Dead Western

dead western is troy mighty

"say hello to those around you.. breathe and be calm.. I and we are everywhere around..."

On a Monday night at the Fools Foundation gallery on 19th and J streets, a young crowd milled around the parking lot behind The Old Spaghetti Factory, eventually filtering downstairs into the white concrete interior. The stark basement space echoes like a reverb chamber when empty, but when filled with people, the sound is surprisingly good. The musical draw that night was partly local (Dead Western) and partly international (Italian psychedelic band Jennifer Gentle). The musicians were setting up as indie dudes and waifs in thrift-store couture filtered in.

A toy xylophone on a cinder-block stand and a guitar stood before a pink, embroidered backdrop. A strange figure with a long mullet and enormous, billowing mutton chops took his place at the setup. He wore purple smears of paint on his eyes and a brown polyester suit with bell-bottoms. As the lights went down, he gently strummed repetitive chords on the guitar with hypnotic steadiness.

This was Dead Western, the solo project of resident baffler Troy Mighty, who also plays horns in Sacramento’s free-jazz ensemble Living Breathing Music. The crowd gathered, with many sitting down on the floor as Mighty started to sing low, moaning like a netherworld Morrissey. “I’ve got a spaceship in my garage. / It’s been sitting there too long. / I’ll fly away someday … / I can be my own best friend if I need to be,” he sang. Pained expressions crossed his face. Mighty closed or rolled his eyes, stuck his tongue out, tilted his head back, took on slack-jawed tranced-out expressions, and generally looked completely unhinged. With eerie simple melodies on the toy piano and guitar, absurd lyrics and sans-lithium charisma, Mighty kept the audience’s attention. (Justin Allen, newsreview.com)

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