Concert Review: A Hawk And A Hacksaw and Daniel Martin Moore
@ Mercury Lounge, January 10th, 2009

A Hawk And A Hacksaw – The Water Under The Moon

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

If forced to choose between live performances by Beirut or A Hawk And A Hacksaw I’d choose the latter almost every time. A Hawk And A Hacksaw are scores away from being the better band, but their songs are downright cinematic, at least on record, resulting in an infinitely more fascinating, albeit less intoxicating, listening experience than Beirut-frontman Zach Condon’s dulcet tones.

It’s unclassifiable, this attraction, but something about A Hawk And A Hacksaw’s songs consistently succeeds in transporting one someplace extraordinary. A year or so ago, and inspired by this very track, I wrote the following story about miners attempting to dig their way from one end of the moon to the other for now-defunct Stylus Magazine:

We’ve been digging three days now. We’re halfway through. We mustn’t look back. The moon is ours and we shan’t be deterred or forgo our ambitions.
We stood at its peak. We heaved and towed, knowing the shortest distance between two points a straight line, and we will prevail. We must.

Time is no concern. We have time. Time. Oxygen. Dried, strawberry ice pops to remind us of home.

We are diggers. Tunnelers of rock and withered things of blank identity. Our skins are space suits. We bounce between breakthroughs in tin-can gravity. Up down, up down, and oh, it is the moon, we know. It is the Earth, we know. We have dreamt of this moment, we quartet of space cadets, and little else. We push forward and downward. It is our lot in life to dig and we will prevail upon this plot of Godforsaken.

Miners and men, our goal is simple. Our paths lead to one.

Down.

We are carving our way through the moon, top to bottom, until it is halves. Earth refused, turning its back and branding us Banished. So we left. But now here we are, on a moon soon to be two under limbs 16 strong.

The task is daunting, the odds unfavorable, but our dream is true and our bellies full of the sweet and sicklies of home life. We will make our way. We will fashion a path. And at the moment of truth we shall leap. We will fall through the moon, top to bottom, and into oblivion, into the deep black before the deep blue that is Earth and fate.

There is water under the moon, we know. An Earth, big and bright. And we will return to it in glory befitting olden kings and men with dispositions such as ours.

Helmets off. Faces pared. Eyes closed in triumph.

Imagine my surprise when A Hawk And A Hacksaw’s set began with the duo digging through audience members, instruments in hand/on chest, before settling on a spot upon which to croon a tale involving poisoned hunters and gleeful deer.

Then things got schizophrenic. How schizophrenic?

A Hawk And A Hacksaw – The Sparrow

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This schizophrenic. I wager A Hawk And A Hacksaw played more notes in one song than the other three bands managed to produce all night, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but more of an inevitability, really, at least when accordions are involved. Nevertheless, the band’s overall performance was nothing short of breathtaking.

Daniel Martin Moore – It’s You

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Speaking of breathtaking, allow me to introduce Daniel Martin Moore.

If god lives anywhere, I swear, it’s somewhere in this man’s throat.

Moore opened to a meager audience consisting of Brooklyn Vegan freelance photographer Natasha Ryan and yours truly, which is a shame since his songs were by far the evening’s best. For the most part, people sat upon the benches lining either wall discussing upcoming acts while I stood front and center admiring how even Moore’s unintentional, guitar-induced feedback licked at my face like a puppy dog.

Daniel Martin Moore – By Dream

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

“By Dream” remained one of the few tracks where Moore shed his guitar and focused on singing. Eyes closed he whispered the verse’s opening lines.“I will go by dream to you if you cannot come to me/Beneath the pines I’ll sing to you if you cannot come to me.” His lips pursed and parted mere centimeters before the microphone, eyebrows instinctively cresting as occasion warranted. However, Moore imparted more about himself by the slow, simple manner in which his right hand stroked the thumb of his left. It had a history, that stroke; in all likelihood, it probably had a name, too.

I could give you a list of similar artists — a Jack Johnson for people whose ears aren’t stupid, a Bonnie Prince Billy for those whose hearts are; like a less sultry, male Madeleine Peyroux; a musician for people who enjoy watching Andrew Bird’s face when he sings, or for any fans of The Real Tuesday Weld — but I’ll say again, if god lives anywhere, I swear, it’s somewhere in this man’s throat. Keep an eye on him.

Stay tuned for part 2 — Haley Bonar and the Great Lake Swimmers.

Happy inauguration day!

[Buy A Hawk And A Hacksaw, Daniel Martin Moore]