Daniel Higgs

Daniel Higgs is doing a residency this summer every Monday at Zebulon in Williamsburg and I checked it out last night. I hadn't heard of him, but read his bio on the Thrill Jockey page, and I guess the guy is kind of a cult hero. It was a pretty weird show. When I walked in and said hi to a friend I was given the stink-eye by a pissed hipster and I quickly fell into step; the place was so quiet for the first part of his set that you could hear a pin drop between notes. The music was pretty far out, just Higgs and his banjo, singing sometimes, veering between hippiesh and surrealist poetry, to droney ragas, Americana meets Middle East mysticism. You can tell that Devendra Banhart owes a lot vocally to this dude. The vocal stuff was cool, and I admired the originality and bravery of where he went. But the extended ragas were dope as hell, he's a killer banjo player and his ability to go from Appalachia to Egypt in the span of a few notes is pretty amazing. Some of the people on this blog (BILL ZINK) would totally dig this if they aren't familiar with his stuff already. If anyone is in the NY area in the next few weeks, check it out.

Oh, and on the shameless self-promotion tip, here's my latest rootless track.