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Bartees Strange: Tiny Desk Concert

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Published
Lars Gotrich | February 18, 2025
Density is built into the music of Bartees Strange — he packs his tracks with lyrical insight and sonic gestures that, upon closer listen, reveal interwoven layers of story and sound. But the dude’s also an incredibly thoughtful and powerful live performer. At the Tiny Desk, he’s got the range, with crunching rock riffs, spitting bars and bringing us to the brink of tears.

Every song in this set comes from Horror, his third in a series of genre-agnostic albums that increasingly just sound like Bartees Stranges and only Bartees Strange. His band gives a leaner and meaner version of “Wants Needs,” featuring a toy megaphone and whirring tape loops. “That’s the ripper,” I tell him beforehand, to which he responds, “They’re all rippers, man.” No lies detected. “Sober” has all of the power of an us against the world Fleetwood Mac jam sung loudly from an old car, windows rolled down. “Too Much” swaggers so hard that, after a smooth funk break to rap, the band brings back the riff, but louder — you could feel the room vibrate.

But the best moment, for me, in a Bartees Strange song is when you can see him and yourself inside of it. I think that “17,” a vulnerable ballad that explodes at its humbling revelation, is the best song that Bartees Strange has written for that reason. “As you get older, you have these moments where you just have no idea what’s going on and you’re completely lost,” he explains in a post-show conversation we had, about returning to that precipice of the unknown. “This song reminds me that I’ve been here before and there’s always a cool thing that happens after.”


SET LIST
“Wants Needs”
“Sober”
“Too Much”
“17”

MUSICIANS
Bartees Strange: guitar, vocals
Graham Richman: guitar, piano, keys
TK Johnson: drums, vocals
Daniel Kleederman: guitar, vocals
John Daise: bass

TINY DESK TEAM
Producer: Lars Gotrich
Director/Editor: Kara Frame
Audio Technical Director: Josh Newell
Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter
Videographers: Kara Frame, Joshua Bryant, Mitra I. Arthur
Audio Engineer: David Greenburg
Production Assistants: Ashley Pointer, Dora Levite
Photographer: Alanté Serene
Tiny Desk Team: Maia Stern, Hazel Cills
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins

#tinydesk #nprmusic #barteesstrange
Category
Jazz
Tags
NPR, NPR Music, National Public Radio
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