LIVE: Pete LaBonne @ River Street Beat Shop, 10/5/13
Story and video by Joel Patterson
The future belongs to songwriters. Ever look at it that way? A hundred years from now, I predict two things: the songs of Hank Williams will still be around, and so will a few of Pete LaBonne’s.
Despite all the attention Pete gets for his supremely spontaneous and ironic personality – which charges his performances with the scent of maximum subversiveness, almost criminal in its recklessness – his real claim to fame is the words-and-music part. He’s grafted the utterly innocent language of everyday speech onto the eternal, timeless rhythms of the American songbook. A “good” song – a great song! – is often the simplest phrase, hopping over a simple beat, and when a singer is roaring with confidence, swept up in the urgency and joy of it all… well, that’s a beautiful thing.
Plus, Pete’s always twisting things for entertainment value: pointing out absurdities and timeless truths in equal measure. Sometimes, these turn out to be the same things. So, I do think we got something lasting, here, but trying to picture October of 2113… I got to sit down, I’m getting dizzy.
ALSO SEE:
LIVE: Pete LaBonne @ Caffe Lena, 5/11/12
every visit here to Nippertown by our pal Pete LaBonne is a very unique experience ….no surprise considering the fact that the music of Pete LaBonne was first introduced to Nippertown by Chandler Travis , the self proclaimed ” KING of the World ” and if You know the music of Chandler Travis, You trust that if He tells you that he believes Pete LaBonne to be a songwriting genius- You know that You’re in for something very special at a Pete LaBonne Show ! Thanks to Jimmy Barrett we had just such a show here in Nippertown this past Saturday afternoon where Pete played outdoors on the sidewalk in front of the always interesting River Street Beat Shop Record Store …for those of us there , a small but enthusiastic group of listeners, a group that included Joel Patterson of Mountaintop Studios whom we thank for doing a fantastic job recording this live show , editing, uploading and sharing it here with Nippertown~ Fred Boak and Berke McKelvey both members of the Chandler Travis Three-O and Chandler Travis Philharmonic who drove the distance from Cape Cod MA to Troy NY and back Saturday in order to be there at the Beat Shop for Pete’s show because in their words “They
just couldn’t miss it !” and several other wonderfully familiar faces from the Nippertown Music Scene ….
We were all treated once again to that “genius” the genius song writing of Pete ..Pete…Pete..LaBonne ~