DM Stith Concert Review—Tucson, AZ

The desert is a strange place to call home. We who live here measure our lives by rattlesnakes, by the sloughing off of serpents’ skins, saguaros and monsoon seasons. This summer the rain has stayed stagnant in the clouds. The monsoons keep holding their tongues, and we’ve had to stay stuck in the humid heat, spending the day watching heaving clouds pass us by. We can’t help but feel forgotten.

I stumbled into Solar Culture, a small, unpretentious venue, right smack dab in the middle of Tucson, AZ, hoping to find respite from the humid summer heat, but having hoped in vain. The temperature of the interior matched the exterior: There was no air conditioning, and the boiling energy of an excited audience only increased the degrees of Fahrenheit. Art lined the walls—a collage of independent, modern pieces. The venue was perfect in its dark simplicity. I was sweaty, sure, but completely at ease.

The setting and scene fit the upcoming performer: DM Stith is desert-like in nature, serpentine and haunting. His art is the skin he sheds, perfect in its dark simplicity.

Before his performance started DM Stith was so kind as to engage me in a little small talk. He told me a little about himself, his past. He had taught sculpture before, he said. It didn’t surprise me. His music is a physical medium more than anything. We, the audience, feel like putty in his hands.

When DM Stith took the stage, quietness enveloped the room. The crowd of soul-searching college students and contemplative adults seemed to understand that a force of nature, quite like the monsoons hovering overhead, had begun to work its magic. David sat down on a small, unpretentious rolling-chair, acting as if he were completely oblivious to his sacred charms. Not for one second did I believe that he was unaware of his powers.

What ensued was an entrancing musical manipulation of the mind. At the end of the set I felt as if I had just been molded into something along the lines of Degas’ Little Dancer Aged Fourteen—transformed into something part human, part primate.

What I appreciate the most about DM Stith’s music—and art in general—is its honesty. It’s an unashamed wrestle with the self, with God. He is Jacob, caught in the grasp of an angel; and he has no shame, no fear or trepidation in relating the struggle that results from picking such an epic fight. We, the audience, limp away from his presence with a hurting hip—with our minds, hearts, and souls having been dexterously pummeled—but also with the ultimate blessing: DM Stith himself, and the realization that no matter how dry the desert may be, we haven’t been forgotten.

*DM Stith will be touring Europe and the UK in the Spring of 2011. For further details, click here.

Cora Charis is a writer from the United States who is currently finishing her first book of expiremental poetry while teaching English as a Second Language to refugees in Tucson, AZ.