David Dondero
w/Crooked Fingers, Azure Ray
Tues Dec 9, Crocodile, 9 pm, $10.
David Dondero is Jack Kerouac reincarnated as a scruffy indie-rock minstrel--never mind the fact that he was already four months old when the famously nomadic writer died of an alcohol-induced abdominal hemorrhage in October of '69.
As restless as he is homeless, the former Sunbrain frontman has spent the past many years moving from town to town in his beat-up truck, working odd jobs, hanging out in bars, and sleeping in the back of said truck, all the while writing, recording, and performing ragged, Townes Van Zandt-influenced blues-folk odes to his itinerant lifestyle with a voice full of Westerberg bite and Barlow ache.
Dondero's journey is driven by more than just a longing for adventure, freedom, and songwriting inspiration, however. The death of his girlfriend some years back set him on his current course, determined to find meaning in an existence that's far too short. And her ghost haunts much of his emotionally charged new offering, The Transient, especially in the slow-burning "Dance of Spring," where his voice quivers as he recounts his "lover laying in the ground" and all the liquor and cocaine needed to numb the pain.
Despite the harrowing edges, though, Dondero's songs frequently sport wry humor, guarded optimism, and rollicking instrumentation--enough to keep the album, and his show, from being a big, weepy self-pity party. Mostly, in celebrating his unique and ongoing quest, he echoes the words of Sal Paradise, the narrator of Kerouac's On the Road: "Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me."
