Photo by Lisa Gatewood
Shilpa Ray
Shilpa Ray
Tuesday night at Sugar Maple, Shilpa Ray opened with “I’m a Ghost” but the singer and her three backing musicians were anything but phantoms.
With a voice as powerful as a natural disaster and an onstage personality that pulled zero punches, “EMT Police And The Fire Department” had Ray’s ragged vocals imitating a siren, channeling CBGB-era Patti Smith with the spoken introduction: “I wanna tell you a story about a hot summer night, at a bar on the Lower East Side, the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife, the crowd was so think it would make you want to cut them with a knife…”
Ray’s perspective on society is incisive, witty and clear-eyed. “Add Value Add Time” could be a free session on a psychiatrist’s couch.
Sporting a sheriff’s badge, Ray was backed by a trio of hirsute deputies on guitar, bass and drums—all of whom contributed smooth vocals. Side note: If anyone is casting to update Paul Newman’s Slap Shot, keep these guys in mind for the Hansons.
Ray’s strength has long been a knack to run the gamut from swaying lullabies to Stooges auto-destruction with a band that deftly navigates the songs twists and turns with ease.
Moving from keyboard to guitar, Ray drew from vintage girl group charm—not unlike Blondie’s early template. The self-referential “Shilpa Ray's Got a Heart Full of Dirt” cribbed lines from Little Anthony and the Imperials hit “Tears on My Pillow”
Red Stuff opens the show
As an art project, Milwaukee’s Red Stuff has always been a perfect band. Nothing precious; they are an aural analogue to folk art.
Focusing on songs from their new album—not that they play often enough to get used to any “hits”—the trio played a welcome brand of outsider garage rock that recalled Dead Moon via The Godz.
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Kelly Buros steel guitar didn’t weep or keen, she played it percussively or instinctively strummed just a hair behind the beat, sounding like an electrified dulcimer. Vocalist-guitarist Tom Wandere’s primitive riffage split difference between Lou Reed and Neil Young’s to-the-point simplicity. Switching to bass he kicked the songs up a gear with driving energy. Drummer Steve Tiber stomped and bashed, but these folks are not the sophisticated naïfs they may appear to be.
Often with songs built around droning, hypnotic melodies they summoned the ghost of The Jaynettes, implying this is the way to hear the world in a grain of sand.
