Devendra Banhart Gives Jack White a Run for his Money

Devendra Banhart is THIS CLOSE to Being Jack White.

And by “this close,” I don’t mean he is going to start a band with members of The Kills, cover Leadbelly, or talk about Nikola Tesla in a Jim Jarmusch film (although I wouldn’t put any of these things past him). I mean that I’m going to guess the guy had to be a close second to Mr. White when GQ’s voted him “the center of the musical universe,” or else something is totally amiss over at Gentleman’s Quarterly.

Here’s the thing about Banhart: love him or hate him, the guy has planted his seeds all over the music world (take this as a metaphor if you want), and this year we saw things begin to sprout. I’ll admit, Banhart has been more of a “press darling” with past albums, and I’ll also admit that I don’t read GQ for their opinions on music, but the nice little chart on Pg. 164 of the “Men of the Year” issue, connecting Jack White to everybody from Bradford Cox of Deerhunter/Atlas Sound, and Led Zeppelin, made me thing “oh hark, you could pretty much do that same exact thing with Devendra Banhart.” Because whether it’s his ex-girlfriend Natalie Portman embracing the hipster-hippie fashion, his other ex-beau, Joanna Newsom modeling for Armani, lost 60’s musicians Vashti Bunyan, Karen Dalton, Michael Hurley being rediscovered, or the last five years of weird beard folkies popping up all over the place, it’s mostly due to Banhart. While he has influenced the fashionistas a great deal, musically you can closely connect Banhart to Antony and the Johnsons, Yacht, Iron & Wine, Little Joy, and about a dozen other big “names” in the musical world.

While Jack White might be the center of the musical universe, Banhart has spent the seven years since his debut release creating a world all his own. He has sort of become something like the 21st Century David Bowie: a magnet for new talent, a light for artists whose work has been otherwise lost. Mentioned before, 60’s troubadours like Vashti Bunyan and Michael Hurley owe Banhart a great deal of thanks for recent interest in their work. Still, Banhart has proven his reach extends beyond just music. Take for instance his lovingly written preface to the collection of work by the late poet Kenneth Patchen (New Directions, 2008), or Banhart’s artwork at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and it becomes apparent that Banhart is a jack-of-all-trades.

With all that, this year, Banhart released the album, What Will We Be to tepid reviews. Pitchfork gave it a 4.0, and L Magazine didn’t even realize Banhart had a new album coming out. What’s up with that? My theory, Banhart is “positioning” himself. While P4K, and L Mag crap on the 2009 output of Mr. Banhart, the weird world of his that I mentioned earlier continues to sprout. His 2 most recent shows in New York sold out, with tickets going for a pretty hefty sum, and his label, Gnomonsong, released three incredible albums. The first being Papercuts’ haunting You Can Have What You Want, which I have to say is by far the finest album to date by leader Jason Quever and whoever he has playing in the band at the time. Gnomonsong also released the stunning debut by Kevin Barker, You & Me. Barker, another disciple of Banhart’s, has given us an LP full of tunes that are a mix of Bert Jansch and The Band, and features guests like members of The Shins, Espers, Wilco, and Joanna Newsom.

So I’m going to wrap this up with a theory. In 2009, Devendra Banhart put out an album that the tastemakers didn’t exactly love. So what? Prolific artists are prone to putting out subpar work from time to time — though, I think the album is pretty darned good. I think to steal a metaphor from sports, this was a rebuilding year for Banhart. One that is post-tabloid relationship with Natalie Portman, and one that finds the guy adjusting to a new label. And really, at this point, Banhart doesn’t have to care much what blogs and mags think of him, but just looking at all the stats, I kinda get this weird feeling that Banhart is closing in on White’s supposed spot as the “center of the musical universe.”

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