(Photo Credit David Stringer)
By Kyle Petersen
On Friday, February 12th at The White Mule a special singer/songwriter in the round performance will feature 4 absolutely amazing alt. country(-ish) singer/songwriters that call South Carolina home. Organized by Todd Mathis of American Gun, the show will also feature Charleston’s Mac Leaphart as well as Columbia’s Zach Seibert (formerly of Due East) and Rob Lindsey (formerly of The Friendly Confines) and promises to be a long, glorious night of songcraft. Seibert has won my vote as the best pure songwriter in the state anytime the topic comes out, and his heart-on-sleeve philosophical and romantic musings are told through a dusty gravel road voice that recalls singers like Jon Snodgrass (Drag the River) and Jakob Dylan (The Wallflowers), and his and he delivers one should-be classic after another. Leaphart rivals Seibert in this regard, and comes across as a the archetype Southern boy raised on greasy rock n’ roll and hard livin’ country, and his sound takes John Prine and Gram Parsons and shoots it through peak-era Stones (‘70-’74) until you want to hoop and holler. As for Rob Lindsey, his spitfire lyrical approach that run the gamut from playful to emotional brings to mind such disparate influences as Tom Waits, Mike Doughty, and Steve Earle. Mathis is likely the most familiar name to SceneSC readers, as his band American Gun has been featured here quite a few times of late and is championed as a hard-edged alt. country band that has made some of the best local records in the state over the past few years. Mathis is a little different in the acoustic setting, but he never sounds like anything but what he really is—a Southern boy who grew up listening to country music, found and fell in love with the great Brit-Rockers of the 90s (and almost joined their ranks with his former band Boxing Day), and now sings his heart out with original material that makes nods to every part of his past. It promises to be quite a night indeed. You get all four of these amazing songwriters for 6 puny ones, so you better get your ass to The White Mule on February 12th.
