Allegheny Times (Allegheny, PA)
March 2, 2008

Feature Article
By SCOTT TADY/Times Entertainment Editor

LAMENTING THE LOSS OF THE MOM-AND-POP BAR

Andy Friedman struck gold last Wednesday, mining a rich vein of rockabilly, twangy rock and country waltzes that gave a toe-tapping essence to his wry and profoundly candid lyrics.

Singing for a crowd of 75 at Thursday’s tavern in Bridgewater, Friedman proved why he’s hailed as “The King of Art Country” with a 70-minute set that flew by like a freight train.

In affecting songs like “Taken Man,” the Brooklyn singer described the rewards and challenges of balancing faithfulness with wanderlust.

Backed by his dexterous three-piece band, the Other Failures, Friedman’s standout song was an unreleased one, “Freddy’s Back Room,” a simmering ballad decrying the steady death of neighborhood bars. By song’s end, all the regulars of Freddy’s reluctantly find themselves gathered in the backroom of a homogenized restaurant chain.

“I wrote that song about a bar called Freddy’s being torn down, but it’s turned into a song about every mom and pop business in America being knocked down,” Friedman told me the next afternoon as his tour van sped toward a gig in Johnson City, Tenn.

The relevance of “Freddy’s Bar” shouldn’t have been lost on the small but close-knit crowd at Thursday’s, which stuck around late to socialize with Friedman and his band mates. I was one of a handful of people who left at 11 p.m., believing the show was done. Whoops.

“Everyone ended up buying us shots and got us all riled up, so 40 minutes after the show was over we got back onstage and did an encore,” Friedman said.

Bet that never happens at a restaurant chain.