Joseph Huber
In the 2000s, the three albums by Milwaukee’s .357 String Band blazed a trail of lyrically incisive, punk-infused bluegrass that left a mark on the American roots music underground. Band leader Joseph Huber celebrated the release of his fifth solo effort, Moondog, with an Aug. 1 concert at Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co.
Bluegrass continues to inform Huber’s work, as reflected by the trio playing fiddle, mandolin, lap steel, electric guitar and stand-up bass accompanying his own acoustic guitar and the rack harmonica around his neck. If any of his followers miss the incendiary banjo playing Huber plied on .357’s triptych of long-players, the maturation of his songwriting offers ample compensation.
Some of the selections he played from Moondog evince the fine-tuning his lyrical pen has undergone since the dissolution of the group. “A Northwood Waltz” places Huber in the lineage of folk rockers who have taken up the mantle of extended narrative. He spoke of the song’s inspiration by friends in Wausau, WI, revealing his failure to get beyond his Wisconsin raising.
“Where You Said You Would Be” was a more compact vignette. Drawn from his impression of a picture of a lonely boy awaiting a woman friend, he was hoping to reconnect with; the sort of heartbreaking number one might wish an established commercial radio country singer would choose to cover.
At other times, he weds darker imagery to more spirited ends. Such was the case on “The Hanging Road,” one of several songs to inspire the audience to dance an improvised jig.
As with country rockers before them such as the Drive-By Truckers and the Turnpike Troubadours, local quintet the Driveway Thriftdwellers have an automotive-alluding name that ambiguously connotes humor. In their opening set for Huber, they were more about bittersweet reflection than chuckles. They reminded an older gentleman next to me of an Eagles/Leonard Cohen hybrid. My ears noted the influence of The Sadies and The Flying Burrito Brothers. Whomever one heard in them, the Thriftdwellers impressed with originals including “Northern Accent” and a rousing take on the Rolling Stones’ “Dead Flowers.”
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