Let’s Talk About Country Music

“Elwood Blues: What kind of, uh, music do you usually have here?

Claire: Oh, we got both kinds. We got Country AND Western.”

A question i’ve been asked more than a few times in my life, in one form  or another:

“Do you listen to Country Music?”

The correct answer, invariably, is “That depends.  What do you mean by ‘Country Music’?”

The answer i’ve given the most, however, runs more along the lines of “Country?  Uhhhmm . . .  Not so much.  No.”

Why the disparity?  Embarrassed by my taste?  Compulsive liar maybe?  Nein!  I maintain that it’s a neigh unanswerable question due to the complete and utter failing of one of mankind’s most persistent and ubiquitous cognitive devices: the concept of The Genre.

Given: Genres, as they apply to film, literature, music, or anything else, are weird, outdated, and only moderately useful (at best) at accomplishing what they are designed to accomplish (namely the classification and general description of various media).  I get that.  I think that i’ve understood, roughly, the limitations of Genre for years now, and yet that doesn’t stop me from pondering the exact nature of its failure.  You could say that it’s a bit of an obsession.

At once I can step back from a discussion of where X song or band falls, or why Y Genre “sucks” or “is where it’s at” or “is dead” and say something like “This whole debate is moot.  Genre is a joke, and to assume otherwise is to invite madness!”  (As you may or may not know, i’m fond of hyperbole)  But at the same time, i love those kinds of discussions, mostly, i suppose, because i enjoy discourse on art in any context, even if that context involves the Mobius Strip of logic that is Genre Classification.

[Pause]

Hold up.  I’m getting way too verbose here.  If i expect anyone to read this, i’d better re-evaluate my mode of presentation.  Methinks visual aids will help make my point abundantly clear.  Streaming video for the win!

So, my point beginneth:  THIS IS WHAT I LOVE ABOUT COUNTRY MUSIC -

Willie is amazing.  I saw him play back in 2002, and it was easily one of the best shows i’ve ever seen anyone put on.  The guy is all about The Music.  No light show, no flash, no adornments, just lots and lots of original and brilliant tunes performed by seriously badass musicians (seriously).   He and his band played for a solid two hours that night, and i don’t think they stopped at any point for more than one minute at a time.  Half the songs segued into each other, and as such they must’ve covered a good 25-30 tunes, all awesome.

And let me ask you something: Do you hear a “Country Accent” while he’s singing?  I don’t.  Dude grew up in West Texas, and has continued to live down there for most of his (very) long life, and yet i don’t hear an accent when he sings.  When he talks?  Sure, a bit . . but not when he sings.  Not really.  Almost all of the “color” that he puts into his singing is vibrato, not twang.  Take note of that.  That’s important.

If you haven’t listened to any of Willie’s records, you owe it to yourself to find a copy of Red Headed Stranger or Shotgun Willie toot sweet, and throw that shit ON!  It’s great great stuff.

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AND THIS IS WHAT I HATE ABOUT COUNTRY MUSIC -

Good lord, need i even say anything?  Toby Keith is just an abomination in every way.  There’s literally nothing about him that isn’t trash.  Note that he sings with a heavy accent.  Note the bullshit patriotic flag-waving at every turn (even on his fucking guitar).  Note the oh-so-classy sleeveless outfit.  Note the cowboy hat (is Toby a cowboy?  No.  No he is NOT).  Note the glorification of dropping bombs on the poor huddled masses of our political enemies.  Note the incredibly vanilla music.

And who else did i put in there . . oh yes, Mr Chesney, my favorite.  This guy, like Keith and a hundred others, absolutely exemplifies what is grotesque about Country Music.  I mean, listen to this song for a minute (if you can).  “She thinks my tractor’s sexy”?  A chorus about his farmer’s tan?  Really dude? Really?!  That’s the best you can do?  That’s what you think art should sound like?  That’s what resides deep down in your soul?  Writing that song must be a real source of pride for ol’ Kenny.  Consider the extremely heavy (hammed-up) accent that he’s singing with.  Consider the (fake) cowboy routine, again.  The glorification of Hicktown USA.  The incredibly vanilla (and shrill, and abysmally poor) music.

Not one ounce of art is to be found anywhere near either of these songs, and they were both big hits for their respective “artists”.  No feeling, no originality, and on even the most basic and superficial of levels, they don’t even sound good!  They aren’t even pleasant to the ears!  The Chesney one, in particular, is just unlistenable.  Lyrics aside, it’s a sad attempt at a song. Whoever produced that number should be strung-up in the middle of Nashville by his toenails and mocked ceaselessly by fruit wielding vagrants, hooligans, and random passersby.

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AGAIN, WHAT I LOVE ABOUT COUNTRY MUSIC -

GOD i love Johnny Cash.  There’s a reason why the man’s a legend, and it doesn’t have anything to do with his looks, how he was marketed, or his guitar skills (dude could barely play).  Obviously his voice is magical, so that helped, but there are a lot of terrible “country singers” with good voices (Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood come to mind), so the voice wasn’t everything.  No, what made Johnny special is what makes a lot of great great artists special: the honesty.  When he sang, you could tell he was being genuine.  His stuff was original and catchy and haunting, yes (all good qualities), but even when he sang a cover (like Sunday Morning Comin’ Down, the second of those videos, or Hurt, the third video) it could grab you where it counts and not let go.  Kris Kristofferson (who i like) wrote Sunday Morning, and his version pales in comparison to Johnny’s.  Too, Trent Reznor (who i also like) never caught my attention or moved me with Hurt, but that Cash cover brings me to tears every time i hear it.  It’s not just the voice, it’s what’s behind the voice.  An artist.  Genuine, soulful, original.

And let’s listen, too, at what isn’t there.  Johnny grew up in Arkansas during The Depression.  ARKANSAS.  Working the fields; dirt poor!  It doesn’t get more real than that.  And do you hear an accent when he sings?  Nope.  Why not?  Think about that for a second.  Who’s “more country”, Johnny Cash or Kenny Chesney?  Food for thought.

If you haven’t listened to At Folsom Prison by Johnny Cash, or any of his American Recordings from the ’90s that he did with Rick Rubin, you’re missing out on some of the best recordings ever made.  I mean that.  Fully.  Go.  Listen.  Love it.  Thank me later.

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AND WHAT I HATE ABOUT COUNTRY MUSIC -

Here we have two of the Heavy Hitters of Country Music today: Tim McGraw and Alan Jackson.  They’ve each sold a bazillion records, and are pretty much household names.  I”m not sure there’s much that i have to say here either (though i’m sure i’ll figure something out).  Listen to the tracks; i think they speak for themselves.  “Vanilla” doesn’t even begin to describe this crap.  Do you hear a lot of soul in this music?  Or any at all for that matter?  Listen to how Tim sings the word “down” at the :45 second mark.  This is an example of what i want you to consider.  Does that sound like singing to you?  Is that melodic?  Is that artistic or original, or do you think he’s purposefully trying to sound like someone else (George Strait, Clint Black, Hank Williams, etc, etc)?

As for Alan Jackson, well . . i have a few barbs reserved for him a bit later-on, so i’ll keep it short here.  This isn’t even one of his worst songs, but i think it serves as a fine sample of the musical loogies that this guy hocks on the world year-in and year-out.

Do you get the impression that these guys and their ilk just write the same incredibly tired song over and over and over and over and over again?  And what’s worse, they’re proud of it!  They think that that’s admirable!  I wouldn’t care a whit about any of it, really, if it weren’t for the money and fame and accolades that these people rake-in for this pap.  By being big-name “Country Music Stars”, they bring down the legacies of the Johnny Cash’s and the Willie Nelson’s.  Sing your terrifically bad songs all day and all night, i don’t care as long as you’re just some dill-hole yodeling a bad song on an anonymous street corner in Nashville.  Once hundreds of millions of dollars and titles like “music superstar” start getting thrown around, then i start to care.

As for the accent gripe, let me take a a different tack: Did The Beatles ever sing with an accent?  Not often, huh.  How about The Who, or Led Zeppelin, or U2, or The Police, or Dire Straits?  Not so much.  Occasionally, perhaps, a bit would slip through (especially on the early recordings), but for the most part they all just sang straight-up, with the emphasis on the musicality of the inflections and phrasing, and not on the regionality.  Those bands i just named are all (famously) from the UK, and yet they sing in a clearer “American-English” accent than the Alan Jacksons of the world.  Why?

There are a lot of answers to that question, and i’m sure that more than a few of them are right.  My take is that what Toby Keith and Kenny Chesney and Alan Jackson and the rest of these guys are doing isn’t singing as much as it’s imitation, not unlike an impressionist at a comedy club.  They are trying to sound like someone or something else.  Maybe they’re trying to sound like Clint Black, who in turn was trying to sound like Hank Williams.  I don’t know.  Maybe they’re trying to sound like that tired lap-steel guitar that makes its way into the background of every one of their songs.  That would make sense, i guess, as i can hear similarities between vocal twang and lap-steel twang.  But whatever they’re doing, it’s inauthentic.  I feel that deep-down inside me, without fail, every time i come within earshot of one of these songs.  It vibrates in my bones, and that vibration screams “Inauthentic” and that’s unforgivable.  I mean, to be fake ON TOP OF sounding inharmonious and unmelodic (is “unmelodic” even a word? . . fuck it, it is now!) . . well . . i just don’t know why anyone would do that on purpose (other than the money), and you know full well that this is a purposeful effect.  So, in a very real way, these clowns are Sell-Outs.  Not that they’re all necessarily talented or artistic to begin with (ie. the things that one would be “Selling”), but what art they did/do have in them they are throwing away in favor of “sounding country”, which plays well with a certain (deaf) segment of the population, thus making them oodles and oodles of cash when pushed by the right agency across the right mediums.  It’s all quite dirty, isn’t it.

To be clear, there are some people that manage to walk that fine line between singing with an accent and singing with soul, no doubt.  I will show you examples of a few later in this post; people who have a bit of a southern accent in their tone but still put out very beautiful and original and touching music.  Thus, the accent (or lack thereof) isn’t paramount, necessarily.  It’s not a death sentence.  I just get riled-up about it because it’s an obvious red flag; something that SO many of the very worst of the worst share among them.  But, yes . . moving on.

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LOVE -

This is John Prine.  In 1971 John put-out what is unequivocally one of the greatest singer-songwriter albums ever recorded; an album eponymously titled John Prine.  It was a country record, as John is a country singer.  If you don’t own that record, then you are woefully incomplete as a human being, and when your time comes you won’t be getting into musical heaven.  It’s sublime, and that’s all there is to it.

In these clips from 2004, he’s still looking and sounding pretty damn good.  Is he wearing a cowboy hat?  A denim vest?  A big rodeo belt buckle?  Do you see any American flags anywhere?  No you don’t, and you won’t.  Why?  Because John respects himself, respects his audience, and respects the music.  Sure, John sings with a bit of an accent, but naturally as opposed to overtly, and tastefully (with respect to melody) as opposed to constantly.  In the first clip, Angel From Montgomery, listen to how he sings the phrase “burnt down” at the 1:16 mark.  Is there regional inflection?  Sure.  A bit.  But if Alan Jackson were singing this, that would’ve been “Buhrn-ehurnt Dayoyowwwn”.  Shades of grey, people.  Shades of grey.

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LOVE -

Foggy Mountain Breakdown is a Bluegrass masterpiece.  And yes, that’s Steve Martin.  Pretty good, isn’t he?  This is in here because it’s a great example of extremely rural and rootsy country music (in the same ballpark as Dueling Banjos of Deliverance fame i would say), and yet it’s chock-full of musicality.  These guys are fucking virtuosos, they really are.  Incredible musicianship going on here.  And, again, do you see any American flags?  No sir, and you won’t, because Earl Scruggs is a class act (as it goes).  Other than the one guy in faded jeans and a t-shirt (which makes him stand out, and surely was an embarrassment to him when he saw the telecast later-on . . wait, is that Vince Gill?  I think that’s Vince Gill), it’s tastefully presented.  The emphasis is where it should be, on the face-meltingly good music.

