You want to play this LOUD!

I pulled into the Chevron station on Santa Monica Boulevard and I couldn’t turn off the stereo, they were playing this track by Elbow on Sirius Spectrum.

I gave Elbow a chance a few years back, their music didn’t grip me…but this reminds me of listening to a bootleg copy of "Aqualung" in a dark dorm room at Middlebury before it came out. Oh, "Grounds For Divorce" doesn’t sound anything like Jethro Tull’s signature album, but it does have an otherworldly quality. This doesn’t fit Top Forty, it’s a square peg in the round hole of Hot AC, but if you ever liked prog rock, if you enjoyed the synth experiments of the eighties, you’ll find this oddly gripping and appealing.

The vocal is like David Byrne without the yelp, and richer, but almost as strange. The instrumentation has got the feel of a factory, almost like the groove of Pete Townshend’s "Let’s See Action", but updated, grittier. There’s no optimism in this track, it’s made by people who’ve seen too much, been burned too many times, it’s like the soundtrack to "Blade Runner", if that movie were made today.

Maybe it’s the soundtrack to a David Fincher flick. It’s just that in your face, yet strange.

We’ve debated ad infinitum who said "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.", I say Zappa, you say Costello, but in any event, why don’t you just check this out.

I’d say your best bet is YouTube:

Elbow – Grounds For Divorce
I don’t believe in watching music, but you can hear it here.

You can also go to the band’s site, but I found the video stuttered until I stopped it and started it again. But definitely check out the site. I don’t believe in Flash, I believe in utility, but there’s something absouletely cool about the design. After the page loads, roll your mouse over the letters, listen to the sounds, and ultimately figure out how to clarify the pop-up lettering so you can read it. It’s like a video game, no instructions, you’ve got to mess around a bit to figure the site out. I’m normally against this shit, but there is something cool here.

And why are the English acts cool in a way that the Americans are not? Maybe they’re just not as self-conscious, maybe the audience cares, there’s just not the desperate "Look at me! I’m trying to make it!" quality in this music. You’re not put off, you’re drawn in. Check it out.

I was reading your article saying that country music fans r some of the best fans in the world. I said to myself…."Shit, I’ve known that for ten years" !!!!!!

Kid Rock

Bob Seger left moribund Capitol for the hippest record company in the world and still didn’t have a hit. "Back In ’72" garnered some good reviews, but despite containing the original version of "Turn The Page" and a great cover of Free’s "Stealer", the album sank like a stone and with his tail between his legs, Bob left Reprise’s San Fernando Valley headquarters and got off the 101 at Vine and returned to the Tower, Capitol Records that is. And still remained an acquired taste, a virtual unknown in the now dominant AOR world. A king in Detroit, no one cared about "Seven" when it was released.

But then came "Beautiful Loser"…

He wants to dream like a young man
With the wisdom of an old man
He wants his home and security
He wants to live like a sailor at sea

Can you get off the dime? Can you get out of your head and out the front door? Can you try to live out your fantasies?

Most people can’t. They talk big, but they leave no physical evidence. Because they’re afraid they’re just not good enough, that they might fail. Give the celebs credit, they took the risk. Of not only failing, but abuse. For once you rise above the fray, all those who were too scared to try come after you, try to drag you down into the hole they’re in. Seger was trying, and finally he got a modicum of airplay. "Beautiful Loser" got spun here and there. But to say there was a breakthrough would be beyond charitable, it would be an outright lie, except for dedicated rock fans, no one had any idea who Seger was, never mind having never heard his music.

But that was about to change the following year, with the release of "Live Bullet".

They say you’ve got to hear a band live. That that’s the only place you can understand it, the only place you can get it. That’s rare today, with all the studio trickery. Seemingly anybody can make a slick recorded product, but play live? That separates the men from the boys, almost everybody’s a disappointment live. But after almost ten years in the trenches, Seger was road-honed, his band was firing on all Mopar cylinders, he cut a double live album and EXPLODED!

