‘American Goldwing’ is the title track taken from Blitzen Trapper’s 2011 effort, and much like ‘Love The Way You Walk Away’, a taster from the record that leaked earlier this month, it persists in affirming an amended direction in which the American pop band substitute their future-folk for desert-bound traditionalism.
What with a rocketing esteem for the new breed of country-crafting troubadours and whisky swigging urban cowboys indebted to the Canyon clan, Blitzen Trapper’s sixth validates that their dormant aptitude for harmonica tooting tales has exposed its slack-jawed slur at the right time.
From what I’ve heard so far, these two songs suggest that their previous album, ‘Furr’, marked the dying gasp of waving dysfunctionalism as they take a leap into the past while pulling on the strings of modern ramblers like The Only Sons. Banjos cling to coarse and smoky harmonies while harps stomp their snake skin boots upon the spat tobacco that lines the sawdust of honky tonk bars from Atlanta to Alabama.
Even the title, ‘American Goldwing’, suggests a tipped Stetson towards Nelson and the Outlaws, strengthening the fact that this is much more for the Drive-By Truckers tribe than the angelic folk of Peckenfold and co.
Eerie tribal beginnings open upon the gate to Outfit’s newest single, ‘Two Islands’. Spirits from the chasm of The Jesus and Mary Chain are quickly counteracted by vocals that, despite trying to accompany the gloom, actually heighten its air of spook to a neo-pop bubble that trips through Phoenix chirp with disrupted pools of Animal Collective digital effervescence. While the static undergrowth fails to capture the colourful vibe that Outfit possess, one hopes that in the future they embrace the sunshine and hang loose in acid-doused Washed Out vibes.
The expectant veil of prospect that looms above the heads of Dawes must be a weighty one. They hail from the North Hills of Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles, a place rooted in musical heritage. It’s been a fortress of demise and uprising for singer-songwriters since the late 60s, and more recently, Jonathan Wilson, the mystically nostalgic troubadour who bought us ‘Gentle Spirit’ on the Bella Union label, has triumphed as the best thing to sprawl from the Canyon since, well, the last best thing.
For Dawes, however, it’s not been a such an easy rise from the eucalyptus shrubs that coat the Canyon’s dusty paths. After the departure of co-songwriter, Blake Mills, back when the band was called Simon Dawes, brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith went it alone with Wylie Gelber and Tay Strathairn and substituted the previous post-punk rabble in favour for a dabble in sun-drenched folk.
And what better place to catalyse an adulation in folk-rock than the woodland isolation of this Hill dwelling arcadia?
Now on their second album, ‘Nothing Is Wrong’, Dawes have edged into the territory of their forefathers. ‘If I Wanted Someone’ blends the ambience of Treetop Flyers and The Mountains and The Trees with Glenn Fry lyricism, humbly paired with the emptiness of the country music that influenced the early ramblers. ‘Maybe ‘cause I come from such an empty hearted town’ Taylor questions before declaring, ‘I want you to make the days move easy’ in typical Jackson Browne fashion.
'All it does here is rain' croons Willy Vlautin in a typically forsaken tone on 'The Meeting on the Logging Road', a track taken from his forthcoming Richmond Fontaine album, 'High Country'.
Desperation in both literature and music have always been pivotal in the desolate themes of Vlautin's work. 'The Motel Life' and 'Northline', two classically barren Americana novels by the wordsmith, are both recklessly forlorn tales of suffering attributed by the burden of addiction and bludgeoned pride. They ache and they crave acceptance. They desire balance and they delineate images of lower class America and its enduring struggle through a wasteland of urban decay, torn families and broken needles.
The importance of Vlautin's work lies in his facility to expose this abandoned side of America, the evil twin that Hollywood has shackled to the abyss. The people we hear in his songs and read in his written words are lonely and miserable. They are ruined and they are lost.
'I need help', a voice cries on 'Claude Murray's Breakdown' before 'The Eagles Lodge' begins in Oberst-like simplicity and swells into a sonic undergrowth of discontent. The surge of up-heaving gloom that begins to develop on this track cements a theme of versatility throughout this record that morphs from acoustic country simplicity to Marlboro-rock. 'Lost In The Trees' and 'The Chainsaw Sea' both advance with comparable barks of Reckless Kelly and Rich Hopkins, fearfully clinging to the ghosts of rock and roll. 'Everyone was tripping except me', snarls Vlatuin before shaky bass lines continue to ramble on, 'heaven was listening to a mix tape of Judas Priest', he continues.
'Inventory' is another narrative of alienation told through a female voice which fails to numb the heartache of this trailer park demise. Its sweet Raitt-like chatter accompanies the theme of hopelessness and unavoidable peril as financial weights and eventually, the collapse of human life, go unnoticed as America goes about its business and the insignificant reach their inevitable passing.
This album, after the first listen, then shows its teeth under the light of loss. It's a concept album built upon a tale of love and madness in a small logging community. A gothic country ballad stretched upon the stark plains of neglected America, this is one of Fontaine's darkest efforts to date.
