ZapTown

Bonnie Prince Billy
with White Magic
The Vogue
April 11th 7:30 p.m.

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Bonnie Prince Billy
Beware (Drag City)
Rating: 3 out of 5

To my recollection, it has been a long time since Will Oldham has been seen on stage in or around Indianapolis. But he returns this weekend to The Vogue to play songs from a life-long richness of material, including his new album Beware (Drag City).

The last time I remember Oldham was not under the name Bonnie “Prince” Billy, but as the band Palace Music. It was that incredibly hot and humid part of summer. Verizon Wireless Music Center was known as Deer Creek and Lollapalooza was known as the biggest traveling alternative music circus in the country.

We had just arrived sometime before Noon and the sun bearing down was enough to begin a perspiring Midwestern sweat as your feet crunched on parched earth. Echoes of Oldham’s desperate voice was heard from the Second Stage, an extremely early time frame to experience Palace Music’s sobering style. But intrigued by the haunting and rather depressingly beautiful songs I heard on the recordings, as well as his mysterious candor, we watched as others began filing around the grassy field.

As I studied his lack of movement, taking in everything Oldham had to give, I noticed a tall guy with long, dark hair standing next to me. His shirt unbuttoned and arms crossed, completely entranced in the music. I had to glance a few times to let it sink in that I was watching this performance right next to Nick Cave. When all I really wanted to do was yell “Oh my God it’s Nice Cave in the flesh!,” as he finally peered over, I muttered a simple “Hello” and “Nice to meet you,” followed by a handshake. We ended up talking mostly about Oldham and the music as I remember a wide-eyed Cave telling me how genuinely impressed he was at Oldham’s creativity and his craftmanship. And by the end of the performance, Cave, along with the rest of us, parted ways, me with a musical imprint that has lasted to this day. It’s an impression that was as prevalent as the black-and-white photo of Slint that he took in a Southern Indiana quarry. The photo that is immortalized on the Spiderland album.

Years later, not much has changed. Oldham’s creativity is still an impressive journey that has spanned a couple more Palace Music albums and ten solo releases since that Lollapalooza stop. He can weave a tale through lyric that richly defines the joys and darkness of the human existence, taking in everything from the drawl of a lazy afternoon on the porch with the dog to the wilted flowers of an ex-lover to sexual demeanor that is woven like an innocent tale of romance instead of a dirty pulp reader. This is your grandfather’s music, and Beware continues that tradition of struggle through the simple life and struggle in its bare bones existence as a human.

With Beware, there is nothing distinctly new or outstanding going on in Billy’s conscious. The highlight of this album is not so much Oldham’s work — although that alone sets the foundation for what he does — it’s the amazing laundry list of guest musicians ranging from Chicago’s Rob Mazurek of the Chicago Underground, Isotope 217, and Exploding Star Orchestra to Leroy Bach, who once played in Wilco, to Jon Langford of The Mekons, and many more who have stepped foot on this release.

With the touches of a backing choir on the opening track to various accentuations from different instruments and more-glossy-than-I-would-have-liked studio techniques, Oldham always works best when it’s stripped down and ruggedly dirty from the angels and devils that crouch down on his shoulders. Singing persistently “I want to be your only friend. Is that scary?” makes you wonder if he sometimes scares his own self as he recites his words. This is a man that is haunted by the toils of human’s dark secrets. It’s a man who has spent a lifetime trying to understand by taunting, accepting, and berating our emotional condition.

His views on sex and religion, mortality and natural law is simple on the surface, but explicitly complex as demonstrated on “Death Final,”  — “God bless us as we cross from green sides into darker. God love us as we lay in puddles of our own.”

It may not be my favorite of Bonnie “Prince” Billy releases — as I would rather revert back to Palace Brother’s Days In The Wake and Billy’s I See A Darkness — but Beware is still an album that provides enough unique satisfaction to enrich the appreciation of Oldham’s artistry and his dust-covered country confessions.