LOW CUT CONNIE
On the strength of white-hot performances and five acclaimed albums including this year’s “Dirty Pictures (Part 2),” South Philadelphia band Low Cut Connie is picking up ardent followers at an impressive clip. The band’s biggest admirer even travels to every show. Adam Weiner may be the group’s frontman, songwriter, producer, pianist and only founding member, but he’s clearly his bandmates’ prime champion as well.
“I play with the most powerful rock ’n’ roll group working today,” says Weiner. “The members of the band are the heart and soul of our sound and our shows and our records — just like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers or Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. They may not be the most technically proficient or sophisticated, but they’re the most soulful and powerful. We all go into battle together every night and slay the dragon as a team.”
It’s not that Weiner doesn’t have competition for his role as No. 1 fan. The group was recently featured on Elton John’s “Rocket Hour” radio show. “It’s so great to hear a piano-based band,” said the Hall-of-Famer as he began an interview with Weiner. “I’m biased in that respect.”
The team’s most recent addition is soulful Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings vocalist Saundra Williams, who recently celebrated her one-year anniversary with Low Cut Connie. Weiner’s oldest partner in the group is “Shondra,” the name given to the weathered consolette piano that will receive another sweat-soaked shellacking by Weiner on Sunday at the Empty Bottle. Shondra is the essence of a sound that draws comparisons to both Jerry Lee Lewis and the Replacements.
The band recently burned through the cathartic and cantankerous “All These Kids Are Way Too High” during its late-night television debut on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” Other fare from “Dirty Pictures (Part 2)” is more reflective, as Weiner channels his formative experiences and turns a sympathetic eye toward hard-luck characters encountered in his life.
“I used to play in gay piano bars in New York City,” says Weiner. “I would compose pretty little melodies that could work between the showtunes and jazz standards. I wrote one that had a kind of Paul McCartney ballad vibe. Years later, I took the tune out and played it fast and heavy. It brought images to me of some of the women I’ve met over the years on the road — single mothers, and the sad resilient women who live and travel alone around America. That was ‘Beverly.’
“If you spend a lot of time at divey bars and Waffle House counters, you’ll meet some really mixed-up beautiful people,” says Weiner. “Those are the people that end up in my songs.”