DIXIE STAR AT SLIMS
Slims, located on 11th street in San Francisco's SOMA district is one of my favorite places for live music in The City. It is a venue that gives its stage over to local acts as well as well known touring headliners. With its big stage, lighting rig, and fantastic sound system, even a band lacking in talent would be hard pressed to have a bad night. In San Francisco's rapidly shrinking availability of venues that provide live entertainment, Slims is a shining star of how it should be done.
I walked in on Tuesday evening to catch the last half of a set by a band called Oxygen. As I stood sipping my pint of Red Hook, I was perplexed that with so many good bands vying for a chance to play the better rooms, I was stuck listening to this group. As a musician, I have toured and done my fair share of recording, and I feel that I would know when to get on stage and when to maybe practice a little more. I felt that this group was proving to be the exception to my Slims theory about how a great club can improve any groups level of performance ability.
This was not the case for the next band, Dixie Star, whom I ventured out of my comfy apartment on a Tuesday night to see. If there is an opposite to the group that gets on stage before they are ready, it's Dixie Star. Lead singer and guitarist Bill Rousseau seems like the kind of musician who probably spent a formidable amount of his younger years hunched over a guitar, practicing, and getting it right. Whipping out guitar licks that seem to combine 70's style riffing with the bluesy styling of Stevie Ray Vaughn, they opened the show with the barn burner "Just Like You", from their self-released CD debut "Marathon", switching from big swirling chords to a riff-laden interlude, all the while Rousseau was singing! And not just singing, but singing in key! Man, I don't know how long it's been since I saw a guy on stage that wasn't butchering his own material with his inability to hit a note in key. And if that wasn't enough, bassist Pascal Garneau would step up to his microphone to lend vocal support. I've always said that a good song can always be better with harmonies, and not harmonies that are yelled out, but where the back up singer actually sings a third or fourth note above where the lead singer is singing. Dixie Star understand this and have it down.
As their set continued, they gave off a cool, casual vibe, letting us know that they do have CDs for sale but to talk to them after the set because "Hey, we're just too lazy to set up a table." Yeah baby, I'm with you on the whole lazy thing.
Garneau even took a lead vocal turn three songs in with a rendition of "Blue Bird", also from their debut CD "Marathon". This allowed Rousseau to kick back and play guitar. With drummer Nate Buster backing these two up, Dixie Star creates a big sound that bands with five guys wish they could duplicate. Dixie Star sounds big without having to crank up distortion peddles and amps to ear splitting levels.
If I had any complaints, and I'm pretty good at complaining (just ask my ex-girlfriend), it's when they band brought it down for a soothing ballad. Nicely played, but it was as if the wind got sucked out of their sails. They promptly brought it back up with the opening song from their CD "#1 Lush", followed by another barnstorming twelve bar number that let Rousseau smoke all over that damn guitar neck.
Thirty minutes after taking the stage the group said thanks and off they went leaving the crowd wanting more, they way it's supposed to be.
Go buy their CD "Marathon", go check 'em out live. Me? I'm going home to practice a little more.
You can see Dixie Star Friday and Saturday, August 6th-7th at Nadine's Wild Weekend. Or Friday, August 27th at Paradise Lounge with Blue Sky Roadster.
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