No, David Baker Benson isn’t sending you a friend request on Facebook. Nor is he commenting on your MySpace page, retweeting you on Twitter, or personally posting flyers for his gigs. He doesn’t have a cell phone to text you with. But he wants to say hello, shake your hand in his, have a conversation and, potentially, recruit you to play a little rock music.
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David Baker Benson (right) looks on while bassist Taylor Harless finds his fretting. Don’t get too attached: Benson’s band, DBB Plays Cups, might look different the next time you see them. |
It’s likely that the three dozen people who gathered at Random Row Books last Thursday to see Benson’s band, DBB Plays Cups, either knew Benson directly or heard about the concert from someone who did. (Two folks mentioned the show to me on separate nights. Both were in the crowd.) Benson’s most recent acquaintance in attendance may have been Random Row itself—only two months old, without an address save for “opposite the Greyhound Station,” still the new kid on the West Main block.
The better to have Random Row as a venue. Each DBB Plays Cups show is something of a first encounter—often for the band members themselves, who change from gig to gig. The material is always drawn from the same place, Benson’s short list of chord progressions and songs that make up his albums, Cups and Sequel to “Cups.” The band, however, might be an ascetic trio, a richly fuzzy quartet or, in the case of Thursday’s set, a five-piece that owed as much to Buddy Holly’s Crickets and The Clash as to Pavement. Multiple generations of “garage rock,” maybe—at least the sum of its parts, at most a lean and kinetic elevation of Benson’s material. Practice is minimal.
Thursday’s DBB Plays Cups lineup included Max Dreyer from opening act Your Spirit Animal in the Unreal City, on keys rather than his electric guitar. That instrument found its way to the hands of Gary Canino, a writer for UVA’s Declaration magazine and bassist for The Caninos. After a set by his own band, Andrew Cedermark (a.k.a. C-VILLE’s Secret Weapon) took a seat behind the drums; Benson borrowed Cedermark’s Jazzmaster guitar and ran through a few scales to warm up, singing along with “O”s and “E”s.
“Move on forward,” Benson announced a moment later. He roped a set of bells around his hand. “The show’s going to be over in 30 minutes. It’s now or never.”
He counted off the first number, “Champagne Advertisement,” and began to sing—his tone incredibly crisp, propelling the other instruments into gear rather than hanging low in their midst. He stomped his corduroy-suited legs emphatically, varied the rhythm and melody of his choruses. Canino eked his fingers along single strings in tentative riffs; Cedermark bent a few chords out of shape. By the song’s end, the group seemed to nod its collective head. So, this is the way “Champagne Advertisement” sounds for us.
The nod ceased when Benson announced, “Thank you!” Band members glanced at the crowd, at the other band members, at DBB. “This song is called ‘Knight of the Garter.’ One, two, three, four…” Benson took off strumming confidently, his band powerless to do anything but jump in and keep up. At the song’s end, Canino looked into the audience and clearly mouthed to someone, “I don’t know.”
Benson didn’t yield complete control of his songs; he urged his bassist to step in and sing back-up, motioned for Cedermark to increase the volume or tempo (or both) of his drumming during “Saints with Ashes.” Nailgun Media blogger James Ford pointed out that the band seemed to play DBB’s final song, “Go Out on a High Note,” twice.
In fact, the nature of DBB Plays Cups makes Benson the de facto center of attention for his band. Rather than sponging it up, he pushes the attention back—attentively eyeballing the crowd while he uses his arms and legs to conduct his group. Benson may be local music’s most welcoming neighbor, but each set is also like meeting him again for the first time.
