Aaron Lee Tasjan Stands Tall at The Blue Room

When you sorely need to feel like you belong somewhere, an Aaron Lee Tasjan show is a very good place to be. As he and his band showed the packed crowd gathered to celebrate his latest LP Stellar Evolution Thursday at The Blue Room at Third Man Records, he’s adept at wielding the power of rock ’n’ roll as a force for good.

Nashville rocker Molly Martin opened the gig, singing and playing scorching guitar as part of a glove-tight power trio. Their sound is loud and intense but light on its feet — no doubt a delight to Martin’s high school music director, who happened to be in the audience. She thanked him for teaching her to play rock ’n’ roll, and later thanked Tasjan for making her and her band feel welcomed and valued on this leg of the tour. The set included songs from Martin’s 2023 debut Mary, plus a couple new ones. Introducing a fire-breathing rendition of The Cranberries’ “Zombie,” she told the crowd how the song moved to tears someone working at the venue during their recent stop in Asheville, N.C. The person approached the band after the show and thanked them, Martin said, because they hadn’t been able to cry about their friend, a trans person who was in the hospital and struggling to heal from an aggravated beating.

Tasjan let most of Booker T. & the M.G.’s effortlessly cool “Green Onions” play before he took the stage, alongside drummer Ramblin’ Rob Heath, bassist Jeff Ratner and fellow singer-songwriter-rocker Erica Blinn, who also makes music as Ricki. Blinn, who’s among Tasjan’s collaborators on Stellar Evolution, hopped between electric and acoustic guitar and keys, and sang backup throughout the show. They led off with a rapid run of bangers from earlier albums — Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! opener “Sunday Women,” plus the bittersweet “Little Movies” and the galloping “Dime” from Silver Tears — before sliding into the new LP with the poignant “Dylan Shades” and the defiant ripper “Horror of It All.” 

Then Tasjan paused to introduce “Nightmare,” a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live as a queer person knowing you could be attacked violently at any time by people who are angry that you exist. He explained it was inspired by a moment when he was a high school senior in New Albany, Ohio. A classmate spotted the only out LGBTQ kid at their school putting on makeup in his car, and was so upset that he asked teachers to intervene. Tasjan, who was not out at the time, kept silent. 

“I’m still ashamed that I didn’t speak up when I had the chance,” he said. “But lucky for me, I got to be an artist, and I’m speaking up now.”

Tasjan has consistently used his music to shine a light on things in our culture that need to be examined and perhaps poked at, often reflecting on himself. His two most recent albums have focused more on respecting queerness as its own distinct spectrum of identity while reminding everyone that “the LGBTQ community” is made up of our neighbors, co-workers, friends and family.

This conversation is central to other songs he played Thursday, including “Ocean Drive,” inspired by reading interviews with Gianni Versace in which the eminent designer talked about feeling truly at peace when he’s at home with his husband. Molly Martin returned to the stage, along with artist and producer Butch Walker and groundbreaking producer Lafemmebear (whose 2021 remix of Reba’s “I’m a Survivor” marked the first time a Black trans woman’s work earned a spot in the top 10 of Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart) for a heartfelt take on Lucinda Williams’ “Drunken Angel.”

“The Drugs Did Me,” an ode to getting sober, is one of Tasjan’s funnier songs, and it appeared in the set as well as his takedown of American exceptionalism “I Love America Better Than You.” The backstory to that one — involving some internet trolling with Tasjan’s friend and co-writer Jon Latham — could be its own novel. “I thought I had finished this song, and then … every time Marsha Blackburn said anything, I was like, ‘Oh, this song isn’t done yet,’” Tasjan quipped, voicing his support for U.S. Senate candidate, state Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville). 

Tasjan & Co. encored with “Heart Slows Down,” followed by a beautifully elegiac solo vocal-and-piano rendition of the late Nanci Griffith’s “Late Night Grande Hotel.” A little earlier, as the set wound down, they introduced two new songs. First was “The Real,” about honoring the people actually responsible for important developments — like singing out for Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a queer Black woman who laid groundwork for rock ’n’ roll, rather than leaning into long-standing myths that white guys invented the genre. The song also featured a blistering extended guitar solo; Tasjan left the impression he could’ve kept going much longer. 

The second was “Punk Rock Joy.” With one hand, it extends a middle finger to anyone who wants to dehumanize those who are different from them (see: our state legislature); with the other, it reaches out. Its chorus — “You take my rights but you can’t destroy / All my love and my punk rock joy” — is as close as you can get to a thesis statement for an argument about why music communities matter.

Features

Aaron Lee Tasjan Looks In and Reaches Out on ‘Stellar Evolution’

• Stephen Trageser