May 23, 2003
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How do you follow up a two-hour, two-disc Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute/opera?
That's the inevitable question I was contemplating before listening to the new Drive-By Truckers album, Decoration Day. After all, 2001's Southern Rock Opera, propelled them from anonymous road dogs to semi-stardom, drew raves in the press, and was picked up by Lost Highway, home to the first couple of alt-country. It was also, by my estimation, a freakin' masterpiece. A tough act to follow.
Decoration Day opens with a beautiful song about incest. I'm not sure which is more unlikely to be associated with beauty: incest or the Drive-By Truckers. Bombast is more their style. "By the time you were born there were four other siblings, with your mamma awaiting your daddy in jail," Patterson Hood croons. "Your oldest brother was away at a home, and you didn't meet him 'till you were 19 years old." The song's based on a true story about a girl who falls in love with her much older brother. They hit the road, have four kids-- and get seven years in jail for their purported sins. Hood's voice is so raspy that it sounds like he massaged his vocal chords with sand paper. It has a Waits-ian beauty, though, and is oddly affecting.
The second tune, "Sink Hole," is also based on a true story, about a farmer who dispenses shotgun justice after the bank forecloses on his land, but I want to talk about the drumming. Somebody should check Brad Morgan's sticks for cork! The guy's crashing the skins with such force and swagger that it sounds like he's trying to break into heaven. (Huh?) I felt like I was 14-years-old again hearing John Bonham rip into "Rock and Roll" for the first time. Then there's the bass line on "Sinkhole." It's so relentlessly funky and propulsive that it could make John Frusciante's socks roll up and down.
I single out the drums and the bass because they're surrounded by so much guitar firepower that they often get overlooked. Okay, that statement's true of every band on the planet, but the Truckers' three-guitar attack is particularly riff-a-licious. (Granderson's threatened in the past to start a guitar-less Van Halen tribute band, one of the most inspired drunken brain farts of all time.)
I won't subject you to a song-by-song dissection of the album, but I do want to point out one more aspect of the Truckers' genius. These boys toss off some of the best rock n' roll one-liners of all time. They should be teaching Rock n' Roll Philosophy 101 at some technical college. Here's a couple:
"Well, my daddy didn't pull out, but he never apologized. Rock and roll means well, but it can't help telllin' young boys lies." -- from "Marry Me"
"Sick, tired, pissed and wired, you never thought about anyone else. You tried in vain to find something to kill you. In the end you had to do it yourself." -- from "Do it Yourself"
Buy this album now! Oh shit: it's not available until June 17th. Sorry.
Posted by Paul Demko at May 23, 2003 5:23 PM
Every once in awhile you read an article that serves to highlight exactly how banal and shallow your own work as a journalist is by comparison. On many occassions I have had this insight after reading the work of David Holthouse. For those not familiar with his work, Holthouse is a long time New Times staff writer, first in Phoenix, now in Denver. Here's the first sentence of his most recent gem.
Somewhere at the bottom of Grasmere Lake is an Egyptian-made assault rifle with an empty clip.
Who the hell is not going to read that story?
While I'm on the topic I might as well point out that Holthouse wrote the definitive chronicle of Meat Puppet Cris Kirkwood's tortured descent into druggie hell. Here's an exerpt:
Regardless, according to his brother and close friends in the Valley, Cris Kirkwood is lurching pell-mell toward the reaper, track-marked arms open for the embrace. He's smoking cocaine and shooting heroin in death-wish quantities. Overweight from binging on Ben & Jerry's ice cream, he's pocked with the sores and boils that result when a junkie misses a vein and shoots impure, infectious heroin directly into muscle tissue.
Now I will stop writing because having my prose stacked up against Holthouse's is depressing.
Posted by Paul Demko at May 23, 2003 2:46 PM
If that headline doesn't make any sense to you stop reading now. For the rest of you poker geeks: If you just can't wait for the ESPN rebroadcast, for a mere $29.95 you can watch the final nine players butt heads at the World Series of Poker live from Binion's Horseshoe via webcast. The cards start flying at 2 p.m. CST.
The appropriately named Chris Moneymaker is the chip leader with $2,344,000.
I'm going all in (bad poker pun!) for a DVD player and will have to wait for the rebroadcast. Don't tell me who won.
Posted by Paul Demko at May 23, 2003 1:48 PM
More Veronica Paysse:
All you new soccer enthusiasts can catch the Minnesota Thunder at home this weekend against defending A League champs Milwaukee. (Using the words "Milwaukee" and "champs" in the same sentence is a bit disorienting.) 7 p.m. Saturday at the National Sports Center in Blaine.
Still not converted? These teams hate each other. Sometimes they fight. You can pretend it's hockey.
Posted by Paul Demko at May 23, 2003 12:04 PM
Cecile "Blue Oyster Cult" Cloutier points out that Deep Discount DVD is selling the Homicide DVD for just $37.21. (That's $15 cheaper than Amazon.)
Granderson says the key to successful blogging is random Lynyrd Skynyrd references.
And the cherry vodka and champagne cocktail at Moscow on the Hill makes life tolerable--at least temporarily.
Posted by Paul Demko at May 23, 2003 11:29 AM
Apparently
this is how the United Mine Workers of America spends its time now that all the
minining jobs have been eliminated.
Posted by Paul Demko at May 23, 2003 10:26 AM
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