JACK LOGAN
Jack Logan had recorded some 600 songs with his drinking buddies in a suburban Atlanta garage before R.E.M.’s Peter Buck recommended him to the Minneapolis label Medium Cool, which released nearly 80 of his tunes on a pair of albums in 1994 and 1996. Logan and his songwriting partner Kelly Keneipp added pop hooks, country twang, and bluesy immediacy to rough-hewn rock of surprising emotional depth, but by the second album, Mood Elevator (the slower, less satisfying of the two), what kept me interested was mostly Logan’s unself-conscious honesty. On his new album, Little Private Angel (Parasol), he gets a musical shot in the arm from Champaign jangle-pop icon Bob Kimbell, longtime leader of Weird Summer. Kimbell wrote all the tunes here, and while his own material is so light it sometimes threatens to dissolve like cotton candy, here it’s given proper heft by Logan’s mournful lyrics and somber croon. Likewise Logan on his own can get awfully lugubrious, but Kimbell’s breathy, Alex Chilton-like backing vocals let a little light in. Logan usually plays with Keneipp in their band Liquor Cabinet, but for this show he’ll be backed only by Kimbell on guitar and bass and Kevin Lane on guitar. Saturday, 10:30 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport; 773-525-2508. PETER MARGASAK
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo by Len Hoffman.