Let’s go let’s go!

Every time I’ve seen Howe Gelb solo or in the Giant Sand configuration, he’s had a CD walkman hooked up to the sound system, & he’s played little snippets of OPM (other people’s music) on & off throughout the show. To the point where it goes from charming to flow-disruptive & irritating, and then swings back to charming, and then back to irksome again, etc. Gelb’s demeanour adds extra pushes to the pendulum swings; he gets a kind of sly childlike smile on his face, like he knows he’s testing limits.

One night in Seattle, one of the snippets he was playing over & over was a woman screaming “Let’s go let’s go!” accompanied by a furious drum clatter. For some reason S & I both found this very striking. So much so that later, back home, S emailed, er, the Gelb organization (Team Gelb, let’s say), describing what we’d heard & asking for an ID. Someone kindly wrote back & told her that the artist in question was Scout Niblett. No song title given, though.

From what we’d heard & would continue to hear of Scout Niblett, this seemed off. We suspected there’d been a misunderstanding. But eventually we learned that you should trust Team Gelb.

• Scout Niblett, “Gymnastic (Fall Over)”

More in a day or so on Gelb’s Horseshoe gig in Toronto on Sunday.