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LOVE -

This is Allison Krauss and Co from the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack.  It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?  I’d post the whole soundtrack if i could.  Fantastic stuff, the lot of it.  If you haven’t seen the movie, do so.  It’s beautiful and hilarious and quirky and creative and all other things good in the world.  And it has a killer soundtrack too, of course : )  Duh.

And, although i’m definitely beating a dead horse at this point, note the distinct lack of accent or artifice in Allison’s voice.  Stunning vocals, really.  On top of her naturally impressive tone, you can really hear the control and craftsmanship in her singing.  Extremely precise.  Breathtaking.

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LOVE -

And here we are at Brandi Carlile.  I adore this chick.  Both of her albums (as well as the live EP) rate quite high on my Most Favoriteist Records of This Decade list.  And yet, here’s an obvious sticky point, right?  She sings with a pretty heavy accent.  Not “Kenny Chesney Heavy”, but in terms of the stuff that i like to listen to, quite heavy.  A lot of regional inflection.  So why do i like her?  Why do i let her get away with it, so to speak?

A few reasons:

1) Musically, she’s the real deal.  She writes and plays and sings (Autotune free) all of her stuff.  That goes a long way with me.  Blue notes and real voices are important.  Singing and playing from the heart is important.

2) Because she is the author and master of her own tunes, i believe that there is a real authenticity that comes out of her when she’s singing.  It’s subjective, sure, but i believe that it’s there, and to me it’s almost tangible.

3) In terms of her singing, she isn’t trying to imitate anyone.  At all.  Brandi has her own style, her own sound (all a part of that “authentic” quality), and i’ve never heard anyone quite like her.  Almost reminds me a bit of when Macy Gray got all big for a minute several years back . . except, you know . . good

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CAN’T FUCKING STAND -

This isn’t a particularly offensive track, and yet  i don’t think i’m going out on much of a limb to say that this stuff isn’t just what’s wrong with Country Music today, it’s what wrong with Music In General today.  This hyper-vanilla, super-mega overproduced shite is just appalling, isn’t it?  This may as well be a Nickleback song, or Creed (is Creed still around?), or Miley Cyrus/Hillary Duff/*Insert Pretty-Faced Tween Idol Here*.  This is the musical equivalent of Painting By Numbers.  Very much representative of the Jessica Simpsons of the world.  Autotuned all to hell and completely bereft of talent and creativity.  ‘Nuff said.

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AWFUL -

Just to show you that i don’t only have it in for today’s country stars, here’s a little Brooks and Dunn for you.  These guys have been around for quite a while now, and apparently they’re still quite popular (this was off of their platinum record from ‘05).  Is this mind-blowingly bad?  Not in comparison to some of the other clips i’ve put up, but maybe that’s just the busty vixen in the video warping my mind.   It may not be the worst of the worst, but it’s not good either.  Not.  At.  All.

And really, all it is is a shameless celebration of what i’ve been railing about for the last 3,500 words (thank you WordPress word counter).  Right at the beginning of the song there’s that “Said, ‘I’m a whiskey drinkin’, cowboy chasin’, helluva time.  I like Kenny, Keith, Alan and Patsy Cline’” line.  For those of you that are keeping score at home, that’s Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, and Alan Jackson she’s talking about.  Pasty Cline was amazing, sure, but i’d bet dollars to pesos that she rolls over in her grave when they play this song.  And “Cowboy chasin’?”  Really?  Where, prey-tell, are these cowboys that she speaks of?  Unless she’s from the middle of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, or the most rural bits of Colorado, the only cowboys that she’s ever seen are on Halloween and in the movies.  Gimme a fucking break.

Other than a decent little honkey-tonk guitar riff, this song consists of nothing new, nothing original, nothing artistic.  It fails damn-near every test.  Oh, and they’re singing with a very heavy hammed-up accent to-boot.  Nail in the coffin, ladies and gents.  The verdict is in, and it’s not pretty.

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AWFUL-ER -

“Well i love her, but i love to fish.”  The man that wrote those words is not concerned with such trifles as “artistic integrity” and “lyrical depth”.  Is it a funny song?  Yeah, as it goes, it’s a pretty funny song.  And i understand that it doesn’t take itself seriously, and that i should adjust my expectations accordingly.  But here’s the thing; here’s why this is Awful-er:  This guy, Brad Paisley, he can REALLY play guitar.

As in, this guy is a talented and practiced musician of note, and as such he should be better than this (even lyrical depth aside, it’s a pretty horrid song).  This shouldn’t be acceptable to him.  Look, it’s perfectly ok to write a song that isn’t serious.  The Beatles did it, and if The Beatles did something, then that makes it OK.  I like The Barenaked Ladies.  I like They Might Be Giants.  I like Tenacious D.  Goof-songs are acceptable if (here’s the catch), IF they have the added bonus of also being of high quality.  That’s a big “If”.  Brad is a crazy-good guitarist, yes, but this song is a prime example of his entirely mediocre (or worse-than-mediocre) songwriting and singing abilities.  And guess what, he’s one of the biggest superstars on the planet right now.  To a certain crowd, he’s Jesus, Ben Franklin, and David Beckham rolled into one, and that makes me a sad panda.  As much as i’d like to, i can’t call him a “Talentless hack” because the dude has talent.  But what good is talent if you put out songs like this?  Thus: Awful-er.

[Also, notice the heavy twang in his "singing".  I'm just sayin'.]

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AWFUL-EST -

These are the songs that really sneak up on you if you’re not paying attention.  It’s a pretty tune, and Martina McBride can sing.  Mos def.  Lady can absolutely sing.  Furthermore, there’s little-to-no twang, so top marks for that.  But, seriously, if you can’t spot the problem with this one, then you Fail Entirely at Having Good Taste.  If the title (God’s Will) is a warning sign (which is most certainly IS), then the first verse is the cliff she’s about to drive us clear over.

“I met God’s Will on a Halloween night
He was dressed as a bag of leaves
It hid the braces on his legs at first.“

She’s talking about a disabled kid in her neighborhood.  Named Will.  I shit you not.  It gets worse, but i won’t reprint that unholy gobbledygook here.  If you really want the full extent of this piece, you’re just going to have to listen to the whole thing yourself, or, i dunno, Google the lyrics or something.  I shan’t do it for you.

Listen folks, i’m going to confess something.  As an (extremely) amateur songsmith, i have written a few doozies in my day (in this case, “Doozie” equates to “Song that sucks fetid donkey nuts”), and so i speak from experience here.  When you’re writing a song, sometimes you start with a riff.  Sometimes you start with a chord progression that you fancy.  Sometimes you may even start with a couple of lyrics that you can’t let go of, and you make music to fit those lyrics.  Most of the time whatever you come up with is just miserably uncool, and it is you-the-songwriter’s job to sniff that stuff out and either work on it until it’s unrecognizable (for the better), or (more likely) toss it and start anew.  I can’t tell you how many times i’ve jotted-down something in the middle of the night thinking that it was “really deep” and “killer material” and when i looked at it next i realized that it would barely pass as bad, emo, junior-high binder-poetry (see: The Goth Kids in South Park).  This stuff ends up in the round file.  I’m not embarrassed to have written it, because i know that all songwriters, great and small, write a ton of trash for every gem they’re lucky enough to piece together.  In our attempts to be honest and eloquent, it’s not unusual to let slip nuggets of creative sewage along the way.  But there is a line there, a line of taste, a line of decency, a line of quality assessment.

Martina McBride knows no such line, apparently.  Perhaps the line is red, and she suffers from Red-Blind Colorblindness.  Perhaps English is a second language to her and she doesn’t fully understand the words that she’s singing.  I dunno.  Whatever the cause, this song is irredeemable.  Pretty voice (albeit set to VERY vanilla music), but no artistic value beyond that.  Which, like with Paisley, is sad, is it not?  Talent gone entirely to waste, and truly Awful-tastic.

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BEYOND AWFUL -

I know, i know.  This song is ridiculously popular, and thus i’m an ass for even suggesting that it’s not amazing because by doing so i’m personally insulting tens of millions of people, including some people that i respect and care about deeply.  But, you know what, that’s an albatross that i’m gonna to have to learn to bear, ’cause this song is just complete garbage.

Again, like the last two, here we have a pretty talented individual.  Chick can sing.  You can’t tell that by listening to this particular song, since this is the album cut, and is positively dripping with Autotune and over-production (see: Every other mainstream pop record in the last 6-8 years).  But i think that with Carrie in particular, we, America, have had the opportunity to have heard her sing live enough times to know that she’s got quite a voice on her.  Not a Holy-Crap-Her-Singing-Just-Melted-My-Soul kind of voice, but good.  Very good.  But, to me (in case you  haven’t picked-up on it yet), hearing bad music out of talented musicians is exponentially more offensive than hearing it out of hacks.  Hacks are supposed to make drivel.  That’s inherent in the title “Hack”.  People with talent have absolutely no fucking excuse, whatsoever.

To her credit, this song was written by Brett James, Hillary Lindsey, and Gordie Sampson, and not by Miss Underwood.  They are big-label, hit-machine, 21st-Century-Brill-Building hacks.  The hacks in this equation have been spotted and tagged.  Fine.  Does that let the artist off the hook though?  Not for me it doesn’t.  If Elvis doesn’t get off the hook for all those fluff movies (and attached soundtracks) that he did back in the ’60s (and he doesn’t), then Carrie Underwood doesn’t get off the hook here.

Musically this song is (dare i repeat myself even further) excessively vanilla.  Obnoxiously so, even.  The first time i heard it i felt like i’d heard it 2,000 times already, and that’s not because it “has that rare and timeless quality that you know just has to be genius”, but rather because I ACTUALLY HAD HEARD IT 2,000 TIMES ALREADY.  See: Celine Dion.  See: Mariah Carey.  See: Whitney Houston.  See: Martina McBride.  See: Vanessa Williams.  See: Faith Hill.  See: Every other Pop/R&B/Country “Diva” of the last 20 fucking years.  That’s strike one.

Throw in the Autotune and the offensively bad production, and you’re down in the count 0-2.

Hear:

“Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can’t do this on my own
I’m letting go
So give me one more chance
To save me from this road I’m on”

And you’ve just struck-out looking.  Never even got the bat off of your shoulder.  Remember when  i was discussing the late-night lyric sheets that end up in the paper shredder because they’re so bad?  Well this right here is worse than anything i’ve ever written at any hour, and trust me, that’s really saying something.  When i think of all the millions of people who belt that out when they hear this song come on the radio, my spirit shrivels up and dies a little bit.

In other words, it’s best not to think about it at all.

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SO AWFUL THAT THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE A NAME FOR HOW AWFUL THIS IS -

Alan Jackson again.  How did i know we would end up back here, gazing into the soulless, mulletted, mustached mug of this motherfucker again before it was all over?  You know, actually, i’m not sure that there’s anything i can say about this douchenozzle and this song that South Park didn’t already say.

Whomever posted this clip to Youtube had to use chopped-up screenshots instead of the actual video (so it wouldn’t get removed, no doubt), but i think you get the point.  Alan Jackson is the Rudy Giuliani of the music industry, if you will.  As if he wasn’t already a pitiful singer, songwriter, guitarist, and human being in general, he gets further points deducted for this kind of malarkey.  Seriously, is there anyone who ISN’T offended by this song?  I think my point has been made.

*

So, to begin the wrapping-up process, let me get into a bit of minutia  here; a small disclaimer, if you will.  I feel like some explanation is in order, otherwise this whole thing just becomes “Tony Pointlessly Bitching About The State of What Is Known As Country Music And The Existence of Genres”.

