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M. WARD
RAMBLIN’ MAN
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His heart is always on the line, he’s traveled all kinds of places, and the concierges all meet him with a frown. Sounds like a lonely life on the road for M. Ward, who limns the finger-picked soliloquies of a ramblin’ man on his just-released Transistor Radio (Merge). That CD brought him to the Museum of Fine Arts’ Remis Auditorium this past Saturday, where the stage was sparely arranged for his arrival, a hardwood floor of tangled cables, two microphone stands, polished baby-grand piano, single guitar case. As the house lights dimmed, the thick-haired Ward emerged from double doors in a white sweater and bunchy pants, ignoring cheers as he crouched to fumble with snaking cords. Pacing around with his head down, his lower lip protruding, and a moody, nearly-autistic intensity, he didn’t acknowledge the sold-out audience until two songs in, slyly looking up during the quietly affecting "I’ll Be Yr Bird" as he replaced the lines "I’m not your chestnut/I’m not your mole" with "I ain’t your Vic Chesnutt/I ain’t your Bob Mould." This is a guy who’s spent a lot of time playing for imaginary crowds, but none of them was in the mirror. Actually, Chesnutt and Mould aren’t two points of reference that come to mind for Mr. M.-is-more-mysterious-than-Matt Ward. Rather, the native Californian is some kind of folk/blues/country/rock songwriting savant, phrasing short stories like Tom Waits, massaging the ivories like a skinny Fats Waller, rescuing the breathy-vocal delivery from John Mayer’s pansy paws and smoking it with hickory-flavored goodness. Ward’s recordings evoke yellowed newspaper clippings, creaky attic stairs, Sunday sundresses, rusty pick-up trucks bouncing down dirt roads. Live without a backing band, he can still slip you into a dusty reverie, make you float so far away, Isaac Brock would be jealous. Hunched over the piano keys, he crooned two tunes about solitary existences: "Fuel for Fire," a melancholic number about itinerant isolation, and Daniel Johnston’s "Story of an Artist," the forlorn tale of a misunderstood creator recorded for last fall’s tribute album The Late Great Daniel Johnston (Gammon). Ward strapped on harmonica headgear for David Bowie’s "Let’s Dance," a tremblingly tender cover that plodded like an a cappella 45 slowed to 33 rpm. Then for "Four Hours in Washington," his fretboard slaps replaced the bass-drum heartbeat of a jittery insomniac. After a pre-encore standing ovation, Ward closed with an instrumental medley of Brian Wilson’s "You Still Believe in Me" and the C-major Prelude from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Waving goodbye while a recorded classical loop echoed behind him, he disappeared. Off to see another concierge.
BY CAMILLE DODERO
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