Kountry Kliches, Part One

Country music, and part of the reason why we love it, is that it’s riddled with cliche’s. Cliches are comfortable truths about ourselves we don’t particularly mind sharing. In country music there’s a self awareness to all those old cliches. Roy Clark knew all those old Hee Haw jokes were complete stinkers and so did we. That’s half the reason why they worked. Two new songs working in the tradition are currently out right now. Both are by established country singers and both are great examples of country music song craft, the good and the bad. Here we’ll take a look at Tim McGraw’s “It’s A Business Doing Pleasure With You”, and in the next blog we’ll look at Lyle Lovett’s “Keep It In Your Pantry”.

Nashville songwriters are well rumored for keeping banker hours and work on their craft much like an accountant crunches numbers. Now, whether or not this is completely the truth matters little in the same way that cliches point toward general truths rather than singling out specific ones. Truths like for every cocktail napkin or coffee stained envelope song there’s been 100 others double spaced and spell checked. This is a job. I imagine that around 3pm on a Thursday afternoon with two more hours staring down until the clock can be punched and the last suckle of the Caramel Frappuccino has been suckled things get a little sloppy. This is when songs like “The Weather Is Here, I Wish You Were Beautiful”, or “If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me?” happen. Country music has a long standing tradition of word play (read into that what you will). It’s easy really. Take a time honored cliche and flip the words around and voila, hilarity ensues. Some jokes are always funny no matter how many times they are told. Some are kind of funny the first time you hear them and then less funny every time after that until the reason they were originally funny has become completely lost. The ol’ cliche switcheroo is a par exemple.

It’s a well known fact that puns are the lowest form of humor. Samuel Johnson said this and while I would defer to the man in most matters of the written word, here I’ll respectfully disagree and counter with the ol’ cliche switcheroo. They sit just below the knock knock joke, which sit just below any finger pulling variation out there. Roger Ebert has said that it’s not what something is about, rather how it’s about that makes something good or bad. With that in mind let’s take Tim McGraw’s “It’s A Business Doing Pleasure With You” off of his latest release Southern Voice. It’s such a stock and trade country song I almost feel like beating on it is akin to kicking a stray mutt. But, if someone has to be the bad guy in this story, it might as well be me. The song kicks off with the standard chopping block rhythm of the modern day country music anthem. It’s like a march gone bad at this point, suitable only for overbite shimmies and dirt road high school parties. When I look at lyrics without musical notation I’m sure I shouldn’t be able to sing the melody when I’ve never heard the song. You can on this one. Just talk it through.

I spent fif-teen hundred dollars on your damn- dog’s -collar
Put new spinners on your escalade

Got it? Good. Now, just who is this song written for. Clearly it is reminiscent of songs like Alan Jackson and Randy Travis’s “A Better Class of Losers”. In that song Travis sings about his disdain for his current life of parties and social mobility while fondly remembering his loser friends. It comes off as authentic and Travis’s character, who has had enough, comes across as someone who knows what he wants and leaves. There’s disdain in his voice for previous choices, but not resentment. Why should there be, no one is forcing something on him he can’t walk away from. McGraw’s character plays up the resentment side of things. Country man has girlfriend with expensive taste. He’s not outwardly happy about it, but continues to cater to her, because, well he claims because of her world class lovin, but there’s a bit of the cuckold talking here to0. There’s a certain pleasure to be had in playing the martyr, but I don’t think he is one and we too often make martyrdom synonymous with wanting to be stoned rather than not stopping it. This is a song about a conflicted man. The conflict though isn’t that he doesn’t want to be the man he is, or even about needing more money to keep living as high on the hog, but that he knows how it looks to others. Isn’t this why we swagger? So, again, who is this song written for? Economic recession or not there still seems to be a lot of Escalades out there and over priced dog collars. The cul-de-saccers, fantasy footballers, soccer mommers. Who else can relate? Tim McGraw and Faith Hill can. So, perhaps, this is in fact an authentic reflection of themselves or the shadows of themselves had they not become superstars. Why sing about a bucket when it doesn’t have a hole?

Chad Kroeger

Songwriters interest me, who they are, what else they have written. “It’s A Business Doing Pleasure With You” was written by Chad Kroeger. If you’re reading (and enjoying) this blog you may be forgiven for not knowing who that is, though I’m sure you know his band, Nickelback. At first it struck me as strange that the Canadian rocker was writing country hits for Tim McGraw. It’s a bit of a mean song and that McGraw would sing it was also surprising, but all these worlds are blurred, and that’s when I realized it’s more about that broken bucket than we acknowledge. Kroeger and McGraw have a lot more in common with each other than I do with either of them. One wrote it, the other believed it.

