Margin walking

Damon & Naomi; South by Southwest

Cellars By Starlight by Brett Milano

The biggest surprise on Damon & Naomi's Playback Singers (out this Tuesday on Sub Pop) may be the inside photo of their home studio -- a bright, inviting place with a window that opens onto trees and sunlight. It's about the last place you'd expect the music on the CD, which is lovely in a shadowy, late-night way, to emanate from.

The duo have had a musical double life. They were originally the rhythm section of Galaxie 500, a fondly remembered band who had an especially bad-blooded break-up in 1991 -- "I'm almost over it now," drummer-turned-guitarist Damon Krukowski (who is also an occasional Phoenix contributor) now says. They carried on their neo-psychedelic legacy in Magic Hour, a two-guitar band that performed an average of two songs per hour-long set. But their introspective side came through on the three albums they made as a duo, albums with stripped-down instrumentation (Yang does mainly vocals and bass; Krukowski does guitars and light percussion) that are about songs more than jams or textures.

Playback Singers is their first strictly duo album -- their former producer/collaborator, the New York eccentric Kramer, is out of the picture -- and the most accessible of the three. The airy, not-quite-pop melodies hark back to Galaxie days, but Yang's much-improved vocals give the album an inviting prettiness, and a psychedelic tinge remains. Most of the instruments on "Eye of the Storm," for example, are looped backwards. The album's lyrics hold together as a long meditation on love and isolation, particularly "We're Not There," which celebrates the seclusion of the duo's attic studio.

"It was real important to me to get that photo in there," Yang says of the studio shot when we talk at the 1369 Coffeehouse in Cambridge. "We wanted to show that side -- people always used to tell us things like, 'I can't believe that you're not depressed.' "

"But we are depressed," Krukowski notes, only half-kidding.

"True, but we still like a little sun and some green," Yang goes on. "The beauty of the room is important as anything else. I like to think of our music as having what Tom [Rapp, the '60s cult figure with whom they toured last summer] calls constructive melancholy." Krukowski says their albums still come from a dark place; Yang disagrees. "I like to think it comes from a painful light moment. Something intense like sunshine."

Yang and Krukowski are music collectors, with a passion for obscure and idiosyncratic songwriters. Hence the two cover songs on the new album -- one by Tom Rapp, the other by Ghost, a Japanese band who will play with Damon & Naomi next Thursday, April 9, at T.T. the Bear's Place.

At the time they recorded the new CD, Yang and Krukowski say, they were listening to Sandy Denny solo albums -- "In the Sun" has hints of Denny's influence. Other of the pair's recent passions -- Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Milton Nascimento -- come through less directly. "To some extent you try to shut off those experiences when you write," Krukowski says. "If we really tried to sound like Sandy Denny or Milton Nascimento, I'd have to stop."

But the main influence on the new album was the time that Damon & Naomi had spent touring as a duo, which they'd never done much before last year. The experience prompted them to focus more on songwriting, and it led Krukowski to confront his longstanding stagefright.

"He's fine when he's got a set of cymbals in front of him," Yang explains. "But he was shocked the first time he had to stand up front -- 'My God, I can see the people's faces!' "

Krukowski concurs. "I was terrified, it was a nightmare come true. And it made me realize how important the lyrics are -- I was up there singing and felt this incredible rush of, 'God, I never thought of these lyrics before -- what the hell am I saying?' " Nevertheless, they'll be touring extensively to promote the new album, something they haven't done enough of in the past. "That's why our second one [The Wonderful Word of Damon & Naomi] disappeared: we told the label we didn't want to tour. Don't ever say that to your record company."

Fortunately, Krukowski and Yang have rewarding day jobs. Together they run their own small press, Exact Change, a publishing company that reissues forgotten books by 20th-century authors, many with a surrealist bent. Works by Franz Kafka, John Cage, and Gertrude Stein are in their catalogue, each with new covers designed by Yang. They liken Exact Change to the indie record labels that reissue deleted titles major labels won't keep in print. Any connection with their own musicmaking?

"There is, because we don't make money on either," Krukowski says. "We're on the margins either way."

SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST REPORT

There's nothing like an out-of-town conference, especially Austin's South by Southwest, to give you a different take on local bands. Overheard about Jules Verdone: "I hear she's the new Liz Phair." Overheard about the Amazing Royal Crowns: "They've got the Reverend Horton Heat thing happening." Overheard about the Radio Kings: "You're kidding -- these guys are from Boston?" (Good point, since they're sounding more like a Texas R&B band all the time.)

