A Lap Steel Slides in Brooklynby Daniel Michael Alleva

Megan Hickey’s The Last Town Chorus is a collection of Brooklyn musicians, lead by Ms. Hickey, the Pittsburgh native, and her elegant lap steel guitar. But before you let the image of a female-fronted Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals creep into your mind, give a spin of TLTC’s Hacktone Records-debut, Wire Waltz. Instead of playing the instrument in a traditional blues sense, Ms. Hickey and company create a spacious and accentual environment to compliment the storyteller, much like Nick McCabe did for Richard Ashcroft in The Verve, and much like Angelo Badalamenti did for so many films of David Lynch, all the result of a unique relationship between a girl and her guitar.

Ms. Hickey, who grew up listening to 80’s new wave and pop country, says that the pairing of these two dynamic elements (Megan’s wide open voice rings out for city blocks, like Hope Sandoval meets Beth Orton, circa-Trailer Park) is the central unity within The Last Town Chorus. Trained in other instruments, Ms. Hickey feels strongly that her true motivation as a songwriter comes simply from the doors the instrument opens. One listen to the jangly “Caroline” from Wire Waltz, and it’s easy to see why. The lap-steel is what pushes songs like “Understanding” into becoming sonic flights through the sky. The song could easily play it safe as a simple ballad, but add the longing howl of a lap-steel – there just to make Wire Waltz that much more as an album – and The Last Town Chorus gives a brand new outlook on roots music.

While Wire Waltz was written, produced, and engineered by Megan herself, this summer she has had the chance to take The Last Town Chorus out on the road, and play with another truly great songwriter, Hacktone label-mate, Mark Olson. Recently, the two performed together at The World Café; a stream was available online courtesy of NPR. Ms. Hickey has also brought her traveling circus through New York twice this summer, first at a free in-store performance at the Border’s in Columbus Circle, and as part of the River to River festival. The Last Town Chorus returns to New York once more, back on the road again with Olson, on August 30t at The Bowery Ballroom.

Mark Olson's Salvation by Daniel Michael Alleva

After the last of four performances by Mark Olson at Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction, the talented singer/songwriter shares a table in the back of the Lower East Side haunt with Michele Gazich, an Italian pianist and violinist who plays in Olson’s band, and another gentleman who was once an aide to John Kerry during his 2004 presidential campaign. “You know why I like him?” proclaims Olson, speaking about a potential candidate in the 2008 election. “He seems like a guy you could call up on an afternoon and do nothing with.” The comment sounds strange coming from a man who professes to like keeping busy. “And he tells the truth.” That sounds more like Olson.

As fast as the two weeks he has been in New York seem to have passed by, so do the topics of conversation. “I’m going to tell you something right now that you would never know: the Italians love Desire.” Gazich’s eyes light up at the mere mention of the 1976 Dylan release. “There’s something real macho about that album that the Italians really love.” Holding court, Olson goes on. “You know…they really study our music. To us it’s just a dirty old record, but to them, it’s something much more. There are music fans everywhere, but I was taken aback at just the depth of the knowledge they had.” Olson’s connection to the European community has been long standing. His latest release, The Salvation Blues (Hacktone Records), was written throughout parts of Poland, Norway, and Wales. But throughout the early nineties, Olson found great success in Europe - and to a lesser extent, America - as co-founder with Gary Louris in the roots rock outfit, The Jayhawks.

Together, Olson and Louris were the Lewis & Clark of alt-country, the starting point for contemporary roots rock in America. The bands that would emerge after them can trace their success back to the path that The Jayhawks blazed once forming in 1985. Olson, then interested in folk music like Woody Guthrie, met Marc Perlman in a rehearsal studio in Minneapolis. He would then go on to meet Louris, who he had seen singing and playing around town. The trio found a common bond in the desire to electrify folk music, and soon began rehearsing regularly with a local drummer. “We played really loud. It certainly didn’t sound like folk music.” Minneapolis provided enough inspiration in the sense that there was already a scene, but as Olson recalls, “we certainly weren’t the most popular band in Minneapolis. I think that because we weren’t so popular, we were able to just keep writing. We had other interests, anyway.” The Jayhawks played blues and rock clubs for two years, while Olson and Louris began crafting the signature harmonies that Olson now refers to as “The Univoice”. Very few singers in rock music can kill a harmony. No doubt Crosby and Nash come to mind. Olson and Louris are those types of singers. The caliber to which their voices blend is remarkable.

The Jayhawks were already several national tours deep, with a pair of indie releases to their name, by the time Blue Earth reached the ears of George Drakoulias, then doing A&R for Def American. The band was quickly signed, and the result was the eloquent Hollywood Town Hall album. On the legs of MTV’s rotation of the “Waiting for the Sun” video, The Jayhawks quickly found a wider fan-base, and support gigs in America opening for the likes of The Black Crowes and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers soon followed. But by 1995, Olson started to feel differently about his responsibility to The Jayhawks. “I had just gotten married and bought a house, and I can’t really explain it, but suddenly there was just this switch in me.” He would soon come to find that the system in which major-label rock bands operated would not lend itself to his concepts about playing music. “In The Jayhawks, I would be responsible to write about 5 songs every three years. Then I would show up to play acoustic guitar in a rock band. I needed more of a challenge, I guess.” By Halloween of that year, Mark Olson would quit The Jayhawks.

Being married to Victoria Williams would prove to be all the inspiration Olson would need, as the pair began to record and perform in the loose organization known as The Creekdippers. Free to create at his own pace, Olson developed a do-it-yourself approach to the music. He took on the responsibility of engineer during Creekdipper recording sessions. He acted as tour manager, and until the demand became too much for one person to handle, he fulfilled mail-orders for Creekdipper records. Over time, however, Olson’s relationship with Williams would deteriorate. “I basically came home one day from touring Europe, and my life had totally fallen apart.” While he’s not specific on the details, Olson takes responsibility for the breakdown, and in 2005, he and Williams divorced. “At the time,” Olson admits, “music really wasn’t on my mind at all.” But an invite from a couple in Wales would soon turn Olson around.

Olson first met Charlotte Grieg, a writer and musician, and John Willams, a writer, while on tour in Europe. “They would get up at six o’clock in the morning and they would just write all day. They were putting me to shame, and they basically inspired me to get up and do something.” The subsequent writing sessions would produce The Salvation Blues - a poignant collection of introspective narratives that provokes strong vision through song. “My songs usually have some moral situation within them, and then I’m either going to resolve it or not. I used to read a lot of the Irish writer Frank O’Connor, and I learned a lot about how to write short stories through him. I focus a lot on spirituality, and the turning of corners in life, because I do believe there is some overall plan, it’s not all just rage and madness.”

Mark Olson’s travels have taken him to far and away places, and after twenty years of creating, the idea of mentioning to him how much he has inspired current trends in music seems futile. “One of the things I love about the music industry is that there’s a process, and it has a flow to it.” Once recording wrapped up on The Salvation Blues, Olson’s consistent motions found him back in the studio once again, this time with Louris, as the pair recorded an album together with Chris Robinson of The Black Crowes serving as producer. Set for release sometime in 2008, Olson says that the album is “very folksy. It focuses a lot on our voices, and half the record is just me and Gary, while the other half is with a full band.” As far as his past is concerned, there is no time wasted by moving in reverse. “I feel that my relationships with Gary and Victoria are still very good, I just don’t have to rely on them all the time to make music. It took me twenty years to figure that out, but it’s either go at it once again, or do something different. I’m going at it again.”

Originally featured in the June 13th issue of The Aquarian Weekly.