CLEM SNIDE – SHANK HALL – 3/4/25
POSTED:: March 5, 2025
FILED UNDER:: General
Clem Snide is a Generous but Sloppy Lover
Sure, but what about me? I came to Clem Snide via Soft Spot as a result of accidentally impregnating the love of my life. The night was hurried, confused & anxious as I suddenly needed to discard The Strokes & The Walkmen and find music for fathers. The Onion’s AV Club let me know that Soft Spot was Clem Snide’s “concise collection of gentle love songs written for Barzelay’s wife and new baby.” I went to the Farwell Exclusive Company and bought it, snagging Gram Parsons Return of Grievous Angel for good measure.
Soft Spot is forever a gorgeous LP, Eef Barzelay’s voice escaping like a pleasantly surprised trumpet on lines like:
And I hope that your friends
Are true and funny
And your girlfriends are sweet
And wear tight pants
And after your heart is gently broken
I hope that you get
A second chance
I will say that to our son (now 21) ver-fucking-batim and if there’s higher praise from a demented, destressed and forever ambitiously misguided father to another, then I don’t know what the hell my wife and I saw at Shank Hall on Tuesday night, but he sounded like the frontman from Clem Snide,
Openers Rye Valley set a welcoming tone, the trio basked in red glow, slide guitar, bongo and acoustic guitar. Their spare accompaniment backed songs about failing to address home repair issues, the singer’s Dad’s NASCAR love and hotmail addresses from women who wished he’d wear boots. The sounds hit me right between the (early) Iron & Wine and “Running on Empty” Jackson Browne eyes; Rye Valley said what they meant and meant what they said and it sounded just right on a rainy Tuesday in Milwaukee.
Back to the singer who sounded like the Clem Snide frontman…his spindly body half-anointed upon a barstool, the lefty launched into the first of his trapeze acts, singeing the lines, providing his own background vocals, armed with only an acoustic guitar and voice, the songs had far more layers than possible. Preambles started happening: Barzelay claimed to have a self-help tip for us…
”Take a bath for so long your muscles become supple, loose. Bathe so long you lose yourself and all of your muscles are completely loose. Get out of the bath and look into the mirror. Look deeply into your eyes and say [bongo drum taps steadily]:
Come on, shake your body, baby, do the Conga
I know you can’t control yourself any longer
Come on, shake your body, baby, do the Conga
I know you can’t control yourself any longer”
Yes, that is what he said and then sang, give or take, go ahead and ask around. The lyrics of the Miami Sound Machine song were highlighted by his yelps, mouth trumpet blares and Jar-Jar Binks mouth shimmies. The show had edge and Barzelay was walking us to it. He spoke directly to us, and as he began to strum the next song he mumbled, “Oh my God. I can’t fucking do it…” and then he did: “Stayin’ Alive.” Yes, he did. And the crowd dug it. I was overheard saying “This crazy motherfucker,” but I was smiling, as I did for Eef’s entire set.
He took us through a song about a dental hygienist who emailed him a request for a song about her. Oh, she was from Milwaukee! He wrote one for her. The song was lovely and sad, as was everything Eef said, did or played on Tuesday night at Shank Hall on a cold, wet March evening. But I didn’t feel sad. How could I when his encore was preambled by:
“For the encore I was planning to come out into the audience and make tender love to each one of you individually. You won’t even have to tell me what you want, I’ll know…”
At which point he launched into a not-too-horny “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by The Stooges. Barzelay ended his show with an endlessly appropriate rendition of “Messiah Complex Blues” from his 2000 LP, Your Favorite Music.
I would have listened 3 hours more, but he stopped when he wanted to…all things he did were easy, but the danger was real, that he might leave, snap or laugh himself to sleep…I easily saw a performance that ended with his guitar flung gently into the crowd…Barzelay’s like a male Billie Holiday with contradictory songwriting chops but nothing to eat…I love this guy quite a bit…in another version of the 21st century, he’s the new Neil Young or at least a cool Randy Newman…we love you, Eef.
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Review by DJ Machine