Live and Local - Stripmall Ballads

The first time I saw Stripmall Ballads was in July, on a Thursday night at Ploughmans. I got there a little early, and there was one guy up on the stage with a few guitars and banjos, setting up. I was one of only a few people in there at the time, as the lovely and wise Courtney poured me an Arkansas Black and we said our hellos.

 I watched him for a few minutes, and turned to Courtney to say what was top of mind (it’s what I do, I have no filters or social graces), “well, this could go either way.”

I’ve come to understand a few things since that moment.

First, Stripmall Ballads, while a better than average band name (I’m looking at you, Glass Grin), is actually the name of a project of a single man, Phillips Saylor Wiser. Phillips plays guitar and Banjo in a troubadour folk story teller fashion, the old style American bards of older times that the singer/songwriters of the 60s and 70s built upon to create that genre. It all came from people with instruments telling stories in song, not to record a historical moment so much as to tell you how they lived, how they felt, and what was wrong.

So, not for the first time, my childishly simplistic and cynical comment to Courtney ended up coming back to bite me. Courtney will be fine, she already knows I’m an idiot.

You’ll recall I had a similar first-blush dismissive take on one Mathew Moris (maybe there are two s’es like on his logo, maybe not… I don’t know any more). In the case of Matt, my readers will recall I heard his first couple of chords, looked at Derrick and said “great, another Dave Matthews”.

Matt turned out to be somewhat more than that, and Phillips, in his overalls and trucker cap and chewed up boots, is infinitely more than my simple ass thought as well.

Stripmall Ballads is a series of original and some cover songs, that span across a range of old appalachian folk, deep blues from damp places in the south, and other things with dashes of country, modern alternative…brilliant lyrics, and an incredible craftsmanship both on banjo and guitar.

Mr Wiser has the type of lo-fi virtuosity that you see on rare and lucky occasions. He’s playing an f-hole hollowbody with what appears to be a humbucker in the neck, with a percussive and incredibly detailed and embellished style. It’s amazing the way he manages the rhythm and still gets ALL OVER the neck for the melody and solos…similar to the old Les Paul recordings (the man, not the guitar) where you’d almost swear there were two of three guitars playing. His attack is loud and sharp and incredibly clean and surprising…this is a man who’s put in the hours, and has written music with artistry and skill that the kids would call “intentional”.

His presence on stage is informal and professional at the same time. He knows he owns the room but he’s not making a thing about it. Comes across as a guy just sitting down and playing in the midst of a gathering. You can listen or not, he’s still just gonna play. Be over here if you need to jump start your jeep or something.

He took a break, then he picked up the banjo. I’m fairly new, still, as a listener to banjos…since I moved the Gettysburg I’ve been lucky enough to be exposed to the remarkable Dave Pickering, and the wonderful Rin Elizabeth, so my appreciation and ability to “hear” it more readily is a little better.

The man is a craftsman. He tells the story of how he found the person who has served as his mentor with banjo, while told him as kindly as possible that he sucked when they first met, and offered to teach him a style called  “clawhammer”. I’m not going to pretend I know what that meant, but in my observation it’s a picking technique for banjo, kind of like Travis picking on guitar, but with a gun to your head and you’re also stamping out a fire on the floor. It’s incredible…and, again, so detailed and yet percussive and sometime frenetic… was the first time listening to someone play a banjo actually raised my heart rate.

I’ve since had a chance to listen to his CDs, and his music is even more nuanced and crafted that I picked up on live…but you GOTTA seem him live. The energy and skill and pure love of his craft is worth coming out for. I’ve made an idiot of myself by pre-judging yet again, and that’s fine.  I highly recommend you find his recordings and I recommend even more that you get out and see him play when you can.