Now a quick digression to underline the point of blurry genres. Uber producer Mutt Lange produced Nickelback’s latest album. Lange is a genre buster with few peers and it’s worth remembering some of his achievements, if only for cocktail conversations. For starter’s he’s married to Robert Palmer. No wait, Robert Palmer died, may he rest in peace. Lange is married to Shania Twain, who sounds like Robert Palmer. Shania, with Mutt’s help, kicked the shit out of country music conventions and I’ll not say it’s bad. Lange also has produced the following in laundry list format (please keep in mind this list is but highlights, and not intended to be exhaustive. Were it exhaustive it would become clear that no one else, save Rick Rubin and Jack Frost, has produced a single song in the last 30 years):

AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” and “Back In Black”, Bryan Adams “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman”, The Cars “Heartbeat City”, The Corrs “In Blue” as well as a ton of stuff from Celine Dion, Backstreet Boys, Billy Ocean, Tina Turner, Britney Spears, XTC, The Boomtown Rats (who deserve a blog of their own), and Michael Bolton. Do I even need to mention Def Leppard?

Mutt Lange

{Fade Digression}

There’s a rift in the country music world between the people who like modern CMT country music and those that prefer the more traditional and what some would claim a more authentic version. To be fair I’m not always sure that the listeners of the latest country hit know that there’s a rift or would care if they did and good for them, why should they? What I think is at the root of all this isn’t really about the sound, but about quality. Country music is big business and getting it right now takes place in board rooms with people pouring over loads of listenership data. What frustrates me most is that feeling of manipulation. Gone is the emotional reaction to a song. In it’s place a discussion of target audience and potential sales. It has a devastating trickle effect though. When formula becomes more important than creativity or at best an equal component the hand of the writer begins to be seen in the lyrics. Questions arise, was this a honest song or a designed song. Once that cynical view is in there it becomes increasingly hard to block it out. I’m sure a great many modern country songs have suffered due to the cynics assumption. With that in mind read this next line from the song:

You got more purses than Versace
Got more rings than Liberace

Songwriting: How To Stoop to the Lowest Common Denominator. This is clunky stupid shit. This is the music equivilent of casting Gilbert Godfrey as an annoying guy, both are lazy and irrelevant outside of a ever shrinking circle of nostalgia. Liberace is worse though as he has even stopped being a person and has simply become a description. The song continues like a hammer banging on things Tim McGraw fans don’t like: Gucci and sushi (don’t miss the rhymes, like “on” and “Vuitton”, classic or how about “tank” and “bank”), and “walkin’ past his fellas, holdin’ drinks with pink umbrellas”. Hey, Tim, if your buddies are also on that unspellable island my guess is they’re not in too much position to make fun of you.

Now, let me be fair. This isn’t the first badly written country song. It’s simply the latest one I’ve listened to. There’s a tradition here about as long as cheatin’ songs. Maybe I’m irritated because it’s a throw away that was easy to write and will make a lot of bucks for our boys. No, I don’t really care about that, it really is about all those kids drinking beer on backroads doing an overbite shimmy to it and singing along all anthem style and calling it good. If you want a good beer drinking, dirt road standing, sing-a-long stick to “Friends In Low Places”. If you want a funny, well written song listen to Lyle Lovett’s non competing single “Keep It In The Pantry”, which will be discussed in Kountry Kliches, Part Deux. If you want this one though it won’t be all your buddies who think it’s funny that you’re spending all your money, it’ll be Tim and Chad. But, hey, maybe they are your buddies, just remember that this song is the pink umbrella in your iPod.

“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” —Groucho Marx

No Depression Indie Roots Music Podcast #3

Join Seattle DJ Iaan Hughes this week while he plays from some of his favorite indie, roots, and Americana music releases of 2009. You’ll hear Jo Serrapere, Red Rooster, Elvis Perkins in Dearland, The Cave Singers, Rachel Harrington, Frontier Ruckus, Marrying Type and the Fruit Bats. Find us at nodepression.com and iaanhughes.com. As always feedback and comments are welcome.

Wherever fine podcasts are found:

http://www.nodepression.com

http://nodepression.podbean.com/

and iTunes

Sleigh Bells Ring, Dylan Sings: Christmas In The Heart

The following are the irrefutable rules of the Christmas Album: Every Christmas album should begin with Sleigh bells. Every Christmas album should be lush with back-up singers. Christmas albums shouldn’t get too interesting or complicated. They should stick to the standards, have an air of whimsy and lots of good cheer. They should make you want to drink eggnog and wassail and visit relatives. Christmas albums should be able to fade into the background so as not to intrude terribly into mingling. They should sound warm on chilly nights. Finally, they should make you yearn for simpler times and I’m reminded of my favorite scene in Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol where Ebenezer Scrooge says of his former employer Mr. Fezziwig

“He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

Bob Dylan is the musical equilvilent of Mr. Fezziwig. After a lifetime of rendering us happy or unhappy on his musical whims he finally turns to the most American of recordings; The Christmas Album. First, let me say that I believe Dylan to be a pop star more than anything else. I’ll go further and say it as he wishes it to be. With the advent of music as serious art in the 1960’s we’ve forgotten that it is at base, wonderful, and that many of the greats loved the popular stuff of the day. Elvis Presley, greased up rockabilly god that he was and is, really liked Perry Como and Dean Martin. Hank Williams loved Tony Bennett. If Hank had lived longer than 29 years of age, I believe completely and without doubt he would have softened his sound over the years and pushed his nasal twang into a evening croon. He had the voice to do it. So did Elvis and he did do it.

