Band on the Run: Ghost Dad the Robot and E.W. Harris @ Fitness Loon (Stardate 11/13/2021)
It sounded odd — a rock concert in a suburban fitness studio — behind a Del Taco, sandwiched between a strip mall church and an (admittedly, awesome-looking) arcade — and yet, it may go down as my favorite concert of 2021. I’ll confess, I’m a little biased — I’ve known Ghost Dad the Robot bassist/vocalist/interstellar outlaw Nathan Williams since we were twelve years old, and guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist/intergalactic man of mystery E.W. Harris since high school — but even accounting for that personal caveat, these two far-flung fugitives put on one Hell of a reunion show. Dropping anchor in the backwater spaceport of Loganville, GA (no doubt a low-profile necessity as the pair remain forever on the run from the long arm of the law), and having extended invites to only their most trusted confidants, the duo dusted off their lone, now-cult classic recording — 2006’s Our Basest Desires — and proceeded to annihilate it with the force of a thousand neutron stars collapsing into simultaneous supernova (author’s note: I was an English major. I don’t know science. Don’t @ me).
Though the pair have traveled disparate paths these last 15 years, one would never have known save for their razor-strap sharpened chops and gleaming, gunmetal polish. Williams’s double-duty proficiency on the low end (he both plays and sings bass) seems to have only heightened since he last swung his axe in public — his resonant menace is absolutely essential to the smoky slow-burn of “Club Soft,” and the cosmic tones he conjured up through a next-gen E-Bow had the group’s longtime fans swaying in the pews. At the other end of the octave (or two… or maybe three), Harris’s dulcet vocals filled the acoustically advantaged space with the melodies of the spheres, bouncing off the tile floors and glass walls until they tripled and quadrupled in magnitude. Furthermore, he brought with him a slate of gorgeous new programming and whizbang electronics, adding Olympus Mons grandeur and Hellas Crater depth to already-beloved arrangements like “P.O.C.,” “Telecash,” and “No Cruzin’ Zone.”
In the show’s second hour, Harris further demonstrated his burgeoning technical wizardry and space-operatic vocal range with a set of — for this Southern Reach crowd at least — less familiar, but no less spectacular solo material. Interspersed with his lovably off-kilter stage banter, newer tunes like “The Damage” and “Bad Ghost” (recently released as a single with Hanging Dilettante) were transfixing to the point of being transportative, inviting us all into Harris’s unique, extraterrestrial worldview, and allowing us to commune there together — floating along with him through space and time — sometimes lonely, but never alone. As he closed out his set with a couple of audience requests — tunes that only a few would know, those that had been there from the very beginning — and the lights came up to return us from our shared voyage beyond the event horizon, and back to the fluorescent lights and asphalt lots of Anytown, USA, the appeal of the Fitness Loon as venue really began to take hold.
This was a place, first and foremost, of healing — a business built around the idea of exercise as a force for working through trauma (look it up, it’s pretty cool). The corner full of spinning cycles was suddenly a reminder of the daily grind we’re all beholden to — no matter who we are, or how we appear to others. Conversely, the mirrored walls on either side of us seemed to suggest that we all lead countless, parallel lives — and are each a multiverse unto ourselves, for whom anything is, and will always remain possible. Through the magic of old songs and old friends, we were led to hear beautiful new songs and make wonderful new friends. And no matter where these two old-salt space pirates turn up next, or how long it takes them to get there, that’s what they’re putting out into the universe, and that’s why I’ll always show up whenever they want to do it again — from Earth to the Delta Quadrant — the law be damned.
- Dave Fitzgerald
- For those intrigued, check out https://ewharrismusic.com/and https://ghostdadtherobot.bandcamp.com/album/our-basest-desires to support these artists, and https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1204937452 for a video of the very show you just read about!
