JD Pinkus, Scott H. Biram at the Dive Bar, Wednesday April 20, 2022

 

Truthfully, I knew nothing about these two gentlemen until my buddy Rob hipped me to this show (and I attempted to get in as an opening act, but that didn't happen for numerous reasons) - so, thanks Rob! JD is best known for his work as the bassist for the Butthole Surfers while Biram has made a name for himself as the Dirty Old One Man Band. While their approaches to the one-man band concept were pretty different, they did work well together for this gig/tour.

The Dive Bar has been doing a great job of reversing their reputation for late weeknight shows, but unfortunately, it worked too well on this eve and JD went on at about 9:00 - usually well before even an opening act would appear at the Dive Bar - and I missed most of his set - totally my fault. His set up was truly unique - just him and his banjo and a huge array of effects pedals for both his instrument and his voice, while he had movies and random images projected behind him on a sheet/screen. He made very effective use of looper pedals to fill out the sound and would move from quiet, sparse, banjo picking to HUGE, monstrous, metallic noize along with wildly distorted vocals before jumping back to almost ambient, experimental, semi-psychedelic sounds. Truly interesting and very different from pretty much anything I've seen before and I am still bummed that I arrived so late.

Biram, on the other hand, played comparatively more traditional blues/country/Americana-ish numbers, although with his own twist and he also used a huge pedal board (maybe he shared it with Pinkus?) that affected the instruments and his voice. He used an selection of very hip, old, hollow-body guitars along with a modern Bo Diddley-styled rectangle-shaped git and even an Explorer, which was an odd choice that stood out, to say the least. Besides his own original country-blues, he covered the likes of John Lee Hooker, Mississippi Fred McDowell and songs like "Jack O'Diamonds", and even did his self-described hybrid of bluegrass and death metal! He is certainly a talented played with flyin' fingers and a good amount of hip slide work. He kept a basic, rockin' beat with some foot-triggered device that also seemed to (maybe?) go through a looper - whatever it was, it was quite effective and versatile. Unfortunately, my weird work week caught up with me even at the relatively early hours of this show and I split before he was finished, but will definitely check him out again the next time he comes through town.

Once again, thanks to Nate and the Dive Bar for an eclectic night of wild'n'weird music!