When reading about early influences on Bob Dylan singers like Woody Guthrie and Ramblin’ Jack can’t be avoided, but look closely and see names like Elvis and Little Richard are in there too. How could they not be. Dylan carries the burdeon of being literate around with him. Yea, though it must be heavy. An Albatross of responsibility because he turned a few political phrases many years ago. Thank God Cole Porter once famously said “Fuck all that, I don’t vote.” Then he poured himself another drink and wrote Anything Goes.

Dylan of the 21st Century is a highway bluesman. He blows mouth harp and thumps on the keys and occasionally still scratches out a few electrified riffs on his guitar all while being backed up by a roadhouse band that shakes and rattles in thunder clap bursts. He’s also had his own radio show spot lighting country and blues and r&b artists, mostly dead and gone and largely forgotten. Musicians he loves and who speak to him from vinyl tongues about all the important things of life, sex, love, drinking, killing, babies, and suped up cars.

Now, almost every great American singer worth their mustard has given us a holiday album. I would go as far to say, perhaps someone can’t completely be considered a great until he or she does. Possible exclusions to the good who died young like Hank or Buddy Holly. Ritchie Valens would have made a great Christmas album. All Mexican soul. But, the exceptions are few.

There’s a knock at the door. It’s awfully cold outside, who could that be on such a winter’s night. No matter, the fire is crackling and pine fills the air and hearts are merry. Perhaps it’s a old friend stopping by to warm his hands. Why, it’s Bob Dylan dear, and look he’s brought his band. Quick fetch the wassail they’re beginning to sing.

Christmas in the Heart begins with the soft shuffle of sleigh bells and the swelling ohh-ahhs of a sweet back-up group. A moment later the brisk chop of the band kicks in and then there’s Dylan singing Here Comes Santa Claus straight, up-tempo and full of…well, good cheer. If you aren’t smiling by this point please stop reading my blog. This is quite possibly the most joyous recording of his career and makes me grin like a dummy. The whole thing even has a big ending of sorts. Sweet.

Next up is the Christmas march I used to love singing as a kid, Do You See What I See. Dylan and the rat-a-tat-tat are way out in front on this one. There’s a Johnny Cash feel here with the lumpy rhythm and slow building production. Horns and bells build throughout until it has Dylan singing at the peak of his range, which may not actually work, but somehow, works.

The album continues on with straightforward renderings of the classics, highlights being the chorus singers who are wonderful like steaming hot cider with Dylan playing the Apple Jack Brandy. The band shimmers behind them with bells and horns and shining guitars and rattling drums.

David Hidalgo is all over this album too and shines on accordion on the William Hicks and Hal Moore song Must Be Santa, probably best known by Raffi. Though this is the one song that leaves other covers in the snow. Dylan, well, kind of gives Raffi a bit of a spanking.

Dylan is a trickster, an old black crow. Here though,on Christmas in the Heart, he gives us something rare. He plays the straight man. He plays the classics and pops the corn.  Not everyone will love this, but they’re assholes who hate Christmas. Think about that.

P.S. Apologies to my Mother for using the F word in a blog about Christmas. Asking for forgiveness works better than asking for permission. God bless us, everyone!

No Depression Indie Roots Music Podcast with Iaan Hughes, #2

Join Seattle DJ Iaan Hughes this week while he plays from some of his favorite indie, roots, and Americana music releases of 2009. You’ll hear Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women, Dehlia Low, Shannon Stephens, Jim Lauderdale, Avett Brothers, Anne and Pete Sibley, The Handsome Family, Lindsay Fuller, and The Reverend Horton Heat. Find Iaan at nodepression.com and thanks for listening!

http://nodepression.podbean.com/

Also streaming live on iTunes and http://www.nodepression.com/

KBCS Fall Membership Drive

On Thursday, October 8th KBCS begins the Fall Membership Drive amidst internal upheaval due to recent show cancellations. It can be difficult to give or ask for money when something we love has changed. I believe deeply in the continued value of community radio however and below are thoughts referring to the recent changes as well as a request for support. Non commercial, unscripted radio remains one of our most real, cherished and true reflections of who we are as a people and a rollicking way to try and define ourselves!

There’s an old Zen teaching warning us to not be distracted by the finger pointing toward the moon. Community radio is that moon. It is bigger than all of us, has been here before some of us, and hopefully, will be here long after the rest of us. There will be disagreements and at times failure in a most human of ways to find resolution. Community radio is bigger than that. More important than that. At its essence, community radio is the voice of the disenfranchised. We live in a country where we can hear that voice, sometimes its quiet. Other times its a roar, but in all cases it is a reflection of real people doing real things. People you know, or easily could know. Community radio is the last city without walls. That’s a huge part with why I’m enamored by it. You can call me and like the flap of a monarch’s wing can change the course of the whole show. You can email me, twitter me, and facebook me. And, I should add, you do. I stand at this microphone not as an authority, so much as a filter. I stand on the shoulders of those that came before me and am steadied by you, the listener. Over the last decade I keep hearing this phrase, freedom is not free. Well, I guess it’s not and that’s why I come to you today and ask you to sustain this station and our community by becoming a member. It’s this mission, this thing we’re all a part of, if you’re listening right now, you’re swept up in its current and like any family there’s bound to be change and sadness mixed with the joy and highs and like the man says, “flesh and blood is flesh and blood, but you’re the one I need.” While I was thinking about what I wanted to say to you today the words of Tennyson came to mind:

Come, my friends.
‘T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,–
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Please consider making a donation to community radio. 425.564.5000. Without you there’s only….