Don’t get me wrong, there is some real talent in what i would call “Crap Country”.  I mean, Carrie Underwood has a great voice, and Brad Paisley and Keith Urban are killer guitarists.  But talent and taste are not the same thing.  Shit, Henry Kissinger and Dick Cheney might well be geniuses, but that doesn’t excuse them for their actions, does it.  A Sell-Out is a Sell-Out, regardless of talent.

Think about all those terrible hair bands of the 80’s.  Most of those guys had truly talented guitarists, no joke, yet the music they were churning-out was completely forgettable and without merit.  Steve Vai may well be the most technically perfect guitarist alive, but the guy’s never made a record that i can bite into (not of the ones that i’ve heard anyways).  Elvis Presley himself, beloved icon, “Founder of Rock and Roll” and hero to millions, had one of the most unbelievable voices anyone’s ever heard, but the man spent the majority of his best years making atrocities like Blue Hawaii and Clambake.  Dude might have been the first Sell-Out in modern history, and his talent does not make up for that (though, really, the tragedy that is Elvis will have to be a topic for another blog).

Back on point: Now, the natural reaction at this stage in the discussion is often to move deeper into the genre game by breaking-out Sub Genres!  In other words, you may be saying, “Well, Tony, it appears that you like ‘Outlaw Country” and dislike ‘Radio Country’” and that kind of thing.

But . . “Outlaw Country”?  What does that even mean?  Does that mean that i’ll probably enjoy Waylon Jennings and David Allen Coe?  ‘Cause let me tell you, i’m not the biggest fan of either of those guys.  And would that mean that i won’t ever like the stuff that gets on country radio?  That’s a possibility, as i loathe what radio has become anyways, but weren’t Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson country radio staples at one point (for decades and decades)?  “Oh,” you may say, “But those are ‘Alternative Country’ stations, or ‘Classic Country’ stations, and not representative of ‘Real’ Modern Country’”

OK.  Am i, then, likely to dig Faron Young, Conway Twitty, or Hank Williams?  Does that preclude me from liking Keith Urban because he’s “Modern”?  And, hey, where does Bluegrass fit in?  Is that “Classic Country”, or does it pre-date “Classic Country”?  What about “New Bluegrass” or “New Alternative”?  Is that “Country” at all?

I’ll cut this line of rhetoric here for your sake, but let me tell you, i could go on like this for a long long while.

I maintain that trying to solve the Genre Dilemma by introducing more and more splinter genres is exactly the wrong approach.  That our brains seem to require classification at any cost to the truth does not mean that we must be slaves to such delusion.  And yet, at this point in the discussion, it should be mentioned that voyaging into the realms of complete individualistic subjectivity is also dangerous and equally unrealistic.  In other words, to say that the words “Country Music” are so obtuse that they’re meaningless is as much a fallacy as the tendency to sub-genre ourselves into the sanitarium.

The foundation of language is communication, and, clearly, if you say “Country Music” to someone you are communicating something very real.  What comes to their mind is undoubtedly different than what comes to your mind (unless they’re your identical twin, and even then it’s fair to say that there would be differences, minute though they may be), but it IS communicating a certain block of ideas and experiences to the other person.  So the phrase has meaning; it communicates a “real” set of images, sounds, names, memories, and emotions.

And there are grey areas, aren’t there.  Examples are abundant.  Is “Country Music” an accent?  Is it steel guitar in the background?  Is it “rootsy” lyrical content?  Is it a chord progression?  A sparkly jacket?  A cowboy hat?  A belt buckle?  An American flag?  A Confederate flag?!?  Is it where you were born, or where you grew up?

IS THIS COUNTRY MUSIC?

HOW ABOUT THIS?

THIS?

TOTALLY, RIGHT?

CLEARLY

BUT HOW ABOUT THIS?

OR THESE?

EH?

SURELY

GRATUITOUS, I KNOW

THIS TOO?

HOW ABOUT THIS?

Ok, that may be stretching it a tad   But i think you get my point.

HOW DO I RECONCILE THIS

AND THIS

being in the same genre? I love both songs, but i defy you to make a case that they belong next to each other.  And yet i would classify all of those songs as “Country”, even if they don’t all come from “Country Artists”.

I think i’ll leave you with one last clip.  He may be from Liverpool, but you can’t tell me that this guy doesn’t know “Country Music”, whatever that is.  Maybe i should ask him to explain to me what “Country” is supposed to mean.  I’m not sure i quite get it, after all:

I’ll have a blue, blue blue blue christmas

I know, i know . . it’s been a long while.  A flurry of blogs followed directly by the white-noise hum of e-silence for nearly two months.  What can i say other than: That’s kind-of how i run.  I’ll read like a maniac for a couple of months and then not pick up another book for weeks, and that same pattern of behavior marks nearly every aspect of my life.  Movie watching, songwriting, gaming, cycling, cooking . . you name it.  Go figure

:shrug:

Anyhoo, i’ll try to be better about my consistency in the future.  I really do enjoy writing these an awful lot, and i ought to try harder to keep up.   It’s not like i have a dearth of random complaints, rants, and recommendations to offer to you all.  Ask anyone i associate with regularly; i run at the mouth so frequently that my friends nicknamed me Jesse Owens.

:drumrollrimshot:

No but seriously folks, i’ll be here all week.  And don’t forget to tip your waiter.

Alright, enough of this tomfoolery.  Here’s a classic for you all for the holidays.   Can’t go wrong with The King, baby.  Merry Wintereenmas, or Ludachristmas, or Mithras Day, or Winter Solstice, or whatever you traditionally rock at this time of the year.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry;

tony

Perfection

“You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last.
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,
Crying like a fire in the sun.
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.
Take what you have gathered from coincidence.
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets.
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home.
All your reindeer armies, are all going home.
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor.
The carpet, too, is moving under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.”

- Bob Dylan – “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” – Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

*

Fucking perfection.  And that’s all i have to say about that.  Enjoy.

Talent

Tonight i watched a teenage girl of indeterminate age and identity hold a crowd of maybe a thousand people (or more) completely captive and breathless with nothing but a guitar and her voice.  I was/am fucking IMPRESSED, as in, the moment has left a serious and deep impression upon me.  One that is not likely to disappear any time soon . . maybe not ever.  An indelible mark on my heart and mind, if you will.

This was at the Rocklin High School Halloween Concert/Variety Show/Fundraiser-thingy, Rocklin being a smallish, newish, reasonably upscale suburb in the foothills east of Sacramento, and the home of my beloved Aunt Julie, Uncle Joe, and their two kids, Jacob and Mallory.  My cousin Jacob currently attends Rocklin High, which accounts for my appearance at this event.  Jake is a very nice kid; extremely smart and absurdly talented.  He plays in the orchestra, the jazz band, the choir, and god knows what else, in addition to being tasked with high-level academia, and playing goalie on the soccer team.  He’s been wowing us (the family) with his piano skillz since he was too small to reach the pedals, and we always jump right into a musically centered conversation when we see each other.  Like i said: Great kid.  Thus i was happy to show up for his concert tonight, to support him and to listen to whatever he and his peers had to offer-up.

The event was full of highs and lows.  Lows included amplification issues (the levels were all over the place, act to act, and it had a real impact on a few of the performances . . they clearly did not do a thorough soundcheck), inexplicable confusion with the schedule (the jazz band’s performance, which i was really looking forward to, was almost completely ruined by an ill-timed and apparently unplanned intermission), having to wait in line for a solid half-hour just to get in (WTF?), impossible seating (whomever’s idea it was to hold the event in the gymnasium SANS CHAIRS needs to be replaced as events coordinator, or at least given a stern talking-to), and inconsistency in the level of preparedness and quality in terms of the performances (a few of the acts were pretty terrible and out of place, and any reasonable director would have cut them out without hesitation).  Oh, and it was looooonnnnnnggggg.  Like, uber-long.  WAY too long.  Especially when you’re sitting on hardwood bleachers.  However, it’s a high school production, and thus i am very willing to overlook a lot of that.  It comes with the territory, does it not?

Oh, and of course, there is one last low, one i can not forgive: They didn’t bother to hand out a program.  That’s a first for me.  Here we have a newish school, in a reasonably affluent neighborhood, that clearly is overflowing with materials and resources (paper, computers, and copy machines included, i would have to imagine), and they didn’t give us a fucking program.  Why is this a big deal?  Well, first of all, it’s customary.  I was in the concert and jazz bands when i was in school, and there was always a program.  Even our crapptastic grade school concerts came with programs.  It’s standard.  Secondly, it’s a big deal because with no program you have no way of timing the event.  You can’t figure out when your kid (or relative, or friend) is going to be on, and you have no idea, during the course of it, how much longer it’s going to take, etc.  That’s annoying, to say the least, as pacing is key at these kinds of things.  Lastly, and most importantly, no program means that you don’t know WHO is playing WHAT.  I knew the name of exactly one performer tonight, that of my cousin.  That means that unless you already knew the person performing, the performer was not, and did not, get any credit whatsoever for their performance, good or bad.  Obviously the less-than-stellar acts are happy to remain anonymous, but here i am blogging away about this event, which means that there were certainly noteworthy and commendable aspects of it, and i have no idea who to give credit to.  And to think, all this because some dumbarse director or coordinator couldn’t figure out how to make a copied and folded piece of paper to distribute at the door.  That’s a major Fail, right there, and if i’d have been one of the student performers tonight, i’d be livid about it.  Ok, ok . . maybe not livid.  But pissy!  Definitely pissy.

Moving on.

The highs were, indeed, lofty.  First and foremost, Jake did very well, as we knew he would.  The choir did a pretty awesome rendition of one of the songs from Sweeney Todd and the jazz band (from what i heard through the talking and general disarray that took place during their performance) was quite good on their tune.  Also, there were several acts that were easily performing on a nearly professional level, and really, who expects that out of kids?  A couple of the dance groups were VERY impressive (and this from someone who doesn’t like or generally appreciate dance, at all).  There was a lovely orchestral piece at the beginning of the show that was gentle and well-played, and touched the whole thing off wonderfully.  A very talented young man played an original piece on the keyboard (there’s another thing that ticked me off: They couldn’t wheel the damn piano into the gym?  What the fuck is that all about?!  When i was a teenage band kid i was regularly called-upon to help haul pianos up and down stairs, in and out of gyms/theaters/auditoriums/etc, and a keyboard does NOT a piano make . . but i digress).  A few of the Halloween-themed skits by the Emcees were funny and entertaining (many were not, but i felt they got better as the night went on).  There was a stunning (yes, STUNNING) duet by a couple playing The Frankenstein Monster and His Bride serenading each other that literally gave me chills (those two kids are destined for stardom if they seek it, and i really mean that . . they were better singers than several professionals i’ve seen live over the years, and they even walked and moved according to the zombified roles they were playing, while singing magnificently all the while).  And, of course, there was this girl.

They didn’t hand out programs, so i can’t tell you her name.  When i asked my cousin afterwards, he didn’t even know who she was (and he, presumably, knows everyone associated with the music department to some degree), which reminds me of a short anecdote that i shall recount in a minute.  The lobby, after the show was over, was full of parents, relatives, and students, talking to/congratulating the performers, and i heard the buzz all around me, in every corner of the room.  It was the same general conversation going on 50 times at once in the lobby alone, and it went something like this:

Parent/Relative/Friend [big smile on their face] – You did a great job!  I loved your part!  Were you happy with how it went?

Performer [tired but also smiling] – Yeah, thanks!  I’m glad you came!  I thought it went . .

Parent/Relative/Friend [interrupting excitedly] – Yeah, yeah!  So, listen, who was that girl?  You know, the one with the guitar?  She was amazing!  I just couldn’t believe how good she was!

Performer [unsure but also excited] – Uhm, yeah, i’m not sure.  She was really good though, huh.  I’ve never seen her before.  But yeah.  Did you like my song?

