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August 02, 2005
Caught in the Hollow of Your Cheekbone
Childballads - The Onion Domes of Tallahassee
!~~!~~! This song is the first from Stewart Lupton's new band, the Childballads, to surface anywhere, and it was actually distributed by the band via email. If there was anything that could cajole me out of heat and exhaustion-induced apathy, it's a tight little jam like this, something that I've been anticipating and wondering about for almost the past year, since word came down from the man himself (Lupton) that he had been playing with a new group (with Betsy Wright and Hugh MacIntosh [of the Recoys and French Kicks]) and performing occasional live shows.
'The Onion Domes of Tallahassee' sees the former Jonathan Fire*Eater lead singer working similar lyrical themes, or at the very least, constructing songs around narratives filled to the brim with poetic imagery viz. "Circle round a fort made of animal bones", "I bought a painting off the street of a haunted lake", "a shadow that's caught in the hollow of your cheekbone", "when you walk into the room, all the wallpaper comes in bloom" (that last one's my favorite). Musically though, this song reminds me a lot of the Rolling Stones- and while Lupton has been compared to Jagger before, it's really just a perfectly apt reference for 'The Onion Domes...', and if you want to get really fine-grained about it, start talking about "Beggars Banquet"-era Stones, specifically 'Street Fighting Man'- 'Onion Domes...' is the dense and bright-shining binary of that song. When Lupton harmonizes with Betsy Wright though, it rivals or even surpasses the best moments of Jonathan Fire*Eater- the wonderful theatricality is still there, the urgency and passion, but everything's rendered so much more subtly.
So, as far as I know, the Childballads have neither signed to a label nor have they released anything yet (although apparently this track is taken from something called "Dried Bee Necklace"). They don't even have a website that I'm aware of- however, they are playing the Knitting Factory, this Thursday night, August 4th. Go out and see/listen/enjoy!
Posted by Kevin at August 2, 2005 12:52 AM
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Comments
new childballads website... www.thechildballads.net
Posted by: betsy at August 30, 2005 11:44 PM