2008 Woodie Awards
From the Recher Theater, Citizen Cope astounds
Joseph Johns
Issue date: 2/12/08 Section: Arts & Society
Headlining: Citizen Cope (a.k.a. Clarence Greenwood.)
"Something is great about this one."
The phrase buzzed around in my head, mixing with the endorphins that cracked and snapped about their different relays, telling me that I liked this music. This music is good. The beer in your hand is good.* You are loving this, aren't you? Aren't you?
Singer/Song Writer, Citizen Cope recently headlined in Towson's Recher Theatre, a large dimly lit room washed in blood red drapes. Two bars, bouncers at the door who think they're funny, an entrance covered in music posters: enough ambiance to make you dream of owning rooms filled with nothing but silk pillows and feathery boas. Brilliance -- all of it.
His music is simple to the point of being stripped down, as if bearing it all was the only way to get our attention. The Spartan band behind him was made up of a drummer, a bassist, two keyboardists, and Cope on guitar. A mix of hip-hop, folk, and blues his songs are mostly beats - mix bass drum, high hat, snare, clap track and repeat - buffed smooth by a haggard, road-weary voice. Uncommon chords for texture and keyboards for lift.
I was there in the middle of a crowd that hung on Mr. Cope's every word. You have probably been in a situation like this one before. If you have seen a favorite artist live, you know the procedure. Stand elbow to elbow with lovers in varied states of decay - high school to golden years - and you reach clumsily into your bag of lyrics, struggling to throw them out in time with everybody else. Nevertheless, you dance, sway back and forth and put your chin to your chest to feel that beat and buzz in your rib cage. Somebody screams, "You're melting my face!" Artist finishes up a song and you try to guess what's coming next. You are loving this, aren't you?
But even as I enjoyed myself like everyone else, the experience unsettled me. Cope is an intensely powerful lyricist. Without useless contemplation or pretension, you sense a plain type of grief laced in his words. A grief at once deeply personal, but one that managed to untether me from the scene, causing me to think about what I was listening to. His song topics range from a laundry list of tragedy in "Let the Drummer Kick That" to exploration of danger of American jingoism in "Bullet and a Target." One of my favorites, his song "Penitentiary" taps into fears for a culture growing more trapped by fear and war: "Well I'm waiting on a time when people walk free to see/From the penitentiary in our mind/When there's no need to bleed/For your father/Or your son."
"Something is great about this one."
The phrase buzzed around in my head, mixing with the endorphins that cracked and snapped about their different relays, telling me that I liked this music. This music is good. The beer in your hand is good.* You are loving this, aren't you? Aren't you?
Singer/Song Writer, Citizen Cope recently headlined in Towson's Recher Theatre, a large dimly lit room washed in blood red drapes. Two bars, bouncers at the door who think they're funny, an entrance covered in music posters: enough ambiance to make you dream of owning rooms filled with nothing but silk pillows and feathery boas. Brilliance -- all of it.
His music is simple to the point of being stripped down, as if bearing it all was the only way to get our attention. The Spartan band behind him was made up of a drummer, a bassist, two keyboardists, and Cope on guitar. A mix of hip-hop, folk, and blues his songs are mostly beats - mix bass drum, high hat, snare, clap track and repeat - buffed smooth by a haggard, road-weary voice. Uncommon chords for texture and keyboards for lift.
I was there in the middle of a crowd that hung on Mr. Cope's every word. You have probably been in a situation like this one before. If you have seen a favorite artist live, you know the procedure. Stand elbow to elbow with lovers in varied states of decay - high school to golden years - and you reach clumsily into your bag of lyrics, struggling to throw them out in time with everybody else. Nevertheless, you dance, sway back and forth and put your chin to your chest to feel that beat and buzz in your rib cage. Somebody screams, "You're melting my face!" Artist finishes up a song and you try to guess what's coming next. You are loving this, aren't you?
But even as I enjoyed myself like everyone else, the experience unsettled me. Cope is an intensely powerful lyricist. Without useless contemplation or pretension, you sense a plain type of grief laced in his words. A grief at once deeply personal, but one that managed to untether me from the scene, causing me to think about what I was listening to. His song topics range from a laundry list of tragedy in "Let the Drummer Kick That" to exploration of danger of American jingoism in "Bullet and a Target." One of my favorites, his song "Penitentiary" taps into fears for a culture growing more trapped by fear and war: "Well I'm waiting on a time when people walk free to see/From the penitentiary in our mind/When there's no need to bleed/For your father/Or your son."
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