Written by Jane Ponte

Aaron Lee Tasjan

I’ve been a fan of Aaron Lee Tasjan’s for several years now, and I honestly did not know what to expect when I found out he was finally coming to Houston. The former lead guitarist of the New York Dolls breezed into Houston on Friday afternoon, and after a free record store show at Cactus Music, Tasjan headed over to The Mucky Duck and entertained a nice-sized crowd for about an hour and a half, showcasing both newer and older material with his quirky, eclectic songs.

After a noteworthy set from Austin’s songstress extraordinaire, Bonnie Whitmore, Tasjan took the stage around ten o’clock and set the tone with “The Trouble with Drinking,” from his 2015 release, In the Blazes. I was particularly impressed with Tasjan’s guitar playing right off the bat. He is impeccable—every note is perfectly placed and executed succinctly. I’ve always been a fan of Tasjan’s dry humor and semi-sweet lyrics, but I had no idea he was such a masterful player. After doing a little digging, I found out that Tasjan was offered a full scholarship to the Berklee College of Music back in high school but opted instead to move to New York City after graduation, where he met several influential players, including Drivin’ N’Cryin’s Kevn Kinney. This meeting was fortuitous to Tasjan for several reasons; Kinney took him out on the road with him as an opener and guitar player in his band and helped him to realize that a musician is not required to be defined by one specific genre or sound. The latter is a mainstay of Tasjan’s music, which ranges from folk rock/singer-songwriter, to sometimes bluesy, sometimes Beatle-esque, with snippets of both glam and grunge rock and some psychedelic pop thrown in for good measure.

Friday night’s show at the Duck was interesting, to say the least. As I stated previously, I did not know what to expect, as this show was a solo-acoustic performance and I am accustomed to hearing Tasjan with a band. In the past, Tasjan was dubbed a fresh new talent on the Americana scene, thanks to his self-titled release in 2015. Even still, I wondered what a solo performance from this amazingly versatile artist would sound like; I was so used to hearing his albums, and lately I’ve been delving into his latest release, Karma For Cheap,(2018) which, with its stunningly trippy rock songs and splashes of glam rock, is a far cry from his singer-songwriter vibe. But I was not to be disappointed. Tasjan had the crowd in the palm of his hand from the very start and showcased numerous sides to his talent that made a believer out of me by the evening’s end.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

Switching from guitar to piano and back, Tasjan showcased many songs from his repertoire that quickly erased all doubt from my mind as to his prowess as a solo performer. Some of the highlights from the evening—at least for me, included “Refugee Blues,” “Little Movies,” “Ready to Die,” “Out of My Mind,” and “Memphis Rain,” all off of Tasjan’s 2016 release, Silver Tears. Tasjan also played “12 Bar Blues,” a catchy piano tune off the same album, which has always been one of my favorites. Tasjan is such a refreshingly funny and clever songwriter; every song takes the listener on a journey where they feel understood and appreciated, almost as if the song was written for each person listening individually—as strange as that may sound. And while his guitar playing is effortless and, well, simply perfect—his piano playing is flawless, and is often peppered with classically-trained nuances mixed with the liveliness one might hear in an old saloon back in the Wild West. An interesting and delightful mixture, indeed.

It is worth mentioning that Tasjan is also a very nice person. Several times during the performance he asked his listeners what they would like to hear, and then graciously obliged. He mentioned several times that it meant a lot to him that we were there, that we knew his songs, and that we had favorites. He told a few great stories, and even shared some background on one of my favorite tunes, “Lucinda’s Room” (In the Blazes, 2015). (For what it’s worth, I’ve always wanted to know the story behind that one, and it turns out that Tasjan once stayed at the Crystal Hotel in Portland, OR, in the Drunken Angel room, also known as the Lucinda Williams room. But I digress.)

Surprisingly, Tasjan only played a song or two off his new record, including “The Rest is Yet to Come,” a piano-rock tune with Beatle-esque overtones and a political message which was not lost on his audience–or at least not on me. He took us back to his earlier days with “Drugs and Junk Food,” (Crooked River Burning, 2014), and paid homage to one of his heroes, Tom Petty, with a quick segue into Petty’s “Breakdown” during “Ready to Die.” All in all, Tasjan took us on a cosmic roller coaster ride of great music and beautiful vibes, and combined it all with humor and sincerity, even quoting Mr. Rogers at the end of the evening by telling us that we were “good people” and that he loved us. After his stunning performance, I can only say that Aaron Lee Tasjan is a force to be reckoned with, a very good person, and that I love him, too. Catch him out there on the road somewhere and you too will be sold on this gifted and delightfully eccentric performer. I have a feeling that he won’t be playing smaller venues for long—see him now and thank me later.

~Jane Ponte