S.G. Goodman has a distinctive voice that is not conventionally pretty. It serves her alt-Goth country tales of life and love well. Her Tennessee drawl and warbly delivery provide grit to the demonstrative values expressed. Her sentiments come across as nastier and more personal than anthemic.
Goodman’s not preaching on “Teeth Marks”. She observes the world around her and sees that too many people waste their lives or at least don’t spend their time wisely. The good life would involve centreing one’s life around the love of another human being instead of one’s job. Goodman is a queer Southerner who has received her share of abuse because of her sexuality. Her focus on romantic love seems to come as a defense mechanism. She’s enough of a realist to know that it’s not always a positive experience. Sometimes, love hurts, as in the title song “Teeth Marks”. Just because one may love somebody does not mean the other person will love you back.
S.G. Goodman gazes off into the distance as she begins the first song in this Tiny Desk session, rocking her body from side to side, connecting with a force inside and also just out of reach: maybe it’s something in her past or the image of a person she holds dear, or maybe it’s simply fierce, ragged hope. “I see all my love coming back to me — I can see it!” she wails in her piercing, haunted soprano. Her band revs its engine beneath her as she testifies about a rock and roll epiphany. As drummer Stephen Montgomery and bassist Mark Sloan push the rhythm harder and guitarist Michael Ruth lays down some pure-energy riffs, she squeezes her eyes shut and bears down on her guitar. Music, Goodman’s songs show us, is a route to both survival and transcendence. A proud and ever-questioning Southerner who invokes Tyler Childers, Dolly Parton and her own Kentucky accent in her between-song banter,
Goodman released her debut album “Old Time Feeling” early on in the pandemic and her astounding “Teeth Marks” released in June of this year. Goodman’s songs cultivate a direct gaze as they confront grief and stump for understanding. The two others offered here, “If You Were Someone I Loved” and “Space and Time,” show the breadth of expression she and her band achieve with their feet firmly planted on the ground of grassroots rock, the kind that echoes from bar stages and garages in Hickman, Kentucky, and countless small American towns like it. Goodman’s stories and her sound are very particular, but she’s a hero with big arms, an ordinary woman learning how to keep on keeping on. You can see it, that engagement and resilience, in every moment of this performance.
SET LIST “All My Love Is Coming Back To Me” “If You Were Someone I Loved” “Space And Time”
MUSICIANS S.G. Goodman: vocals, electric guitar Michael Ruth: electric guitar Mark Sloan: bass, vocals Stephen Montgomery: drums
The Fat Angel Sings 