Hot Act

+++++ Origionally intended for Speed Magazine which was destroyed in Katrina.+++++++

The Athens music scene can often seem to be strongly divided among differing tastes of genre. This of course refers not only to the type of music but also to the sense of fashion accompanying each style and the venues at which you might catch a show. Within five minutes at a given concert it is often all too easy to discern to which group the artist, and perhaps more acutely, the audience belongs. But here and again those of us who spend our time searching for undeniable and universalizable quality find just such a treat: a group or singular artist who defies categorization and in doing so bridges, rather than further divides, the gap between scenes. Recently, on an otherwise uneventful Tuesday evening, one such artist caught my ear and my soul; and enthralled a jaded Athens audience to the point at which they forgot who they were supposed to be, and if only for a fleeting moment, remembered who they all were.

Hailing originally from a small town in Northern California, Jeffery Holloway has since traveled around the country looking for a place to plant his musical and ideological roots. Jeff comes by way of Denver, then New York, through the Virginias, and with a small spell in Asheville, all the way down to our humble town. Having lived in the Athens area for almost three months now, Jeff is complementary of the local scene but stops short of calling it home –citing all too appropriate Bob Dylan lyrics.

Influence, considered by most to be an important issue, if only for pre-concert discussion, is a tricky issue when it comes to Holloway. His lyrical structure and two or three chord verse constructions lead the first time listener into unavoidable comparisons with the likes of the aforementioned poet laureate of rock, David Byrne, Jerry Garcia (acoustic), and other Golden Age Folk Bards. But to stop here is a common mistake. Holloway uses his apparently traditional instrumentation --solo acoustic guitar and occasional harmonica overlay—to create phrasing and sound structure previously unassociated with Folk, and perhaps previously unheard altogether. Breaking from the time-honored verse-chorus-solo dynamic and into uncharted waters, Jeff takes willing listeners on a musical and even metaphysical journey not able to be explained in lines, his own or mine. His arrhythmic and atonal “solos” force the listener to reevaluate all that they know, or rather think they know, about what music is. Combining fixed form folk and even rock structure with avant-garde neo-classical composition technique he aims to tear down the walls that we as fans construct around our music. But don’t let this verbose and overly critical examination of Holloway’s act dissuade you from coming out and making your own decisions, after all, the shows are free. And, if his creation is something that you would like to call your own, reasonably priced and professionally recorded CDs (via Lavender Road Records) are usually available at the show, the next of which will take place on September 1^st at the Caledonia Lounge, and if you cant wait that long Jeff can be seen appearing at numerous house parties in the coming month. Visit his Myspace page at www.myspace.com/thefoolonthahill for information and party locales.