Pitchfork

I once saw alt-country act Handsome Family open for Andrew Bird. I can't remember what they played or how the music sounded then, but it was hard to forget their stage presence: as hipster alt-country performers go, the Handsome Family rank among the oddest. Wife Rennie Sparks was hunched slightly over her autoharp as if to suggest a spinal disorder, wearing a worn-out dress from the Dorothea Lange collection circa 1934. Husband Brett, a solid-looking fella, mostly played guitar and sang in a deep voice that hinted at a drawl.

Their husband-and-wife dynamic comes through more clearly on this live album, recorded in their then-hometown of Chicago. The Digital Club Network, a website that hosts hundreds of webcasts from rock clubs around the country, taped the show at Schuba's on December 8th, 2000. Featuring Brett, Rennie, and a drum machine, Live at Schuba's Tavern has seventeen of their "greatest hits", with confident, if not revelatory, performances.

And you also get their stage show. Between songs, Rennie and Brett tease each other and tell jokes and stories-- particularly Rennie, who picks on Brett's family, tells a fake-miracle story, and reminisces about old gigs. The first time you hear this stuff it's funny; the second time, it's already stale, like listening to a bad comedy album. But if you make it to a fourth or fifth time, the routine starts to grow on you, like any married couples' stories that you have to hear again and again-- you're used to them, or at least, you know when they'll end.

During this schtick, Rennie tells most of the jokes and non-sequiturs, like the quip about how her cats want to steal her diamonds. Get it? It's funny 'cause it's weird. They're the flipside of her lyrics, the "light quirk" next to the "dark quirk" of the songwriting. Rennie wrote the words to all but one of these songs, and the morbid imagery, drunken losers and clever death scenes are as harmlessly gruesome as, say, the illustrations of Edward Gorey-- without the pointed humor.

Rennie is a gifted lyricist, and the songs are full of great lines and images. "Drunk by Noon", from 1996's Milk and Scissors, is believably bitter: "Sometimes I can't wait to come down with cancer/ At least then I'll get to watch TV all day." And "I Know You Are There," from last year's Twilight, where they switch off the drum machine that accompanies most of their songs, sounds pious. But it's hard to get past the strange-for-strangeness'-sake tone of most of the songs: they're about sad stuff but don't sound sad, as if talking about death is just a way to give weight to eccentricity. It's about as haunting as a Mexican Day of the Dead figure knocked over on your dashboard.

In contrast to his wife, Brett is the sure and steady one. As the composer of all of the music, Brett's written some good tunes, including "Amelia Earhart vs. The Dancing Bear", with its dreamy imagery of Earhart's last moments and Brett's great flaming-fuselage guitar solo. But on other tracks, the yokelized veneer wears thin. The songs are so stubbornly midtempo that it makes you wonder if they jammed their drum machine. And the melodies can get stereotypically folksy, like In the Air's "The Sad Milkman", which cribs "On Top of Old Smokey"; or the procession of ballads like "My Ghost" or "So Much Wine", which are individually good but cumulatively homogenous.

Brett has a strong, rich voice, but you can get too used to hearing the same reverb-assisted declaiming from the plain tone on every track. But it's preferable to Rennie's. She sings lead vocals on "Down in the Ground", and her shrieking, slicing voice could make dead people climb from their graves to come and slap her.

So as you might have guessed, an hour of the concert may be more than you need unless you're a hardcore fan. On the other hand, the best thing about the disc is the lack of editing or polish. By leaving in so much of their banter-- both funny and not-- and the occasional mistakes, Live at Schuba's Tavern feels like a night with the Sparks'. It's more intimate than a big name live album: you get to hear a married couple make fun of each other and have a good time together. Just don't forget who wears the pants in this family-- it's Rennie who gets to put all the words in Brett's mouth.