Washington is not, oddly, an indie-folk-alt.country town. It is a punk town. It is a pop town. It is a go-go town. It is not an indie-folk-alt.country town. Which doesn't make sense. It is only a short truck drive to Charlottesville, VA (East Indie, USA) and only a little further to the motherland of southwestern Virginia, the very birth place of bluegrass music.
So it is with little effort that one man can move to the District and become the reigning indie-folk-alt.country king. That man is Lenny Hoffman. (He's French. Or rather of French descent. Or as the French say, descente.)
His musical history began at the University of Virginia in the post-Pavement era (or alternately, if you must, the post-Dave Matthews Band era) where he teamed with pop musician and guitar god Ravi Krishnaswami and others to write (and briefly play bass) for Twee Kitten recording artists, Charming. But Krishnaswami, under the evil spell of Poole's Harry Evans moved to NYC to make techno music for the US Army and Lenny Hoffman, already downsized from Charming, moved to DC to edit a newsletter.
Since arriving in town nearly two years ago he has performed alternately as Lenny Hoffman or Hoffman the Associate Boy Wonder in such simultaneously indie and inappropriate places as the basement of the Big Hunt and the California Tortilla. Tails from the Covered Wagon is his first solo effort.
Hoffman, who in appearance resembles a male Lisa Loeb, is musically the melding of the entire Drag City back catalogue. He sounds like an extremely despondent Vic Chestnut. With acorns in his mouth.
And nice pectorals.
Most of the songs are bare and naked ballads::::simple, high-droning melodies with big fingered picking and strumming on a cheap, acoustic guitar. Half of the songs deal with his time spent in prison. "The Covered Wagon," "Tossed Salad with Syrup," and "Tossed Salad with Jelly" all deal with a darker side to prison than any of us want to know about.
Other songs, such as "The President Had Eighteen Toes" and "Stove Pipe Hat" and "Stove Pipe Hat with Jelly" deal with Hoffman's hell-bent Abe Lincoln fixation.
The masterpiece of this album is "Midget Wrestling/Blackout" where Hoffman makes an interesting connection between an unfortunate high school wrestling match up and his subsequent drinking disorder.
The live Lenny Hoffman act generally consists of him mumbling into a poorly adjusted sound system and playing originals that don't show up on the album such as "If Your Body Was a River I'd Swim All Day, " "Suck My F______ D___, You A______, You A______," and an inspired cover of "House of the Rising Son (Nashville version)."
Don't hold your breath for a Lenny Hoffman show, though. Because of his proclivity towards laziness, he generally waits for friends to set up shows and then leaches off of them for an unadvertised opening slot.
But the man is raw genius. If you are lucky enough to catch him before he goes back to jail, consider yourself blessed.
I give this album a quarante. That's French. Or as the French say, c'est francais. |