highly recommended.

Marty