Skylar Gudasz, Georgetown University, November 1, 2024
Because I want to think about something other than the election results and the coming years for a few minutes, a brief recap on a delightful hour-long lunchtime show from Virginia/North Carolina songwriter, guitarist, and pianist Skylar Gudasz at Georgetown on Friday, November 1st.
The first time I saw Skylar Gudasz, she was opening for Teenage Fanclub at the 9:30 Club, touring for her first record,
Oleander. Later, she was part of the Big Star Third project. Since then she has released two albums, 2020’s
Cinema and 2024’s
Country, but I hadn’t seen her in concert in years.
At Georgetown, Gudasz and her band were invited by the Department of Performing Arts, so it was a conspicuously more genteel crowd than where I had last seen her. Not that it was much of a crowd, barely 40 or 50 people at lunchtime in the middle of the school year.
When I came in Gudasz was making use of the Performing Arts Department’s grand piano, accompanying herself on “Honey, the Moon,” But she shortly returned to the center of the stage to pick up her guitar for
Cinema’s “Femme Fatale,” more a film noir reference than a Velvet Underground one. [For a surprising appearance, this was
sampled for a rap track from French Montana, and it totally flows.] She was shortly joined by her bassist, drummer, and guesting on electric guitar, one of the Performing Arts Department’s faculty members.
Gudasz first released a
cover of Jimmy Webb’s “Wichita Lineman” in 2019, which seems like a lifetime ago. But her version she did in concert is still a startling revelation; it moves away from the steady stoicism of the Glenn Campbell versions (and innumerable covers, Freedy Johnston’s being one of the best) toward a haunted, almost rhythmically unmoored jazz piece that Gudasz sings with unbridled yearning. It’s very different than the string-embellished version with country overtones she did in 2019. Both are effective. There is something unadorned and limpid about her vocal performance, almost without melisma or vibrato. The plainness of the singing reminds me a bit of Karla Schickele of Ida, or Canada’s Sarah Harmer, among mostly-overlooked singer-songwriters, but I’ve heard Gudasz referred to a a southern Joni Mitchell, which I can sorta see in the way she integrates a loose jazziness into a folk-country songwriting context. Also relevant is the way that Gudasz gravitates toward a concrete image that may float amidst an unclear narrative trajectory in a song lyric.
Much of the set was from
Cinema and the new
Country, which I hadn’t yet heard. Gudasz did “Actress” from
Cinema, which paired with the album’s “Waitress” effectively tells a coherent tale of feminine expectations and unmet ambitions, from countervailing perspectives. As she said in
conversation with my friends, a big piece of the new record is more a storytelling approach. I found “Fire Country” particularly compelling, with its impressionist imagery of an American West tottering on the verge of climate disaster, earthquakes, and generalized civilizational destruction amidst routine personal failures and consumption patterns. (Also, I’m a casual acquaintance of an author whose
book on fire devastation in the West has been on my mind.)
It was a short but rewarding set and I was happy to see Skylar and speak with her for a bit after the show; she’s been someone I’ve followed awhile and rarely had the chance to see her up close.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2024 07:52PM by zwirnm.