P is for Pulp

One of Dylan’s best lines is “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” There’s a truth there that, even though the song is soley responsible for the spin-off TV show Mork from Ork, continues to connect with me. I’ve been callous enough to say in other parts of this blog that the Beatles, may half of them rest in peace, are derivative American rock ‘n’ roll and should be happy with that lot. A case in point is one of their greatest songs, Paperback Writer, while keeping in mind that being derivative is not necessarily a hindrance to being great.

Up until Paperback Writer the Beatles had failed at doing two things. One, writing a song about something other than love and two, getting Paul’s bass to sound like the bass in Wilson Pickett’s band. There’s a handful of stories floating around about what inspired Paul to write Paperback Writer, but I tend to believe what I like so here’s what we’ll say. Paul’s aunt told him he shouldn’t only write about boy-girl relationships and while he was pondering on what possible other subject might there be to write about he saw Ringo reading a book. I don’t know what book, but I’d like to think it was 1984. And, specifically a paperback version with a beautifully rendered trashy cover. Just like the Beatles. Trash rock, beautifully made.

This is tight. The boys kick it off with some messy overlaid harmonies that nod to what’s to come and then George rips off a dirty, completely fuzzed out rock riff that along with the Ringo’s dead body beat has been copied a blue million times since by every pulp band in their Dad’s basement. Then comes Paul with his best Donald “Duck” Dunn bass line. Now, it’s not actually a Donald “Duck” Dunn bass line, but it’s close. McCartney achieved his effect by picking up a Fender bass for the session and using a loudspeaker as a microphone and positioning it in front of the bass speaker. It has that great looping sound that Dunn had and certainly no one was as melodic as Paul was on the bass, but the funk isn’t there. I don’t know how else to say it. The great American hip shaking, pelvis twisting tease is missing.

But, let me digress. I spent most of the 90’s working in bookstores. Five different stores in two different states for a combined decade of my life. I was a self described book snot who preferred the Booker’s over the Pulitzer’s and was hell on genre fiction. Then near the end of my ten year despotic reign I was shelving mass markets in the mystery section of the downtown Seattle Borders when it hit me. These pulp writers I had sneered at for so long weren’t the problem. I was the problem. Vampires, serial killers, cops, forensic pathologists, and cat sleuths all of a sudden seemed so smart. For example, Sue Grafton wrote a book in 1983 titled “A” Is For Alibi. Then came “B” Is For Burglar and now as of this writing we’ve gotten up to “U” Is For Undertow. My wish is that when she’s finally done she’ll weave them together into one long narrative, like Coppola did when he re-cut the Godfather films, and give us, in copper plating, one large 7,800 paged book. Really though, this is a feat to be humbled by. 26 books (and she hasn’t said whether or not she’ll continue onto the ten key) and a few houses later and she hasn’t stolen anyone’s savings or denied someone healthcare, but has in fact quietly, in the glare of the supermarket spindle, built a pulp legacy out of the misadventures of Kinsey Millhone and should chortle at every upstart bookseller squeaky out of college when they claim to prefer William H. Gass.

There’s something about McCartney being incredibly self aware of his own talents and limitations though that is somewhat unique in pop music. The song’s narrator who is writing a letter to some unknown publishing house has modest dreams. Paperback writing is fine for him, he needs not more. He’s completely willing to compromise what he’s already written to make it more to their liking and is already offering them the rights to his work. A cruel irony being that so many musicians, the Beatles included, have lost or never had to begin with the rights to their own songs in order to land recording contracts. None of this would have been lost on Paul. He knew the Beatles were a junk band making the musical equivalent of genre fiction and played off of that with a deep since of irony and British dry wit and a wink.

Often, when I tell people that I’m a country music DJ I hear something about how they don’t like county music, but Johnny Cash is cool or Patsy Cline or Willie Nelson. I’m sorry, if you like those singers, you do, in fact, like country music. They are country music. Should they be shelved in pop instead? That actually happens to genre fiction. James M. Cain or Raymond Chandler are typically shelved in general fiction or literature sections of a bookstore, rather than mystery or crime. 1984 is there too, though why not science fiction (and don’t say because it’s becoming true – being shelved in fiction still means Orwell made it all up). Many of Cormac McCarthy’s books could easily be shelved on the Western rack. The point being there’s nothing wrong with making pulp. It’s delicious and entertaining and at times better reflects the craziness of life on earth anyways. And while Paul’s bass is no Donald’s, and Sue is perhaps not George they’re still pretty darn good at what they do.

The original single for Paperback Writer was released in England in 1966 with the above cover shot by Roger Whitaker as a black humor protest against the war in Vietnam. The album Yesterday and Today was released in the States using the picture and took so much heat Capitol Records pasted a new cover over top of it before sending remaining copies out to stores.

