Music City Mayhem Round 10: The Allen Thompson Band vs Levi Weaver

The Contestants

In the left: thoroughbred Southern-rockers The Allen Thompson Band. These guys are rooted firmly in the Van Zant sonic lineage, and pretty much all of bands I would compare them to (Skynyrd, .38 Special, The Black Crowes...) are related either by blood or by spirit to Southern rock's main man Ronnie.  For his part, vocalist Allen Thompson doesn't sound all that dissimilar to Ronnie Van Zant, although at certain points he appears to teeter just on the edge of a John Fogerty  howl. Their song selection, "The Purple Rose and the Black Balloon," plays like a slightly more uptempo "Tuesday's Gone," and features some vivid and oh-so-Southern imagery (pale Virginia moons, purple roses, and rivers abound). It's a great Southern-rock song, but since the parts of this genre that always interested me were Allen Collins, Gary Rossington, Dickey Betts, and their guitars rather than the songs themselves, it's a little hard for me to get on board. If you're part of Van Zant's legion of disciples who insist that Southern rock is the peak of musical expression, however, you won't find a more faithful reproduction than these guys.

In the right: singer-songwriter and self-described "wonderer, wanderer" Levi Weaver. On "Talk Me Down," Levi sounds sort of like a one-man version of early Coldplay, though his voice is definitely that of a singer-songwriter and not Chris Martin (thank God). The verses are sparse, half-mumbled, and driven by the drumbeat in a distinctly Citizen Cope fashion (though they also remind of that Primitive Radio Gods song), and help build anticipation for the still-mellow but soaring chorus. I liked Levi's song more the more I listened, and it soon became apparent that the lyrical content is really, really good. He definitely has a gift for literary conceit; if I were to describe myself as "a room without a phone," you'd probably be confused, but somehow he makes it work. To be clear, by the way: literary conceit means that he's good at metaphors...not that he's full of himself. Levi's video selection is for another song entirely, and both the audio and visual content remind me so vividly of another awesome, yet-undiscovered singer-songwriter and personal friend named Andrew Gombas that I can't help but write it down (check him out too).

The Verdict

Well, what do you know: my pick for yesterday went through! Maybe I'm back on the upswing. This one is a no-brainer for me; I thought that both of Levi's songs were great, and Southern rock is really only my thing when I'm at a few beers deep (but really, whose thing isn't it when they're a few beers deep?). Cast your vote for him here.