Shriek of the Week, Vol. 13

Yeah, I know, it's Saturday, but I felt the urge to shriek and I didn't want to deny it lest it pass. Since the debacle of the sold-out Monkeys show, I've signed up for the 9:30 Club's e-mail list so that I don't miss any more fab not-quite-pre-sales, and this week, I noticed a Citizen Cope show on the schedule. Which kind of got me bouncing along to Son's Gonna Rise in my head for the last few days. He played NYC right in the middle of all my moving drama, so I didn't get to go see him up there and I've been kinda bummed about it since, so I'm thrilled he's coming back to DC (which might be his hometown, kinda hard to tell...).

He's another 'FUV find, but not nearly as folky/country/old-balding-white-guy-music as other WFUV favorites. There's a whole lot of funk in Cope's songs and a very different sound than that of my shrieks so far, iTunes actually had him classified as blues when I loaded the CD into my library, but it's a nice blend of several genres. It's all very dark and feels like a smoky club, there's the storytelling of country on Pablo Picasso, the danceability of hip-hop on Son's Gonna Rise and the soul clap of Bullet and a Target, and Sideways just kind of makes me want to cry.

His real name is Clarence Greenwood (very blues name, dontcha think?) and his current album is called "The Clarence Greenwood Recordings." His first, self-titled album has just been re-released, but I haven't picked it up yet - a casualty of my lenten vow not to use any plastic. So we're sticking to TCGR today.

I keep coming back to Pablo Picasso, it's just compelling, so we'll start there. It's the tale of a guy who's clearly a bit insane, possibly homeless, and in love with a 40-foot-tall painting of a celebrity. He feels she understands him, and attempts to defend her from the world. As such, it's a weird song, but it's infused with so much genuine emotion that it's kind of hard to take - I didn't like it at first because I didn't want this guy to be insane, I wanted him to get it so badly - it's almost a train wreck, you can't let it go. You just have to hear it, an excerpt isn't going to do it. On the album, he blends the song into the next track, My Way Home:

"Sometimes I miss a step
I stumble here and there
I'm findin' my way home
If I'm lost then I'll admit
Sometimes I plain forget
I'm findin' my way home
You can try and stand in my way
You can say what you're gonna say
But I'm findin' my way home."

The two together are an expression of individuality rarely found on the radio. There's a whole lot of introspective music out there, but Citizen Cope seems to be more mirror than navel-gazer. The whole album is a study in personalities and motivation, coming together in Fame (no, not that one), which reinforces the album's message that the internal stuff is so much more important than the external roles we play and idolize:

"Got the this is your land man
This is my land man
Got the blood on the tracks man
Got the guilty man
Got the innocent man
Got the buffalo soldier
The dreadlock Rastaman
Seen the stars looking in her eyes
So many times I've tried
Talked to a man who caught the
rainbow's end he found
that the pot of gold resided within."

He's heading up to NY after his DC show, playing Town Hall. If you're not down for dealing with a study in insanity to start off, go for Bullet and a Target or Son's Gonna Rise. Or the one song I've heard from the first album that got my attention in the first place, If There's Love.