I just read that one original copy sold recently for $39,000. That’s some expensive pulp.

No Depression Podcast

The Real Mr. Heartache podcasting for No Depression? Now, what were they thinking?

No Depression Indie Roots Music Podcast with Iaan Hughes

Sep 22nd, 2009 by nodepression Edit |

Join Seattle DJ Iaan Hughes this week while he plays from some of his favorite indie, roots, and Americana music releases of 2009. You’ll hear Zoe Muth, The Gourds, Amanda Shires, Those Darlins, The Low Anthem, Wayne Hancock, Rita Hosking, Jenny Scheinman and Pete Molinari. Find Iaan at nodepression.com and thanks for listening!

http://nodepression.podbean.com

What’s Alabama Know About Texas Anyhow?

“If you’re gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band
That lead guitar is hot but not for “Louisiana Man”
So rosin up that bow for “Faded Love” and let’s all dance
If you’re gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band”

Here’s the thing about music from your childhood, you can’t escape liking it and whether its bad or good doesn’t even play a part. Alabama is one of those bands for me. Rooted in gospel style harmony singing they sang for and reflected their people pretty much spot on in their day. It’s a mistake to think that country people don’t follow their own particular trends and that they’re not based, at least somewhat, from what’s happening in the big cities.

Alabama

The core of Alabama is two cousins who grew up next to each other on Lookout Mountain cotton farms located in the Northeasat corner of the state.  Rhythm guitarist and lead singer, Randy Owen,, and bass guitarist and singer, Teddy Gentry. A third cousin, Jeff Cook, joined them in 1969, but it would be ten working years before the classic line-up solidified with drummer Mark Herndon. Early publicity shots of these guys are hilariously terrible and saved only by the fact that they are true reflections of their time. Pull out your old high school photos if you don’t believe me and compare. They each had a look. Randy, bearded and casually masculine, he plays music and then chops wood. Watch out boys, all of your womenfolk would leave you for Randy and that’s a fact. Teddy plays the square. He looks like my old shop teacher from high school and is the kind of guy you want to marry your sister. Jeff Cook’s the one with the perm. There was always one guy with a perm. No ducking that one. That’s okay though, because the man can play anything he puts his hands on and laid down some of the greatest country-rock licks on record. Hard twang from this man, sounds good. The new guy, Mark Herndon, I would guess was considered the hip one. He wore the jackets with the sleeves pushed up, always had on shades and had a bit of Ronnie Wood happening with his hair. There’s a great picture of the four sitting together looking like three Alabama rednecks and and a guy from Toto.

Alabama cut their teeth playing in honky tonks all over the south including the eighth wonder of the world, the Bowery in Mrytle Beach, South Carolina. The Bowery’s still there and has been since 1944 or 1844 or some such thing and you can get drinks and a bed, some music, a fight and just about anything you want with the stars and bars printed on it. See the cowbell with “Ya can’t beat fun” printed on one side and the flag on the other. Who can argue with a cow bell?

The Eighth Wonder of the World

Now Alabama is truly one of the great country bands of all time. Allow me to explain. They have 42 number 1 hits. 21 of them were consecutive and the streak was only broken by a Christmas song, “Christmas in Dixie”. Baby Jesus wasn’t a big seller 1982. No matter, after the ribbons and bows were tossed into the back yard the hits kept coming. See, that alone is an inarguable case that Alabama is one of the great country bands of all time.

A dirty little secret about all the legends out there, from Robert Johnson to Hank Williams is they all knew, enjoyed and could play pop songs of the day. And, they had better too since more likely than not, someone would yell a song out during a show and things could get rowdy if it wasn’t played. These men didn’t live in rural bubbles holding fast to tradition while eschewing popular trends. Everyone wants to have a hit record. Its some sort of misguided quest for musicians to be slave to authenticity. If that’s their goal, and by authenticity you know what I mean, than who’s being shucked and jived? I am no more a product of Waylon Jennings than I am of the Beatles. I can’t pretend I haven’t heard both and been duly influenced. Alabama never tried to hide their roots. They were a country band at heart, and

Lookout Mountain - George Barnard, 1864

they could play Bill Monroe and Merle Haggard, but could also rip into a ZZ Top number at the drop of a hat. So, they were country, but they rocked. The final piece to the puzzle is the birth of the modern day country ballad. Alabama didn’t do it by themselves, Kenny Rogers was there and George Jones showed them the way, and what all these acts did was learn how to sing to the ladies without losing the men. It was masculine music, enough so, that the boys could hold their girls close and even have a few stray romantic thoughts. That’s the power of Alabama. That’s what almost  every mainstream country artist has tried to do since. George Strait, Randy Travis, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson actually do it pretty well too. Lonestar and Rascal Flatts, who clearly spent some heavy time with Alabama records spinning, miss the mark for me and when I think about why, it’s because they only sing to my girl and boy, that’s a problem.

