1. Let me tell you what I appreciate about James Hand: there is not a single phony thing about him. Not that you needed me to tell you that, with Kristofferson saying that “he believes” James Hand and Willie calling him “the real deal”. Despite such accolades, Hand has flown under the radar for most of his career. Shadow on the Ground is his second record for Rounder, and “Don’t Want Me Too” is a prime example of his no-nonsense way with a song. Hand shows no need to dress up a song with lavish production and extended wordplay, coaxing a whip-smart performance out of his band that crackles with an energy seldom heard today.
2. With his rhythm section accompanied by only a snaky guitar line and breezy steel, Hand lets his stark voice bottle up his feeling of unrequited love, swooping and fluttering with an impressive agility. His almost comically long run-on of an opening line laughs in the face of metaphors, but resonates with the honesty of someone whose pain keeps them from waxing poetic.
“You didn’t want me when you had me or you never would have left/
And I still don’t know why you did”
He recalls Hank Sr. with his drawling “why, why why” before lamenting that he wants someone who “don’t want me too”. Then, as quickly as it began, the track careens to a stop in just over two and a half minutes. His crisp, immediate approach has the freshness of Buddy Holly or Doug Sahm, and carries an energy that absolutely cannot be faked.
3. There is a lot of complicated music being made today that says half of what James Hand and his band get across in “Don’t Want Me Too“. To me, honky tonk or western swing has always been best enjoyed live at a place like the Broken Spoke, but Hand’s performance on this track surpasses that preference, coming off more reminiscent of early rock and roll. I am glad James Hand is giving lessons in how to make exciting music recorded live by real people playing real instruments, and I hope young artists are taking notes.
Posted: September 30th, 2009 | No Comments »
1. The more records that Robert Earl Keen makes, the more he shows of his true self. Not that Keen has ever pretended to be anyone else, but on his latest, The Rose Hotel, it all comes together – his observational storytelling and his appreciation of small parts of life, all wrapped in a gorgeous, shimmering sound.
2. The opening title track tells the story of missed love in Keen’s own granular way (read more on this track here). Like his friend Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl understands how to write around the story and reveal an extra layer of insight into the actual events. On “The Man Behind the Drums”, Keen’s band finds themselves at one of Levon Helm’s legendary Midnight Rambles. Keen lauds the drummer by telling how they ended up “hangin from the rafters, singin every song” — emphasizing the effect rather than the source.
3. His outside approach to storytelling occasionally strays into explorations of the absurd. Robert Earl understands that small towns can be incredibly surreal. A story about a drunk who can’t seem to get his jokes right, “10,000 Chinese Walk Into a Bar” follows the psychedelic bent of recent tracks like “Farm Fresh Onions” and “The Great Hank” with Keen bringing in Billy Bob Thornton to help him illuminate a scene like something out of The Last Picture Show. “Village Inn” justifies Keen’s self-anointed genre of “Best Western music”, describing the simple existence of a small motel in Challis, Idaho, with “free wi-fi and HBO” — a fascination that continues on the rollicking “Wireless In Heaven”, a ridiculous yet overwhelmingly enjoyable romp about technology in the afterlife.
4. Lloyd Maines’ production provides a sparkling unifying sound that makes this whole record work together. Keen’s professed enthusiasm for rhythm and harmony vocals led Maines to create a layered sound that proves the perfect setting for his reedy voice — matching him with Drew Womack on he loping “On and On” (which references Keen’s cowboy hero Marty Robbins) and Greg Brown’s quivering baritone on “Laughing City”. Maines gives Keen’s cover of “Flying Shoes” a thumping arrangement that retains the haunting feeling of Townes Van Zandt’s original, and kicks off “Something I Do” with a double-take of a drum loop that blossoms quickly into one of the record’s best songs.
5. Robert Keen has explored a few different sounds in his career. His debut No Kinda Dancer wore his folkier influences (Steve Fromholz, Guy Clark) on his sleeve, while 1997’s slick Picnic has been panned by the artist himself. As he progresses further into his career, the strength of his songwriting only increases, earning Keen the opportunity to explore new sonic ground. The Rose Hotel finds him fearless and in fine form.
Robert Earl Keen – Something I Do
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Posted: September 29th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
1. Tom Russell writes songs about a fading, dangerous West — the same one that Calexico (who backs Russell up on this record) conjures musically and that Cormac McCarthy has traversed so famously. Russell’s latest, Blood and Candle Smoke, is a tour de force that already stands tall as one of the best releases of the year. A true renaissance man, Russell’s background includes stints as a criminologist (which he addresses here: “You may think I’m just some jive folk singer, no, I’m a master in the art of criminology“), taxi driver, Nigerian school teacher, painter, writer, and most prominently, a songwriter. All this experience converges to create a concept album that embodies the American Western fantasy, in an appropriately abstract way.
2. Russell, born in Los Angeles, has always had a western edge to his music, most famously on his cockfighting epic “Gallo Del Cielo“, covered by Joe Ely on Letters to Laredo. In the last decade he has settled in El Paso, and the surrounding land has come forth in his music, beginning with 2001’s Borderland. He shows his affinity for our country’s diminishing river towns on “American Rivers“, the ones mythologized by his heroes Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott:
“Now they flow past Casinos and Hamburger stands/
They are waving farewell to the kid on the land…./
With their jig-sawed old arteries/
All clogged and defiled/
No open heart miracle’s/
Gonna turn ‘em back wild”
He furthers this concept on “Mississippi River Running Backward“, which opens with strains of “Old Man River”, but turns to a land (presumably post-Katrina New Orleans) so devastated that he “doesn’t need an Old Testament prophet to tell [him]/ We ain’t in no promised land”.
3. From this land, Russell extracts both truth and fiction, which, in this context, run dangerously close together. “Crosses of San Carlos” crafts the characters of two Native American boys who sneak away from the teetotaling reservation for a little liquid pleasure. In the glow of a “methamphetamine sunrise”, the boys become two more crosses to dot the side of the highway with their brothers, images of the dying Native west. He also tells about “The Most Dangerous Woman in America“, which recalls Mother Jones, the guardian angel of union miners in Mt. Olive, Illinois. Russell sets the story of a junkie who goes home to bury his father and continues the cycle of violence that the town cannot seem to shake.
4. Most affecting, however, is the way that Russell relates his personal experiences as a resident of the same land. “Guadalupe“, written during a lonely holiday in Mexico City, tells of Tom’s ride with a taxi driver on a tour where he discovered the true passion of belief through seeing the participants a Mexican Catholic parade wait to have their children blessed and baptized. He unabashedly declares his love for his wife on “Finding You“, where he “prays to any God who leaves his light on late at night” to express his gratitude in a simple, understated song illuminated by his naked, quavering voice. He also draws the veil back on his personal history — on “Nina Simone“, relating the first time he heard the jazz singer’s voice drifting out the window of a Mexican bookstore and the way it stopped him in his tracks.
5. There is too much to write about this record. Russell has created a piece of art that brands us all with the mystery, tragedy, and hope of American history, particularly those of us that live in the Southwest. Russell expounds on each song on his own blog, which helps bring more life and understanding to the layers upon layers that make up Blood and Candle Smoke. Quite simply put, this record is a masterpiece that reveals more unflinching truth with each listen.
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Posted: September 28th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
