With the nickname ‘Music City,’ Nashville has been at the center of American country music for decades. And for three of those, Kurt Wagner has been writing a unique chapter in his hometown’s musical history as the frontman of Lambchop, the self-proclaimed “most fucked-up country band” in the city.
The band’s rise coincided with an economic and cultural renaissance in Tennessee’s capital, though Wagner admits to feeling conflicted about the changes.
“Having grown up here since the 1960s I had so many dreams about what this city would become: A more welcoming place to live; a place where you could enjoy the same things you find in the bigger, more established cultural centers of the world; a place where you could get a good cup of coffee,” he says.
“These things have come to pass now, but at a cost that I didn't consider at the time. I do welcome change but I also see the city that I loved as being an undiscovered, livable, creative refuge, becoming anything but that. It makes me long for simpler times gone by.”
Lambchop’s early days were also simpler ones. Having started life as a sardonic trio recording self-released cassettes with crude, punkish titles like I’m Fucking Your Daughter, the band were creating ‘alternative country’ before the term even existed. While they maintain a cheeky sense of self-awareness (their third album, Thriller, alluded to Michael Jackson’s mega-selling album despite the group’s paltry sales figures), their sound has since evolved to encompass everything from jazz to avant-garde noise. Lambchop may be the only country band to ever cover Curtis Mayfield, be covered by Talking Heads’ David Byrne and be remixed by English trip-hop act Zero 7.
Given the diversity in both influences and fans, it seems fitting that the band’s inaugural China tour takes them to two vastly different venues – Beijing’s sweaty livehouse Yugong Yishan on June 17 and, two days later, the stately Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Hall, where they will close the second season of Split Work’s Contemporale series.
“We’ve played a wide variety of venues over the years and we don’t really have a preference as to which is better. They both can be a lot of fun,” Wagner says. “In the end it’s the people who come to the shows that make the moment special. It’s a feeling that is exchanged between the performer and the listener. That can happen anywhere, often in the most humble of circumstances.”
The upcoming shows promise to be a fascinating trip through Lambchop’s discography from its early steel-guitar driven country-punk to its recent forays into chamber pop. Although still steeped in the sounds of Americana, the band’s diverse releases have enjoyed particular popularity in Europe.
Wagner is especially proud of the group’s last disc, Mr. M, which was inspired by the death of singer-songwriter and frequent Lambchop collaborator Vic Chesnutt.
“When sound fills the air it is also interpreted in relation to the moments when there is no sound at all,” Wagner explains. “We’ve expanded this idea to our performance in that we are trying to present music as quietly as possible.”
It’s been four years since the release of Mr. M , and Wagner promises that the band’s twelfth disc will come out in November. Titled FLOTUS (For Love Often Turns Us Still), the album sports the same acronym used by American presidents’ wives (First Lady of the United States). Given that Lambchop’s well-received 2000 disc Nixon was a concept album about the American president of the same name, it would seem that a trope is emerging.
But Wagner doesn’t come across as overtly political. When asked about the impending American election, the typically loquacious singer-songwriter summarizes his hopes simply as “a better day for us all.”
Beijing: June 17, 9pm, RMB120-150. Yugong Yishan.
Shanghai: June 19, 7pm, RMB80-180. Shanghai Symphony Orchestra - Chamber Hall.
Image by Bill Steber.
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