Parent/Relative/Friend [oblivious to the feelings of their principle] – Yyyyeahhhh.  It was good honey/dude/man!  It was good . . . But, yeah, i could’ve listened to that girl sing all night!  She was unbelievable!

I shit you not, that conversation must have taken place 800 times or more in the last 3 hours.  That’s how special this girl was, and she only sang two songs!  TWO!!!

The anecdote i promised a moment ago:  I don’t know how it went at your high schools, but at mine, the band played at graduation.  We sat in the orchestra pit at The Memorial Auditorium every spring, and we watched that year’s class of seniors walk the walk as we played “Pomp and Circumstance” until our lips and embouchures threatened to mutiny and flee the building with or without us.  Now, every year it was a tradition at graduation for a few bold seniors to take the stage mid-ceremony and sing something (a capella, or otherwise).  It was as traditional as the valedictorian’s speech, and the principal’s toupee’, and nearly every one of these performances was . . well . . not fantastic.  Don’t get me wrong, they usually weren’t terrible, but for the most part i wasn’t too blown-away.

Then came my junior year, which marked my third graduation as a pit-dwelling “Pomp and Circumstance” performer.  I knew the kids in that class very well . . maybe even better than i knew the kids in my own class.  A lot of my closest friends were walking that year, and i watched as a few of them went up and made speeches and played tunes.  Anyways, so the ceremony was in full-swing, proceeding nicely, when, to everyone’s surprise, up walks this guy that we all knew, but that none of us knew to be a musician of any sort.  He was a popular kid, affable and athletic, and i think he might have been involved with a drama production at some point, but never in a musical capacity.  I, and my buddies around me in the pit, was puzzled beyond puzzlement as to what business he could possibly have on the stage at that point.  He wasn’t class president, nor was he a special academic award winner of any sort.  We all immediately grabbed our programs (SEE!?!  PROGRAMS ARE OUR FRIENDS!), and after a glance down, our gazes shot right back up to the stage in shock, horror, and disbelief.

You see, in the program, it said that our buddy, the non-musician, was about to sing “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” by Elton John.  Our horror was doubly inspired, of course.  1) We didn’t want our friend to make a damn fool of himself in front of thousands of people, including his entire class and family.  And 2) We were not at all looking forward to hearing ANYONE’s rendition of that particular tired and overplayed number.  What happened next is, in the context of my post, easy enough to figure out.  Dude KILLED it.  A cappella.  I mean, he sang that song so well that somewhere out in jolly-ol’ England, Elton John himself got a fat chubby and didn’t even know why.  The performance was SO good, that it reminded every person in that hall exactly why they USED to like Elton John, and why they USED to think that The Lion King had one of the best soundtracks ever.  It gave us chills.  It dropped our jaws.  It made us cry (seriously, it did).  And the most amazing part was that NOBODY knew that this kid could sing a lick.  Well, i suppose someone knew.  But i was pretty close to the guy, and i had no idea, and my fellow bandies were in the same boat as I.  We stared at each other in disbelief, and when he finished every person in Memorial Auditorium shot up out of their seats in a frenzy of applause.  It was unreal.

So, as you have already figured, that memory came fresh and immediate to me this evening, and for good reason.  There was no standing ovation for the girl, her voice, and her guitar, but i think that’s largely because of the seating arrangements.  With all of us old fogies packed into the gym bleachers like oh-so-many sardines, i’m not sure it would even have been physically possible to give her such an ovation.  Too, i sensed a great deal of shock in the crowd as she wrapped-up, shock at the supreme quality, at the sheer TALENT that had made itself known to us all out of nowhere, and i think that shock hampered some in the audience in the volume and ferocity of their praise, ie. there were definitely people in my field of vision that were too visibly stunned by what they’d just heard to react until it was too late, and the girl had already bowed and walked-off, making room for the next act.

Have you ever seen a thousand people drop their jaws at once?  I have.  I’ve seen it at two different kinds of places: Sporting events (the Niners/Packers Wildcard Game that i attended in 1998 comes to mind, Young to Owens for the win with 3.6 seconds to go), and musical events (Tim Reynolds soloing on “All Along The Watchtower” at the Dave Matthews Band show on the 6th of last month comes to mind, playing with his teeth).  And i saw that same thing again tonight.  The difference, i think, between those other times and this evening, is that people go to an NFL Playoff Game or a DMB concert expecting magic.  A high-school Halloween variety show that the kids have only had six weeks or so to prepare for?  Not so much.

This girl didn’t write the two songs she sang.  I didn’t know either tune, but i’m confident that she didn’t pen them.  But you know what?  I’m equally confident that, given enough time and effort, someone with that level of talent can write albums worth of material.  The vocals were PERFECT.  Like, crystal clear, soft-yet piercing, enunciated-yet-melodious, soul-wrenching perfect.  And that was through a terrible mic, hooked-up to a crappy little amp!  It was just unREAL.  A moment of surpassing beauty and soulfulness.  The guitar work was simple rhythmic changes, not-flashy, but at the same time it was definitely better than i could have done, and i’ve been playing for 11 years, with 9 years of theory and musical performance experience before that.  She could be a professional.  Like, right now she could be in the studio, singing and playing and touring to packed houses, making a name for herself on the national stage (and beyond).  It wouldn’t suprise me to see her on Oprah tomorrow, right after the Korean nine-year-old that can play Chopin backwards and with his eyes closed.  She exudes that intangible gift that so many of us envy, and too few of us are born with.  That thing we call Talent, with a capital “T”.  All those other kids, with their years of violin tutors, and dance lessons, and tailored outfits, and pricey instruments that they’ll likely abandon within a few months of their graduations . . they were shown-up tonight by a girl in jeans, Converse All Stars, a stripey green t-shirt, and an acoustic-electric that couldn’t have cost more than five or six hundred bucks.  A girl that isn’t in the band, or the choir, or the dance squad, or the drama program.  An unknown.

I only wish i could tell you her name.

***

[The event was videotaped by a standing camera, so there is a slim chance i may be able to wrangle a tape or a youtube vid of this girl's performance, and if such a thing occurs, i will, of course, post it here immeadiately.]

New Music

I, like so many others, have been quite preoccupied with the election of late, and my posts have certainly reflected that.  It’s hard not to be focused on it, as this particular cycle is offering us such an exciting and historic candidate; and it is such a wonderful opportunity for America to throw off the shackles of divisiveness and fear-mongering and xenophobia and violence, in favor of a fresh image, one born of intellectualism and diplomacy, of progressive thought and honesty.  When i watched Barack Obama make his victory speech in Iowa after the caucus, i was touched.  That was in the first week of January.  When i saw him make his victory speech in South Carolina a few weeks later, i was more than touched, i was moved, and there have been many speeches since then.  His monumental address in Berlin gave me chills down my spine, and his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention is the most inspiring thing i’ve ever seen on television.  It was simply breathtaking, and i am not ashamed to admit that I wept freely that night as i watched it from my living room.

These moments are some of the very real and quite legitimate reasons why i have been so fired-up for the last 10 months.  I am a historian at heart, and we are in the midst of history.  And not the nasty Crusades-Spanish Inquisition-genocide of the Native Americans-Holocaust-Great Leap Forward kind of history, either.  Instead, Barack’s incredible rise to prominence and popularity through the power of his eloquence seems to hearken back to the histories of Pericles, Abraham Lincoln, John Adams, and John F. Kennedy.  What will be written about the events of the 4th (not to mention the next 8 years) is beyond our current knowledge, but at this moment, it is hard to feel anything but inspired and enveloped by the events surrounding the election, and i have succumbed as much as anyone.

Still, it’s a tiring subject, isn’t it.  Tiring to write about, tiring to read about, tiring to converse about, tiring to think about.  Of course, that it is taxing should not be used as a pass to be intellectually lazy and to avoid the subject altogether.  Every one of us who is eligible to vote has a real responsibility to research and consider, to debate and to decide, and, ultimately, to vote, on (or before) the 4th.  However, it is tiring, and as I’ve already voted (absentee for the win), i’m now trying desperately to forget about it entirely until that fateful day a week and a half from now.  I have done my research, and fulfilled my responsibility, and now it’s time for me to pop my head out of the my hole and take a look around at what else is going on.

In my case, that means taking a look (and a listen) at new music.  As it says on my “About” page, i’m obsessed with all things musical, and i feel like these last couple of months i’ve been somewhat stuck in neutral on that front, which is a discomforting feeling.  Sure, there were the 3 Dave Matthews Band shows at The Greek in September (which were mindblowingly glorious), and there have been a smattering of other notable musical experiences as well (a few decent jams on the guitar, the DJ Z-Trip mix that i posted about earlier, the Me First and The Gimme Gimmes show i saw back in August), but really, i haven’t been “feeling it” all that much in recent days, and i think that it’s largely due to my focus on the deadly-serious nature of the election.  Well, as i’m now vowing to take a respite from all that for a few days, i thought this might be a good opportunity to discuss some of the new albums that i’ve been able to sneak-in in between the political rants and hoopla.  After all, music is, literally, the most important aspect of my universe, and this page really ought to start showing that to be the case.

So, without further ado, i give you my take on two new(ish) releases.  There are more to come (may this be the beginning of a long series of music-related posts here, as i certainly have a lot to say on the topic).  Enjoy.

*

JENNY LEWIS – ACID TONGUE

Ok, so the first thing i need to state here, upfront and with full-disclosure, is that i am an enormous and unabashed Jenny Lewis fan.  Rilo Kiley, the band that Lewis has made a name for herself with, may well be my favorite band of the decade (or damn close to it), and that’s even after taking into consideration their less-than-fantastic 2007 release, Under The Blacklight, which did not set my soul afire.  That is just how incredibly good their other work has been.  The Execution of All Things (2002) is a damn-near perfect record, as is her solo debut Rabbit Fur Coat (2006), with Takeoffs and Landings (2001) and More Adventurous (2004) not too far behind.  And when i say “perfect”, i mean exactly that.  So keep in mind that this is not an unbiased review.  Music, like all art, is a subjective beast, and to try to tame it objectively is entirely futile.  Trust me, i’ve tried.

So, as a fanboy, the release of this record was a matter of much anticipation on my part.  I waited and waited, ticking off the days and weeks with growing impatience, and finally, on my birthday of all days, it was released (incidentally, the last time my birthday fell on a Tuesday, which is the typical day that new albums are released in the U.S., was 2003, and no less a record than Dave Matthews’ solo debut Some Devil, a fantastic piece of music, was released . . but i digress).  I had already heard a few of the tracks from Acid Tongue before the release, so i didn’t come into the first listening blindly.  NPR records and shares an impressive number of sets every year from the 9:30 club in Washington D.C. on their All Songs Considered program, and a few of the tracks from this record can be heard in their infancy on just such a recording (made in 2006 on the Rabbit Fur Coat tour).  Check it out here.  The whole show can be freely and legally downloaded by clicking on the link on the bottom of the left sidebar panel that says “Download Jenny Lewis”.  It’s a fantastic show, and will soon become a prized gem in your music collection.  Guaranteed.  It pays to keep up with NPR.  Those guys are almost as awesome as their TV corollary, PBS.

Anyways, i’d heard a few tracks already, so between the NPR show and the tracks that Jenny upped on her Myspace page, i knew roughly what to expect, and those expectations were sky high.  So, how did the actual record match up?  Well, to be brief about it, pretty damn well.

It’s a varied record, and it doesn’t seem to have much flow or cohesion (case in point, the first two tracks are both repetitive B-Sides that somehow found their way into those all-important first two slots instead of being mid-album transitions or being cut altogether).  So, in that way, it’s not as good as Rabbit Fur Coat.  But, honestly, even as someone whose expectations for this LP would have been nearly impossible to live up to, i’m quite happy with it as a whole.  It’s a very good record.  After the first two clunkers (“Black Sand”, and “Pretty Bird”), the listener is treated to an impressive run of startlingly touching and impassioned tunes delivered in Jenny’s trademark breezy L.A. style.

