I shot Rhett Miller from the Old 97’s playing a few songs before his show on October 10th at the House of Blues in Dallas. The amiable front man was nearly too energetic for my camera frame, despite the fact that he was playing to an audience of one. Read Rhett’s 5 records that inspired him here
1. Kicking off with a flurry of alliteration, Miller tells the story of on-campus love that dissolves into a confusing is-it-or-isn’t-it relationship that “feels like paralysis”. Begging his lover to give him some sort of sign, Rhett jumps forward in time to find himself “killing at a comedy club in Hollywood”, where he runs into the same woman. His affections haven’t changed a bit, and neither has the steely facade of his crush, who tells him that she loves him, but refuses to hug him and leaves him grasping for straws of fidelity.The last setting puts the couple in the “kitchen of a cracker jack box” where Miller finds himself with a less corporeal version of his would-be lover. Blurring the line between real life and a dreamy illusion, he reaches for her as she fades away. With the ultimatum that “the world might end in a minute”, he makes one last ditch effort to solidify his life’s romantic work, apparently, to no avail.
2. Miller has said that his solo songs are usually numbers that don’t fit within the Old 97’s canon. This poppy tune is obviously less twangy than the 97’s normal style, but Miller sells it with an earnestness that follows him wherever he goes. That said, I wouldn’t mind hearing Murry Hammond’s high harmony on this track. Either way, Miller’s cheerfully endearing songs about love and the complete lack of it continue to evolve and inspire.
1. The Old 97’s have a serious claim to the title of the world’s best bar band. Luckily for them, they built their furious live act on the strength of Rhett Miller and Murry Hammond’s songwriting, a foundation not easily shaken. Coming out of Dallas in the early 1990’s, their first major release (and soon to be re-released on vinyl) Wreck Your Life contained chestnuts such as “Victoria”, who “started out on Percodan and ended up with me”, and the charming ‘Big Brown Eyes”. However, the band dedicated to making music “that sounded like Johnny Cash” really hit a stride with their second album, 1997’s Too Far to Care. Brash, rough around the edges, and busting at the seams with Miller’s heart-on-sleeve wit, this record sums up the mid-90’s era of “insurgent country” and set the blueprint for a fine career.
2. Opening with “Timebomb”, a song that would forever close their shows, Ken Bethea’s ragged reveille lurches into Philip Peeples’ narcotic train beat that defines so much of the 97’s sound. Along with Miller’s lyrics of obsession with a “stick-legged girl” and Hammond’s high lonesome background vocals, “Timebomb” showcases what every member of the band does best, while capturing the furious energy of their live show to tape. Some fans might consider this too punk to be country, but there is plenty of twang left on the album for the punk fans to wonder if it is in fact too country for their taste.
3. “Barrier Reef” shows off a 97’s secret — the second song. From “Nineteen” to “Rollerskate Skinny” to “Dance With Me” off their latest, the 97’s have a thing for placing an uptempo change of pace in the second slot. This trick gives the record some movement and enough variety to keep things interesting, as Miller weaves a swaggering, gonzo tale about a “serial ladykiller” who can’t even enjoy a wild night with a tough conquest. His mournful plea to the hard-hearted “Salome” bumps right up against Hammond’s “West Texas Teardrops”, both songs about heartbreak, but on opposite ends of the 97’s musical spectrum. The wild “Melt Show” takes a near-punk approach to Miller’s endless sense of wonder about love, which continues in “Streets of Where I’m From”, where he remarks that said streets are “paved with hearts instead of gold”. Smart enough to re-record a winner from Wreck Your Life, the redux of “Big Brown Eyes” sounds better and rocks harder than the original, amplifying Miller’s desperation that has him “calling time and temperature just for some company”.
4. The thundering closer “Four Leaf Clover” brings in Exene Cervenka of X, who duets with Miller as he hits rock-bottom. Cervenka’s presence is a nod to the other half of the 97’s sound, which draws directly from the southern California punk scene of the 1980’s. Though on later records the 97’s would go with different musical approaches, they laid the bedrock for what they do with Too Far To Care. Bringing together the heartbreak of classic country and the longing, restless energy of youth, the punkish, twangy sound they create is the perfect environment for Miller’s woeful tales of love and the complete lack of it.
