Connection in the Modern Age: Aaron Lee Tasjan, Karma for Cheap, and Club 603

Written by Published on in Featured Artist, In the Spotlight, Show Calendars

I find myself turning into the windswept beauty of an almost-ancient Roland Park neighborhood, its gnarled oaks, sloping hills, and beautiful old homes a kind of embrace.  The oldest planned suburban neighborhood in the United States – a streetcar suburb – designed to tame the lush wilds around Lake Roland, an oasis away from the muck and grime of increasingly industrialized 19th century Baltimore. A somehow, still-today, surviving example of the Arcadian myth, a little slice of the countryside in the middle of an expanding world. Technically the city, practically not.

It’s here, in a place of convergence, where Aaron Lee Tasjan and his band played to a sold-out Baltimore crowd, twice, just more than a week apart.  Originally, he planned to play just one show, but when every ticket sold in fewer than two minutes, home/club owner Scott Vieth asked if he’d play another night. Aaron obliged, a special kind of gift. 

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The house is settled just off the road, high-sloped roofs peeking over a hedge of trees, picturesque windows framed and illuminated by strings of incandescent lights. Every time, without fail, a warmth emanates from the building, its Club 603 sign on the door.  The first night, as we walked up the sidewalk, we could see Aaron and the band in the kitchen, smiling and laughing, an honest kind of prelude.  The second night, the house already throbbed with a small crowd, though Tommy Scifres (bass) and Mark Morris (sound and sorta tour manager) presided like towers over the entrance, having a smoke while greeting us, beginning the night with a few little stories. 

More often than not, the artists are outside, maybe having a smoke or a chat, waving hello and smiling as we walk by. An obliging comment, a story or two, a question or more, a conversation. This is what a house show does that a big club show can never do – it humanizes and familiarizes. There is a de-commodification of art; sure, we pay, but it all goes to the musicians, every cent. 

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We arrived early, earlier even than usual – when it comes to music, Jess and I don’t mess around – though greeted by Scott, as always. An ALT shirt, obscured by an orange tabby named Chickenboy, announces his allegiance. Chickenboy is a mascot of sorts for Club 603, though it’s the first time I’ve met him; musicians around the country ask after and comment about him on Instagram and Facebook.  A little cutout of an orange tabby sits over the fireplace in the living room, presiding over the music, next to tiny little men on bikes.  The giant tiger he believes he is.

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Inside, to the right is a room filled with chairs, CDs, a pair of windows creating an infinity of reflections. There are standing speakers – plugged in, though not every show will be – a drum kit at the center, a pair of micstands, and a keyboard, a few guitars leaning against the wall, including Aaron’s signature 12-string (see it played here at his Tiny Desk concert).
Art adorns the walls, including a beautiful Karl Haglund piece, some Balt-americana, and some almost-odd ephemera, little mementos. To the left, a – dining room, maybe? – replete with signed posters from past shows and acts, including a veritable who’s who of legends new and old. A small table, an elegant chandelier evoking something modern and wild, patterned like woodgrain but dancing like water. Aaron’s merchandise table, with records and shirts, rolling papers.  A few permanent markers and the promise of remembering, of connection.  

Isn’t this the point?

Most nights, we walk around the rooms, greeting everyone we recognize or being extra friendly to anyone who looks a little lost, needs a little guidance.
We were those people once. 

I usually get carried away, just a little, telling stories, talking about music and shows, both those we’ve seen and those we want to see.  Scott and Jean have some food out, some drinks accessible.  Most folks bring their own, too.  A sprawling air of camaraderie lightens every room, laughter punching punctuation marks. As 8:00 edges closer, the growing crowd pulls to the living room, invisible skeins of thread tugging us tighter.

Aaron switched the script between the shows, coming out with his band the first night, by himself the second, lit by the warmth of a thousand holiday lights. Aaron smiles often, at his band, at the audience, at his own playing. This is a man who knows joy in music, despite all of the existential malaise that comes with rock and roll, with living in this era, being in this generation.  Karma for Cheap, Aaron’s newest record, is the perfect album for this kind of dichotomy.  Karma for Cheap swirls and bubbles like a boilermaker.  It blends, pairing old-school harmonies with the compelling guitar hooks on which he has made much of his name.

The vocals flow and drift, a flexible and malleable thing that is so hard to find in the modern musical world.  An almost-retro glam vibe pervades the album, as though his time spent with the New York Dolls colored the edges of these songs. Sunshiny as a beer-soaked afternoon with friends, they riff between guitar attacks and good old pop balladry (a la Orbison), with more than a few sonic nods to Petty and Bowie and McCartney. But all throughout, it’s vintage ALT, soaked in psychedelia and as memorable as your favorite trip around the sun. Rock and roll, with all of its beauty and loudness, exists in Aaron Lee Tasjan’s music, and Karma for Cheap stands as a perfect advertisement. 

Each set featured songs from his whole catalog, with a slight emphasis on Karma for Cheap. “The Truth is So Hard to Believe”, a song on-record that evokes a bit of Bowie and The Beatles, but in person, it’s pure ALT. “Crawling At Your Feet”, at the beginning of the set one night and closing the set the next night, its almost skronky, swampy guitar and woodgrain grooved rhythms damn near shattering the windows. “Rest Is Yet to Come” a song that takes the saying, “The best is yet to come” and turns it on its head, a keen example of the wry smile and social criticism he manages to infuse into his songs. It could easily become an anthem for a generation raised in a boom and realizing we just might be going bust.

