>>PREVIEW
DAVID P. SMITH
Thursday, February 24
Palomino Club
David P. Smith and I start our chat with a shared memory. It’s the late ’80s and all nine members of The Pogues are lined up across the large stage of the Spectrum Club in Montreal. The late Joe Strummer is standing in on acoustic rhythm guitar, Shane MacGowan is relatively sober and in fine form, and there, slightly stage left, a tall lanky Brit is manhandling an accordion the size of a Honda Civic.
In an enormous feat of performance brilliance, Huge Accordion Guy (James Fearnley?) nearly steals the show right out from under the boots of his illustrious bandmates. For me, it’s a profound realization of what an incredibly visually exciting instrument the simple squeezebox can be. Smith remembers the giant accordion.
"To tell you the truth, I was more fixated on Joe Strummer," he confesses. "Also, I was pretty drunk."
A short time later, still in Montreal, Smith picks up a friend’s accordion and begins messing with it. The resulting tango continues to the present day in his current Victoria abode. His second full-length solo release, Striving for a New Tomorrow, further evolves Smith’s wacked-out, psychedelic brand of "Hillbilly Rhythm & Booze." Guitarist Scott Henderson (Show Business Giants) further chemically enhances this meaty, musical mulligan stew. New Tomorrow blends traditional country and hard rockin’ saloon stomp with great lyrics, some jazzy flavourings and a fair bit of home-stilled whisky. His band isn’t called Dad’s Juice for nothing.
"We’re like the non-tattood, non-pierced band that sits in chairs," Smith says with characteristic understatement.
Still, the musical underpinnings for all these tales of woe, grief, excess and deliverance are all fervently squeezed out of Big Red, Smith’s trusty instrument of choice.
Like the guitar, the accordion is a personal instrument that you hold and can sing along with while playing. The accordion, however, avoids the phallic, masturbatory connotations associated with the six-string.
"It’s strapped tightly to your chest so it’s like it’s a part of you, and there’s all this resonance that you can feel through your whole body," Smith explains. "It just feels really great!"
In addition to these simple pleasures there’s also a practical side, "You don’t have to tune it, you just press a key and it makes the sound you want."
Smith’s performances tend to draw other accordion-philes out of the proverbial woodwork.
"There’s a lot of people, and not even accordion players, who are just passionate about the accordion. People come up to me after the shows and they’re just obviously in love with the accordion and enchanted by it. It’s not a typical instrument."
But there’s still that perceived stigma that continues to dog the accordion. Maybe it’s Herr Oompah in the lederhosen and feathered hat, or the bespectacled, polyester-suited Polka King or the Chubby Kid in junior high who got beat up all the time. Smith, who played clarinet in his high school band, will have none of this.
"There is no stigma to the accordion. Of course, there will always be people who think the world is flat and Blacks should ride on the back of the bus, but the power and majesty of the accordion is clear to any thinking and music-loving individual."
He continues in his passionate diatribe.
"It is a truly global, cross-cultural instrument – from the Maritimes to the townships of Soweto, to Eastern Europe, to Louisiana, to Ireland, to South America and so on. It is able to encompass all this music because it is a versatile, portable, expressive instrument. It is like a mobile keyboard, a full band. It can be wonderful in its simplicity and amazing in its complexity." If this all sounds just a tad over-rehearsed, it’s because, "I’ve defended the accordion before and said very similar things," Smith says flatly. |
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