vandaveer at home
vandaveer, aka kentucky's own mark heidinger. photo by rob meyers.
Time was he was plain ol’ Mark Heidinger, mainstay member of Lexington rock faves The Apparitions. Having re-located to Washington, D.C., Heidinger now performs as the neo-psychedelic folk/pop stylist Vandaveer.
But starting today, you have four chances over four days to welcome him and the wonderfully moody tunes from his new Divide & Conquer album back to the Bluegrass. The recording is darkly ambient and atmospheric at times (as onThe Sound & The Fury), spiritual in an almost vaudevillian sense at other turns (Resurrection Mary) and colored continually by Heidinger’s sketchy, scratchy yet neatly conversational vocals. Sure it’s folk at heart. But the music’s cast in mischevious. It is as appealing as it is unsettled.
First up on the Heidinger/Vandaveer Kentucky round-up is an appearance this afternoon at CD Central’s Labor Day cookout. His set is scheduled for around 2 p.m. with fellow local-ites Living with Hermits, J. Marinelli, Sludge Puppies and The Yesterday Trees rounding out the bill. The event is free.
After a show at the Southgate House in Newport on Tuesday (9:30 p.m., $5, $8), Vandaveer comes back to Lex-town to play The Green Lantern on Wednesday (9 p.m., $5) before heading up to Louisville for a Thursday performance at The 930 Listening Room (7:30 p.m., $5).
Now that’s what you call a homecoming.
I am a native Kentuckian and freelance journalist who has been writing about contemporary music for the Lexington Herald-Leader since 1980. I have not a lick of honest musical talent myself, just a pair of appreciative ears for jazz, folk, blues, bluegrass, Americana, soul, Celtic, Cajun, chamber, worldbeat, nearly every form of rock 'n' roll imaginable and, when pressed, the occasional tango and polka.