2008-02 Vital Source Mag – February 2008
Drive-By Truckers
A departed band member can make the advent of a new album nerve-wracking rather than exciting for an ardent fan, but the absence of Jason Isbell, Drive-By Truckers’ singer of seven years, brings out a return to roots, as well as new directions. Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, the band’s eighth album, features contributions from band members who normally play the wallflower (bassist Shonna Tucker penned three shimmering beauties) paired with crunchier contributions from Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and John Neff, with ‘icing on the cake’ keyboards by legendary Spooner Oldham. Southern rock had a glaring exterior when Lynyrd Skynyrd brought it to the mainstream, but today, one regularly hears the signature layered guitars, pedal steel, lazy drums and pretty keys channeling crusty stories of booze, drugs and hardships of alt-country on commercial radio. On Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, the Truckers juxtapose their personal brand of southern rock against established tradition. Their soft songs shine bright as the lights on a country wedding dance floor, while the gritty, raucous snarlers make the slow dancers shake their sleepy feet. Stories paste this album’s nineteen songs together. Cooley’s country-washed songs add humor with “Lisa’s Birthday” and “Bob,” the tale of a man whose mom is the only one “she lets call him Robert” and who “has always had more dogs than he ever had friends.” Hood pens staunch southern rock with such vigor and drama it draws goose bumps. “The Man I Shot” is chilling, a strong contrast to Tucker’s gentle writing and Cooley’s ‘aw, shucks’ style. Hood’s slower ballads veer into Eagles territory at times, which can either please – in the case of the amazing “Daddy Needs a Drink,” made stellar by heart-wrenching pedal steel – or annoy, as on “The Home Front,” which is lite rock at best. Brighter Than Creation’s Dark is an album to be traveled through, soaking in all the odd twists and turns, corners and dips. There are some bumpy spots, but the unexpected beauty will sink the listener like a stone, and the buoyant humor will lift the mood and ease the listener into reality, as the best stories often do.
Feb 1st, 2008 by Erin Wolf
You don’t get a medal for showing up
At VITAL, our new year begins in February. I’d like to thank everyone once again for their support. It used to be a thrill just to write the rent check that proved we weren’t just a home office vanity project; as we’ve matured, though, my view of this whole endeavor has evolved. I have a thousand examples, but it all comes down to one idea, perfectly put by Thomas Jefferson: “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” I now understand that our willingness to work our asses off is ultimately the reason we’re still here, far more than any visionary thinking or single lucky break. I was born in the ‘60s and influenced by both my grandparents’ work ethic and my father’s disdain for it (to be fair, he got over it later in life). Some of my peers joined Generation X. The rest of us went to work. Mine is the generation that brought about both the ubiquity of cocaine-derived drugs and many of the amazing technological advances that shape our world. The two extremes are actually closely related, both born of an inherent relentlessness, a desire to always move at the greatest possible speed, freed from barriers – of fatigue, social awkwardness, geography, even time itself. I’m not saying this is an entirely wonderful way to look at life; the socio-cultural fallout may not be fully measured in my lifetime. Even so, the ‘80s and ‘90s were a gas, a wild ride followed by a hard crash when the middle class economy slowed way down in the first years of the 21st century. But even before that I think there was collective pause, fueled in part by the regret of our parents, now missing the grandkids a thousand miles away, who saw what had become of their latchkey, Kraft dinner-consuming, Alex P. Keaton-channeling offspring. We had it all, but we traded too much to get it. The solution was clear: the next generation would be cared for with a vengeance. Sometime in the late 20th century, the desire to give one’s children “more” took on a new meaning: with the highest percentage of “affluent” Americans in our history, the trappings of attainment took on a nurturing mantle. It was the dawn of the age of the Soccer Mom, the bicycle helmet and the mentality that reasoning was a viable parenting philosophy. I admit it; I was initially swept into the new world order. My kid had a sticker chart that he filled up by performing such amazing feats as picking up his clothes and saying thank you. He actually earned toys for meeting the minimum expectations of socialization! But eventually, I saw what I, his teachers, his soccer coach and the rest of his network of support had wrought: a kid who expected to be rewarded for taking out the garbage. He’s a good boy: naturally nice, smart and funny. On the surface, he looks like […]
Feb 1st, 2008 by Jon Anne Willow
Collections of Colonies of Bees
By Charlie Hosale The central aspect of Milwaukee natives Chris Rosenau and Jon Mueller’s musical projects has always been accessible experimentation. Collections of Colonies of Bees, thanks to an evolving and expanding lineup of musicians, have had a number of dynamically different sounds over the years. This new release finds the band on a new label with a filled-out lineup consisting of Jim Schoenecker, Daniel Spack, and Thomas Wincek. From the record’s first note, the change in the Bees’ sound and approach is palpable. Customer, released in 2004, found the group experimenting with free forms and electronics, with a focus on floating melody. Those influences are still present on Birds, but the band has shifted to a much more structured process. Instead of trying to see how far music can go, like the unconventional structure and melodic re-imaginings of Customer, they attempt to break music down to its simplest emotional form. Birds shifts to pulsing rhythms and delicately structured melodic layering to create a musical catharsis—something that, before Birds, the Bees hadn’t really done. Birds is an entirely different record for the Bees, but it still sounds like everything their listeners have come to love about them. Their songs have always sounded like instances of beauty, like a friend smiling or a tear dropping, and on Birds those pictures are still there; it just sounds like now the Bees are ready to take on the whole story, instead of only living in the moment.
Feb 1st, 2008 by Vital Archives
Bob Mould
Singer/songwriter/punk icon/former pro-wrestling scripter Bob Mould has (obviously) worn many hats during his career. With his latest solo offering, District Line, the ex-Hüsker Dü and Sugar guitarist continues hisbalancing act between modern rock balladeer and DIY wunderkind. Mould plays every instrument on District Line besides the cello, provided by Amy Domingues, and the signature drumming of Fugazi’s Brendan Canty. Canty’s distinctive dub-enhanced syncopation shines on the leadoff track “Stupid Now;” for most of the album, though, he’s content to simply lay a solid back beat. His playing echoes Mould’s songwriting; flashes of the work that made them both legends occasionally shine through what is essentially an album of sometimes competent, often excellent, generally straightforward alternative rock. Mould’s solo work is intensely personal and relationship-based. “Again and Again” recalls his 90’s alterna-pop incarnation, Sugar, with symphonic guitar driving a melancholy suicide note of dysfunctional love – “I took the bullets from the carport/tossed them in my backpack…I left the title to the house inside the piano bench/And my lawyer’s got the will.” This track, and the up-tempo (and equally Sugary) “Very Temporary,” shows the material at its strongest and catchiest. A strange fascination with vocoder (which, let’s face it, Cher ruined for everyone) threatens to undermine “Very Temporary” and otherwise fascinating tracks like the alterna-rock/disco mash-up “Shelter Me.” It’s frankly distracting to hear the voice behind incendiary punk classics like “Something I Learned Today” dabbling in NYC Eighth Avenue club music. Still, Mould’s determination to straddle the line between alternative and dance pays off more often than it stumbles on District Line. Now if only Bob would find the time to start scripting wrestling matches again. Lord knows the WWE could use him right now.
Feb 1st, 2008 by DJ Hostettler
