Over The Rhine

w/ Lucy Wainwright Roche

Friday, April 30 • Doors 8 • Show 9 • $18 Advance • $20 Day of show • Over 21 Only • Buy Tickets

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After more than 15 years making music, it’s obvious Ohio duo Over The Rhine is in it for the long haul, and for keeps. Their commitment is underscored by their latest, The Trumpet Child, and its opening track, “I Don’t Wanna Waste Your Time,” a manifesto of sorts for the artists recently named to Paste magazine’s list of 100 Best Living Songwriters. Look no further than the lyrics to this track for what animates Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, the married couple at the heart of Over The Rhine: “I hope this night puts down deep roots / I hope we plant a seed / ‘Cause I don’t wanna waste your time / With music you don’t need.”

“Believe me, we don’t want to waste anybody’s time,” elaborates Detweiler. “When we stop believing we’re doing our best work, we’re done. Every song has to be good, every record has to be great, every concert has to have some spiritual significance—something that we can’t quantify, something bigger than all of us.”

Over The Rhine may not be a household name, but to call the act’s followers “fanatical” would understate the point, and they’re not shy about converting the curious. Why? For starters, there’s Bergquist’s torchy, devil-may-care voice, brimming with Midwestern soul, unafraid to lay bare every emotional resonance. And again, there’s the life-and-death commitment dripping from her every word. “I’m either into it or I’m not, because there’s no faking it with me,” Bergquist notes. “Life’s way too short for that.”

“We love a good song, period,” Detweiler notes. “ It could be an old country tune Patsy Cline is singing on an old jukebox in one of our favorite Kentucky dives; it could be Lightnin’ Hopkins grumbling over a timeless blues riff; it could be Sachmo, the dignity of his voice and the joy in his horn; it could be Tom Waits kicking up the dust on the hardwood floor of a grange hall at some imaginary revival meeting—it can be all over the map musically—but what ultimately keeps us interested is the mystery of the song itself.”

Such a wide-ranging approach met its best match in Jones, who collaborated with the band on arrangements and scoured Nashville’s broken-bottle-strewn back alleyways for an arresting array of horn, woodwind and string players to festoon the trademark simplicity of Over the Rhine. The result is a juicy, informally epic pop album unlike any other you’re likely to hear this year.

The Trumpet Child unfolds like an unforgettable evening of blissful underground cabaret—an all-night performance at a private party, jovial friends passing around instruments together into the wee hours. And it’s unquestionably Bergquist’s finest hour vocally. “On earlier records, I was unintentionally playing it a bit safe at times,” she says. “I had all this stuff bottled up and I was afraid that if I let it out, even musically, I’d be laughed at or, God forbid, misunderstood. Now, I’m more lost in it. More drunk on it. Far more out of control about it. Messy, juicy and tangled up.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 7:04 pm and is filed under Past Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.