May 21–28, 1998

critic pick|rock/pop

John Wesley Harding

The pairing of John Wesley Harding and Steve Wynn (both are new signees to the record label Zero Hour) should result in a night of good-natured cynicism the likes of which we don't see often enough.

Today, when a fly in your chardonnay is "ironic," when irony is largely thought of as misfortune—or as sarcasm with a British accent—these two are notable for their talent for turning a phrase and a tune into bouncy, pithy commentary.

Harding, the headliner, does not turn the phrase quite so twistingly as, say, Elvis Costello, but he creates equally attention-grabbing characters and images in more solid, basic songs. On the current album, Awake (a play on "a wake"), Harding has cut back a bit on the overt mockery and plays the more thoughtful, reflective (a high proportion of self-referential songs) craftsman. He sticks mainly to plodding mid-tempo beats, but fleshes them out with fascinating bi-tonal and poly-tonal figures, saving the sweetest melody for the after-last song (unlisted). At the Tin Angel, expect him to spice up the moderate beats with previous hits like "Kill the Messenger" and "The Devil in Me," and expect Wynn to add a streak of quirky energy to the mix, drawing from the kick-ass oddities on Sweetness and Light, his latest solo album, if not a couple of chestnuts from his Dream Syndicate days. Put it all together and you'll laugh, you'll sneer, you'll hum. These guys will make you feel good about the most rotten, twisted human experiences. Isn't it ironic?

John Wesley Harding and Steve Wynn, Sat., May. 23, Tin Angel, 20 S. Second St., 928-0978.

-Vance Lehmkuhl