There are a number of destitute entries in this album that bare their solemn heart in between songs. They sit woefully beside the dusty country and the coughing rock comfortably because they are one and the same. The fallen hope of these spouting accounts are as meaningful as the songs. They provide a basis for loss but no answer to it. Richmond Fontaine don't have an obsession with the harsh concept of failure that's omnipresent in their albums and Vlatuin's books, they simply believe in telling these stories because they're as important as righteous depictions of cosmic triumph. Damaged souls and broken homes construct as much as society as the success of an individual, if not more. Why should victories only pout their smug grins upon the face of idealistic rock and roll? We will not learn from our accomplishments we will only enjoy them. We build from our mistakes and we grow from our misfortune. The desperate, as Richmond Fontaine expose, often paint a bleaker yet more veritable picture of life because ultimately, they have survived.
While we all kneel to the submission of the sweeter things in life, the guilt of enjoyment often rises its head with a tutting finger and a smug grin that confirms for each flash of fulfilment you inhale, something equally shitty will bite you on the buttocks.
It’s the pessimists way. Expect nothing and you will never be let down. Enjoy something and you will pay for your happiness because aint nothing free. Girls, cigarettes, fast food, Big Brother…it’s all there waiting to fuck you over. And don’t think for one second that music will console your dying anguish because it wont, it’s there to further your longing, antagonise your dismay and poke fun at your pathetic life.
Lucy Rose is no different. Sure, her twee name suggests fields of heart-shaped smiles and happy endings, and yes, her saintly hum matches the alluring pitch of the sirens who lead sailors to their immortal peril and obviously her eyes look like diamonds cast from a secluded ocean in the heart of Babylon, but if you listen to ‘Middle of the Bed’ too much you’ll go and fall in love with her and trust me, she’ll never call you back.
Dexters wordsmith, Tom Rowlett, thinks that his band are arriving at just the right time to give the British music scene what it needs: Anthems.
Bought together through disbanded musical experiments of the past, Dexters are still at the early teething stages of emerging band status. Careful not to pull a Viva Brother and formulate claims of grandiose satisfaction, they’ve remained relatively under the radar and a little mysterious.
I saw (and put on) their first show at the Old Queens Head around six weeks ago and the striking prowess of Rowlett’s engaging on-stage frivolity was mirrored by his effervescent lyrical tangents of urban glories and urchins done good.
With only one song floating around it is hard to gauge the potential might of this developing outfit, but ‘Start to Run’ suggests gallant strides of inner-city indie-rock are on the menu. Mention ‘lad rock’ and I’ll set the hounds on you, it’s far more than that…
Country music is the one genre of music that's bludgeoned by preconceptions at every turn. Those confederate flag-waving, right-wing, sweet-tea drinking, Bush supporting rednecks who sing about the righteous throne of man and the deteriorating wealth of the South. You know the type...
In the U.K, more than anywhere it seems, the fiddle-wielding yelps of the Nudie shirt clan is so detached from what is considered to be cool that it almost crosses the line of embarrassment. Maybe your parents have stacks of Alan Jackson records that used to haunt your childhood, maybe Gretchen Wilson's screeching howl gave you nightmares or maybe your disgusted at the right-wing ideals of these swamp dwelling individuals...
Look deeper though. What do you really know about this broken music? probably nothing. You've cast assumptions from hearsay and perhaps a few dulcet tones that are more pop than country. I understand that the high-pitched hick bark of Elizabeth Cook or even the Dixie Chicks can be unappealing, but pick up some David Allan Coe, some Charlie Daniels, hell, some Willie Nelson and Steve Earle, because country music, as it stands, is about outlaws, it's about societies misfits, it's about a fight for your identity and it's about crushed souls by small town girls.
Charlie Daniels 'Simple Man' (No connection with the Skynyrd song) might be a bad song to plead my case with as he sings about uprising and shooting people, but there's more to it than simple lawless redemption and vigilance. While working at a website some months back we used to listen to Spotify and I put this song on. The raging guitars and the Marlboro slur are all elemental to the songs success as a country-rock growl, but someone commented on the songs lyrics, then stating that they were 'racist' and 'right wing'. While they fail to comment lightly on the state of America, there is no racism in this song, nor is there anything to suggest so. Following this, that person then put on Odd Future. The homophobic, woman-baiting, misogynistic, faggot-calling, middle-class rap troupe posing as hard-grafting, street-dwelling die-hard rappers. Now call Daniels a right-wing lyrist.
Country music is basically folk with balls and soul. The barren grace of an acoustic guitar and some lost words, hummed through a broken heart, illustrate the authority of this music's virtue, paired with the rapport these singers embody through their woeful tales of loss. When Townes Van Zandt sung...
The poets tell how Pancho fell
Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel
The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold
So the story ends we're told
he was singing about losing something so close to him but gaining something legendary in status. And that's how the great Outlaws are remembered. The lives they chose to live were fraught with violence and heavy drinking, quick-fire love affairs and an inevitable descent to the pits of despair, but this existence is one they chose because it was their only way.
Now, while the Country music Billboard charts thrive with the likes of Toby Keith and the foolish mummers of Alan Jackson's pro-Yank bile, you must realise that this is a pastiche of the country legacy, much like the way that British pop is now a shell of its former self. Times transcend generic tendencies and although the roots may remain they can be deformed and distorted, thus the product is not a product of its legacy, it is a product of the times.
But there are saviours of the scene. People who have lived and grown up on the road. No formulated faux-image, no stage school, nothing is contrived, it's all drawn from experience and the highs and lows of the concrete they march on a daily basis. And, fortunately for us, these figures of importance are the new generation of dust-road troubadours who will pen the next chapter in this vibrant and twisting tale. As Robbie RObertson once said, 'It's a God damn impossible way of life', but it's one that's necessary to keep the stories alive.
