Rise, Bloom and Burst4 Out Of 5 Stars
Tao Rodriguez Seeger is the grandson (in-law) of the icon Pete Seeger, and has been serving as his Grandfather's musical director on Pete's latest tours. That was where I first heard Tao play, at Newport Folk Festival in 2009. About a year later, Tao performed a solo-band set at Philadelphia's World cafe, We enjoyed his work at Newport so much that I decided to check him out. As you would likely guess by his affiliations with Pete, Tao is a folk-lefty. What I (and I think, most of the other attendees) did not expect, is that Tao is a LOUD folk lefty. Where Bruce Springsteen's "Seeger Sessions" covered Pete like it was a hootenanny, Tao makes Pete sound like The Clash.
"Rise and Bloom" offers up 11 songs divided into six originals (five by Tao and one by band member Laura Cortese), two by Pete, one from Doc Watson and one by Jim Garland. They are all electrified, angry rockers with the kind of passion that Tao claims real folk music has always had, and when you listen to the band belt out "Bring 'Em Home," you totally get where he's coming from. There's also the easily singable choruses to the originals, like "Twelve Gates to The City." Or to feel the band's underlying optimism on the graceful "Wade On In."
Meanwhile. back at the World Cafe, what started out as a crowd of maybe 200 was dwindling towards the end; I suspect they were expecting Tao the come out and strum like it was a 1959 union rally. Having seen Tao perform as his Grandpa's music director, I was kind of suspecting something a bit more acoustic myself. However, his drummer (Robin McMillan) tore into his drums for the intro and his bassist (Jacob Silver) locked right on in. This was some on-fire and hard focused sweaty rock and roll. And frankly, hearing Pete's "Bring 'Em Home" like it was taken from "London Calling" was nothing short of exhilarating. That excitement is what makes their "Rise and Bloom" such an interesting listen.
No comments:
Post a Comment