Venue:
St Paul’s Church, Birmingham
Date: 22/02/2020
Jurado is one of what I think of as the good guys, one of that welter of earnest and efficient acoustic troubadours, beavering away in their cottage industries, issuing disc after disc, possibly omni-touring to make a buck, never filling stadiums but capable of drawing a couple of hundred souls out on a wet and windy, into a cold and crumbling church in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter.
I know little of his back story, my presence largely on account of 2006’s ‘And Now I’m In Your Shadow’, a bleak showcase of his sad songs; a quiet earthquake of dashed emotions. Since then he has dabbled, I gather, with other formats, a bit of psychedelia, some found sound, bands and electricity. But I read that latest album, The Shape of a Storm, was just him, his voice and an acoustic, and I was in.
Support was a young Canadian, Dana Gavanski, strumming on a muted electric to the keyboard and bass of her accompanist, together, with occasional drum machine, channeling Mazzy Star, with keen, pure Sandovalesque vocals and spare melodies, the spaces as important as the sounds. Lovely stuff, the acoustics of the building throwing the music skyward.
Half an hour to refuel; yes, there was a bar, and the burly Jurado loped on, beany on against the chill. Seemingly desperately self-conscious, little in the way of introduction, some tuning, a false start for a missing capo and he began. He has a quiet voice, pitched as a cracked tenor, dipping in and out of his range to imbue emotion, thumb sweeping the strings of a single unchanged guitar, a bit of finger picking for variety. This is slow music, quiet music, the creaky old pews wished into silence by the awestruck, attentive audience. Heads nodding, eyes closed, lost in these, mostly, mournful stories. In truth I can’t tell you what he played, although much of the new album featured, the words tallying with the names on the CD I bought at the end. There were newer songs still and, I am sure, some I could recall. A couple were almost lively, for which he apologised, the mood overall of a wry melancholia. Very much mood music, and I was in the mood. Playing for, I guess, about 90 minutes, at no time did the time drag or the moment falter. I doubt many can hold an audience with such seemingly simple fare. He did, then showing a wry geniality at the march desk, that perhaps explaining the loyalty of his fanbase. Most there seemed to know his every note and to be on first name terms.
The audience:
Hipster fringe, lots of beards and flat tops, leaking into older acolytes of americana and folk. Largely couples, 60:40 male to female. Amicable.Respectful to the performer: in a room where every pin drop could deafen, pins were kept held of and phones were off.
It made me think..
Why aren’t churches used more often? OK, no light show, no stage to speak of and the most uncomfortable wooden seating my butt has experienced in some years, but brilliant sound and, structurally, not so far off the design of a theatre, there being an upstairs balcony and sides here, reminiscent of Digbeth’s O2 Institute.
I learn that St Pauls has quite a second life as a venue, it being, next week, the home of a festival of electronic chamber music, including, which would be perfect for them, A Winged Victory For the Sullen. A learn too late, mind, as completely sold out….
Great review – interest piqued I will be investigating further the Durado canon; care to advise a starting pont?
The venue sounds very much like my favourite home from home, St. Georges in Bristol. There the layout is the same, with balconies all the way around the auditorium, and two aisles (I’m guessing) down either side of the stalls, with further seats to either side. I’m deliberately using theatre terms here rather than ecclesiastical ones! St. Georges also benefits from relatively comfortable simple wooden chairs with padded seats.
St. Georges have a fantastic range of music on offer – Tangerine Dream are there later this year for good measure.
I don’t actually have that much knowledge beyond the 2006 album mentioned and the new one I bought last night, from last year. He has a covers project I am looking out for, Other Peoples Songs, Vol1, in cahoots with his buddy, the late Richard Swift. Includes a version of Yes’ Sweetness, intriguingly.
As for St George’s, he’s there tonight! Sunday 23
And Tangerine Dream are at St Paul’s soon too, or, at least, Quaeschning and Schnauss are, separately and collectively.
I saw Tangerine Dream at the Protestant Cathedral in Liverpool many moons ago. I was at the back of the pews and the sound echoed up the tower behind me and bounced back down. I was exactly in the wrong spot, sound coming at me from two directions. It made me feel very sick.
Church acoustics are generally excellent but the choir and the organ are often situated behind the congregation. A gig paying audience expects to ‘see’ the act as well as hear it. In Tangerine Dream’s case, there wasn’t much visual action.
I don’t wish to spoil my memory of the Phaedra tour, when they played Plymouth Guildhall in quadraphonic sound. Absolutely mental experience, completely gobsmacking sound. No seats, just rush matting and the warmth of one’s ARP greatcoat. Long time ago, but still clearly remembered, especially if I play that album nice and loud.
I found the Other Peoples’ Songs album to be a little disappointing, if I’m honest. His own stuff is much better.
I spottied it after the above earlier and you are right: largely bollox
Nice review. I’m saddened that I couldn’t catch him on this small tour. Good point about churches. The last gig I attended was at the beautiful St Mary’s church in Chester last month. Great acoustics and something about the place naturally hushes people, I think. I’m a fairly recent convert to Durado, his trilogy of Sci-Fi themed psychedelic albums with Richard Swift first catching my attention [downloaded from Emusic when they still had a catalogue worth investigation] but it was 2018’s The Horizon Just Laughed that I really love, so much that it was my favourite album of that year. This new release, In The Shape Of A Storm hasn’t gripped me so far, your review has reminded me to revisit it. This is the video he released to accompany one of the best tracks from THJL, ‘Over Rainbows And Ranier’. It’s just about perfect.
I first heard Damien Jurado on the New Sounds of the Old West cover CD that Uncut gave away in the late 90s. I bought his then current album, Rehearsals For Departure, on the back of it, very quickly followed by everything he’d done. So I’d say Rehearsals For Departure is a good starting point. I managed to see him do a solo (apart from when his wife joined him on backing vocals) acoustic set at the 12 Bar Club shortly after the release of that album, supported by Mark Mulcahy. At the time he still had a day job as a kindergarten teacher! I remember he told a couple of good stories about being on tour with The Handsome Family, who he found to be a tad weird.
His early albums are mainly acoustic affairs, often with sparse arrangements (think Springsteen’s Nebraska) and we’re close enough to Alt. Country for him to be lumped in with that crowd. I have to admit, I drifted away from him a few albums later, as my enthusiasm for Alt. Country started to wane as the music started to get a bit samey. I wasn’t really bothered about his psychedelic/spacey albums.
However, he was back with a bang with The Horizon Just Laughed in 2018. I reckon that one pips Rehearsals For Departure as his best album. Last year’s In The Shape Of A Storm is a good one too. Hopefully he’ll keep this run of form going.
The Handsome Family ‘a tad weird’, never.
The Handsome Family ‘wonderfully weird’, oh yeah.
New album coming May 1st
First track from it ‘Birds Tricked Into The Trees’ [I love the folder at his feet 🙂 ]