The MPOH is excited to welcome Milwaukee-native \;Buffalo Nichols \;to the stage on Friday\, February 23\, 2024 at 7:30 PM. Doors will open at 6:30 PM. \;Friends of the MPOH \;will be able to purchase tickets starting July 10 and tickets will be available to the general public on July 24. Tickets for the first two rows and boxes are $25 ($30 on the day of the show) and the rest of the lower and upper levels are $20 ($25 on the day of the show) plus Eventbrite fees.
\n\nOn his second album\, The Fatalist\, Carl &ldquo\;Buffalo&rdquo\; Nichols does things with the blues that might catch you off guard. \;There&rsquo\;s 808 programming\, chopped-up Charley Patton samples\, and washes of synth. There&rsquo\;s a consideration of the \;fullness of the sonic stage and the atmospherics of the music that can only come with a long engagement with \;electronic music. But this is no gimmicky hybrid or attempt to turn the blues into 21st-century music by simply \;dressing it with skittering hi-hats. Nichols&rsquo\; vision for the blues is of a form of music that&rsquo\;s intimately tied to everyday \;life in 2023\, something that&rsquo\;s reflected not only in the choice of instrumentation but in the complexities of the \;songwriting and the gray areas his lyrics explore. This is music that comes straight from the present\, and as such\, it&rsquo\;s \;a reminder that the same shit that drove the first blues singers to pick up a guitar is still present behind the throbs of \;deep bass hits today. The Fatalist sounds unlike any blues record you&rsquo\;re likely to hear in 2023. \;
\n\nOf course\, Nichols&rsquo\; songwriting has always been firmly rooted in the present. He proved he could succeed on the \;music industry&rsquo\;s own blues terms on his self-titled 2021 debut\, whose songs\, Bandcamp Daily said\, &ldquo\;seem to flow \;from some great repository of emotion and insight.&rdquo\; The Fatalist finds him digging deeper in search of answers to \;ever-more-complicated questions around responsibility and self-definition\, his plainspoken lyrics both cutting and \;refreshing in their sincerity and refusal to accept pat solutions. Over a guitar line that blisters and pops with bright \;sunshine\, he holds forth on the simple everyday power of love in &ldquo\;Love is All\,&rdquo\; and when he shades his optimism with \;a clear-eyed view of &ldquo\;bad behavior in the canon of good men\,&rdquo\; as he sings\, his guitar line goes cloudy with the \;thought. He slowly walks around a broken relationship in &ldquo\;The Difference\,&rdquo\; trying to find the faults. It&rsquo\;s a decidedly \;modern breakup song\, one steeped in moral ambiguity. &ldquo\;I just don&rsquo\;t know the difference between love and sympathy\,&rdquo\; \;he sings\, before hoping his once-beloved &ldquo\;won&rsquo\;t forget the one who kept your ego fed.&rdquo\; \;
\n\nStill\, Nichols rarely sounds like a blues singer. Like Leonard Cohen\, he dominates these songs with his voice. His low\, \;guttural baritone is high in the mix\, and he sounds coiled\, clenched tight. The slow drip of his songwriting lends The \;Fatalist an incredible amount of drama\, which the production&mdash\;at times dark and dewy and claustrophobic\, at times \;zippy with light&mdash\;further emphasizes. \;
\n\nNichols produced the album himself at home\, having recently returned to Milwaukee following a few years in Austin. \;&ldquo\;Being back in Milwaukee reminded me of why I started making music in the first place. It got me away from the \;&lsquo\;industry-town&rsquo\; mentality\,&rdquo\; he says. &ldquo\;There&rsquo\;s definitely a certain work ethic that comes from being in a city like \;Milwaukee. There are no clear paths to success and not many examples of &lsquo\;making it\,&rsquo\; so people end up creating \;their own path and developing a broad skill set to sustain a career as an artist.&rdquo\; \;
\n\nThe album&rsquo\;s most ambitious song is Nichols&rsquo\; dusky take on Blind Willie Johnson&rsquo\;s &ldquo\;You&rsquo\;re Gonna Need Somebody \;On Your Bond.&rdquo\; As he sings of salvation and relief\, Nichols creates a soundscape that teems with the joyous \;claustrophobia of classic gospel. Triggers of Charley Patton&rsquo\;s version connect the earliest blues recordings to the \;present\, both singers&rsquo\; voices urgent in their message. &ldquo\;It&rsquo\;s important for contemporary musicians to play these old \;songs sometimes\,&rdquo\; Nichols says. &ldquo\;I always keep traditional songs in my set and on my records because I remember \;how important it was for me to hear somebody interpret a song in a way that made sense to me.&rdquo\;
\n\nThe stakes throughout this album are largely personal\, rather than social\; Nichols is singing about his life in the first \;person\, and about his desire to forge his own individuality in a world and a music industry that make it nearly \;impossible to do so. Ringing through &ldquo\;The Fatalist Blues&rdquo\;&mdash\;and The Fatalist&mdash\;is a simple question: Do I have any say \;in how things are going to go? It&rsquo\;s the question behind so much of the physical and psychic pain in the blues\, and in a \;frustrating age that preaches self-empowerment and shames the disenfranchised\, it&rsquo\;s a stridently modern question\, \;too. By playing his music the way he wants to play it\, by refusing to give up his creative control or accept anyone \;else&rsquo\;s definition of the blues or indeed his own life\, Carl Nichols has tried to forge an answer. Does he have any say \;in how things are going to go? Let&rsquo\;s find out.
\n LOCATION:Mineral Point Opera House 139 High St. Mineral Point\, WI 53565 UID:e.3395.98296 SEQUENCE:3 DTSTAMP:20260518T025501Z URL:https://www.mineralpoint.com/events/details/buffalo-nichols-98296 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR