Rowe the Shipman New takes on Americana from Dave and Matt BY SAM PFEIFLE
	MATT SHIPMAN Releasing Highway Shoes | Stone Church, Newmarket, NH | Aug 28 | 603.659.6321 DAVE ROWE TRIO Releasing Rolling Home | Seacoast Irish Festival, Dover Lodge of Elks, Dover, NH | Aug 27-28 | 603.516.6023

Yes, I understand that both the Adam Flaherty Noise Explosion and Paranoid Social Club are releasing new discs this week. This week’s "Beat Report" will deal with neither. I’ll get to Flaherty in the September FACE Magazine (out next week), and if you want to know about the Paranoid release, check out my review of Axis III & I from June 4, 2004, and my review of Axis II from August 8, 2002. All of the songs off their self-titled national debut with ON Entertainment are on those albums. Hey, they’re good songs, great even. I just don’t have anything else to say about them.

Luckily, this week also sees CD releases from two fine traditional/folk/bluegrass types: Dave Rowe, now playing exclusively with his Dave Rowe Trio, and Matt Shipman, who’s got a solo disc out this week and can be found playing with the Mill City Ramblers and Splittin’ Hairs, among various other side projects and groups. While rock bands like Paranoid and As Fast As might be garnering us a national reputation for great radio rock, let’s not forget where Portland and Portsmouth really kill it: Americana. In fact, I consider it a personal affront that no part of No Depression’s series of 10th anniversary concerts, celebrating their 10 years of ties to the alt-country and Americana scene, will be happening here in the Northeast.

Jeezum crow! Austin can kiss our ass, know what I’m saying?

Not that many of our area musicians would want to be standing within 10 feet of me if I said that out loud in a crowded place. Nope, we’ve got a humble bunch here, which is why fans of these virtuoso musicians gravitate so loyally to them. Right here in the liner notes to the Dave Rowe Trio’s new Rolling Home, we’ve got a sweet tribute to Dave’s dad Tom, who died last year, and his old band, Schooner Fare, a folk trio that few who care about folk music didn’t know well. "It is from years of watching from the front row that I learned my craft:" writes Rowe the younger, "how to work a crowd, how to sing from the heart, how to gracefully zip up my fly in front of five thousand people."

The latter I can’t vouch for, but as for singing from the heart and wowing a crowd, I can certainly bear witness. The singing, especially, takes center stage on this new collection of traditionals and originals penned both by Rowe and his fiddler Edward Howe. Dave’s voice is straight out of a movie, or off a 50-year-old record, pure and always on key. And then there are the harmonies — always so totally on that their voices (Rowe and Howe are joined by electric bassist Kevin O’Reilly) magnify into a virtual crowd, like they’ve just imported the Irish tenors and all their friends and family for a community singalong.

The Cape Breton vibe and Rowe’s super-crisp delivery might lull you initially into thinking there’s some hokum factor here, but don’t fall into that trap. "We’ll Rant and We’ll Roar (Like True New Foundlanders)" features those stellar harmonies, sure, but did you catch those lyrics? "I’m bound to have Dolly, or Bitty, or Molly/ As soon as I’m able to plunk the cash down." Not as quaint as you thought, eh? Who knew drinking and whoring could sound this good?

Well, the "Drunken Sailor," for one. Ed Howe just absolutely blows this traditional song up, with a terrific fiddle lead to start, followed by a just-plain-awesome, make-other-fiddlers-want-to-quit lead around the 4:30 mark. Coupled with O’Reilly’s funky electric bass, this should be on a Jethro Tull album or something. "Shave his belly with a rusty razor"? "Throw him on the rack with the captain’s daughter"? "Put him in a long boat till he’s sober"? By this tune’s end, after the breathless hand drum gets you all worked up, you’ll be ready to execute all three remedies.

If you need something to calm you down, pop in Matt Shipman’s Highway Shoes. Shipman, who penned everything here, is supported by a cast that should be familiar to any local America fan — Jon Nolan, Joyce Andersen, John Ross, and members of High Range all make their presences felt with excellent musicianship. And while Shipman certainly mines the traditional in his songwriting, he’s also willing to go in the other direction entirely. The first two songs (and others elsewhere) even have — gasp! — drums. What kind of uppity mando/guitar player does he think he is?!

Well, he’s not quite the potential indie-rock phenom that Iron & Wine has become by doing some similar stuff, but he does just enough interesting things that Shipman’s appeal will certainly extend further than the ultra-traditional fans that Dave Rowe wins over so easily. "Better Find Somebody (Winter’s Moving In)" is stripped right down, just a couple of guitars and a narcotic invitation.

Here Shipman basically just speaks the vocals, his most effective delivery on the album, and dishes out gems like: "When winter comes, the warmth of the stove/ and the lighting of candles, helps the romance grow/ It gets dark at three, don’t go out much/ stay home and make supper, make love on the couch." Whoah! Sex in a bluegrass song? That’s crazier than drums! "You better find somebody/ Winter’s moving in." But it’s not all touchy-feely stuff here. There’s plenty of real country ("Gone Again" and "Long Gone" form a nice give and take), along with some Celtic ("Them Times") and straight-up Del McCoury–style bluegrass ("Cross Roads to Calgary").

In fact, there’s a lot of material here — 15 songs, four of them are six minutes or longer — more than enough, maybe. This could be two or three tracks shorter, just a little bit tighter, and succeed quite a bit more. Do we need the six-minute waltz "Until the Day I Die" bookended by the six-minute contemplative "West Indian Skies" to finish? Might one have been fine as a finisher? I doubt too many listeners will complain. In addition to being humble, our local pickers are plenty generous, too, and it’s hard to blame Shipman for packing 66 minutes of original music onto a disc with very few flaws.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam@phx.com