Iggy Pop said recently that he’d be “tending bar between sets” if he had to rely solely on record sales to survive. The proto-punk legend has alternate sources of revenue (a recent appearance in a car-insurance commercial, for instance), but less well-known musicians, such as the gifted composer and guitarist Stephen Ulrich, have to come up with more creative solutions.
A former architecture student, Ulrich supported his musical career for a time by building models for I. M. Pei (where he nearly severed an essential finger with a table saw) and by painting enormous advertisements along barren stretches of the South Bronx. In the past few years, he scored a six-part PBS series on comedy, two seasons of HBO’s “Bored to Death,” and “Art and Craft,” a documentary about the art forger Mark Landis. The film work came about in part because of the cinematic sound of Ulrich’s trio, Big Lazy, which for nearly two decades crafted dark, noir-tinged instrumentals. Dominated by Ulrich’s intricate, jazz-inflected guitar style, the sophisticated, gritty band endured—relying on the occasional licensing deal, performing in dives and at the odd wedding, and self-releasing albums—until 2008, when its bass player abruptly quit.
Two years ago, Ulrich decided to form a new version of Big Lazy, this time with the upright bassist Andrew Hall and the drummer Yuval Lion. “I missed the sweaty places,” he said. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people tell me in some bar, ‘You’re playing the soundtrack to my life.’ ”
At a recent appearance at Spectrum, a tiny living-room venue on the Lower East Side, Ulrich performed several Big Lazy songs, including “Black Eyed Susan,” an older, spacious ballad that features a haunting lap-steel solo drenched with reverb and tremolo. With echoes of Ennio Morricone and country-tinged Americana, the song conveys the feeling of distant vistas. “I always have a place in mind where each song takes place, a certain geography,” he said. Yet the beauty of Ulrich’s music is how it avoids specificity, leaving it to listeners to imagine where they want to be. On Nov. 13, Big Lazy will be at the Manderly Bar at the McKittrick Hotel, in Chelsea, to celebrate the release of a beguiling new album, “Don’t Cross Myrtle,” that alternates between the raucous and the lyrical. ♦