All those tracks that had been ignored on previous albums became radio staples. Not only the haunting aforementioned "Turn The Page", but the incredible combo of "Travelin’ Man" and "Beautiful Loser", segueing into a nine minute masterpiece, a seventies rock anthem.

Sometimes at night, I see their faces
I feel the traces they’ve left on my soul
Those are the memories that make me a wealthy soul
Those are the memories that make me a wealthy soul

Seger was singing about the women, those who’d abandoned him, those who’d tried to corner him. But these lines from "Travelin’ Man" were also a metaphor for his career. He hadn’t wanted to be tied down, he didn’t want to make any commitments, other than to his music, he didn’t want to give up, he needed to MAKE IT!

And make it he did, becoming one of the biggest arena acts of the era. Hell, he can still tour arenas today! And those memories, of his tunes pouring out of the Camaro’s dash, at the backyard pool party, have been imprinted upon our DNA, they’re the story of our lives, they’ve made us wealthy souls.

Sure, Kid Rock’s gone country a bit. But when he e-mailed me yesterday that he’d known that country fans were the best in the world for ten years, he wasn’t only making a declaratory sentence, he was making a reference, to Bob Seger’s "Silver Bullet" double album. For deep in the grooves are these unforgettable lines:

I read somewhere, I think it was in Rolling Stone, that Detroit audiences are the finest rock and roll audiences in the world.

Shit, I’ve known that for 10 years!

We are not owned by the record companies, or the TV stations. We’re owned by the records. When done right, they penetrate us, they’re unforgettable.

Kid Rock has not forgotten. And based on the response, it turns out many in my audience have not either.

FolkWax: Your song "We Can’t Make It Here" garnered a lot of attention. Has the political side of your music helped you gain an audience?

James McMurtry: Certainly, and putting that up as a free download did more for me than anything I’ve put on CD in the last decade. I didn’t know the power of the Internet until we put that thing out and I put it out as a free download the week before the elections, probably six to seven months before we’d cut the rest of the record.

James McMurtry was the beneficiary of a John Mellencamp production and a push from Donnie Ienner’s Big Red machine. But, his debut, "Too Long In The Wasteland", didn’t break through.

Track down that 1989 album. You’ll enjoy the opening number, "Painting By Numbers" and the title cut, but the killer is the second song, "Terry".

Terry’s off the track
sent him away and he won’t be back
for a while

If you haven’t heard that you’re off the track, I don’t know why you read this, I don’t know why you listen to rock and roll. That’s the mantra of high school guidance counselors, principals, sometimes even your parents. You’re growing up, surveying the landscape, making your own choices, which everybody says are wrong. But you’re convinced they are uninformed, they’re wearing blinders, they can’t see what you see. But even if you get straight A’s, that’s not good enough for them, because of your attitude.

That’s why we revered our rock stars. They didn’t buy into the game. They played by their own rules. Forget what today’s music sounds like, it’s whored out to all the people we used to hate, we just can’t believe in it, because we haven’t changed, our situation hasn’t changed, these same people and corporations the stars are involved with are no better than the school administration, they’re telling us how to look, how to behave and ripping us off all at the same time. There’s no way we can win. You want us to buy your overpriced CDs and go to your shows? Fuck you!

James’ so-called career continued to slide downhill. I’m partial to his third record, "Where’d You Hide The Body", produced by the long lost Don Dixon, but it had no impact and James was cut loose from Columbia, he descended into the wasteland. Until he composed a song "We Can’t Make It Here", cut it solo acoustic in his home studio and rush-released it in time for the 2004 election. That rush-release was a post to his Website. Not trafficked like TMZ or PerezHilton, a backwater in the vast landscape of the Internet.

Normally posting a song in the wilderness has no effect. Just ask all those with songs on MySpace and YouTube. They can’t get any traction. But "We Can’t Make It Here" began to take off, because it was everything the rest of the music online is not, i.e. good. Furthermore, it sounded nothing like what was being hyped by the major corporations on their controlled outlets known as radio and MTV. People heard "We Can’t Make It Here" and spread the word. They couldn’t help themselves, it was just that damn good.

