Stephen’s Hair: “It’s Not Fair, but Fairness is Overrated” — review of Louden Swain’s StageIt
“It’s 9 o’clock on a Saturday, regular crowd shuffles in…” Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Wrong song, wrong time, wrong place.
It’s 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon in mid-western USA, an international crowd has logged onto their computers, phones, and mobile devices to celebrate the world premiere of Louden Swain’s latest song. Honestly though, we don’t care so much about the new track. We care about these four crazy guys and how their music makes us feel. We care about them caring enough about their fans to offer an affordable, online alternative to live music because it keeps us safe. (Oh yes, StageIt is very much “live music.” I asked the fans in the chatroom the equivalent of “Is it live or is it Memorex?”)
If you’re not familiar with Louden Swain, they’ve been around for awhile, slowly but surely building a following. Here’s some background on lead singer Rob Benedict. (Some of his fans still call him Chuck.)
Testing the streaming connection, LS opened with “Bandaged Hand” off of the Sky Alive album. It was a bit dingy and clouded with static, but still set a rollicking tone for the next 30-odd minutes. Turning off the air conditioning fan cured the interference. Ah, now we have much happier fans!
The lyrics from the next song, “You know you can do better than that/ Better’s what you got,” were probably not intended to put too fine a point on the technical difficulties. Still, the opening track from their album A Brand New Hurt was a perfect fit. Musical serendipity.
The set continued with one of the new 2021 releases, “Basement of No Hope.” I call this one Dean Winchester’s theme song precisely due to the “rock, paper, scissors” chorus. But, according to the band’s own words, this bop was born out of a competition to see which of them got their pick of rooms during their 2018 tour.
Crowd participation was absolutely required for “Letter” and the chat scrolled by at a dizzying rate. At “We all screamed for more” a rash of “MORE!” responses flooded the chat; our collective “emotions been doin’ backflips.” Rob, Billy, Stephen, and Michael really tell a story here and when Rob mentioned that one of their greatest musical influences was The Cars, I just nodded sagely to myself. Ric Ocasek would be proud.
Going back to their 80’s musical roots, the group mashed up Modern English’s “I Melt with You” with “Come Back Kid.” Billy Moran picked up a beautiful acoustic guitar meant to be given away to a lucky fan at the end of the StageIt and proceeded to render the Fender “gently used.”
After “tarnishing” a brand new guitar, debuting their new song — a world premier written by Billy Moran and Rob Benedict — was almost anticlimactic. “Let the Music Play” catches you up with its high energy. You don’t know how much fun you’re in for until this most memorable lyric: “wanna suck you like a mint!” Let me tell you, the audience went berserk because alcohol-tinged ears on a Friday heard alternative words and just…there’s no keeping up with the scrolling heart and clapping hands emojis and the “wtf’s.”
“So what’s the deal with Stephen’s hair,” you ask. It’s all a bit muddled, but from what I recall, there was a reference to Chewie in the chat (or maybe one of the band said it), and I ended up explaining to another fan that the reference was to Chewbacca of Star Wars fame and that Stephen’s hair had similar coloring to a wookie. Maybe it was just my monitor.
Louden Swain fans definitely got their money’s worth from this session. Rob’s heartfelt “She Waits” pulled hundreds of candlelight emojis and probably a few hundred tears as well. We didn’t get “Fare Thee Well”, but we did get an off-the-cuff “untitled” ditty listing where all the fans were located. The closing improvised medley of “Angela”, “Alright”, “Prom”, and “Leg Up” kept going long after we were all due to sign off.
One word to describe Louden Swain? Eclectic. Louden Swain on StageIt? Worth every credit you can afford.
Here’s the set list in full: Bandaged Hand, Better, Basement of No Hope, The Company, Letter, Comeback Kid, Let the Music Play, She Waits, Mrs. Vance, Silverspoon, Medley of 4 songs (Angela, Alright, Prom, and Leg Up).
