Ten Out of Tenn

Story has it that makeshift Music City mayor Trent Dabbs and his industry-maven wife Kristen decided once and for all that Nashville should be known for something other mainstream country.

This led them to conceive “Ten out of Tenn” (that’s Tennessee, for the geo-challenged), a folk-rock bill featuring 10 alternately earnest and mischievous singer-songwriters. The lot of them hit 16 cities in 16 cities from July 22 to Aug. 6, and Indy was a midpoint in the ride. About that ride, it bears mentioning that these 10 and their valiant drummer were carted around on a bus borrowed from the inimitable Willie Nelson.

Coming in from Chicago the night before, all 10 were in good shape and humor and trotted out two songs each. Yea, this was an ADD-addled concertgoer’s dream, like an iPod playlist presented live.

Batting lead-off was Griffin House, likely the best-known of these troubadours. The Wordy One let fly first with “The Guy Who Says Goodbye to You Is Out of His Mind” from his latest. It’s a breezy, unassuming ditty that set the evening’s feel. He’d return later and, after beckoning all comers to dance in the largely vacant standing-room area up front, launched into “I Remember,” a decidedly sobering song about war. House did stake his claim as the Dylan-in-training among this bunch. (More on that later.)

Dabbs presented his aw-shucks folk-rock in alluring 6/8 time before himself taking to the room’s neglected dance floor. The 10 performers’ names painted on the back of his denim jacket undulated freely as he displayed slinky sliding dance moves worth marrying to his pop sensibility.

That was the thing about this lineup: Nashvillians though they may be, they weren’t and aren’t afraid of solid hooks, even while inserting enough grit and grime in their delivery to retain all indie bona fides.

Australian transplant Butterfly Boucher (her given name, yes) formerly opened for the likes of Sarah McLachlan on an arena tour but played this little music box of a venue like a humble pro. Her robust voice meshed strikingly with spiky song lyrics to match her hair. Perhaps the night’s most interesting non-musical moment came when Boucher had a self-described “breakdown” over a TV screen straight back in the room that played looping nature clips. Think galloping safari animals in slo-mo. “Oh, that’s gonna be distracting,” she groaned after one strum. “I grew up without a TV; I can’t look away. And I like how the red lights come on now to make me look evil!” The audience and her cohorts cut her slack – she is, after all, a stranger in a strange land. And she did plenty later to atone, as it were, in playing a lean bass for some others.

Piano men Tyler James and Andy Davis traded off poppy yet rugged songs for and about the ladies. The former sang of “leaves falling down” and “her golden head” while the latter ruminated about those classic, clichéd “brown eyes” and led the audience in a backing chant to “let the woman I love just walk in.” Not much distinguished between them aside from James’s bounce and Davis’s more muscular pounding. What guys like these can do to carve out their own roads seems bent on finding a niche, as the likes of jazz master Jamie Cullum before them have done.

Indeed, a minor gripe about this lineup was its subtly homogeneity. At some point it becomes difficult to recall if you’re taking in Jeremy Lister or Matthew Perryman Jones. Even so, Lister showcased a nimble falsetto (this could be the poster boy for sensitive rock) while Jones displayed songwriting chops aplenty on “Save You” and “Refuge.”

This crop of artists would not disappoint. Of 20 songs played, 17 were flat-out enjoyable, as they should be when each has the opp to trot out just two tracks. They simply traded off instruments and announced each other’s comings as if high school chums.

Injecting more estro-based pop-rock into the mix were Katie Herzig and Erin McCarley. Herzig’s goodbye-laced “Wish You Well” revealed a lovely, lilting voice in the blonde songbird. Later a delicious slice-of-pop sound shined through on “Hologram,” the night’s most infectious song.

McCarley herself was the reigning pop princess here, her “Pony” single puzzlingly akin to that glossy pop-country Dabbs would decry. Her coupling of short-shorts and fedora – what was with the brown fedoras on these cats? – did exactly what it should. (All regards to the silly, loud frat men in the back.) In the end, sorry to say, she seemed like the glossy Nashville version of one ‘Tina Aguilera, a brunette tart wielding acoustic. Image is but one thing. Hers just seemed the odd songs out.

Still, personalities abounded here. K. S. Rhoads waxed some jazz on keys before revealing himself to be the most flexible performer on this night, tacking an endearingly awkward rap coda on to the end of his second song even as he strummed a slide guitar. (All this while Davis played a mean pedal steel in the back.) What’s not to love when a dude will reference both his fellow players and Dr. Seuss? His playful, knowing shtick was hard to follow and lent a sure uptick in energy. Think Eminem does Nashville. Rhoads came across as a pavement busker in the best way.

Now for the denouement: All 10 descended the stage to where show-goers had finally begun to spill in front (long live liquid courage), and Rhoads and House led the throng in a rickety, freeing rendition of Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.” Indeed, Dylan was the elephant not lurking in the corner all evening, and one had to think he’d have been tickled by the tributes he and Cash received as this night poured on.

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