“The Next Messiah” is a wonderfully idiosyncratic eight and a half minute romp that, like the best of Jenny’s songs, doesn’t have to mean a damn thing if it doesn’t want to (not that i’m saying that it’s meaningless, not at all, but rather that the music is good enough to carry it past such trivial constraints as lyrical depth).  The title track is perhaps the best song on the whole album, and, frankly, i’ve had it stuck in my head for about 3 weeks now.  Where that would normally annoy the shit out of me, in this case it’s been a pleasure.  That song KILLS.  “See Fernando”, “Godspeed”, “Trying My Best to Love You” . . all instant-classic Jenny Lewis.  Elvis Costello guests on another beauty, “Carpetbaggers”, and “Jack Killed Mom” is almost as good as it was on that NPR show that i linked earlier (which is actually a complement, if you can believe it).  Never before has matricide sounded like so much fun.

So, yeah.  This is a pretty great collection that Miss. Lewis has given us.  It’s not as incredible as Rabbit Fur Coat, or The Execution of All Things, but hey, what is?  You can’t make a perfect record every time out.  No one does.  Not The Beatles.  Not Zeppelin.  Not Dylan.  Not Petty.  Not Paul SImon.  It doesn’t happen.  But what we get here, while not perfect, is still full of wonderfully crafted, memorable tunes.  Songs that i will be singing for the rest of my life. It’s not every day, or week, or month that i get to hear an album like that, and i’ll be on the edge of my metaphorical seat waiting the next installment of the Jenny Lewis catalog, just as excited as i was for this one.

["Acid Tongue" on Conan earlier this month]

*

LISA HANNIGAN – SEA SEW

Those of you who listen to or are familiar with Irish singer/songwriter Damien Rice (that should be every single one of you, such is the sheer and undeniable awesomeness of his two albums O (2002), and 9 (2006)) will recognize Lisa.  She sang backup on those two outstanding records, even taking a few lead bits in the latter, and in that capacity she absolutely shined.  When Damien suddenly announced last year that they would no longer be working together (the rumor being that they had a romantic relationship, the termination of which was the cause of their professional split), it may have signaled the end of his relevance, THAT is how good they were together, and how important i believe she is to his sound.  I hope i am wrong about Damien, as i love his music, but only time will tell.  Too, when that sad announcement was made public, there was no doubt at all that this, Lisa’s first solo work, would be coming sooner or later.

Yet there was no publicity.  Zero.  Not even in this, the internet age, where publicity is easier to drum up than a lynch mob in 19th Century Alabama, was there even a hint that this would be coming now.  Sure, there was probably a bit of buzz in Ireland, where she and Damien hail from.  But not here, not even to someone who was listening.  This is why i didn’t find out that this album even existed until today.  Feverishly, i ran around (figuratively) trying to get my hands on it, thrilled that this woman who i admire so has already put together a whole record full of originals, and pissed at myself that the release had slipped under my radar (apparently it was released in Ireland five weeks ago).  Well my search was successful, and, nervously, i plugged in my headphones and pushed Play.

It turns out I had no reason to be nervous.  Even though this is her first solo effort, not one song on it betrays that fact.  I haven’t had nearly the time to digest it that i have had for Acid Tongue, thus this will be a much less detailed review, but don’t mistake a lack of specificity for flippancy.

This is one of those records that starts off mellow, but in a satisfactory way.  Damien’s songs are often mellow, and so i expected the same from her, and that’s what we’re greeted by, but it’s only the beginning of a wondrous progression.  At first it’s, “Oh, this is nice.  A little vanilla, but nice,” and the next thing you know you’re bobbing your head and completely caught-up in tune after tune after tune.

You can hear the Joni Mitchell in her melodies and mildly-funky rhythms, but this stuff is a lot more palatable than Joni’s (for the record, i think Joni Mitchell is amazing, but “easily consumed” is not as fitting an adjective for her music as are “eclectic” and “complex”).  Also, you can definitely hear Damien’s influence in there, yet the differences are substantial.  I’ll tell you this much, Damien Rice sure as hell never wrote a song as upbeat and poppy as “I Don’t Know”, and while i might normally use “poppy” as a negative, here it holds none of that connotation.

The arrangements are exceptional on nearly every track, as is the backing instrumentation.  The horns are perfect, and track by track, it really keeps you guessing.  I don’t know who produced it or helped with the arrangements, but it’s a very mature record, and i have absolutely nothing negative to say about it.  Here i am, a notorious nitpicker (even of the things i love); i’ve listened to this album through four times now, and i simply can’t bring myself to be negative about it.  It’s a thoroughly pleasant and well-crafted piece of work, especially for a debut.

She has a naturally whispery singing style, which might have worked against her in any kind of solo effort, but not here.  On this she manages to be soft and strong at the same time.  The dynamic shifts are impressive and well-placed, possibly a lesson learned from her former partner.  “Teeth” sounds like something he might have written, and yet it manages to be clearly HER song.

Alright, i think i’ve made my recommendation clear.  Get it.  It may be a sonofabitch to find, as it’s only been released in Ireland to date, but it’s worth the search.  And hey, if you can’t find it, leave me a message.  I may be able to help you out.

Now away with you all!  I’m going to go put it on again

[A performance of "Teeth" from December, 2006]

My Friend, Leroi

Leroi Moore, woodwind extraordinaire, died suddenly and tragically one month ago tomorrow, and only now am i able to really even consider writing about it with any kind of clarity or perspective, and thus it is now that i have decided to offer up a few words in his honor.  Forgive me if it seems a bit belated or maudlin doing this now instead of shortly after the fact.  This has been a difficult thing for me to fully come to terms with.

If the name doesn’t sound familiar to you, allow me to explain why this was a man worth remembering.  Leroi was one of the founding members of that uniquely wonderful musical collaboration known as The Dave Matthews Band.  He played all manner of saxophone.  He played the flute.  He played the penny whistle.  He played the soul.  He was an exceptionally talented musician, and, by all accounts, he was an exceptionally kind human being as well.

Here are a couple of particularly personal and touching remembrances by two people that knew him well, a young artist who had recently been working with Roi, and her mother.  These were originally brought to my attention on the fan site Antsmarching.org shortly after his passing; the original source and how they ended up on that site is beyond the scope of my knowledge, but i hope with all of my heart that the authors are not offended at their inclusion in this memorial . . my intentions are nothing but honorable:

Friends….i’m trying to hold myself together but it is very, very, very hard right now.

My friend and my mentor, LeRoi Moore, died today. You may also know him as the brilliant and amazing saxophone player in the Dave Matthews Band.

I can barely type, i want to curl up in a corner and drink myself into oblivion, but i know he wouldn’t approve of that… all that i know is that i need to tell anyone who will listen about how amazing this man was, and how tragic it is that one of the brightest lights in the world has unexpectedly and suddenly gone out.

First, let me say that I have loved the Dave Matthews Band since I can remember. Also, being a young beginner sax player when i was 8th and 9th grade, I listened to them non-stop and tried to copy (terribly unsuccessfully) Roi’s solo’s. I didn’t know much then, (still don’t) but even I could tell that this dude was happening. Brilliant. The ONLY sax player in pop music that ever crossed my radar and was just damn cool….to say that i looked up to him would be a gross understatement. I LOVED HIM!!!

Fast forward a few years later, and through inexplicable twists of fate, he hears my music. For 2.5 years i’ve been hustling in LA trying to “make it” in the business, quit my day job, live free and make the music that is inside of me. Doors slam in my face. Countless shows spent waiting for flaky A & R dudes to show up who never come, sleazy wannabe producers promising the world, VP’s of this or that saying you have a good voice, but you are a little too pop, a little too folk, a little too pale, a little too weird and/ or left of center…..Then Roi heard me.

Roi got me. Immediately. No if’s and’s or buts. Just as I was, who I was plain and simple. I cried with joy then, to finally be validated and to be understood…to be validated by one of the purest and most talented cats in the game, founding member of a band i IDOLIZED……is this my life?!But it got better!!!

Not only was he an incredible player, he was the fucking coolest dude i’ve ever met!!! He loved sci-fi! He too had SETI on his PC at one time (true dorks will know what that means!) He was the most generous, and kind and sweet and hilarious person i’ve ever met! He had this terrible twinkle in his eye at all times…as in, Roi was always up to no good….he didn’t take himself or anyone that seriously and never made false promises or pretended to be what he was not. He liked good wine and good company and good music, and had lots of high tech star trek looking gadgets in his house that he loved to show off. He believed in me the way my parents believe in me. That doesn’t happen often. to anyone. He changed my life.

I quit that day job. I moved across the country and thanks to his complete and utter belief in my ability, he let me record my little heart out. “Just do you Saaaaaam” (he had this musical lilt in his voice)….you hear horror stories in the music industry about people wanting to change you and your sound, etc etc etc…but my experience was the exact opposite. All that he wanted was for me to be myself…..and he loved my music….When we would record something that came out face-meltingly awesome, he would keep a poker a face and say, “yeah, that was good…but I bet Stevie Wonder could do that when he was like 5 years old.” hahahhahaa ahhhhh…..He once asked if I needed anything at the studio, to which I said, “roi, we are so fine…but i dunno,i guess we could eat some candy?” The man brought like 15 POUNDS of jellybelly beans. That was Roi. He would make you smile, and make you laugh, welcome you in his home, put you in your place, and also tell you how much he appreciated you. I’m doing him no justice by this i’m sure, but it’s making me feel better…..i ca’nt fucking believe this…

This is so unexpected. He was getting better. He’d already miraculously survived his ATV accident from july and the subsequent complications. I just talked to him last week. We were planning for my album, which he was to produce (his first ever job as a producer)in November. He was looking forward to kicking ass in recovery and join DMB in Brazil. He was so full of life, and music and passion….and music. He was, he IS a true musician, the caliber and likes of which I am blessed I had a chance to know. He was an incredible man, and mentor, who was rock solid in his belief of me as a musician and person. He was my friend. He was a dear friend. But his music and his life made so many people happy, and so many lives lighter and more beautiful. His love lives on. In the end, all of the stupid bullshit doesnt’ mean a damn thing. It’s how you live your life and how you love people. Love lives on. And so does everyone who’s hearts are breaking at the sudden loss of Roi. But his music, and my music will go on, and I will try to live up to the person and musician that he thought me to be.

Anyway…that is my poor attempt at talking about a brilliant and loved person who has changed my life. I’m going to go have a drink. One for me, one for you. Then, I’m going to go outside and lay in front yard, and thank god for being alive, and for feeling cold and wet grass on my back and for smelling sweet summer night air, and for have being blessed to know you. If i see a shooting star or two, I’ll know it’s you. Boldly go where no one else has gone. I miss you terribly.

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And this, from the artist’s mother, is equally touching:

Well, if I have to start anywhere it is here:

1. He had one of the purest hearts I have ever encountered in all of my life. Don’t however take that to mean that he was not also simultaneously one of those don’t fuck with Chuck types because Roi was not a man that anyone with one grain of sense would have crossed. He was tough, worldly, street wise, and a brilliant genius who could hold his own with any of the great minds that have ever been, and with any of those with great once in a lifetime musical talent, but most of all he had one of the purest hearts I have ever encountered.

2. He was sort of shy just like my girl whom he took under his wing and believed in so fiercely, understood what she was about so clearly that as a parent, I was happy. They were two Virgo peas in a pod, liking science fiction, comfortable silences, spending an hour listening quietly together to Odetta sing.

3. He had a wicked sense of humor, and when he arranged for her to go to New York, and he sitting down to dinner with her and people that she was in awe of, he kept egging her on about being able to handle the eight courses of sushi he had arranged for the meal. “How you doing, Sam?’ she said he would say with a sly grin. He had done something similar in the studio, telling the three young bloods who were Samantha’s musical crew to just try the potato chips in the pantry, just try them, they were hot ones, yep, but they could handle them. We laughed so hard as those three lost their voices, determined not to show one sign of mouths on fire, show me the extinguisher in front of the likes of the Great Leroi Moore.