You can hear the electric version on James’ MySpace page (track 5: http://www.myspace.com/jamesmcmurtry). But this wasn’t the original download. The one James gave away at first had a magic, an urgency absent from those overworked records on the radio. It was lightning captured in a bottle. With a circular groove and lyrics unequaled in this century.

Used to be you lost your major label deal and you were two steps away from working at Wal-Mart. If you could cobble together the money to make an album, you couldn’t get it in the store. And, if somehow you managed to get your music in the store, you couldn’t get paid, you lost money, you were on the verge of bankruptcy. Live gigs dried up, you can’t book someone nobody knows anything about, who’s not being played on the radio.

But all that’s ancient history. Artists have been freed from the major label system. To make a deal with one of the big four is to cut a deal with the devil. All you’ll hear is no, what you can’t do. They’re so busy protecting their already gone monopoly they’re paralyzed, they’re living in 2003 at best. Furthermore, they’re going to tell you what to record and when to release it. They’re concerned about their job, not yours. They’ve got a spouse, two kids, a big mortgage and BMW lease payments. You’re crashing on your girlfriend’s floor, driving your 1992 Toyota stuck together with chewing gum and you’re just a pawn in their game.

But that game is all you know, all you dreamed of from before puberty. You’re waiting for Orson Welles in "The Muppet Movie" to give you the standard rich and famous contract. But you detest everything these people stand for, they and radio and television are the high school principal of yore, with all the power and no compassion. You’ve got to look yourself in the mirror, ask if you believe in yourself, if you’re willing to invest in yourself, stop crying and start working.

It all starts with a killer track.

Stephen King wrote about "We Can’t Make It Here". That’s how I discovered it. And just like he says in his buzz column in this week’s "Entertainment Weekly", I had to tell everybody I knew, I wrote about the song multiple times. Public radio picked up on the track. The blogosphere amplified the impact. McMurtry was recalled from the wilderness, older, grizzlier, sans plastic surgery, worse for wear physically, but brighter intellectually, he became a star for the new age.

A new age star is not ubiquitous. Most people have no idea who he is. But his fan base is rabid. His fan base wants every cut, hangs on every word, tries to convince newbies to join the faith. If that track is good enough, you can suddenly tour the country. For years. Cut another one, and your star rises even higher. Just don’t believe you can ever cross over, to the dark side. That you’ll be embraced by the system. The system doesn’t like your type. The system likes to beat people down, so it can control them. The system sues people for trading music, the system wants the government to protect its business model, all in the guise of protecting art. They’re not protecting art, they’re protecting their wallets. Art’s just fine. Unfettered from their system, cream can truly rise to the top.

The public makes stars today, not the system. Those people you see plastered in ads, they won’t be here soon. Dollars are propping them up, not quality. Quality is long-lasting. Invest in quality.

The Internet is incredibly democratic. It will tell you how good you are. It’s not about street teams, not about friends, it’s about excellence. People are looking for good things. If they find them, they’ll tell everybody they know.

So that’s how it is, that’s what we got
If the President wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper, read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind if you’re listening at all

Get out of that limo, look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone tell us all why
In Dayton Ohio or Portland Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That’s done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There’s rats in the alley and trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can’t make it here anymore

You can’t make it in the old system anymore. This ain’t about theft, this ain’t about copyright infringement, this is about opportunity. For a new golden era. Where the artist sits at the top of the pyramid. Are you ready to climb up and take control?

Then make great music. Respect your audience. Give people the tools to spread the word, never rip them off. Know that growth will be slow. But that the edifice you’re building is solid, that it will pay dividends like the old record company pension plan, but now the beneficiary will be you, not the fat cats. Believe in yourself. But don’t be delusional. Is your record as great as "We Can’t Make It Here"? Is it lightning in a bottle? If not, keep your day job. Forever.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The couple in front of us were from Lancaster. That’s ninety miles from L.A., a desperate windblown metropolis sans all the glamour of Los Angeles. She was supposed to report for her bail bondsman gig at midnight, but tonight she was going to be late, tonight she was playing hooky, tonight she was going to see Kenny Chesney.

