[ Music Index | San Jose | Metroactive Central | Archives ]

Windmill Wit Stuart Davis treated Espresso Garden to an evening of intellectual lyricism By Sarah Quelland AFTER AN EXTENDED stay in Palo Alto and a handful of local performances, singer/songwriter Stuart Davis has moved back to his native Minnesota. Currently on a West Coast jaunt, Davis did swing by the South Bay, stopping by the Espresso Garden & Cafe last Thursday (June 29) for an intimate performance. Taking the stage with two guitars--one black and one white, and both designed to look like the yin and yang of the symbol--Davis wore simple black pants and a white tank top with the label ripped out, leaving a hole in the fabric. That kind of ambiguous detail is exactly what you'd expect from this intriguing performer. With a small crowd of about 25 people, Davis made a point to make the evening feel warm and familiar. He took requests from the audience (although he didn't honor the call for "Jonah" until the end of the show), discussed his campaign to make Minnesota an independent nation, speculated on naming all his songs after shapes and instigated a rush to the bar for cans of Guinness. He played a whopping 23 songs, including old favorites and new material. A special treat was an as-of-yet untitled song about his love/hate relationship with California. He also offered what he called the "universal debut" of a song presumably titled "Windmills and Wheatfields" that he wrote some time ago and put away because he thought it "sucked." He said he found it again recently and thought, "How delightfully perverse." Most of Davis' material is perverse in some sense of the word. His themes range from death to aliens to the Unabomber to suicide to love to God. Davis is an extremely talented, albeit highly unconventional musician, with a remarkably witty sense of humor. He'll be performing at 8pm this Sunday (July 9) at So Say We (a.k.a. 418 Project) in Santa Cruz. Visit www.stuartdavis.com for more information. Two members of Papa Roach were on the radio talk show Loveline last Wednesday (June 28), heard locally on LIVE 105. Vocalist Coby Dick and drummer Dave Buckner seemed to make quite an impression on co-hosts Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew. Apparently, the band attracted a rush of fans both on the phone lines and outside the studio. There was so much activity that the usually sarcastic Carolla gushed on the air that there was a "big response for the band, lots of phone calls, lots of people hanging around out front, and for Loveline that's a huge outcry of excitement." He went on to say that "we have big bands in here all the time, and nobody's out front waiting for them, and nobody calls up and wants to talk to them." The more conservative Dr. Drew described the reaction as "remarkable," and both agreed they couldn't remember seeing anything like it on their show. The songs "Last Resort" and "Broken Home" were played on the program, and before "Broken Home," Dick explained how he wrote that song based on his own traumatic experiences with an absentee father he didn't see for 12 years. He sent out an emotional plea to anyone who knows his father to have him get in touch with him. Papa Roach's album Infest hit No. 11 and is still climbing up the charts. The band will be on Late Night With Conan O'Brien next Friday (July 14). The QUEST dance and music festival scheduled for July 1 at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds has been canceled. Ticket holders should contact Cool World at 408.273.5912 or visit www.coolworldprod.com for information on rebates or vouchers that may be redeemed for future festivals. ... The Deftones debuted at No. 3 on Billboard's Top 200 with its album White Pony. The band is scheduled to perform at the Warfield in San Francisco Aug. 8. PLAN AHEAD: Sin in Space, July 6 at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz; Steve Miller Band, July 7 at Shoreline Amphitheatre; dredg, Stitch, Movement and others, July 7 at the Cactus Club; Lucy Pearl and Young MC, July 7 at Paramount's Great America; Spike 1000 and Luxt, July 7 at the Paradise Lounge in San Francisco; the Recruits, July 8 at the Usual; Maria Fatal, July 8 at the Cactus; the Brownies, July 11 at the Paradise Lounge; Triple 7, July 11 at the Usual; Mr. Roper, July 13 at the Cactus; Summer Sanitarium tour, July 14 at 3Com Park in San Francisco; Sonic Youth, July 22 at the Warfield in San Francisco; Kiss, July 28 at Shoreline; B-52s, the Go-Gos and the Psychedelic Furs, July 31 at Shoreline; AC/DC, Sept. 19 at the San Jose Arena. [ San Jose | Metroactive Central | Archives ]