Guitarist Aaron Lee Tasjan can’t be pigeonholed.
An Ohio native who spent time in New York playing guitar with the New York Dolls, Aaron Lee Tasjan settled years ago in Nashville. His recordings are slippery critters that resist easy description. They’re indigenous to rock ’n’ roll rather than any geographic region.
“I think it’s true a lot of people have a musical identity based on where they come from,” he says. “But I don’t think I’ve ever been from anywhere long enough to have that sort of specific sense of place. Other than it just being American music and American music that has been influences by British music. I guess my space is a little strange that way. It’s specific in some ways, but not to place.”
Tasjan, who plays Houston shows on Friday at Cactus Music and McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, recently released “Karma for Cheap,” a record full of restless lyrical content and nastier guitar lines than his previous work.
Tasjan deftly touches on the times without writing music that is brazenly political. “Working some holes in your shoes,” he sings. “Trying to get over the news.” Despite his suggestion that Tasjan doesn’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Kinks’ work, the record does have a certain balance that reminds of the Davies brothers. Tasjan writes with a wryness that stops short of cynicism (sample song title, “The Rest Is Yet to Come”), which reminds of Ray Davies. And he’s a lights-out guitarist with a rough-edged tone like Dave Davies.
Some of the lyrics remind me of Randy Newman or, Tasjan says, “guys like that, who do the Mark Twain-y observational thing. Mostly it’s just trying to feel connected to something. That’s always the point for me. To feel connected to anything. Music is a cool conduit for that because it requires you to focus in a specific way. You don’t forget all the other stuff going on. But when you’re working on a song, that’s the thing that has your focus.”
At 33, Tasjan has spent more than half his life playing music professionally. He was a teen prodigy growing up near Columbus, Ohio. He moved to New York and played with the group Semi Precious Weapons, which led to guitar gigs with Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ and the reunited glammy hard rock legends the New York Dolls. Five years ago, he packed up for Nashville. Tasjan’s “In the Blazes” captured his pivot toward working as a singersongwriter.
And he’s been modifying that role since, writing songs that function well with just voice and guitar. “Karma for Cheap” has a shadow album sibling, “Karma for Cheap: Reincarnated” with the same songs in a more muted setting.
Tasjan’s guitar bona fides are beyond question. So “Reincarnated” offers a nice opportunity to focus specifically on his writing, which continues to grow more efficient, fluid and thoughtful.
Often he comes across on the record as feeling out of step with the times, and dealing with anxiety brought on by an assault of information. He says he hasn’t owned a TV since he was living with his parents back in Ohio.
“I had some roommates in East Nashville with a TV, and it just put me on edge,” he says. “It was just a weird energy I needed to get rid of.”
On “The Rest Is Yet to Come” Tasjan notes “we are living in a dirty world.” And though its title hints at our age of misinformation, “The Truth Is So Hard to Believe” was still designed to be vague.
“That line came to me, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it,” he says. “And I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew. So I tried to keep it nonspecific. That’s one of the things I think I’ve learned to do. To leave room for a new story to reveal itself. You have to do that, especially if you’re out there singing every night. You have to find a new story, something you believe in.
“That’s the great thing about songs, to me at least. They can be comforting and affirming. They can make you feel less lonely. That’s what can happen when you hear the right song at the right time.”