The Lakers might be playing in Staples Center tonight, but the crowd, including Dyan Cannon, Jack Nicholson and other Hollywood luminaries, will be completely different from last night’s audience. Last night’s audience worked for a living. They get up early in the morning, take their kids to school, drive off to their gigs, have too many obligations and not enough cash. Someone told them the United States was the greatest country in the world, but they’re struggling, they’re looking for relief.

The rock stars tell you to keep your distance. The rappers want to say how much better they’ve got it than you, with their women and their wheels. The country acts want you to know they’re just like you. That you’re part of their family. But for a quirk of fate, a bit of talent and some extremely hard work, your roles could be reversed. Kenny Chesney doesn’t have a security guard. He cruises Vegas with his assistant. He doesn’t take an entourage to awards shows. Because his audience respects him, gives him the distance he needs, because they believe they own him.

You don’t own the audience, the audience owns you. Too many stars seem to be playing to "Entertainment Tonight" and the rest of the celebrity industry. They get caught up in their fame. They play the roles of celebrities. Whereas country acts are quick to reinforce they’re regular folk, accessible, that they’re there for you and you only.

There’s nothing on tape, just a ten piece band. At times four guitars. A full horn section. The hi-def screens above the stage and hanging from the speakers on the side insure that even those in the cheap seats can see what’s going on onstage. You feel included. In a club you paid your dues to over and over again. You listened on the radio, you bought the albums, why shouldn’t you be respected, you’re the engine driving the enterprise!

Doesn’t matter what those not in the building think. Doesn’t matter what pundits in the Big Apple have to say. No one cares about these people anyway. Country music and its audience are just like Rodney Dangerfield, except for one key factor, they don’t complain about getting no respect, they’re happy in their own world. Could they know something the rest of the industry does not?

Ticket prices are cheap. You can see the money onstage. And they play music you know by heart.

There was a constant din in Staples, of the assembled multitude singing along! Everywhere I looked, short ones, tall ones, big ones, small ones were moving their lips, mouthing the words to the songs they heard coming out of the dashboard, as they lived their lives, both the good times and the bad. Last night was a respite, a relief, from the hassles, the problems. For two hours you could let the bullshit go and be your best self.

Country CD sales may finally be tanking. But the country market is light years ahead of the rest of the industry when it comes to the future. Nashville is prepared for what’s coming down the pike. It’s all about careers, your loyal fans. They’ve got enough money to support you, if you respect them, if you treat them right. And Kenny Chesney and the rest of the country acts do.

I GO BACK

‘Jack and Diane’ painted a picture of my life and my dreams
Suddenly this crazy world made more sense to me

Every time Kenny and his tour manager went to this bar, the African-American bartender fired up "Sweet Home Alabama". Kenny’s not from that state, he felt it was a comment on their pale skin color. But he and his pal laughed it off. But one day, rolling down the highway, that classic Lynyrd Skynyrd track came pouring out of the radio and the tour manager opined that every time he heard that record, he went back to that bar, with the bartender who had contempt for the pair.

This was the eureka moment! Kenny’s eyes bugged out wide. He picked up a legal pad, told no one to interrupt him, and went to the back of the bus and wrote "I Go Back".

"I Go Back" is my favorite Kenny Chesney record. I remember "Jack and Diane". I go back. These are not bland lyrics made for everyone, made to play everywhere from Boston to Beirut, rather there’s personalization, the writer inhabits the record, as do I. I’m drawn right in.

Well I heard it today and I couldn’t help but sing along
Cause every time I hear that song…

I go back to a two toned short bed Chevy
Drivin’ my first love out to the levee
Livin’ life with no sense of time
And I go back to the feel of a fifty yard line
A blanket, a girl, some raspberry wine
Wishin’ time would stop right in its tracks
Every time I hear that song, I go back

I go back when I hear my favorite tunes. Not only the oldies, but the new stuff too. It sets my mind free, puts me up on a perch where I can look back over my years, everything suddenly makes sense, there’s context! You experience music, you don’t watch it. Not only do you feel it, it enters your blood stream and colonizes you, it becomes you.
Kenny didn’t play "I Go Back" last night, it’s on vacation, like flavors at Baskin-Robbins, I guess I’ll just have to go back!