4. He called me Lulu, a nickname I gave myself as an alter ego, and supposedly private until my daughter called me that in front of him, and that became all that he called me. We talked quantum physics, and Roi said: “You know Lulu, until I met you, once I started talking quantum physics, to anyone else, the conversation shut down, but you….”

5. He somehow convinced my child to quit her job in Los Angeles and move cross country to Virginia, which she did without a thought having discovered for herself a kindred spirit, an old soul friend who called her Sam in such a musical way because Roi was a music man. I flew out to help her drive from LA to Charlottesville and on the way, with me driving, and her thinking, she wrote many songs. Roi said in the studio one day, “Sam, I am going to put you in a car and send you back to drive through Oklahoma again if that is where this song came to you.” (Fade Away) and we weren’t entirely certain that he wasn’t one hundred percent serious.

6. Roi kept you on your toes for he was a hard person to read, and it took awhile sometimes to figure out that he was mostly just pulling your leg, so when he dead panned one night to Samantha, “Sam, I think you should change this word to that in this song, we at first thought he was serious until he started laughing and said: “you don’t even have to split fifty fifty with me, just 70-30 will be good enough.” He appreciated what she did, and was so secure in what he did that he never tried to make her feel less than.

7. We arrived at night in Virginia and we were to stay at his place, and it was dark, and the roads unknown to us, and so I got more and more concerned the further up that old road we traveled. When I saw the house, just the way that Roi kept beautiful little white Christmas lights around the trees outside, I knew perhaps this person I had yet to meet might also be an old friend.

8. One day after I was back home, and watching on Youtube, a performance by the Dave Matthews band I found myself as I listend to the music moving through that house that had been a project for Roi, and understanding that he had in his uncommon genius sort of a way found a way to encode the band’s music into the very design of the house which he had gutted and rebuilt from the inside out. It is a living testimony to the mind on fire that was Leroi Moore.

9. One of the first things I noticed as I walked for the first time through that exquisite house, almost hugging the beautiful wood everywhere was that there was a huge bowl of cat eye marbles in the den. the big ones.. I played marbles as a chld and drooled over the ones he had assembled there. When I noticed also that the marbles were used in various places as tile, as musical notes, as all manner of interesting and unique decor elements in the house, I mentioned it to Roi and he said: “Yup, I bought 10,000 marbles on E-bay, and that is what happens when you have too much time on your hands.” We laughed.

10. He loved the band, said they were family, and when they had attitude problems because touring was hard, he said they rarely had to say anything to one another, being able to read each other’s minds as well as settle scores with their music. He said one night, they would get on stage and somebody who was a bit pissed about something would play a piece in a certain way, and he said it was as though that brother had said that thing that everyone else knew was the one thing that person shouldn’t have said, and he said somebody would do a version with their instruments, vocals, whatever of a “oh no I know you didn’t go there” and come back with an in your face dueling musical answer, and he was laughing the whole time.

11. He told Samantha that the entire time she and her group of musicians had been in the studio, and he was there every day all day except for one day, that he had kept waiting for them to get up, go out smoke some crack, do some dope, drink something, pull some drama, be demanding and none of it had happened.

12. He was very impressed with the fact that Samantha and all of her band mates were college educated, disciplined, not given to excess in anything, and certainly no druggies. Polite, respectful, punctual, and throughly enjoying what they were doing without the least bit of drama. Roi liked things like that, and they were a welcomed surprise for him.

13. We spent 4th of July at a barbeque at Roi’s farm with his family. He wanted me to meet those who had attended the same college as I had, and to also meet his mom who was like me an AKA, as were most of the other women in his family, and all of us sorors spent a lot of time skee-weeing one another as we laughed.

What impressed me as I went to the studio every day was how everyone associated with that organization known as the Dave Matthews Band loved being a part of it. No one could resist, Samantha, Keith, Kyle, or Cameron daring to touch Carter’s drum kit (and each of them took a picture sitting in front of that kit that Henry set up,) and Henry said it was that kind of group, that you never wanted to leave. I heard that repeatedly as various members of the behind the scenes staff got to know us, and came I think to like us, and therefore were willing to talk with us. They loved what they did, and they appreciated the type of organization DMB was. We had a lot of fun.

I think of them, too as I know how Carter whom Roi said was a friend from childhood, laughing as he told us how he and Carter would play in hotels around C-ville, not having any vocals and therefore yelling Dance that they passed off as vocals, as I think of all of the other members of the band he loved and admired so much and how they must feel, but in my thoughts and prayers also are the behind the scenes people and their families, how everyone associated with that organization is grieving and remembering now. I think of his childhood friend Dave who I had the honor of meeting one day as I looked out of the kitchen window and saw a man walking outside who told me that “Roi was one of the best human beings in the world, and a buddy forever.” I think of Rob, and Jeff, and Jerry, and G, Larry, the gardeners, and Ty and their families, and I feel blessed that for a little while, I had the pleasure of his company.

On August 15th, my granddaughter came to tell me that Fed-EX was ouside delivering a big box. I had no idea who had sent it for it was much too big to be what my daughter was suppose to be sending, and it said all over the outside, flowers. I said, oh Nai just packed it in an old flower box, but as my husband and granddaughter opened it, lo and behold we saw they were flowers.
2 dozen white roses to be exact that still sit in my kitchen, and since the box had been addressed to me, I opened the card. Samantha was at the gym, and as I read, I started to cry.

The note was from Roi and Ty, and the card thanked Sam and me for all of the love, the compassion and kindness we had offered to Roi during his accident and subsequent recovery. I wrote to Ty immediately saying thanks of course, but also forewarning him and asking him to relay it to Roi that the next time I saw the both of them I was definitely going upside both of their heads for reducing me to tears. Damn, Roi, I was soooo looking forward to that. I know Roi walked off with God, ready to play that sax somewhere else.
My family has had to deal with a lot of grief and sorrow. You never get over the loss, after awhile the intervals between the pain become a bit longer, but life is never quite the same again. Cherish the day, the minute, nothing is promised.

Roi said that all he ever knew was that he was not a 9-5 sort and all he ever wanted to do was make music. He said he hadn’t cared if he made a lot of money, he just knew he wanted to make music. He had Ty tell Sam that since he couldn’t do much else while he was recovering he was mentally writing music, working out parts for her, for him, and that is the way I will remember a man who had one of the purest hearts I have ever encountered which is not the same as having had a need to be a saint. Roll on, Roi.

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So Leroi Moore was more than just a jazz musician from Virginia who made it very very big.  He was also a friend, and a mentor, and a lover, and a son, and an inspiration, and a prankster, and so many other things as well.  And, really, what else could be expected?  Don’t we all make an impression on the people in our lives, shallow or deep, for better or for worse?  Yet, how many of us are ever afforded the opportunity to make such an enormous impression on so many lives.  The Dave Matthews Band has performed over 1,600 shows since their inception in 1991, and sold over 31,000,000 albums in the United States alone.  How many lives have been touched in those 17 years, and how deeply?  And let us not forget that Roi had been a prominent member of the Charlottesville music scene for years before Dave ever worked up the courage to strike up a friendship with the man (a move that ultimately led to the creation of DMB)!  How many people were moved by his personality and his music before fame ever entered the picture?  These are questions without answers, but i think the point is clear.

The day that Roi left us i was numb.  I had gotten very little sleep the night before, and it had already been a rollercoaster morning and afternoon before the news of his death began to leak out to those of us in the active DMB online community (of which i am a peripheral member, at best).  A few hours after i had been convinced that the news wasn’t fake, i wrote this to one of my closest friends, a fellow DMB fan and music lover, as we were attempting to console each other and grasp the new reality that was staring us in the face:

You know, one of the first things that went through my head this afternoon was, “And Leroi was a huge reason why i got into the band in the first place!  Especially considering that i was a sax player at the time.”  He made that odd, eclectic, unique music, the like of which i’d never heard before, so immediately accessible to me as a 15 year-old jazz saxophonist.  I remember playing along with the records in my living room on the tenor and the baritone.  Or trying to anyways     : )

Oh the debt i owe that man.

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Most of the rest of the day was spent in solemn labor or quiet tears, and later on in the evening i spent a few hours playing a little guitar in Roi’s honor (a practice i continued throughout the week).  I may not be that good of a musician, but it felt right; it felt like a strengthening of the connection between my spirit and his, and it was remarkably effective as a release for me.

Yes, i had known about the accident and the reported complications, and so no, his death wasn’t a complete surprise.  In fact, I had talked with my brother and little sister more than once in the previous weeks about that very possibility, and how that would affect the band, etc.  But there is a difference between surprise and shock, and there is no doubt that even now, nearly a month later, i’m still gripped by a certain amount of shock.  The man who i had been jamming to for so long, the man who had been such a role model to me musically, the man who stood on stage, a fixture in his trademark black glasses, emanating the very essence of cool for all those years: gone, suddenly, at the age of 46.  No amount of prior speculation had prepared me for that loss, that hole in my world (and the worlds of so many others as well) that would never again be properly filled.  Perhaps this seems like gross hyperbole to some, but i couldn’t help but think, on that day, of how people must have felt when Jimi died, or Janis, or Duane Allman, or Charlie Parker, or Stevie Ray Vaughn, or Keith Moon, or John Coltrane, or John Bonham, or even John Winston Ono Lennon.  True, Leroi’s shadow was and is, in many ways, not nearly as large as that of those immeasurably historic figures i just mentioned.  I mean, i came to love The Beatles relatively late in my life (not until college, really), and even then, even though i was only a year and three months old when John was shot, i still mourn him; i still occasionally weep for him.  So, no, in terms of macrocosmic scope and influence and suddenness, and even in terms of the circumstances surrounding the death, Leroi and John are not in the same ballpark.  But for me, in my heart, the loss is quite comparable.  It was on that day, and it will continue to be for the rest of my days.  That is how much Leroi’s music meant, and continues to mean, to me.

Back in Charlottesville, the birthplace of the band, the local music rag was trying to cope and report the best they could as well.  This is what they had to say a few days later:

http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2008/08/26/sax-silenced-dmbs-moore-remembered-as-enthusiastic-friend/

Silenced sax: DMB’s Moore remembered as enthusiastic friend

by Lindsay Barnes

LeRoi Moore: 1961-2008

One song into his band’s set at the Los Angeles Staples Center on Tuesday, August 19, Dave Matthews managed to silence the nearly 20,000 fans.

“We got some bad news today,” he told the crowd. “LeRoi gave up his ghost.”

Hours before Matthews had uttered the words, Dave Matthews Band saxophonist and founding member LeRoi Moore passed away in a hospital bed at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, just six miles from the Staples Center, from complications from an accident. In June, Moore suffered broken ribs and a collapsed lung in an all-terrain vehicle accident on his farm outside Charlottesville. He was 46 years old.

The news hit his native Charlottesville hard, especially those who knew Moore well.

“It’s been an incredibly difficult couple of days,” says Peter Griesar, keyboardist and original bandmate of Moore’s in DMB. “He was my brother, and I loved him like a brother, and it’s just an incredibly sad thing.”

“There is an extreme amount of sadness in my heart,” says Ambha Lessard, sister of DMB bassist Stefan Lessard. “He was an amazing man, and he will forever touch our souls.”

“I’m still in shock,” says longtime friend Olivia Branch, who said it was too soon after Moore’s death for her to comment further.

“Walking on the Mall Tuesday, a friend called from afar and said ‘Roi passed,’” says guitarist and Moore protégé Jay Pun. “I was speechless.”

LeRoi Holloway Moore was born September 7, 1961 in Durham, North Carolina, but moved to Charlottesville with his mother, Roxie, and father, Alvin, early in his childhood. Moore’s musical prowess was evident from an early age, earning the family nickname “Bop Bop” for his childhood habit of scatting jazz riffs as he walked around the house.

