The Avett Brothers, sans Seth, in June 2008. (Photo by D.L. Anderson)
The Avett Brothers
Home Sweet Home, New York
Tuesday, Sept. 29
In the beginning, The Avett Brothers played an endless string of secret shows, I guess. But they weren’t private. Details weren’t guarded. Anybody could come. Relatively speaking, very few did. That’s not intended to belittle the music Scott and Seth Avett and Bob Crawford (and, more recently, Joe Kwon) have been laboring over for the past decade.
No, it’s the opposite, or the most potent testament to this band’s power: If these kids from Concord hadn’t offered a vision of unhinged bluegrass bliss and honeysuckle-scented Americana, well, everybody (or nobody, as it were) would have kept that secret. But they didn’t. So, show by show and fan by fan, the Avett Brothers grew into something truly special—first in North Carolina, then everywhere.
And now they’re a major-label monster, recording with Rick Rubin, touring with Dave Matthews and performing on David Letterman. So it was a respectful love letter to their modest beginnings that they celebrated this Tuesday’s release of I and Love and You— their biggest, most anticipated, most impressive record yet—with a real New York City secret show.
The unticketed event was a public exhibition of Avett artwork at the street-level Envoy Gallery and a closed-lip gig down below at the 150-capacity Home Sweet Home. Writers, bloggers and label types milled throughout with their plus-ones, while a healthy smattering of diehards got in by jumping through Facebook hoops (tag 10 friends in your status update, kids!) or working magic on the gallery owners during the day-long art exhibition. But industry schlubs and fans alike seemed downright gleeful to pack themselves in the tiny space, especially since the band plays the massive (and utterly impersonal) 3,000-capacity Terminal 5 in two weeks. Continue reading »
Them Concord boys sure do clean up nice, don’t they? As per usual, the Avett Brothers were dressed to the nines while making their big performance on last night’s episode of The Late Show with David Letterman, but their snazzy duds failed to cover up a snag in execution.
Sure, I grinned like a proud papa when Dave—holding up a vinyl copy of I And Love And You, officially released just minutes earlier—kicked it over to our Avetts. Seth Avett struck out the first chords of the title track on a grand piano. But I flinched when the camera turned toward center stage, revealing Mike Marsh (Dashboard Confessional) behind the drums rather than Scott Avett, who usually mans the kit for live performances of the tune. I cringed more when Scott began hesitantly plucking at an out-of-tune banjo, assuredly a prop to get the elder Avett out from behind the drum kit for the television audience. Continue reading »
The Avett Brothers
Bojangles Coliseum, Charlotte
Saturday, August 8
Several minutes after their scheduled start time of 8:45 p.m. had passed, The Avett Brothers climbed the stairs of the head-high stage at Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte. The crowd erupted. That thousands of fans had gathered to make the Concord band’s homecoming a major event is hardly surprising: From New York to Portland and at most places in between, thousands of fans gather most every time the Avetts set fingers to strings. What was surprising in Charlotte was the manner in which the consummate showmen managed to make even an arena feel intimate, such that the connection with the audience was occasionally as compelling as the songs themselves.
The spectacle at Bojangles Coliseum (formerly Cricket Arena) was meant to be the official release party for I and Love and You, the Concord quartet’s much-anticipated major label debut for Rick Rubin’s American Recordings. But as the album’s release was pushed back from early August to the end of September, the show went on minus the new record. The empty upper-level seats, then, might have been indicative of some fans’ disappointment with the change in plans. Still, the venue felt full, and the event carried a feeling of celebration in honor of the band’s by-most-predictions promising future—and its substantial past accomplishments. Continue reading »
A quick mention of a few local bands with some interesting online features today:
—In another early bit of promotion for I and Love and You (now due in September, NPR says), Concord quartet The Avett Brothers recorded a three-song installment of Tiny Desk Concert in the office of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen. The unrecorded “Down with the Shine” and the new staple “Bella Donna” make an appearance, but the real reason to watch is the opener, “Laundry Room.” A gorgeous song with a dozen slogans for the taking, “Laundry Room” finds the harmonies of the Avetts hitting new strides. And it’s good to see that Scott’s banjo refuses to stay in tune, even for NPR. Continue reading »
In two months, Concord, N.C. quartet The Avett Brothers will release I and Love and You, their sixth studio album and first for American Recordings, the Sony imprint run by production mogul Rick Rubin. A major label, a major project, a major timeline: After more than a year in the making, I and Love and You is now in its final stages of completion, having gone through recording in studios on two coasts, mixes by multiple sets of ears and—finally—a series of mastering attempts that try to render the record ready for what’s likely to be an enormous audience.
On Monday afternoon, a not-quite-finished copy of the album arrived at the offices of the Independent Weekly in Durham. Later that night, Independent Weekly Music Editor Grayson Currin and New Raleigh Downtown Editor Jed Gant gathered in Raleigh to listen to the work-in-progress for the first time and offer their instant impressions via their personal Twitter accounts. We’ve gathered those moment-by-moment tweets into roughly edited form, presenting them as a generally obnoxious, sometimes humorous and fairly informative guide to what you’ll expect when the band drops its major-label introduction August 11.
Just to be clear, both listeners love the record and, 48 hours later, consider it to be the most evolved and perhaps best work by the band yet. Also of note: The title track, “Kick Drum Heart” and “It Goes On” might make this band awfully famous.
June 2008: Seth Avett, center, waits backstage, with, from left, Joe Kwon, Bob Crawford and his brother, Scott. (Photo: Derek Anderson)
The door that seals the back lounge of The Avett Brothers’ long, shining tour bus slides open silently. At once, the quartet’s members—brothers Scott and Seth Avett, bassist Bob Crawford, cellist Joe Kwon—pause and glance up, smiling to their longtime manager, Dolph Ramseur, as he steps across the threshold: “NPR wants to know how many new songs you’re playing tonight,” Ramseur says, his inflection kindly implying an apology for the interruption. Scott reaches for the setlist. The band exchanges some final thoughts. Scott makes the pronouncement: “Two, but if there’s a real serious need for another new song, we could do one.”
Tonight, the Brothers’ bus sits a dozen feet from the front gate of Stubb’s, an Austin, Texas, BBQ institution that also doubles as one of the Capital City’s biggest and most venerated venues. In two hours, the band will take the penultimate slot of an NPR-produced bill on the first night of SXSW. The Decemberists will headline, and—in less than 48 hours—Metallica will take the same stage. The show is the band’s first since a year-ending stand in North Carolina, but it’s likely just the start of what could be a monumental year for the Concord band: After serving as the flagship act for the label that takes Ramseur’s name for five albums, The Avett Brothers will release I and Love and You, its Rick Rubin-produced major label debut, in August. Still at least four months ahead of release, the anticipation behind the album is growing steadily. A recent Rolling Stone story suggested it was one of the mostly eagerly awaited albums of the year, and NPR needs to know the names of the new tunes so it can plug the disc.
Ramseur jots the name of the songs down (”I and Love and You,” “Kick Drum Heart”) and excuses himself. The band turns its attention back to the new album, and—in one of their most extensive interviews about the record to date—reveals several of the record’s guests, a few tracks that did and didn’t make the record, and its thoughts on recording with Rubin and touring with Dave Matthews Band. The Avett Brothers open for DMB at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre Wednesday, April 22, at 7 p.m., and—if you’re keeping track at home—the band’s now verified four of the 17 tunes it finished with Rubin: “Kick Drum Heart,” “I and Love and You,” “Slight Figure of Speech,” and “Tin Man.”
