Smog in Prague
Prague ? Indie rockers are the same the world over. Here at Prague's Barácnická rychta, nerdy Czech guys lean against the wall, and there are more than a couple pair of thick black glasses. Ratty band t-shirts on expats, thrift-store shirts abound. It's a nice crowd, about half Czech and half import, very relaxed, very friendly, all eager to see Bill Callahan, aka Smog, on a Friday night. In a town where electronica dominates the music scene?Dorfmeister was spinning across town at Radost, though I doubt there was much cannibalization of the other's potential audience?Callahan's low-key singer-songwriter thing promised to be quite refreshing.
Barácnická rychta is a beer hall located along a winding cobblestone road in the area known as Malá Strana, up the hill from the American embassy where there's a 24-hour police presence and they continue to check every car for bombs. The bar on the main floor is actually a guy, a folding table and a refrigerator: strictly wine and liquor. Inside the main room, which is about half the size of Bowery Ballroom, two men walk about selling half-liters of beer. They enter with four grasped in each hand and return to the upstairs bar empty-handed, then start over. All night long. God bless the Europeans and their bottomless ingenuity in delivering alcohol to thirsty patrons.
At 8:45, a woman named Raduza entered to some applause and started wailing in Czech while accompanying herself on the accordion. "Traditional Czech music?" I asked a friend, a longtime resident and one of the aforementioned imports in a threadbare Flaming Lips t-shirt. He says that she sounds more Balkan than Czech, maybe with a touch of klezmer. Another friend tells me that his girlfriend is blown away by the lyrics and plans to buy a CD after the show. She was quite powerful, if a bit unexpected and incongruous with what I was expecting in Callahan.
The cover charge was a bit steep at 350 kc (about $10). This is a city where one of those half-liters costs 54 cents and a one-bedroom apartment is pricey at $300 a month. Charging $10 for a singer-songwriter borders on criminal, and some of the locals were clearly displeased. "When you live on Czech wages," one friend said to me, "350 crown is a lot of money." Tell me about it, I told her. I am living on Czech wages. We agreed that Callahan had better play his ass off, but with a rumored 10:30 curfew, we were worried that Raduza had eaten up most of the clock.
Callahan took the stage at 9:30 with his guitar and a glass of red wine, and started right in. Beautiful, simple songs. Simple lyrics. He uses the same thousand words we all use, all day long, he's just put them together the right way. He's an unusually poetic lyricist, not fruity poetry, but sparse, powerful poetry. Carried by Callahan, whose voice inevitably recalls Leonard Cohen and even the timbre (if not depth) of James Earl Jones, these simple combinations of words hit you hard, make you remember that lost love, or maybe that friend who disappeared from your life years ago.
When he twangs, his face twists in a Tourette's-like manner, his mouth squeezing out the syllables almost in protest, which seems appropriate to his lyrics. "I painted myself into a corner again because I didn't like the color of my floors after you walked all over them." Stuff like that. Not terribly cheerful, but if anyone in the room wanted cheer, they should've eaten a pill and gone to Dorfmeister.
In spite of the rumored curfew, Callahan remained onstage well past 11:30, a lapse the communists never would've tolerated. Then again, if the communists were still around, my only music option would've been Raduza and her accordion. I don't know what Callahan's tour plans are, but if he swings back through town, I'll gladly hand him another 350 crown. I'll just be prepared with a few 20-crown coins in my pocket so I can buy some drinks without needing to run to the ATM in a desperate, thirsty panic.