He played “Songbird”, introducing it as the last song on Karma For Cheap, characterizing the album as a “good 40 minute album, like all the classic 40 minute albums, though not as good” (this last bit with a sideways smile and a shrug of the shoulders), suggesting it’s the perfect length for a cup of coffee, if drinking coffee for 40 minutes is your thing.  They played the standout, “If Not Now When”, the tune that begins and sets the tone for the album, and “Heart Slows Down,” its harmonies and message very much the core of Karma for Cheap. 

But the centerpiece of an Aaron Lee Tasjan show is the stories, the interaction, the connection, the fucking depth of humanity he asserts and projects. He never just sings songs or plays music; he makes little movies that feel like life. Sometimes the songs themselves, the moment we share with him is the story, or at least the beginning of it.  On the first night, right after he put away his guitar, and as he sat down at the keys, a laugh-smile exploded onto his face and he shouted to Mark for tape to hold his pedals into place. “Imagine you’re driving and the brakes keep sliding away from you,” he told us.  

While he waited, setting the mood with a few presses of the keys, he told a story about playing in Memphis with his good friend Bonnie Whitmore.  A nearly-empty venue, but for a lady in her 60s, maybe as much as 70, wearing leopard-print pants and a smile. She asked to dance, an apology falling onto her face, and Aaron told her she had nothing to be sorry for.  He added, saying he hopes that “someday I’m 70 wearing leopard prints asking if it’s alright to dance.”  With the tape on his pedals, he led us all through “Memphis Rain,” in its silver-lining glory, its melancholic beauty.  

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Or when he sang “Little Movies” and dedicated it to Tom Petty and Richard Swift and maybe even Bowie – I can’t remember them all. Or the new song (forthcoming) written specifically for Swift shortly before he died. Dirge-like, but a touch bit more hopeful, more honest.

And then, of course, the infamous internet collision with Peter Frampton, a story that bears constant retelling and brings a smile to my face as I write these words. A little while back, he opened a run of shows for Social Distortion and brought up Frampton writing two big hits in one day.  “Kind of punk rock” to bring up Frampton at a punk rock show, but some guy online made a comment on Aaron’s Twitter about it. Aaron shared that he usually doesn’t feed the trolls, doesn’t respond, but this time, he felt compelled; after all, this man appeared to do this after almost every show. So Aaron responded sarcastically, which led to the following avalanche of events.

Aaron tried to reach out to explain, but he’d been Twitter-blocked.

Eventually, Frampton came around because someone must have shown him the tweets, unblocked him, and they became internet friends.

Recently, Frampton told Aaron he was making a blues album. At 603, Aaron turned to Devin Monay, a black man, and joked about white men singing the blues, eliciting laughter from his friend behind the kit. About Frampton, he added that though Frampton wrote two songs in one day, he himself wrote 4 in one day on an acid trip. Not hits, but still, he wrote double the number of songs, and all of them made the album Silver Tears. 

And then there’s the story he told when I requested “Lucinda’s Room”, an old favorite of mine by now, of the time he stayed in the Lucinda Williams themed room at the Crystal Hotel in Portland, Oregon. He woke in the morning to a picture of Lucinda staring at him, and he figured he might as well do something more than smoke an apple bong out the window. He felt an itch to write about Blaze Foley, too, so he figured, “Why not kill two birds with one stone?” and wrote the song.

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“Judee was a Punk Rocker” from In the Blazes became the first request on night one; Aaron sort of quieted, strummed his guitar (was he tuning? I can’t remember, enthralled as I was) and narrated a small story about the life of Judee Sill, the first ever signee to Asylum Records. An outspoken bisexual Christian folksinger who got blacklisted for inadvertently outing Geffen during  a radio interview, she released two albums before becoming a cartoonist for the LA Times and eventually dying from an overdose at the age of 35. Just before beginning the song, he said, voice calm and affectionate, “When I hear people say “Make American Great Again”, I think of Judee Sill,” gave a gentle laugh, and sang. 

And all throughout, the crowd latched onto the moment, the feeling, that wild sense of connectedness that humans crave. Have you ever heard of touch deprivation? I think there is such a thing as social deprivation, a loss of the self in busyness and our screens. They are not bad things, our apps and our social media, our little escapes, but they are not substitutes for connection; this, though, it’s impossible to express how much the shared love of music – with kindred spirits, in a home – fills that social deprivation. Scott often says that he and Jean get more than they give from hosting live shows, from hosting musicians as they drive through town, that they’re just trying to be part of the solution. But what this experience gives, the solution it points toward, it is a tangible representation of good love, of good living. It allows for community and music, two of the very things that shape what it means to be human.

Aaron introduced his band often, singing their praises throughout – Tommy Scifres on bass, Devin Monay behind the kit, and Mark Miller on sound – all while showing the wild synergy they’ve cultivated together.  They read like a family, a little traveling circus bringing joy, rock and roll, and their unique brand of truth.

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Before closing the first set, a huge smile on his face, Aaron gazed into the audience, his red mirror sunglasses reflecting all of us, telling us about how Mr. Rogers taught him to say, “I love you,” and, “You are a good person.” He pointed at us, again passing his eyes over all of us, before taking a moment to say that he loved us and we are good people. Heartwarming, sincere, and just a touch of vaudeville.  

After going through the last of the requests, Aaron sort of stuttered for a moment before saying, “Yeah, this just, this feels right,” and slid into “The Waiting” by Tom Petty. As fitting an ending as I’ve ever heard before, a taking of the torch moment.  In so many ways, Aaron Lee Tasjan is exactly the right person to pick up that torch. His gifts, both musical and interpersonal, make him the kind of man who could move a generation or two of fans.