David Bazan @ The Casbah

Pedro the Lion quite easily makes my top ten artists of all time list. And yet, I've missed them every time they've played in San Diego for one reason or another. Before Pedro the Lion singer/songwriter, David Bazan, went solo, I drove up to L.A. to see him play acoustic at the Troubadour. I also caught a short turned down set at Off the Record about 4 years ago. I saw Headphones when they played the Casbah, the short lived project that he did with TW Walsh where he played keyboard. Well, now that David Bazan is officially a solo artist, seeing him perform at the Casbah on the 8th of December, was the closest I'd ever get to seeing Pedro the Lion again. I had to go. David Bazan is a master storyteller. He uses fiction to tackle lots of social issues, often religion and politics, even shitty journalism.

He started off with a christmas song. I've forgotten which one, I was still getting a drink, and lack of sleep is wreaking havoc on my short term memory. I do remember the rest of the set. He didn't just play songs from his records as a solo artist. He played "Transcontinental," one of my favorites from Achilles Heel, and "When They Really Get to Know You They Will Run," from 1998's It's Hard to Find a Friend. He also played "Selling Advertising" from the Fewer Moving Parts EP which is an explicit stab at Pitchfork.com, prompting the quote by him "more people need to tell lazy, sloppy journalists to go fuck themselves." The title track from that EP, which he also played, is a bit of an unapologetic, yet regretful, explanation of why he decided to go solo. Less than half of his set was comprised of new songs to be released by this coming summer. He ended with a cover of Hallelujah - A Leonard Cohen song that I had become familiar with through the stylings of Jeff Buckley. If you've heard either version, you'd know it's a pretty ballsy move. Fans of Jeff Buckley will attest to the merciless tear inducing power of his version. There were a couple of girls next to me that were sniffling through most of the set. Yet, many before have failed miserably in an attempt to recreate this effect. Bono, K.D. Lang, Bon Jovi, even Anthony Micheal Hall have all contributed to the long list of terrible versions of Hallelujah. Not surprisingly, David Bazan pulls it off nicely, singing it in his own distinctive voice, as though he himself had written it. As a performer, Bazan is very down to earth and charming. Whenever he plays he asks if anyone has questions while he's tuning or just between songs. In response to a question, he talked about having seen "No Country for Old Men" four or five times so far, some of the shitty jobs he'd held before becoming a musician full time, his daughter...

You can legally download the entire set from a live show (including Q&A sessions) he played on Nov. 4th this year at the Grey Eagle in Asheville, North Carolina, here. It's got a lot of material from his forthcoming album on Barsuk Records.