McCloskey’s offbeat

Music Row
By Brian Rademaekers

Don McCloskey has it.
The guy is clever, and he’s got a deft sense of what makes a good folk song — satire, humor and relevant commentary on the times. To top it off, he has an incredibly warm, but edgy, voice and a knack for emphatic intonation.
By all measures, the Bristol-born musician has everything it takes to be a stellar traditional singer-songwriter.
Yet McCloskey seems far from interested in pursuing that path. That was made evident at the release party for his sophomore CD — Northern Liberties — at Johnny Brenda’s during the spring, when enthralled fans watched as McCloskey hung from the balcony, swearing profanely through a bullhorn with a little hip hop call-and-response.
Of course, that particular song also was touched with some banjo-plucking as well. The performance typified the odd juxtapositions in his style, which blends folk, hip hop, and even a bit of blues and punk.
And while McCloskey is not traditional or typical, he is incredibly compelling and entertaining, writing songs that’ll make you laugh, think, and reconsider your musical horizons.
That ability to dance and sing his way through barriers has landed McCloskey in the midst of a two-decade old movement known as "anti-folk," and the local songwriter is one of the more promising members these days.
The anti-folk movement launched out of New York’s East Village in the 1980s, and over time has absorbed artists ranging from the Moldy Peaches to Beck, and most recently, Regina Spektor.
Defining a musical movement can be a tricky task, but anti-folk is a kind of subversion of traditional folk that tends to play on the genre’s hallmarks in dark and humorous ways. Still, thinking about it as "folk" can be misleading, especially in the case of McCloskey’s music.
In some instances, McCloskey will take a traditional folk song and infuse it with non-traditional subject matter (text messages and AOL buddy lists).
Sometimes he’ll offer something that would normally be the topic of a folk song, and deliver it in rapid-fire hip-hop form.
And then there are some songs that are straight folk songs, and beautiful ones at that.
One of his most popular tracks off of Northern Liberties is the rollicking This Just In.
With a Tombstone Blues backbeat and talking-blues lyricism, the sardonic and witty song provides a news flash of all that is amiss in America today:
Got hit by the flu
This year’s version - Paranoia 3.2
Went to the doctor
Said, "Doc do something quick."
He said, "My professional opinion is you’re too poor to get sick.
In just over three minutes, McCloskey takes the listener from a conversation with an Army recruiter to Hurricane Katrina and leaves them on a lunar landscape dotted with Halliburton-installed department stores.
Concise and cutting, the satirical number recalls Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton and Loudon Wainwright III. But it also is current and approachable — to the point that the mainstream classic-rock radio station WMMR saw it fit to work the number into their rotation.
The 12-track album is an eclectic mix, with other gems like My Focken Glockenspiel and Return of the Freak Emcee taking an entirely different, hip-hop rooted path.
Named in tribute to the three months that McCloskey spent living in the neighborhood, Northern Liberties also makes reference to Philly staples like Yuengling bottles that get tossed back and the Eagles.
The album also features contributions from Philly’s G-love and Medeski Martin and Wood session bassist Tom Spiker, who produced the album.
On Tuesday, McCloskey kicked off his first in a series of shows scheduled at The Fire, effectively bringing the songs back to the neighborhood where they were spawned.
In the coming weeks, the dynamic and daring McCloskey will be playing three more of his lively shows at the Fire, with the next one coming this Tuesday night. He will finish out his residency on Aug. 28. ••

The details . . .
Who: Don McCloskey
What: Relevant and irresistible folk songs, with a dash of hip hop.
Where: The Fire, 4th Street and Girard Avenue in Northern Liberties.
When: Aug. 14, 21 and 28 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $7.