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Notes from the Road
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date: 03/24/00
locale: Eddie's Attic,
Decatur GA
| 1:30am and Tom, Molly and Eddie are still at the bar and the bottle of Basil Hayden's - Eddie's best - is half gone. It's as if the past year and a half has not gone by. As if the intervening time has been a dream. But instead of the World Series, it's the NCAA Final Four tournament this time and they're busy tallying brackets for the bar's pool. Sixty people have ante'd up and with North Carolina's win over Tennessee tonight, there are a lot of X's on the forms. |  |
This is not a typical scene for a folk club and that's what everyone loves about Eddie's Attic. There's food and billiards in the outer room, sports on the TV and the drinks flow freely late into the night. Your typical successful city bar - except for the signs everywhere that say "During Performances Please SSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH the Patio and Pool Room are for Noisemaking." For eight years owner Eddie Owens has gone against the current, infecting loyal audiences in this college town on the edge of Atlanta with his passion for singer-songwriters. Along the way, he's made Eddie's Attic one of the most loved and respected listening rooms in the country. He could make a lot more if he hired rock bands on the weekends. The crowds are bigger and they drink more. But Eddie's spirit visibly thrives on the kinds of original songs that folksingers sing, and he's intent on teaching the largely young, drinking, pool-playing, "Freebird!"-shouting audiences to hush and listen and learn to love a kind of music that they never imagined existed.
Eddie's modest about the role he's played in fostering the local songwriter scene, but the list of great writers and players who think of his second-floor room in downtown Decatur as home includes Pierce Pettis, the Indigo Girls, Shawn Mullins, Michelle Malone, Kristen Hall, Caroline Aiken, Don Conoscenti, Elise Witt, and the duo Billy Pilgrim. Eddie's currently got his eye on Matthew Kahler and the latest winner of the club's bi-annual Open Mike Shootout, John Mayer.
The Shootout happens twice a year - on the first Saturday in June and the Friday after Thanksgiving - where the winners of the weekly open mics compete against each other in a bracketed tournament modelled on the NCAA pool. Judges from the music industry, print media, radio, and past winners weigh in on each match-up. Past winners include Dana Kurtz and Don Conoscenti.
Mayer was the featured act tonight at two packed shows and it was a treat to hear him play. He hates being compared to Dave Matthews, but his stream of consciousness lyrics and high tenor voice with the lazy delivery invite the comparison. And it seems the same big A&R people are on the phone with him lately. But he's a monster guitar player, and at 23, his style has an honesty that Matthews has lost. Tonight he played with bassist Dave Labruyere and commanded an SRO audience of about 100 people for 90 minutes. After casually playing and bantering his way through most of the evening, the end of the set increased in intensity, each song notching up the complexity and drive of his guitar work. The suite of well-written songs including "Man on the Side" and "Neon":
When sky blue gets dark enough
To see the colors of the city lights
A trail of ruby red and diamond white
Hits her like a sunrise
. . . . . .
She's always buzzing just like
Neon, neon
"Comfortable" was familiar to many in the audience and was a clear favorite, reminiscent of David Wilcox but with nicer detail, as the singer goes through the motions of a new relationship while recalling his former lover. But I was most struck by a fine new song, "Great Indoors," where the world shrinks to the size of a room with drawn shades, the tv becoming the only real window. Don't be surprised if he eclipses Matthews in the next few years. And don't be surprised if he still shows up at Eddie's to play. You can listen to and download MP3s of "Neon" and "Comfortable" at his mp3.com page.
As for Eddie he couldn't be more pleased about John's rocketing success - or more nonchalant. It's the music he lives for. OK - and the basketball.
Karyn, a regular patio girl, announces that the birds are chirping. But no one's moving. After all, it's not even 3am. But I have to drive to Augusta to catch a 7:30am flight home.
Hugh Blumenfeld, Editor
hugh@balladtree.com
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