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Burnt Ends: Rekindling from the ashes

By Loren Keller

The first three musical influences listed by Burnt Ends on its MySpace web page aren't bands but the trio of combative knuckleheads living in near-anarchy on the cult Canadian television mockumentary "Trailer Park Boys."

The experimental indie rock band from Muscatine also cites influences ranging from Luna to Spiritualized to the Flaming Lips, but its TV heroes seemed the most appropriate comparison at a recent show at Iowa City's Picador, as the band struggled at times to find its own harmony. (The band plays again Thursday night at The Mill, opening for the Ames-based Poison Control Center.)

The December gig at the Picador was the band's first since the departure of lead singer John Watkins and the addition of 19-year-old bass player and singer Blake Daly, Along with founding members Nate Wall (vocals, guitar) MJ Dunlap (vocals, guitar), Mike Clifton (guitar) and Jon Boldt (drums) the band is clearly in a transitional phase and still tinkering to find its rightful chemistry.

But Burnt Ends is always an enjoyable experiment to watch. The band got its start nearly a decade ago, recording mostly in a stilted A-frame cabin overlooking the banks of the Mississippi, and its music is evocative of the natural, wide-open spaces created by the river and its deceptively quiet waters.

Its style, too, is fluid and a little hard to pin down; most of their songs sound really unlike one another. Even the abbreviated eight-song set played on this night – with Wall, Dunlap, and Daly sharing vocal duties -- featured a wide range of tunes, from the summery gallop of "Sota" to a heavy-footed, grieving waltz of "June" -- the strongest song of the set thanks to the addition of a beautiful, wailing vocal by classically trained Jenni Harkness.

Paul Desmond's "Take Five" might have inspired a little riff that builds into another waltz, "Wedding Singer," and a soaring cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "El Condor Pasa" powerfully expands the gentle folk tune into a crescendo of noisy guitars.

The absence of the band's lead singer kept its set list short and excluded many of the best songs from the laid-back 2006 Spillway Lane Records release Trip the Dandy – an eclectic mix of psychedelic ballads, shimmering guitars and catchy melodies. But shifting lineups, finding new textures and sometimes trading roles or instruments are nothing new or daunting for this band, which started playing on homemade electric guitars handcrafted out of wood and wire. The band is planning to record its next batch of music in a wine cellar; it should be a worth the wait to uncork.