He grew up a Dallas Cowboys fan and pursued his love of the gridiron as an offensive lineman for the Charlottesville High School Black Knights football team. But soon it became clear that Moore’s calling was on the stage, and he soon parlayed his musical gifts into a career, sitting in with local jazz stalwart trumpeter John D’earth in the fusion group Code Magenta, where he performed with DMB drummer Carter Beauford.

It was around that time that Moore caught the ear of a young bartender and aspiring singer-songwriter at downtown pub Miller’s.

“The stage was right near the cash register,” Matthews told the Staples Center crowd last Tuesday, just before the encore, “and he just leapt up on top of it, because standing was becoming something of a chore at that point. He got his elbows free, and played the most beautiful version of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ I ever heard in my whole life.”

Said Matthews, “That’s the night I fell in love with him.”

Moore was on hand to play for a private party atop the “pink warehouse” building on South Street on May 11, 1991, the now legendary first concert by the then-unnamed band. The 29-year-old saxophonist was already a heavy hitter in the local jazz community and far better known than the 24-year-old front man.

Along with Boyd Tinsley’s fiddle and Matthews’ unconventional vocal delivery, Moore’s sax would become a trademark of the Dave Matthews Band sound.

It was Moore who played the instantly memorable riff on one of the band’s first hits, “Ants Marching.” He went on to co-write Top-40 singles like “Too Much” and “Stay;” and his extended live solos on saxophone, flute, and pennywhistle helped build DMB’s reputation as a successor to the Grateful Dead as one of America’s greatest and most popular “jam bands.”

Through the years of fame and touring, Moore remained a soft-spoken individual who preferred to let his music do the talking. But those to whom he did open up say he was a warm man, not shy about boosting the mood of his friends.

“He watched me grow up, and I feel like he was family,” says Lessard. “He always took a minute out of his hectic life to give me a bear hug and catch up for a second.”

“He called me the day after I graduated from Berklee College of Music,” says Jay Pun, referring to the prestigious Boston conservatory. “He kept saying ‘congratulations, congratulations, congratulations,’ without letting me interrupt him. He kept saying to me that I did something that he only dreamed of and that I was on a great track. I couldn’t believe a musician I had grown up listening to since I was 12 years old had called me to congratulate me on graduating from music school.”

While the exact circumstances around Moore’s accident are unclear (neither Moore’s family nor representatives for the band returned the Hook’s calls for comment), band management did report that on June 30, taking a break from the band’s North American tour, Moore was injured while riding an all-terrain vehicle on his farm.

According to Karl Woerner, a salesman with Virginia Tractor who has both owned and sold ATVs, accidents involving the four-wheelers can be broken down into a few categories.

“If you’re going 60 mph and you go into a sharp turn, you could lose control and go into a tree,” he says. “If you accelerate too quickly, these things have such good traction that they’ll do a wheelie and come over on top of you. If you’re going downhill too fast and try to stop, you could go over the handle bars. If you’re going up a hill and you turn too quickly, it could roll over on you.”

What Moore’s death means for Dave Matthews Band’s future remains to be seen. Jeff Coffin of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones has filled in for Moore since the band’s July 1 show in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Coffin’s slated to continue playing with the remaining four members through November.

While the band did postpone two shows this week to attend Moore’s funeral, they played three shows before pausing to mourn their fallen brother. There is precedent for a band of DMB’s stature to take more immediate breaks to mourn the death of a band member.

On June 27, 2002, John Entwistle, bassist for The Who, died the night before his mates were to begin a long North American tour. The band postponed the tour opener in Las Vegas, but took the stage four nights later in Los Angeles and went on with the rest of the tour as scheduled.

More recently, Danny Federici, longtime keyboard player in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, passed away from skin cancer on April 17. While Federici had not been on tour at the time, Springsteen postponed two shows in Florida and then made them up the next week, five days after Federici’s death.

Still, Matthews told fans in Los Angeles that he would rather not stop touring at this difficult time.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be than with my family onstage,” he said.

Moore’s final appearance in the band took place not far from Charlottesville, at Nissan Pavilion near Manassas. It was the last time Ambha Lessard saw Moore, who says they shared a common bond.

“We talked about both being engaged and getting married,” says Lessard, and Moore’s obituary cites Lisa Bean as his fiancée.

Though there was no way of knowing it was the end of an era for Dave Matthews Band, in a way Moore did get to say goodbye to his fans. The last song at the Nissan concert was a blazing cover of Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You.”

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Here’s that video of Dave’s announcement that night in Los Angeles, in case you don’t like following hyperlinks.  Warning, it’s a little loud, and i believe that there were many in the crowd that did not fully understand what was going on (Dave is a notorious mumbler, and it can be very difficult to hear what he’s saying in between songs when you’re at the show):

Then a couple of days after that, following the memorial service, that same Charlottesville paper, The Hook, had this to report:

http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2008/08/28/tortured-shining-moore-remembered-by-dave/

‘Tortured,’ ’shining’ Moore remembered by Dave

by Lindsay Barnes

Bandmate Carter Beauford arrives at the church on Park Street.
PHOTO BY WILL WALKER

As a soft but steady rain– the first in more than a month– fell on his hometown yesterday morning, friends and family of LeRoi Moore filed into Charlottesville’s biggest church to remember the late Dave Matthews Band saxophonist, who died August 19 from injuries suffered June 30 in an all-terrain vehicle accident on his farm outside town.

Eulogizing Moore was the Rev. Dr. William Guthrie, the former rector of Moore’s family church, Trinity Episcopal. Guthrie revealed that the accident had put Moore into a coma, but that he occsionally awakened to greet well-wishers, both in Charlottesville and in Los Angeles where he had a second home and was to begin a long rehabilitation program.

“In Los Angeles,” said Guthrie, “he suffered a fatal embolism that would eventually take his life.”

Though nearly 1,000 people turned out to say goodbye to Moore, only the four men seated in the center, together for over 17 years, knew him as they did; and each member of Dave Matthews Band coped with grief in a way oddly metaphorical to his on-stage role.

Drummer Carter Beauford was driving the rest of the band forward with ready smiles and handshakes. Bassist Stefan Lessard was steadily, stoically keeping from succumbing to his emotions. Violinist Boyd Tinsley, whose athleticism and on-stage exuberance have become legendary, was freely expressive, holding onto friends in long embraces.

The only bandmate not wearing the white pallbearer’s gloves was the one who voiced their common message for their fallen brother.

“Roi loved people,” said Matthews, “but he had the hardest time loving himself, and that was the most difficult thing about being his friend for me, watching him torture himself.”

Matthews said the 46-year-old Moore was “a good soul, but he was a tortured soul. But he loved his family and he loved his friends. He was finding himself, finding the light inside himself, and it was shining more than it had for a very long time.”

Matthews credited Moore’s fiance, Lisa Bean, for his newfound happiness.

“I believe her unwavering love for him,” Matthews said, “and her willingness to stand in front of him, as he was reluctant to love himself, and insisted on it, caused him to eventually see the light.

“It was so bright,” Matthews continued, “that we could all see it so much all of the time, when he would put that horn in his mouth and make the most astonishingly honest music that could knock you over, and it would sink right to the middle of you.”

Matthews– no stranger to performing in stadiums for tens of thousands– appeared slightly nervous addressing the hundreds assembled in First Baptist Church on leafy Park Street. Swaying back and forth, he introduced himself as “Dave Matthews, a friend of Roi’s” and reeled off a pack of anecdotes, most of which centered on Moore’s propensity to fall asleep anywhere.

“I saw him fall asleep onstage,” said Matthews, to much laughter. “He was standing right there, and I’m not sure if I saw him fall asleep, but I definitely saw him wake up. He sort of caught himself, and then he thought he got away with it, but we have a little intercom system, and I said, ‘Did you just wake up?’”

Moore’s custom of wearing sunglasses, Matthews noted, sometimes made it hard hard to tell.

“He also fell asleep next to me in his old blue Volkswagen station wagon driving down 64 once,” recalled Matthews, “and I only realized it when he started snoring.”

However, not all of Moore’s humor was unintentional. While he was soft-spoken publicly, Matthews said, Moore’s ability to tell a joke was such that “he could have done that for a living, though it may not have been as lucrative.

“He told them with an honesty the same way he played,” said Matthews. “I would tell him jokes, just so I could hear him tell them after me.”

According to the Rev. Guthrie, Moore didn’t just save his honesty for his friends in the band.

“LeRoi would engage me in animated conversation whenever I would encounter him at home or at church,” Guthrie said. “More often than not, he felt that the music in the Episcopal Church left a lot to be desired.”

Some of the men who most informed Moore’s early musical sensibilities were on hand to pay tribute with their instruments. Trumpeter and early mentor John D’earth performed along with the Trinity Episcopal choir throughout the service and led a trio in “Goodbye, Sweet King.”

Moore’s jazz theory teacher Roland Wiggins played a stirring, improvised piano rendition of the spiritual “Keep Me From Sinking Down.” Before playing, Wiggins shared his last encounter with Moore in the hospital.

“I stood up to leave, and he said, ‘Hang on a sec,’” said Wiggins. “He was in his wheelchair, and he took the better part of three or four minutes to get his wheels locked, and he wouldn’t let me leave until he stood up. He stood up and said, ‘Thanks for coming.’”

In a way, Moore got to say that to everyone assembled. Following Matthews’ remarks, a slide show chronicling Moore’s life from a baby to a bona fide star was accompanied by his gentle sax showcase “#34″ from DMB’s major label debut Under the Table and Dreaming.

Following the service, Jamie Dyer, whose Hogwaller Ramblers were as much a part of the Charlottesville music scene as DMB in the early ’90s, said the ceremony was in keeping with how he remembered Moore.

“Like all great musicians, he had great timing and a great ear,” said Dyer, “and when you heard that piece from his teacher, you couldn’t help but think of that.”

According to Secileon Lewis, a family friend of drummer Beauford’s, she couldn’t help but laugh at Matthews’ recollections of a somnabulent Moore.

“When Dave was talking about how he always falls asleep,” said Lewis, “I thought, ‘He did me the same way!’”

As mourners left the the modern brick sanctuary, they formed an impromptu reception outside under the white-washed concrete loggia, none in a hurry to leave. They were of all ages, all colors, perhaps apropos for a man who touched so many different kinds of people with his personality in the Charlottesville area, and with his horn throughout the world. They were drawn to Moore because of his ability to convey in music and demeanor a fiery passion that Matthews described by quoting a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

“I burn my candle at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.”

#

Many thanks to Miss. Barnes, who’s capable journalism helped us all get a little more insight into the whole affair from a hometown perspective, as well as to The Hook.

So.  Now you know who Leroi was and what he meant to so many of us, or at least you have some idea.  Myself, i feel the same as i did a month ago and a month before that (and a decade before that), in the sense that for a very long time i have considered Roi to be a rather sizable part of my life.  I never met him.  I may have been lucky enough to see him perform a number of times (11 in total), but i never got to speak to him, or shake his hand, or trade laughs with him, or tell him how much his music meant to me.  Yet i felt that he was a friend.  Maybe not a “Can i borrow that DVD from you” friend, or a “Do you want to play some hoops tomorrow” friend, but a friend nonetheless.  Is that wrong of me?  Is that warped or twisted or overly possessive?  Was i fooling myself all those years by steeping my emotions in such an illusory relationship?  I think not.

After having this last month to contemplate and absorb all of this, i have decided that i was absolutely right.  Roi and i were friends.  He didn’t know my name or my face, and my screams of support on those 11 blissful occasions (dating from 1995 to 2007) were no doubt swallowed up in the crowds of thousands, just like my grief is being swallowed up by this sea of words that you’re treading along with me.  But we WERE friends.  Roi was a friend to me every time i listened, and i think, in a way, he knew it.  Not a day goes by that the members of that band aren’t told “Thank You” by some fan or random or passerby for the meaningful and touching nature of their music, and I would imagine that after someone has heard that a few thousand times, the message starts to sink in (and that’s not even taking into account all the encouragement and support that they must take from the incredible record sales, or the sea of fans at every show).

