30
Sep
2003
Keller Williams is a unique artist, a multi-instrumentalist whose body can produce sounds reminiscent of Bobby McFerrin, a guitar virtuoso, a performer who can create a wall of sound on stage even though he's all by himself. He's got jam-band credibility but doesn't have anybody around with whom to jam.
And the key can be found in a toe. "There's an enormous 'Oh shit' factor when I'm on stage," said Williams, who will be playing at the Iowa Memorial Union on Tuesday. Williams performs alone, using digital filters and a loop generator to build his playing into what sounds like a full band. He'll play something on-stage - a vocal sound, a guitar line, bass, or percussion - and loop it, then play something else and loop that. He creates layers upon layers in front of the audience, using small buttons on the floor. If his timing's off, or he misses the button, it could all go to hell. "I have to have pinpoint accuracy with my big toe," he said.
Of course, that means there are mistakes - "at least once a show," Williams said. Sometimes, he'll try to correct his error without anybody noticing. Other times, he just goes with them. "Sometimes, mistakes turn into what's called jazz," he joked in an interview this week.
In a reversal of the way most musicians work, Williams records with other people in the studio but likes having the stage to himself. "I guess I prefer the solo thing due to the freedom," Williams said. He generally doesn't go into a show with a set list, and he improvises a lot. Many times, he'll finish one song without knowing what he's going to do next. That's harder to do with other musicians on stage.
The one-man-band approach sounds like a gimmick, but Williams is an accomplished musician. His guitar style has been regularly compared to that of Leo Kottke and Michael Hedges, but his virtuosity on that instrument is just the tip of Williams' talent. He's a warm and rich if casual singer, and his mouth can strikingly mimic the sounds of various brass instruments.
And that's not all. He's learning a MIDI vibraphone - "It's kind of like playing a large piano with mallets" - and is working on his slide guitar and drum kit. Normally, when Williams is touring and traveling by plane, he can only take so much of his gear with him. But his current tour involves driving, and "we have a full stage of my toys."
His music is uniformly playful and light, but even the folkiest of tunes might break into a funk workout without notice. (He's called his style "solo acoustic jam funk reggae techno grass.") His new album, Home, was released in August and is his first record on which he plays all the instruments. The album is split between instrumentals and tracks with vocals, and it moves nomadically from style to style.
"It wasn't necessarily better or worse," Williams said of the recording process for Home. He had no other musicians to play off, and the quality of the musicianship might suffer. "It would have been very different with some hotshot rhythm section," he said. Still, in his eight-album catalog, he considers Home the most representative of his style of music.
On a previous record, 1999's Breathe, he was backed by his friends from The String Cheese Incident. (He records for the band's SCI Fidelity Records.) To give you some sense of his tastes, Williams recorded the typically omnivorous Laugh, and earlier this year he re-mixed it into the house album Dance.
Williams is probably incapable of a great record. Although he's tremendously gifted musician, his composition skills are primarily improvisational, and his refusal to diverge from the whimsical means the tunes and lyrics feel too light, lacking substance.
But Williams says that the only way to truly experience him is to see him live, where he's comfortable walking the high wire, nearly falling but always recovering gracefully.
Keller Williams will be performing at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 7, at the Iowa Memorial Union in Iowa City. Tickets are $18 advance, and $20 the day of the show. Tickets are available by calling (563)326-1111 or visiting (http://www.ticketmaster.com). For more information on Williams, visit (http://www.kellerwilliams.net).
And the key can be found in a toe. "There's an enormous 'Oh shit' factor when I'm on stage," said Williams, who will be playing at the Iowa Memorial Union on Tuesday. Williams performs alone, using digital filters and a loop generator to build his playing into what sounds like a full band. He'll play something on-stage - a vocal sound, a guitar line, bass, or percussion - and loop it, then play something else and loop that. He creates layers upon layers in front of the audience, using small buttons on the floor. If his timing's off, or he misses the button, it could all go to hell. "I have to have pinpoint accuracy with my big toe," he said.
Of course, that means there are mistakes - "at least once a show," Williams said. Sometimes, he'll try to correct his error without anybody noticing. Other times, he just goes with them. "Sometimes, mistakes turn into what's called jazz," he joked in an interview this week.
In a reversal of the way most musicians work, Williams records with other people in the studio but likes having the stage to himself. "I guess I prefer the solo thing due to the freedom," Williams said. He generally doesn't go into a show with a set list, and he improvises a lot. Many times, he'll finish one song without knowing what he's going to do next. That's harder to do with other musicians on stage.
The one-man-band approach sounds like a gimmick, but Williams is an accomplished musician. His guitar style has been regularly compared to that of Leo Kottke and Michael Hedges, but his virtuosity on that instrument is just the tip of Williams' talent. He's a warm and rich if casual singer, and his mouth can strikingly mimic the sounds of various brass instruments.
And that's not all. He's learning a MIDI vibraphone - "It's kind of like playing a large piano with mallets" - and is working on his slide guitar and drum kit. Normally, when Williams is touring and traveling by plane, he can only take so much of his gear with him. But his current tour involves driving, and "we have a full stage of my toys."
His music is uniformly playful and light, but even the folkiest of tunes might break into a funk workout without notice. (He's called his style "solo acoustic jam funk reggae techno grass.") His new album, Home, was released in August and is his first record on which he plays all the instruments. The album is split between instrumentals and tracks with vocals, and it moves nomadically from style to style.
"It wasn't necessarily better or worse," Williams said of the recording process for Home. He had no other musicians to play off, and the quality of the musicianship might suffer. "It would have been very different with some hotshot rhythm section," he said. Still, in his eight-album catalog, he considers Home the most representative of his style of music.
On a previous record, 1999's Breathe, he was backed by his friends from The String Cheese Incident. (He records for the band's SCI Fidelity Records.) To give you some sense of his tastes, Williams recorded the typically omnivorous Laugh, and earlier this year he re-mixed it into the house album Dance.
Williams is probably incapable of a great record. Although he's tremendously gifted musician, his composition skills are primarily improvisational, and his refusal to diverge from the whimsical means the tunes and lyrics feel too light, lacking substance.
But Williams says that the only way to truly experience him is to see him live, where he's comfortable walking the high wire, nearly falling but always recovering gracefully.
Keller Williams will be performing at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 7, at the Iowa Memorial Union in Iowa City. Tickets are $18 advance, and $20 the day of the show. Tickets are available by calling (563)326-1111 or visiting (http://www.ticketmaster.com). For more information on Williams, visit (http://www.kellerwilliams.net).