I’M A COWBOY

Uncle Kracker came out and duetted on "When The Sun Goes Down". Then, Kenny talked about getting a text message the night before, from an old friend he hadn’t seen in eons, who wanted to come over and join the barbecue, hang out. Fearful he’d be up all night, Kenny declined, but now he wanted to introduce him, wanted him to come out and greet the audience and perform a couple of numbers, ladies and gentlemen, KID ROCK!

I’ll be honest. I saw Bobby Ritchie in the Vibe Room. His manager caught my eye and wanted to introduce us, told me I’d be safe. Yeah, right.

But, after the show, backstage, returning from the bathroom, Felice told me the Detroit tiger was holding court in the center of the room, there was no way I could avoid him.

So, I strode right up to Mr. Ritchie, who immediately stopped talking to the woman trying to get in his pants, popped me on the head and pulled me into the corner to talk.

He agreed with 90% of what I wrote. But told me I can’t go around saying "Fuck _______". That where he comes from, you can say something about someone’s music, their clothes, but if you attack them personally, expect retaliation.

Then he laughed and said we had fun, we entertained the audience, didn’t we?

Now the two of us are going on and on. The women can’t penetrate our conversation, not even Kenny himself. Rock is going on about doing Donington. Will they stop asking about Pam? He made a mistake. Haven’t you ever? He’s going to have to endure abuse across the pond, but he’s big over here, where they all want to make it. Hell, his new album just went platinum!

That’s true. And eventually it will be available on iTunes and double platinum. Rock wanted to bet, five bucks, by Christmas!

What an enigma, a conundrum. As Rock said, he’s only half a rapper. He’s from an upper middle class family. He worked for a decade to make it. Take that you wannabe newbies!

I think I’ll be getting one of those midnight texts too.

All part of the rock and roll circus.

NEVER WANTED NOTHING MORE

Kenny played "Don’t Blink", "Better As A Memory", "Shiftwork", all the recent hits. And old classics like "She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy" too.

But the highlight was "Anything But Mine". That story of a summer love. It sounds like a late August evening, one last blast of heat before September comes, before you go back to school, to work, before seriousness comes ’round again. I stood and sang about leaving in the morning for Cleveland like the rest of the 20,000 in attendance, my brethren. We knew this show was going to end. We were going to savor the joy before we exited, got into our cars and drove back to our mundane lives. Which contained just enough joy to get us through the drudgery.

Meanwhile, Kenny was off to San Diego. To do it all over again. The sixty band and crew members were going to take their places in the caravan, drive to the southernmost tip of California, and then on to Phoenix, for a stadium show.

They usually only do Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Then back to Nashville for a little R&R, then back out on the road again. It’s a hard life, but no one wants to give up his job. This is what they dreamed of. Being part of something, having blood brothers, being, as the sign on Jill’s desk said, the people their parents warned them about.

By the middle of summer, Kenny will be planning next summer’s trek. Drawings will be made and approved. Eventually, come the new year, rehearsals will begin. They’ll go out of town for a trial run, then the tour will begin. And most of the audience will return. They’re part of the family, you don’t want to miss the reunion.

And if you feel left out, don’t. After the show, Felice wondered whose iTunes playlist this was, projected on a screen, pouring out of the speakers. So I asked the man. Kenny said it was his, as Jackson Browne’s "Pretender" played at full volume. He wanted to write songs just as good as Jackson’s. He loved those singer-songwriters of yore, just like you.

If you can’t understand today’s pop landscape, turn the dial until you end up at the country station. What you’ll find there is something you recognize. Hummable verses. Singable choruses. And a shitload of guitars. You’ll discover country is closer to the rock you remember than anything you hear on Top Forty radio.

Well, I’m what I am and I’m what I’m not
And I’m sure happy with what I’ve got
I live and love and laugh a lot
And that’s all I need

I never wanted nothing more
And I never wanted nothing more