Out of all of those 42 hits, there’s two that are particular favorites for me; Randy’s 1981 masterpiece “Mountain Music” and Dan Mitchell and Murray Kellum’s song from 1983 ” If You’re Gonna Play In Texas (You Gotta Have A Fiddle In The Band). Both have the hallmark ’80’s production of glossy synthesizer, and power chords over country harmonies. Both have plenty of country rock guitar way out in front and can easily open up for extended jamming live. They also do what all country artists do, they sing about the old times, without sounding like the old times and finally they both have a fiddle breakdown near the end. More bands today could use a good fiddle breakdown. That’s a pointed comment to you Rascal Flatts.

“If You’re Gonna Play In Texas” is brilliant. It has a natural foot stomping infection that’s impossible to cure. The lyrics are simple beyond belief. This is no “A Day In The Life”. It simply acts as a reminder that, if you play in Texas, you better have a fiddle in the band. That’s it. There’s a total of two verses and a chorus and they riff on it like an old time fiddle tune. My wife asked if they were intentionally being ironic when through most of the song they sing lines like:

“That lead guitar is hot but not for “Lousiana Man”
So rosin up that bow for “Faded Love” and let’s all dance
If you’re gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band”

Then punctuate the lyric with a hot guitar lick.

No, they’re not being ironic. That’s the curse of the ’90’s and music wasn’t as jaded back in 1983. There’s two thing happening here. One, we all like to play homage to what came before even if we’re simultaneously distancing ourselves from the very thing we’re honoring. Two, the lead guitar is hot and Alabama knew that’s exactly what the audience wanted to hear. When the fiddle break finally comes, as it inevitably will, I almost wish Jeff scorched it up with his double necked Gibson instead.

There’s a whole world of country music out there that’s overlooked or scoffed at. The young country listeners don’t go back to the ’80’s, they follow popular trends and continue to look forward. To the hipsters this kind of band simply isn’t cool enough. They don’t have the credibility that Waylon or Johnny have and I’m guessing Rick Rubin hasn’t been calling . The old timers don’t think it’s country enough and dislike them for the same reasons they dislike anything post 1964. In this late day, I’m not really sure who still listens to Alabama. I imagine they have a classic Trans Am in their garage though and might carry a comb in their back pocket. It’s too bad too. This is a genre bending band who’s time has come to be appreciated for what they’ve done. Yes, product of their time, no doubt, but so was Charlie Rich and Ernest Tubb. To me, it’s all country be it good, bad or feathered hair.

Post Script – The Bowery has a wonderfully interactive website filled with history, and shotglasses and drunken postings, but the hum dinger is the Whack A Yank game where you get to, well, I guess it’s pretty clear isn’t it? Whack a Yank. If you do good you can get yourself a discount at the store the next time you’re there. Just mind your southern manners and steer clear of Stonewall and Robert E.

http://www.thebowerybar.com/boweryflash.html

Beatling on the Beatles and other Beatles’ Beatles

“You can’t be the best, you can just be a good ‘un.”

-Muddy Waters

In one of Seattle’s remaining print newspapers, and possibly the one that will win the game at the rate the others are falling, The Stranger, they have a personal ad section where they cut to the meat of love and love has a lot to answer for. There’s all sorts of terrible ways to meet your life partner. If you don’t believe me simply turn to the person to your right, or left, and ask them how they met their love. Even if that person is yours truly, maybe especially so, you’ll soon be listening to a tale of woe equal parts ghastly and boring. Ponder that before you scoff at the Stranger’s harmonic way of helping the lonelyhearts meet. Here’s how it works. You read two opposite things, pick one and hope that distills enough truth about you to make a match. For example: Early Bird or Night Owl. Mundane, I know, but any night owl out there knows the condescending look the early bird gives to the seemingly lazy and further knows how sad any argument made about how productive the night time is sounds at 1:30pm when still in bed. Night Owl, know thyself. Early Bird, the night time can be really, really productive. For example: Library Card or Amazon. Library Card right? Bullllshit. Don’t call me. For example: Princess Leia or Princess Amidala. Why do we encourage this? Don’t answer this one. For example: I-5 or Aurora. For those of you not familiar with these great American highways lemme tell you, they’re both parking lots and could bring out the worst in a puppy. Then the questionnaire gets real. Stones or Beatles. If you had to know just one thing, a desert island question if you will, this is the big one.

But first, lets digress. Elsewhere in this blog, I wrote about Leo Fender and his wonderful shit-can guitars. To my ears they’re just about the best thing going. But, the sound is more than junked pick-ups and tube amps, it’s about making something out of necessity and out of a feeling. The sounds Chess and Sun records had have never been duplicated because they weren’t created in the first place. Not out of any acoustic engineering sense. It was always as much about limitation as it was about talent. It was a plugged-in electrified folk movement of poor blacks and whites and immigrants trying to makes some bucks. Leonard and Phil Chess might not have known much about the glory of shit-can guitars, but they at least didn’t care enough to buy something better for their artists and when someone like Bo Diddley walked in with a homemade box with strings that would as likely cause a fire as change all of rock-n-roll it’s a wonder and a blessing they didn’t.

