Many approach the word “quirky” with (due) caution. Hearing it evokes 500 Days of cutting your own bangs and playing ukulele (unnecessary, but chuckle-worthy, video approximation). But Thao Nguyen and her band, the Get Down Stay Down, ignore the dismissive nature of the label and fly their quirky flag high.
Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Majestic Theatre
8 PM;
$15
Lauded debut release We Brave Beestings and All and follow-up Know Better Learn Faster utilized a variety of alternative stringed instruments to recount upbeat tales of love and loss. On Thao’s newest release, last month’s We the Common, the prolific San Franciscan continues to manipulate the tropes of freak-folk to create an album of buoyantly off-kilter and irrepressibly charming tunes that are inflected with an emerging social consciousness, inspired by her extensive volunteering and activism.
Taking the cues of contemporaries like Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs and Regina Spektor, the songwriting displays a greater interest in surveying the landscape rather than self-analysis. Calling in fellow oddballs John Congleton and Joanna Newsom for reinforcement, the songs lurch and strain with the glory of growing up and finding your own space within a larger community.
The live show promises to be just as engaging. Between contextualizing stories of her work with the California women’s prison and (rumored) covers of early ’00s hip-hop jamz, there’ll be something to coax a smile out of even the most SAD-affected person. At the very least, there’ll be some slide guitar, which is the sexiest sound humans have ever engineered. Keeping in the communal spirit, they’ve recruited fellow West Coasters Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside to help liven up the Majestic this Sunday, the perfect sunny note to kick off spring.