Saturday night’s lineup at Buster’s had things flipped around a little bit, in my humble opinion. The highlight of my night was the first act which was Louisville’s (formerly) very own Papa M. For those not aware of the significance or depth of Papa M’s career, then allow me to lay it out real quick.
Throughout the late 80s and early 90s the music scene in Louisville was one of the most progressive, important, and underrated scenes in recent music history. You might not be aware of how much of the music that you love is a fairly direct result of a lot of the music that was happening at this time. Without the brassy punk of Squirrel Bait there might not have been a Wilco; without the birth of post-rock and revolution of math-rock in the short-lived Slint there wouldn’t be a legion of bands like Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emporer, Chavez, or Early Day Miners; without the The Palace Brothers there would be no Bon Iver or Castanets. The pool of talent at the time ran deep with people like Will Oldham, Ethan Buckler, Ray Rizzo, Peter Searcy, Jason Noble, Rachel Grimes and many more playing in a number of bands, helping each other out (Oldham took Spiderland‘s cover photo) and releasing some of the greatest records of that time. Dave Pajo was certainly one of those people and certainly belongs near the top of any short-list of the most influential musicians from Louisville. Pajo came to the public’s attention as the guitar player for Slint, although he had a few bands prior. Since his days in Slint, Pajo has played in bands like Tortoise, The For Carnation, Stereolab, King Kong, Will Oldham, Zwan, and even recently with his metal band Dead Child and his current gig which is being the guitar player for The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Along the way, Pajo somehow managed to put out a ton of records with his own bands Dead Child, Aerial M, Pajo, and Papa M (which was the most prominent). After releasing Live From A Shark’s Cage in 1999, Pajo positioned his solo career as just as vital as any of his work previously. The record was beautiful and Pajo’s first crack at singing which was hugely successful. He has been busy these past few decades playing on tons of records and touring with tons of bands and every so often you’ll see his tracks pop up on the Louisville is For Lovers Series. His set at this year’s Boomslang was to be under the moniker Papa M, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was really looking forward to whatever he had.
At Boomslang this past weekend he brought some help with him and had a guitar player named Matt from Chicago and a bass player named Alex from Columbus, OH (where Pajo currently resides). Dave even awkardly and jokingly introduced himself as “Jack Cream….Dream”. The band slowly made their way through a gorgeous set of new tunes (dedicated to the late Tony Bailey) that were completely instrumental save for one song which was aided by Pajo’s wordless vocals following the cascading guitar lines that bouyed almost all of his new songs. While talking to Dave after the performance, he mentioned that they only had 2 practices together before this performance and it was even his first time ever playing with Alex the bass player, but you wouldn’t have known that otherwise because each song was tightly woven with doubled finger-picked guitar lines creating a swirl of harmonic tones and chorded bass runs that achieved a mood of reverance among the crowd. With this moody set of new songs, Papa M moved me on a near-spiritual level. The set seemed almost like a rock n roll alter call- a plea for all to come and be washed in the flood- of blue, of tone, and of solitude.
Through our chat, Dave informed me that there were not any Papa M records on the horizon, and he was keeping busy enough with the YYYs that his only other musical output was putting together a solo metal album, albeit without with any real intentions for it. He insisted that the crowd in Lexington was one of the best he’d had in awhile, which was nice to hear since Bradford Cox seemed to struggle with them so much the night before. I hadn’t noticed the crowd, but apparently that’s because everyone was enraptured by Papa M’s set.
Tags: Aerial M, Backseat Sandbar, Bon Iver, Boomslang Fest, Boomslang photos, Castanets, Chavez, Dave Pajo, Dead Child, Early Day Miners, Ethan Buckler, Explosions In The Sky, Godspeed You Black Emporer, Jason Noble, King Kong, Louisville music, Mogwai, Pajo, Papa M, Papa M photos, Peter Searcy, Photos, Rachel Grimes, Ray Rizzo, Slint, Spiderland, Squirrel Bait, Stereolab, The For Carnation, The Palace Brothers, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Tony Bailey, Tortoise, Wilco, Will Oldham, Zwan
They also played a number of songs from Live from a Shark’s Cage (and ended up going to the after-party and after-after party till about 5 am – complete troopers!). I also learned that Pajo played with Broadcast for a minute. Super nice dudes, and yes, beautiful, beautiful set. Nice photos!
I think you’re mistaken calling the songs played by Papa M at Boomslang “new”. All the material was from the Shark’s cage album. It was played flawlessly, but it wasn’t new material.