On the other side of that coin, i was a friend to him every summer evening that i went out there and screamed and yelled in joy at the music he and his partners were making.  I don’t know what it’s like to stand on a stage in front of 75,000 people, let alone to stand in front of such a crowd and have to pour your heart into every note, and then to hear that effort come right back at you in praise.  The biggest room i ever played was a sparsely-filled Lawlor Events Center at the University of Nevada Reno, and even then it was nothing but parents and peers in the crowd, and i had more than a dozen brilliant musicians playing beside me at the time to help spread the focus and the pressure and the applause.  Hardly comparable.  But even though i don’t know what it was like for Roi to go out there and play show after show, year after year, to thousands upon thousands of rabid fans, i do know that it was a hell of a lot easier to pull off in a packed venue as opposed to a half-empty one, with ecstatic exclamations bombarding the stage and propelling the band to new heights every night instead of scattered applause and a smattering of laughter.  Anyone who doesn’t think that performers feed off of the crowd at a show is either cynical beyond repair, or has never been to a good concert.  Even if my support was made minuscule and indistinguishable by the millions of fellow fans that were shouting right along with me all those years, that doesn’t make it inconsequential or nonexistent.  It mattered, if even on the smallest of levels.  It mattered.  And in that way i was there for Leroi, just as he was there (in a much more substantial fashion) for me.  He was my friend, and i miss him terribly.

Noted industry blogger (and former exec) Bob Lefsetz has this to say shortly after that horrible day.  He offers quite a unique, heartfelt, first hand, and well-written perspective on the events of that day and that evening.  I’ll end this entry with his words, a picture or two, and few videos.  I hope that Bob won’t begrudge my reprinting this here.

Thank you Leroi.  Wherever you are, thank you so very much.

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2008/08/22/leroi/

LeRoi

Friday, August 22, 2008 12:05 PM
“Bob Lefsetz” <bob@lefsetz.com>

I saw the Dave Matthews Band open for Phish at the Santa Monica Civic.

I do what Chip tells me.  He’d told me I had to come see Phish at the Variety Arts Center and I’d watched them blow up.  The DMB was his new band.

I didn’t know that the Santa Monica Civic had a false floor, that it was suspended in such a way that when they started playing “Ants Marching” and the college-aged audience dressed in the same exact clothing as the band members themselves erupted and started moving up and down that the floor would too.  I’d never heard the number before, I haven’t forgotten it since.

During the break, before the headliner took the stage, I went with Chip to a side room, just east of the auditorium itself, that resembled nothing so much as an elementary school classroom, to hang out.  It was there that I met Boyd, Carter and LeRoi.  Maybe LeRoi, I can’t remember exactly, it was fifteen years ago…

This was before Dave became not only a TV star, but a cultural icon, before his humor became widely known.  They were just another band.  Who kept getting bigger and bigger, whose fanbase kept growing.  I followed them to the Palladium, all the way to Staples and the Hollywood Bowl. And got to know their manager, Coran Capshaw, along the way.  Not incredibly well.  Which is probably why he wanted to have lunch on Tuesday.  To talk in an environment different from backstage.

On the way to the Peninsula, I heard “Where Are You Going” on No Shoes Radio, Kenny Chesney testified not only about Dave, but the band’s drummer.  I told Coran and Chip this when we sat down.  Coran told me Kenny had a place on St. John too.  They were buddies.

It was that kind of conversation.  Catching up, filling in the little details.  Telling me about the status of the band.  How they’d mixed it up, how they were playing better than ever before, with Tim Reynolds on the road with them and two replacements for LeRoi.

LeRoi had been in an ATV accident.  This I knew.  But Coran told me the details.  The four-wheeled vehicle flipped over backwards upon him.  He broke ribs, had a collapsed lung, his shoulder was hurt, they had him in an induced coma for a week.  And three days after he came to, LeRoi checked himself out.  Against the will of the doctors.

And after being home, he got an infection.  The nurse taking care of him had LeRoi readmitted to the hospital.  Where he was on both heart and lung machines.  But he pulled through.

The story was told with seriousness, but no drama.  There was no question, LeRoi was coming back.  Certainly by the first of the year. We started talking about other things.  The challenges of maintaining a superstar act in these confusing times, ticketing, Music Today.  And an hour later, the phone rang.

Coran carries both a BlackBerry and a Razr.  He picked up the Razr.  He was listening rather than talking.  And after two minutes or so, he flipped the phone closed and became wistful, let us in on his mental soliloquy.  That was LeRoi’s assistant.  They’d called 911.  LeRoi’s lips had turned blue.  They were taking him to the hospital.  He had a blood clot.

Coran traced it back to the infection that had put LeRoi back in the hospital weeks before.  He’d had a hard time fighting back.  And he hadn’t gone into the process in the greatest shape, he had diabetes, other health problems.

LeRoi had flown to L.A. for rehab, he was staying at his house here, just miles away.  Suddenly the story took on a different feel. Somewhere in the landscape visible from the Peninsula deck, this story was playing out.

Then ten minutes later, the phone rang again. But this time, the call was longer.  Chip and I engaged in conversation.  For the better part of ten minutes.  And when Coran flipped the phone closed again, he said: “He died.”

A jolt just went through my body, writing this.  I’ve never been in a situation like this before.  I might have met this guy, but in a perfunctory way, I don’t know him.  But he’s part of the lifeblood of Coran and Chip’s world.  And he’s a human being, like the rest of us. And he’s now gone.

Chip put his head in his hands.  Coran stared into space.  I was in shock.  Trying to decide the best thing to do.  Feeling that I needed to excuse myself, that they didn’t need an intruder, I was just about to stand when Coran got up, said “I’ve got to deal.”, and walked off.

Chip asked, WHAT NOW?

I realized that I needed to stay.  As long as Chip needed to. I figured this was L.A.  LeRoi had probably gone to Cedars.  The news would be on the wire, on the Internet, in a matter of minutes.  I told Chip that Coran was probably trying to beat the press to the punch, in addition to alerting the rest of the band.

DO THEY PLAY?

I didn’t know.  It could go either way.  Maybe they were too fucked up to play.  Or maybe they’d say this is what LeRoi would do. Chip called Dan, founder of the agency.  Told him and asked him the question too.  The gig scheduled for that night, in Staples Center, only hours away, did it happen?  Dan said what I did.  Maybe, maybe not.

And then it became that moment in “Almost Famous”.  The plane crash scene.  When suddenly truth passes between human beings.  Chip and I have a deep, honest relationship, but we touched on subjects we’d never delved into before.

Then, after about forty minutes, we left.

In the car to Felice’s house, the shock truly set in.  I realized why you needed the living around you when someone passed.  If you were alone, you drifted away.

Felice was on her exercise bike, watching “Oprah”.  I could barely speak.  She realized something was wrong.  I ultimately got the story out.  It barely registered.  How could it?  You go to lunch and a band member dies, DURING LUNCH?  News like that bounces right off of you, it doesn’t stick.

And it seemed that only Coran, Chip and I knew.  I kept going online. The band’s Website had not changed, there was nothing in the Google News.  I was in the loop, but no one else was.  This never happens in 2008, where everything is instant, where everybody knows everything all the time.

I spoke with my mother.  But I basically listened.  I called Chip two hours later, as we’d agreed.  He still didn’t know whether the band would play.  He said he’d call me back.  A little after six, he told me to come on down.

By time we got to Staples, the news had just broken.  Maybe by going to Hollywood Presbyterian, the vultures had missed the story.  Ambrosia had written a press release, the news was now out, Chip’s BlackBerry was going berserk.

The halls were almost empty.  Dave was talking to a gray-haired gentleman.  There were no festivities, there was no buzz, but in less than an hour, the band would take the stage in front of thousands.

Coran’s number two said the band had had a meeting, uttered “Back to the van.”, their mantra, to remember where they’d come from, their brotherhood.

We went to catering.  Coran nodded his head, but stayed glued to his phone.  It was positively bizarre.

And twenty minutes after the time on the sheet, the Dave Matthews Band took the stage.

I don’t know how you play under those circumstances.

And being in L.A., the roar of the crowd was muted to a degree.  L.A.’s jaded, everybody plays L.A., a concert here isn’t just enough of an event!

But the band is firing on all cylinders.  Coran’s checking the set list as we stand behind the lighting board, he tells me they’re going to play my favorite, “The Dreaming Tree”.

The ten minute number calmed my nerves.  Music is a magic carpet loaded with oils and other soothing potions, it’s just what you need when you don’t know what you need, when you’ve got more questions than answers.

And they played “Ants Marching”, with even more ferocity than they had fifteen years before.  Their cover of “Sledgehammer” had more power than Peter Gabriel’s.  But the highlight of the evening was unexpected, a rendition of Talking Heads’ “Burning Down The House”.

Only played for the first time live two weeks before, the number is unmistakable.  It starts with an ethereal guitar, the drum pounds and then…

“Watch out.
You might get what you’re after”

Whatever the audience expected, this exceeded it.  I’d say the band was a freight train, but it was more like a 747, that had DRIVEN all the way from Charlottesville to Los Angeles and was burning rubber at the airport before finally coming to a rest…  THE TIRES WERE SMOKING!

And just like a modern jet, EVERYTHING was working.  It has to in order to move.  And boy was the band moving.  Musically.  There were no dance steps, everybody was almost rigid in his place.  But Carter’s arms were churning, Dave was spitting into the mic like he was seventeen, and he needed to show the bullies, who he was, where he was coming from.

“I’m an ordinary guy
Burning down the house”

This was not the hair band eighties.  The members of the DMB were wearing the same clothes that had covered them backstage.  They were not stars, they were MUSICIANS!

There was nothing on tape, no loops, no hard drives.  This night they’d had to conjure the fire from scratch.  They’d had to reach down deep and do it one more time, knowing that their brother was not only gone, but was never coming back.

EVERYDAY

“Pick me up, love, from the bottom
Up on to the top, love, everyday
Pay no mind to taunts or advances
I’m gonna take my chances on everyday”

The video of the hugger played on the hi-def screens.  The audience sang along, knowing every word.  That’s just what we’ve got, every day. Until we don’t.

I don’t know what happens when people die.  Is this really the end? LeRoi had called his business manager just that morning, left a voice mail before the crisis, did he know this was going to be his last day on this mortal coil?  And the recipient of this message, he didn’t receive it until after LeRoi expired.

The audience was cascading in a virtual wave, going up and down in place, not the artificial arena exercise, but something inspired by the music.  We were in unison.

“Jump in the mud, mud
Get your hands filthy, love
Give it up, love
Everyday”

Get up from that couch!  Go out into the bright sunshine.  Dial your crush and ask her for a date.  It may be messy, but maybe not.  Don’t be somnambulant, get out of your own way, don’t only embrace life, but eat it up.  Everyday.

#

This is the footage i was able to capture of the tribute that the band had made to Roi which was shown during the encore break of the concert at The Greek Theatre in Berkeley on Sunday the 7th.  That day would have been Roi’s 47th birthday.  A recounting of that weekend’s concerts will be forthcoming.  This is more-than-likely the very same video montage mentioned in the account of the memorial service, and it was also played during the encore break of all three nights of the 29th, 30th, and 31st of August at The Gorge Amphitheater in Washington.

A fan made tribute video featuring the track #34 from their major-label-debut album, Under The Table And Dreaming (1994).  Credit and thanks to Youtube user TheLastStop07 for making this and sharing it with us all.

One last fan video.  An excellent compilation featuring a few musical highlights, and some bits of Roi speaking and being spoken about.  Credit and many thanks to Youtube user BWDinc.