Now obviously, all of our music is interconnected. Some just have deeper ties to each other. The Blues and Rock-n-Roll are tight. They are both dominated by men and all about sex. Jazz used to be about sex, but started to think of itself as an artform and there’s nothing overtly sexy about art that hasn’t become porn, which by the time it’s become that has stopped even being interesting let alone erotic. Country is too concerned about getting caught to have fun or enough reckless abandoned to be considered hedonistic. It’s just sneakin’ around or even worse – love. R&B has kept the torch burning I suppose, longer than most, but even that has become a little too Barry White and too little James Brown. So, here we are in the 21st century and without much urging from our puritanical roots we’ve lost all that’s lusty and fun about music. How did this happen?

The British.

I realize that’s not entirely fair. We could lay the blame at so many American feet. But, the rub is no one quite changed music the way the Beatles changed music. Maybe Dylan. That’ll come and he’s made ammends of some sort for what he’s done. It’s the art that bothers me I guess. The prog in the rock. The sergent in the pepper.

I would guess the Brits didn’t intend to kill it and as I said, we would have killed it all in short order ourselves if they hadn’t been faster on the drop. In the beginning their boys just wanted what our boys wanted. Listen to those early German and London sessions, they’re raw and hellbent. There was grease in their hair and dirt under their nails. But under the collars, no matter how shabby they were was prep schools. It was in their nature to turn what they touched into art. The moments of non artistic expression are brief for the Beatles. Primarily the early pre-invasion years when they were still boys from Liverpool tearing it up through Germany’s red light districts and not yet the mods from Hamburg. Soon enough though the grease was washed out and the bangs were cut and Love Me Do was about to hit big.

Rock critic Richie Unterberger writes “they (the Beatles) synthesized all that was good about early rock & roll, and changed it into something original and even more exciting.” In an unrelated matter this might be an opportune moment to mention something about Nick Tosches’ “Unsung Heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, but we’ll do our past to keep on track for the moment and say instead that the above quote is perhaps the worst sentence ever written about music. Ever. Now, Richie knows his Beatles. That fact can’t be doubted. I on the other hand can’t remember how many of them there were and what that one singer’s name was who played his bass upside down, but no matter, for whatever their glories making music more exciting than Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Charlie Feathers, Wanda Jackson, Elvis Presley, Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf and Rosetta Tharpe was not one of them. What they did do, was make the whole thing respectable in an uptown stiff suit sort of way. An alternate history of all the wonderful trashy music made vs. the art rock could be drawn up in the types of drugs the various camps favored. Booze and pills vs. pot and heroine. Sure you can’t ride the snake on all that Jack and reds, but it would probably just make you sick anyhow and nothing ever good comes from seeing the face of God.

So, in the coming weeks with the release of all the Beatles records that have already been released you may be pondering whether or not you should purchase them all over again (readers note: if you bought the Neil Young archive set, no need to continue reading here buddy, you know you’re gonna buy both these sets too). Ask yourself what it is that you want. A good time? Or some sort of enriching experience? The Real Mr. Heartache is always looking for a good time and that’s why I’m gonna check the Stones on my personal ad (with a mild protest for there not being a Muddy Waters box) and if you’re looking for love, I may be the wrong place, but it’ll be a long and winding road.

Author’s Note ~ The Beatles, for all their sins, are what they are and I fully acknowledge my own personal debt for Yea,  it is a heavy chain, indeed. I don’t condone violence, very much, however you should slap yourself right in the face for not liking them for something. For God’s sake it’s not like they’re the Eagles.

Saucers, Spaceguys, and Seattle

I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Revelation 6:12-14

When you see a saucer fly like a comet through the sky
You should realize the price you’ll have to pay
You’d better pray to the Lord when you see those flying saucers
It may be the coming of the Judgment Day

Cy Coben & Charlie Green

It’s a well known fact that space aliens are not coming to us in peace. The Mayans and Egyptians knew it. Every lonely Midwestern farmer knows it and the folks running the military industrial complex out in Nevada know it. It’s the rest of us who need to get a clue. Well, most of us, but more on that in a bit.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle we’re gearing up for our local civic elections. I’ve been very conscientious and have carefully read through the entire voter pamphlet (which could easily be considered suspect since it arrived by a sanctioned government agency), but must confess a lack of resolve for this scraggly crew. Well, all but one. One stands out for his tenacity if not his success, so much so, that I wonder if he’s a Cub’s fan. Who am I kidding, a Mariner’s fan would pretty much do the trick as well. He’s run for Governor, Congress and now in 2009 King County Executive. His name is Goodspaceguy Nelson and if you don’t even have the slightest urge to check his name in that curtained ballot booth, I mean if you don’t secretly grin, when in the the furthest reaches of your mind, you imagine yourself darkening the circle next to his name like an atomic sun, then seriously, stop reading my blog. You don’t like me and I don’t like you. There it is. What more can be said?

