Jez Lowe
House Concerts at Sally Green b.'s
Berkeley Hills, CA
November 20 & 21, 1997

Geordie folksinger Jez Lowe turned up "Penniless" for two house concerts in the Berkeley hills. That is to say, Lowe is turning up across North America without his group, The Bad Pennies, but with new material already recorded for a CD his record company won't have out in the U.S. for another two to three months. The newer songs are by turns grimmer and funnier than the standards in his repertoire, following the post-Thatcherite wake as working folk from his native Durham County get bounced around rather rudely as pawns in the go-go global economy. To Lowe's credit, he suffers no political amnesia and recalls Labor government sell-outs from regimes past when pulling out such 80s chestnuts as "Old Hammerhead" and "Galloways." One or two of the newer songs suffer from the mile-wide sentimental streak familiar to fans who've heard Lowe go on about the lovable, if at times crabby, townsfolk who both populate and inspire his songs.

It was delightful hearing Lowe's clear and charming narrative voice without amplification, while his instruments (eight-string mandocello, six-string guitar, and harmonica) chimed resplendently without having to rise above a pub din or bottom-heavy sound system. Cyberfolk hostess Sally Green b.'s basement formed a bright acoustic shell for the dozen or so rows of closely packed listeners. Most of the audience changed from the first night to the second, and so did Lowe's set list, with only a couple of tunes repeated. Scampering beneath our seats during the concerts were Sally's two floppy-eared terriers, draining drinks from Dixie cups and playing the foil for the "animal portion" of Lowe's show.

The dogs could be excused for freaking out during the introduction of "Old Bones," although the song turned out to be about young people resisting the imperialistic traditions of their elders who were sent to provoke and fight wars for businesses wanting to expand their markets on foreign soil. Similarly confusing to the nosey terriers was "Old Hammerhead," which turned out not to be about a shark, but about a massive shipbuilding crane on the River Wear at Sunderland that is slated for demolition by economic restructuring. Meanwhile the townies come to grips with the fact that the shipbuilding industry ain't coming back. Lowe cleverly angles the song from the point of view of the crane watching the town's life pass before it, and, as one ex-pat from the audience called out, making it perhaps the first metaphysical post-industrial ad. Using the appropriate Hollywood jargon: Lowe has devised the ultimate crane shot, capturing all that the greedy economic planners were willing to piss away, and with production values! Songs such as Lowe's "Bulldog Breed" may not drive a stake through the heart of neo-liberal global economic policies, but that would be only for the sheer heartlessness of rational peers who've converted Lowe's primary school back in Durham into a laughable pseudo-posh resort hotel and pub.

The most eloquent refrain over the course of two nights came not from folk music lovers who demonstrated that they were in good voice and willing to heartily join in on Lowe's choruses, but from "Aloysius, the Talking Dog Who Wouldn't Bark." Readers of Thomas Pynchon's summer novel, Mason & Dixon, find a kindred Geordie revolutionary in Lowe's stirring canine mouthpiece.
- Mitch Ritter (Concord, CA)