In the five years I have lived in New York City, I have seen Will Johnson over a dozen times. From one-man sets at the Knitting Factory Tap Bar to full-band, what-American-rock-should-sound-like engagements with Centro-matic at Mercury Lounge and Union Pool, Johnson has toured ceaselessly, often visiting our city more than once a year, headlining at the our smaller stages in an almost Sisyphean effort to return to New York. He seemed forever damned to mid-level Brooklyn bars and Manhattan clubs—until now.
So if anyone has earned a shot at Bowery—top-billing at the Lower East Side landmark being a milestone for any band—it’s Centro-matic. It started as Johnson’s solo recording project in the mid-’90s—with a core group that includes drummer Matt Pence, bassist Mark Hedman and keyboardist/occasional violin player Scott Danbom—the band has now backed its Austinite frontman Johnson on the road and in the studio for more than a decade. Over that time Centro-matic has produced 10 albums, running the gamut from vast Texas desolation (1998’s Navigational) to full-on Lone Star heat (2000’s All The Falsest Hearts Can Try).
That latter album’s “The Blisters May Come” is a high-tempo encapsulation of Centro-matic studio prowess. The song’s somewhat oblique lyrics concerning a “Governor’s hanging” are distantly distorted and double-tracked, but somehow let Johnson’s hummable melody burrow to permanent mental depths. With amped-up, straightly strummed overdriven guitar chords acting as its underpinning, the basic pop composition remains intact even as joyfully raucous six-string solos—oft-employed by Centro and always elevated, with noisy celebration, beyond white-guy cliché—tears its way from bridge to outro.
Lyrically, workingman’s poet Johnson builds beauty out of all things. “Strahan Has Corralled The Freaks,” a cut from 2003’s Love You Just The Same that convincingly name-checks an NFL Player in its title, spends most of its four-plus minutes building distorted tension. Then violin creeps upward as the band thunders forward in crashing unison, only to grant compositional release as Johnson’s sometimes brittle rasp masterfully repeats and layers the late-arriving (though somehow central) lyric: “Don’t you know that time is on your side?” It’s as though the doomed governor of the aforementioned “Blisters” had granted us, as his final act, a last-second reprieve, everything else vanishing as Johnson exhales the words like puffs of smoke.
However, the prolific songwriter, writing at a greater clip than one band can contain, puts out not only additional solo albums but also has his core players migrate to South San Gabriel, a team expanded to encompass a greater sonic palette: one that may range from harp to woodwinds to pedal steel.
Which brings us to Dual Hawks, Johnson’s most ambitious project to date: a double album, one half of it performed by Centro-matic, with a full flip side of South San Gabriel.
Hawks, out this week on Misra, is a welcome double punch. Fans of Centro’s rock or South San’s more melancholy turns are sure to be satiated, and new listeners needn’t be afraid, as the first disc’s “All Your Farewells” is as good an introduction to Centro-matic’s up-tempo 4/4 anthems as the second volume’s “My Goodbyes” is to their sister band’s sound. South San’s half of Dual Hawks even sometimes makes me think I prefer them better, wishing they had more than a handful of releases and a tour itinerary to rival Johnson’s other projects.
In fact, I’ve seen South San Gabriel only once—in Austin, at the SXSW music conference back in 2005. Taking the stage well after midnight in the ample backyard of a now-defunct venue nestled into that city’s 6th Street strip, playing mostly tracks from South San’s then-current The Carlton Chronicles: Not Until The Operation’s Through (a magnificent concept album Johnson penned, telling the surprisingly emotional tale of its narrator, a sick cat), the crowd patiently listened to the group’s slow epics build and dissolve. The always-humble Johnson was front and center—singing of wishes, secrets and gunshots over hushed pedal steel—it may have been the finest performance I’ve seen Johnson (with or without backing, under any of his monikers) ever play.