Goodspaceguy Nelson

Goodspaceguy is a professional amateur. He’s an amateur economist, astronomer, and self described innovater, improver and owner. I admit not knowing what Goodspaceguy owns, but I imagine it’s interesting. At first glance he’s not really much different than all the other meatballs. He would like to “raise the living standard,” “raise the quality of life,” “increase free parking.” But, then again there are some differences; I don’t see much about plastic bag fees or bike lanes, but orbital colonization of space certainly sticks out, not to mention the free showers in public parks program. What would the foundation or space colonization look like? Here’s a few of Goodspaceguy’s ideas:

* What goes into orbit should stay in orbit.
* A space station is never finished. It can always be added to, made larger, and improved.
* Recycle everything. Advance the technology of recycling.
* Women are needed in the orbiting space colonies.
* Many space habitats and space stations and orbital space colonies should be spun at a comfortable speed to create an illusion of gravity at a graduation of levels from zero gravity to lunar gravity to Martian gravity to Earth gravity.
* Surround the space habitats with one or more outer layers of enclosing outer habitats to hold layers of water and layers of air for protection from radiation in space. (Picture giant jars within even larger, enclosing jars.)
* Surround the outer space habitats with giant netting for storage and for the prevention of drifting away on space floats.
* Cover the outer hulls of space habits with hooks and handholds.
* Use the laws that protect competitive, free enterprise.
* Use the laws that protect the individual space colonist.

-Goodspaceguy Nelson – http://colonizeorbitalspace.blogspot.com/2006/08/principles-of-space-colonization.html

Now, before you hooey on everything remember two things. 1. The old yard sale adage: your trash is other people’s treasure and 2. that’s pretty much the best thought out plan I’ve ever read from someone running for public office. The giant jars within even larger jars is easy to grasp, easy to get behind and readily accessible as a sustainable vision.

The Real Mr. Heartache unfortunately still rides on the fence. It’s not that I particularly want to vote for anyone else running, it is more that I can’t reconcile my differences on outer space with Goodspaceguy Nelson. I don’t care for vaccums, Tang, stargates, artificial intelligence, light sabers, worm holes, white holes, black holes, Disney movies about black holes, food in tubes, earthrises and most especially I don’t like aliens.

In 1947 two brothers, Chester and of course, Lester Buchanan went into the RCA Victor recording studios and laid down a rollicking version of Cy Coben and Charlie Green’s song When You See Those Flying Saucers. In a rich and varied cannon of UFO songs, Flying Saucers, remains one of the best, least novel and fully realized of them all. The two brothers who grew up on a Georgia farm during the depression and have a sound as hillbilly as it gets had a soft spot for exit mundi scenarios. Rough hewn harmonies layered over a plinking tinny mandolin and sawing fiddles play well off of a streak of modernity in their thematic choices. They sang songs about the bomb and aliens, but set themselves apart from the crowd by linking them closely to dire Biblical warnings and apocalyptic outcomes.

Bellevue, WA resident, Kenneth Arnold

1947 was a watershed year for flying saucers. Well, the defining year really. On June 24th Kenneth Arnold was flying near – wait for it Washingtonians – Mt. Rainier when he saw nine unusually shaped objects in the sky. Pie pans, discs, saucers. Well, you get the picture.

You’d better pray to the Lord when you see those flying saucers
It may be the coming of the Judgment Day
It’s a sign there’s no doubt of the trouble that’s about
So I say my friends you’d better start to pray

Cobin and Green hit us right away with this one. The key to the song is everything ma y be something more than what it appears. As if flying saucers weren’t enough, they may be also bringing about the apocalypse. It’s verse three that really gets me, though.

Many people think the saucers might be someone’s foolish dream
Or maybe they were sent down here from Mars
If you’ll just stop and think you’d realize just what it means
They’re more than atom bombs or falling stars

In a nod to the equally fascinating atomic bomb genre, where the power is often made by man, though perhaps given by God, Coben and Green easily trump the man made hell with mysterious saucer shaped objects sent as some sort of spiritual warning. They go right for the flying object skeptics and mock the ridiculous assertion that the UFO’s could be Martian in nature all in one fell swoop. It’s masterful, funny, brilliant. They turn and flatter our intellect while leaving the alien message a bit vague. Clearly their arrival is bad, but specifically for whom is only inferred. Sinners, we have it rough in these old songs. Strangely enough, it really is a cry for peace. The war was over, the world was tired, but as the song says there was still unrest and trouble was a-brewin’. You’d better pray, indeed.

The Baptism of Christ, Aert De Gelder, 1710

Post Scriptous: The Buchanan Brother’s father was named Ephraim Shadrack Buchanan. Ephraim is clearly a case of picking out a name because it’s in the Bible rather than because of his Biblical significance, since this son of Joseph is described as domineering, haughty, discontented, and jealous. There is argument to this, but none of which I’m sure was read by Ephraim Buchanan’s parents. The middle name, Shadrack (or Shadrach),  interests me more, however. Shadrack was a companion of the prophet Daniel who, along with some pals, walked voluntarily into their own assured execution by Babylonian fiery furnace. This all came about because of their refusal to worship a freshly erected statue of the current King. The King being extremely displeased, ordered the royal furnace to be made 7 times hotter than usual (officially taking the needle up to piping) and had the three men thrown in. That’s when the miracle happened and we should all be so lucky. Not a hair on their heads were singed and after a time they were allowed to come out of the fiery furnace and take their just reward. For the skeptics reading who might be thinking it just probably wasn’t that hot, the story is told that even the poor sad sack guards who threw them in were burned to death from the heat. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?