By: David Schultz

Other than the fact that they are two young bands worth listening to, you might be hard pressed to find two more dissimilar bands to share a bill than Catfish Haven and Dead Confederate. A trio specializing in trailer-park soul, Catfish Haven’s blue-eyed, white boy rhythms seem a whole different creature from Dead Confederate’s deeply moving, grunge era eruptions of emotion. Viva la difference: the two came to New York City’s Lower East Side at the end of last week for a potent double bill at the Mercury Lounge.

Catfish Haven arrived in New York City just two days after the release of Devastator, their second full-length album. Taking cues from the deep-ingrained blues of South, bassist Miguel Castillo and drummer Ryan Farnham invigorate them with a little boogie and George Hunter belts them out in a beleaguered voice that seems borrowed from Gregg Allman. A rocking party album, Devastator starts with “Are You Ready,” an R&B call to arms and zips through Seventies-style Doobie Brothers tunes like “Play The Fool” and Allmans era rock like “Full Speed” as well as sets some torches aflame with “Every Day.” It’s when Hunter cribs a couple lines from the Nile Rodgers/Bernard Edwards playbook as they do on the “Le Freak” inflected “Set In Stone” that Catfish Haven finds its real groove.

In a weird way, the easy-going vibes of Devastator translated to the stage although not possibly in the way Catfish Haven intended. Hunter, whose knowing, prematurely aged horse-drawn carriage of a voice hardly matches his George Carlin (hippie version) appearance, managed to convey the manic state of being excited to be on stage with one-toke-to-many stoner incoherence. It produced a slight disconnect between the band and the audience. The crowd, which had disappointingly thinned after Dead Confederate’s set, was definitely into what Catfish Haven were doing and the trio moved passionately through a large part of Devastator. However, it never seemed as if the two groups could get on the same page. After Hunter’s puzzling and near incoherent introduction to a song that quite possibly incorporated references to The Hold Steady and Tad Kubler, there was an awkward pause before the crowd, for lack of a better reaction, responded with an enthusiastic cheer. Having been won over, the audience seemed to be looking for any opportunity to give something back. Likewise, Catfish Haven closed their set by simply finishing the song and putting their stuff away, leaving out anything closely resembling a coup de grace. Unclear as to whether they were really done, the crowd simply started cheering; so Hunter and Castillo strapped their guitars back. Rather than finish the night with a rambunctious “Devastator,” they opted for a pensive reading of “Tripping In Memphis” which similarly just ended. If the stage manager hadn’t hit the lights, people might not have taken the cue to leave.

Catfish Haven’s unpolished stage demeanor didn’t detract from the music one iota. It actually was quite endearing. When Hunter belts out a song, he can bring you to another world . . . and it seems like he’s holding back. At the Merc, it seemed as if Hunter intentionally reigned in his mighty voice, almost strangling some of the words as they were leaving his throat. Upon giving Devastator another listen, it does seem that this is how he sings. As for the music, Hunter and Castillo play off feed off each other and the Seventies-style riffs spring from them with the joy you would expect. A dexterous and agile bassist, Castillo carried some of the songs by playing lead bass while Hunter imperceptibly shifting into a rhythm guitar style of play.

At this years South By Southwest Festival, Dead Confederate was one of the bands I looked the most forward to catching. After seeing them in the slot before R.E.M. at Stubb’s Ampitheatre, I left feeling that I hadn’t seen them in the proper venue. After their set at the intimate Mercury Lounge, my initial reaction proved correct. There’s a distinct grunge era flavor to much of what Dead Confederate does: “Heavy Petting,” complete with tortured animal wails from Morris, keeps Nirvana’s embattled soul alive and “Shadow The Walls” ebbs and flows like the best Pearl Jam songs. It seems odd that we are distant enough from the Nineties that slapping the grunge tag on Dead Confederate seems like an unfair label from a bygone era. Lead singer Hardy Morris mines the peaks and valleys much in the same way that gained Kurt Cobain renown and his ability to erupt in a powerful miasma of emotion, as he did on “The Rat” and “Get Out” while the music swirls rapidly around him, does bring that vintage Seattle band to mind. On lengthy meditations like “Tortured Artist Saint,” the near-psychedelic wall of sound created by Morris, guitarist Walker Howle, bassist Brantley Senn, keyboardist John Watkins and drummer Jason Scarboro threatened to overwhelm the modestly sized Mercury Lounge. Not to worry though: Howle’s plaintive guitar wail and Scarboro’s penchant for inserting a James Brown style drumbeat whenever the music threatened to get too trippy, the lengthy instrumental passages, tinctured with industrialized Pink Floyd, proved utterly hypnotic.

Dead Confederate are going to be on the road throughout the fall and I would expect Wrecking Ball, their debut album, to appear on many year-end, best of 2008 lists.

Labels: Catfish Haven, Dead Confederate