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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Popfest 2007, 40 Watt, 8/9/07

by Gordon Lamb
08/13/2007

More than anything else Ted Leo is a walking catalog of rock reference points which should be read as distinct from a catalog of rock clichés. Years ago I was a fan of Leo’s band Chisel but, in all honesty, had never given his solo work much of a chance. I’d heard Leo’s ill-advised cover of “Dirty Old Town." I’d read mountains of press on him. Still, never bought a record and never bothered to listen to the band. It was clear that having Leo play the Athens Popfest was a pretty big achievement for the organizers and, as a fan of things that are pretty big deals, I had a contact high.

First a note to Leo fans: I have absolutely no idea which songs he played. But I know what I heard. Leo, whose entire set was reminiscent of virtually every Jamaican-influenced rock record released in England or Ireland between 1975 and 1985, sticks his neck out. That is, his songs are filled with obvious rock touchstones that, in the hands of a lesser performer, would reek of personality crisis and unoriginality. Leo, however, even while not infusing the tunes themselves with total distinction, is a true believer. And that’s just infectious.

His music, if it is indeed about anything at all, is about connecting. Leo’s excited and furious use of familiar rock-n-roll riffs, structures and patterns, not to mention a particularly strong voice, makes him a messenger who is so thrilled that he’s giving you this particular information that, eventually, you realize he’s no longer aware that what he’s saying has been said before. You have no choice but to assume that he has absorbed it all somewhere else and cannot possibly bring something new to the conversation.

You’d be wrong, of course, because that’s hardly his point. Any tired hack can plow through Thin Lizzy riffs and Brian Eno verse structures; Leo isn’t trying to convince you that he’s an original. He’s not trying to convince you of anything. He is trying to connect.

It’s easy to see through fraudulent sing-songs of faux-community (eg: “We Are The World”, et al.) but much harder to see through one's own cynicism when faced with a prospect like Leo. If, like me, you consider Rock and Roll a language of its own, then men like Leo should be embraced. He, too, has learned this language and rather than throw it back in our faces or twist it to disfigurement, he finds his communion by speaking it plainly, openly and joyously.

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