Deadstring Brothers – Off Broadway – St. Louis – June 28, 2009

It took a few songs for the band to get rollin’ and into the groove, but once they did, they put on a good show.  I have to say, however, that I enjoyed them better last year at Blueberry Hill during Twangfest.

Kurt Marschke (with guitar moves like Keith and a voice eerily similar to Mick’s) is the leader of this rock-with-a-bit-o’-country band and he has written a generous number of decent, rockin’ songs.  Kurt only has one regular band member with him on tour this time – Travis Harrett on drums.  Travis is a very competent drummer and was putting a lot of effort into the show last night.  The rest of the crew seem to be fill-ins, or so it seems.   The keyboardist, Arthur, had excellent tone when he played the Hammond B-3 organ, but I didn’t like the sound of his electric piano – it sounded too rinky-dink.  Kurt’s sister was competent on bass, but you know I was closely listening to see if she made any mistakes.  I’m just that way.  The fiddle gal was competent on her instrument, but not exciting.  But don’t get me wrong: Violin fits very well for some of these songs.  I mostly wish she would have gone for more wild high notes.  She sang quite a bit with Kurt - more back-up singer than co-lead vocalist - but really lacks the voice and stage presence of former band member Masha Marjieh.  Could she be a dire urge to at least temporarily replace Masha?  She had almost the same tone of voice, but really held back; probably just doesn’t have the same kind of powerful vocal cords.   Oh, Masha, oh, Masha, won’t you please come home?  The sheep’s in the meadow, the damn cows’re in the corn!

I really missed having a second guitarist like they had last year.  Because only Kurt was playing guitar, he had to stick to rhythm a lot more than I had wished.

They played a whole bunch of songs from their 2007 release, Silver Mountain, and some great ones from 2005’s Starving Winter Report too.   They only played for about an hour and 20 or 25 minutes.  I sure wish they would have played longer.   I talked to Kurt for a few minutes after the gig; he’s a hell of a nice guy.  Now I just wish he’d get those London bandmates over here for another tour!  Cover charge was a very cheap $10.