W&H AMERICANA ROUND-UP - JUNE '06 (Part 1)
To make up for the absence of last month’s round up of some things Americana-like, this month’s will (fingers crossed) be an epic two-parter, taking in eight new releases.
First up for consideration this month is “Greasy Heart” (7/10, Contraphonic Music) from Chicago’s THE THIN MAN. Well Chicago via Newcastle-Upon-Tyne as it happens. Geordie ex-pat Mr Kennedy Greenrod’s third release under his Thin Man moniker qualifies as Americana (in my head at least) partly because of his location and partly because of the sounds contained therein. There’s some Waitsian carnivalesque clatter (‘Louisiana Death Ride’), some old-fashioned R&B / Rockabilly romps (‘Molly O’), and a soulful accordion and/or organ led ballad or two (‘Picnic’), all tied together by Greenrod’s vocal which, after all these years and to his credit, stays firmly rooted on this side of the big water.
His press release makes the obligatory Waits & Cave references, but two further points of comparison for me would be The Pogues - particular given the spirited nature of the band performances on tracks like the opening ‘My City’ - and Morphine. Greenrod, like Shane McGowan and Mark Sandman, is certainly capable of a neat turn of phrase every so often, as on ‘Baby Please’: “Time can be your friend just like Hitler he loved children”.
However his vocal is never quite so ragged as the former, nor quite so seductive as the latter, and this points to the fact that “Greasy Heart” as an album suffers from a near fatal case of the almosts. This is almost “Rain Dogs”, almost “Yes”, almost “If I Should Fall From Grace…”, but consistent and all as it is, it never quite reaches the peaks of such enviable company.
Mind you, even though “Greasy Heart” may falter under the weight of its own influences, I suspect that The Thin Man live puts on a cracking show, and I will be first in the queue if he should make a return trip to these shores anytime soon.
Mystery lies at the heart of the strange mixture of attraction & frustration provoked by BILL CARSON & HIS CHECKERED PAST. “The Copper Look” (Unconscious Ballonist, 7/10) arrived through my door with nary a press release or explanatory spiel of any sort attached, and his website appears to hold precious little in terms of biographical info. That said, in the age of information overload and packaging-over-content, a promotional approach which forces/allows the songs and music to do their own work is to be commended.
So what do the songs on “The Copper Look” tell us? The answer is…inconclusive. This is a gentle - lazy sounding but not lazily produced - album bathed in a warm acoustic sound filled out with tasteful sonic filigree in the shape of brushed snare & cymbal, dobro, violin, harmonica and the odd female backing vocal. It’s a pattern of sound that on occasion recalls an album like Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon”, though Carson’s youthful vocal recalls the gentler moments of another classic album by a lesser-known Canadian legend, Mr Hawksley Workman’s “For Him and the Girls”.
Lyrically, Carson’s approach is oblique. The closest we get to a straight up story song is ‘Revolution is Eternal’, a swinging affair (one of only a couple of tracks on the album to up the tempo) relating the return of some Havana émigrés ‘moving like they never hit the ground’ in more ways than one. Snatches of narrative crop up from time to time - there’s a whiff of old west adventure on ‘One More Step’, images of travel on ‘Licorice and Coffee’, talk of boys in the trenches on ‘Goodnight S. Maria’ - but for the most part Carson’s imagery veers toward the oblique. On ‘Beware’ he seems to be lamenting the opportunity to warn someone about something, but in a song that makes mention of apples, watercress, a tourniquet, a copperhead, an outlaw and a hurricane, who or what never becomes clear.
So the mystery which initially attracts one’s ear to “The Copper Look” may in time become its undoing. Its charms are definite but subtle and, despite the tasteful backdrops and the pleasing vocal, it remains to be seen if Carson’s melodies and wordplay are strong enough to merit perseverance and repeated plays.
CROOKED ROADS’ lyrics are not quite so oblique as Bill Carson’s, but his wordsmithery is certainly a bit more skewed than your average country-inflected songster. The opening track on “Heartbreak Sampler” (6/10, Chris Dingman), ‘Tell Me Again’, can’t seem to make up its mind whether it’s a love song or a break up number: ‘So tell me again what you do for me / cuz (sic) everybody thinks I’m crazy / But maybe I don’t want to be sane / I know I don’t want to be free’. Sung over a jaunty, country-swing backdrop with liberal dollops of pedal steel, the overriding impression is one of ambivalence, and it’s an intriguing enough way to open the album.
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However, as the album progresses, and main man Chris Dingman proceeds to catalogue his everyday grievances backed up by some strong melodies and solid, if conventional, band performances, ambivalence veers towards barely veiled bitterness a few times too many. The first line of ‘Some Dreams’ is telling - ‘I could sit and complain so I think I will’ – and by the time ‘Goddam Wonderful World’ rolls around you’re in little doubt that the title is less than sincere. All told the overall effect can be a bit wearying.
There are some nice moments recalling both Phil Ochs - ‘Long White Robe’, a satirical take on religious-right & new-age-lefty fundamentalism complete with sawing fiddles, is a definite album highlight - and Vic Chesnutt; ‘Comfort Me’ features the line ‘in my time of need / I started picking up the nuances’, a Chesnuttism if there ever was one, right down to the fuzzy enunciation of ‘nuances’.
Ultimately though, the redemptive moments are a little too spread out, and arrive a little too late in the day, to elevate “Heartbreak Sampler” to the level of essential listening.
So what is it about DARLING NEW NEIGHBOURS that makes them my pick of the month over a fairly strong field of contenders? “Every Day is Saturday Night” (8/10, I Eat Records) does not necessarily show off the instrumental chops (or even ability to stay in tune) apparent on the rest of this month’s releases, but it displays a heart-on-its-sleeve exuberance and questing originality that sets it apart from the crowd. And some very neat melodies.
It’s an indie record that happily hops genres from angular, Nina Nastasia-ish country waltz opener ‘Overgrown’, to the angular, peppy pop - remniscent of Athens bands like Masters of the Hemisphere – of ‘The Best You Can Do’, through to the accordion-led angular polka-shuffle ‘Jesus’, featuring standout line: ‘Jesus, we’ll get there one day, someday in the next five-to-seven years’ (I like the confidence of the time scale).
As you may have gathered, angular is something of a watchword here, my attempt to communicate the twisty-turny nature of an album which still surprises, musically and lyrically, after several listens.
Throwaway snippets ‘La La’ and ‘I’m at the Mall’ (which sounds like an answering message left on somebody’s phone) are a bit frustrating, ideas which maybe could have been incorporated into more satisfying full songs. Also the inclusion of a live version of ‘You’re like Gasoline’ only serves to make you wish for a better mixed and recorded in-studio version of the song – featuring as it does the opening line ‘You’re like gasoline / you burn up quick and you smell like shit’, it is surely deserving of a bit more care and attention.
But these are minor, nit-picking points. Darling New Neighbours deserve to find audiences well beyond Austin Tx with their debut effort and I for one will be happy to preach their gospel in Glasgow and elsewhere.
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