Those and other Boston acts -- Come, Jack Drag, Quintaine Americana, Boy Wonder, and Trona -- were among the 800-odd bands who played the conference, which has become the music industry's version of spring break. Perhaps nobody took the town by storm, as Letters to Cleo did three years ago, but Verdone drew an appreciative crowd to Fat Tuesday's, a gloriously tacky daiquiri bar, on a bill that was described by one of the performers (opener Kris McKay, who played before Holly Cole and Amy Rigby) as "estrogen-overdose night."

There was a time when SxSW was a low-key, grassroots kind of conference, but those days are long gone. This year the record labels went to near-absurd lengths competing for bodies. If SONY/Work hires out Maggie May's (the club with the inflatable Elvis on the roof) and provides a two-hour free bar for Pete Droge and Mary Lou Lord, would that entice you away from Antone's, where Rounder had a free hour of blues, beer, and barbecue? Or from Grand Royal's meet-and-greet with Sean Lennon? The worst-kept "secret" gig was easily the one by Sonic Youth, which its sponsor, the Website N2K, had already packed for a private party. Even without corporate backing, Nashville Pussy at Emo's was one of the hardest shows to get into, perhaps in part because of a rumor I heard waiting on line: "I hear the two girls get naked!" Didn't get in myself, but I took a right turn on the way home and headed down the dark end of Sixth Street, where I heard a street busker doing a haunting version of James Carr's "Dark End of the Street." It was Billy Bragg playing for an audience of 12.

After catching a handful of personal faves -- Robyn Hitchcock doing the wonderful title track of his next album, "Jewels for Sophia"; Olivia Tremor Control and Apples in Stereo crammed together on one tiny stage; Continental Drifters and Royal Fingerbowl summoning the light and dark sides of New Orleans -- I tried to find something offbeat that I wouldn't see at home. I found it at the Broken Spoke, a honky-tonk dancehall on the outskirts of town, where a cornball duo called the Geezinslaw Brothers were doing the kind of act they've been doing for 30-odd years, just the sort of thing for people who miss Hee Haw. Best stage patter: "Thanks for coming, or however you reacted" (trust me, it sounds great from a 70-year old guy in overalls). Song title of the week, their salute to Garth Brooks: "You Call it Country, I Call It Bad Rock'n'Roll."

The best performance I saw all weekend was either that by rock scribe Dave Marsh, who got berated on a corporate-sponsorship panel for his influence on Bruce Springsteen, called the heckler an SOB, and challenged him to a fistfight, or the one by Athens songwriter and alterna-rock hero Vic Chesnutt. I didn't catch Chesnutt's club show, where he performed a karaoke version of his entire forthcoming album, but he was mighty entertaining on a panel debating the importance of Paul McCartney, who should've been put out to pasture years ago, according to the two rock critics on the panel. Chesnutt came off as McCartney's most passionate defender. "There are two songs on this album that make me weep," he said, waving a copy of Flaming Pie. "You can't expect all your music to be written by suicidal basket cases such as myself." When Nirvana biographer Michael Azzerad challenged him by bringing up "Silly Love Songs," Chesnutt defended even that. "That's a beautifully ironic song, listen to what he's saying: `What's wrong with that, here I go again, so fuck you!' " One wag in the audience -- all right, it was me -- suggested that McCartney actually sings it that way on the bootleg version.

COMING UP

The Silver Apples' two '60s albums are considered by some to be the real birth of synthesizer pop: see for yourself when they reappear at the Middle East upstairs tonight (Thursday). Also tonight, the reliable Skatalites are downstairs at the Middle East, the Tarbox Ramblers are at the Lizard Lounge, and Den Mothers and Delta Clutch are at T.T. the Bear's Place . . . Tomorrow (Friday), the still-potent Stiff Little Fingers are at Axis, Chelsea on Fire are at T.T.'s, Gravel Pit and Dennis Brennan are at Bill's Bar, and Memphis jazzmen Jimmy McGriff and Hank Crawford are at the House of Blues . . . Saturday it's Talking to Animals at the Lizard Lounge, the Darlings at Club Bohemia, the New Orleans funk band Galactic downstairs at the Middle East, and Come finishing up a two-night stand upstairs . . . Sunday the veteran English folk outfit Fairport Convention are at Scullers, Neptune and Tom Leach are at Green Street, and Brother Cleve DJ's at Bella Luna in Jamaica Plain . . . And on Wednesday it's the Cherry Poppin' Daddies and Popgun at the Middle East.