by Brian Nac
I wrote my last review of a Bear Cub show in August of 2010 over at my other music blog.
Since then the band have pulled up stakes and set up camp in Nashville,
TN. While the band has played a handful of excellent and well attended
gigs in our fair city since then, Bear Cub has been, for all intent and
purposes, Nashville's adopted child, with Pittsburgh getting judge
ordered visitation rights.
But no matter; you can take the bear out of
the 3 rivers, but you can't take the 3 rivers out of the bear. One of
the strongest tracks on their latest LP, Good Morning, Every Morning
is a love note to the Burgh entitled "For Pittsburgh, With Love and
Squalor (Lets Go Out)" where singer Jesse Hall sings about finding
women, picking fights, and doing just about everything to "make damn
sure they remember us." during a night in Pittsburgh.
If I had my
druthers, this song would replace Wiz Khalifa's "Black and
Yellow" as the modern anthem for the steel city. Maybe they'll even name
the corner (mob) booth at Dees after the band.
Bear
Cub are an easy band to write about because they give bloggers and
music journalists plenty of cliff notes about their ever evolving story
line in the lyrics of almost every song. They are, if nothing else,
great storytellers and their best stories currently seem to be their
own. On opening track "I've Been around" Hall lays out what could be the
Bear Cub manifesto as he waxes on candidly about packing up his truck
to follow the dream. "I don't think that we'll be rich, but I know we
won't be bored" and "if you stay on one place you'll never grow".
Each
song is a mini epic is the styles Bob Dylan, John Prine, and more recently Conor Oberst. Bear Cub is able to intermingle Americana and Beatles based sing along pop in ways that would make the E Street Band
take notice. And their live shows are nothing to sneeze at either. On a
good night Bear Cub can bring down the house; on a great night they may
save your damned soul.
Good Morning, Every Morning will be officially released this Saturday, September 1st at an all ages show at The Rex Theater. New Shouts & Gypsy & His Band Of Ghosts
will support the show which is sure to include lots of foot stomping,
hand clapping, and general musical debauchery. Every ticket bought will
come with a copy of the new album. In the meantime listen to new and old
tracks HERE.