South San Gabriel have never paid a visit to New York City, but if we patiently wait, ignore the omen that is Centro-matic’s Bowery date (this coming Friday the 13th) perhaps we’ll get our chance. At least we know that time is on our side.
Centro-matic plays June 13, Bowery Ballroom 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie St.), 212-533-2111; 7:30, $15.
So if anyone has earned a shot at Bowery—top-billing at the Lower East Side landmark being a milestone for any band—it’s Centro-matic. It started as Johnson’s solo recording project in the mid-’90s—with a core group that includes drummer Matt Pence, bassist Mark Hedman and keyboardist/occasional violin player Scott Danbom—the band has now backed its Austinite frontman Johnson on the road and in the studio for more than a decade. Over that time Centro-matic has produced 10 albums, running the gamut from vast Texas desolation (1998’s Navigational) to full-on Lone Star heat (2000’s All The Falsest Hearts Can Try).
That latter album’s “The Blisters May Come” is a high-tempo encapsulation of Centro-matic studio prowess. The song’s somewhat oblique lyrics concerning a “Governor’s hanging” are distantly distorted and double-tracked, but somehow let Johnson’s hummable melody burrow to permanent mental depths. With amped-up, straightly strummed overdriven guitar chords acting as its underpinning, the basic pop composition remains intact even as joyfully raucous six-string solos—oft-employed by Centro and always elevated, with noisy celebration, beyond white-guy cliché—tears its way from bridge to outro.
Lyrically, workingman’s poet Johnson builds beauty out of all things. “Strahan Has Corralled The Freaks,” a cut from 2003’s Love You Just The Same that convincingly name-checks an NFL Player in its title, spends most of its four-plus minutes building distorted tension. Then violin creeps upward as the band thunders forward in crashing unison, only to grant compositional release as Johnson’s sometimes brittle rasp masterfully repeats and layers the late-arriving (though somehow central) lyric: “Don’t you know that time is on your side?” It’s as though the doomed governor of the aforementioned “Blisters” had granted us, as his final act, a last-second reprieve, everything else vanishing as Johnson exhales the words like puffs of smoke.
However, the prolific songwriter, writing at a greater clip than one band can contain, puts out not only additional solo albums but also has his core players migrate to South San Gabriel, a team expanded to encompass a greater sonic palette: one that may range from harp to woodwinds to pedal steel.
Which brings us to Dual Hawks, Johnson’s most ambitious project to date: a double album, one half of it performed by Centro-matic, with a full flip side of South San Gabriel.
Hawks, out this week on Misra, is a welcome double punch. Fans of Centro’s rock or South San’s more melancholy turns are sure to be satiated, and new listeners needn’t be afraid, as the first disc’s “All Your Farewells” is as good an introduction to Centro-matic’s up-tempo 4/4 anthems as the second volume’s “My Goodbyes” is to their sister band’s sound. South San’s half of Dual Hawks even sometimes makes me think I prefer them better, wishing they had more than a handful of releases and a tour itinerary to rival Johnson’s other projects.
In fact, I’ve seen South San Gabriel only once—in Austin, at the SXSW music conference back in 2005. Taking the stage well after midnight in the ample backyard of a now-defunct venue nestled into that city’s 6th Street strip, playing mostly tracks from South San’s then-current The Carlton Chronicles: Not Until The Operation’s Through (a magnificent concept album Johnson penned, telling the surprisingly emotional tale of its narrator, a sick cat), the crowd patiently listened to the group’s slow epics build and dissolve. The always-humble Johnson was front and center—singing of wishes, secrets and gunshots over hushed pedal steel—it may have been the finest performance I’ve seen Johnson (with or without backing, under any of his monikers) ever play.
South San Gabriel have never paid a visit to New York City, but if we patiently wait, ignore the omen that is Centro-matic’s Bowery date (this coming Friday the 13th) perhaps we’ll get our chance. At least we know that time is on our side.
Centro-matic plays June 13, Bowery Ballroom 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie St.), 212-533-2111; 7:30, $15.
