Son Volt's Long, Slow Trip

The new Son Volt effort, American Central Dust, has me thinking about driving across Nebraska in the summer time (and I don't mean the short way, I mean east-to-west or west-to-east). Here's the deal.

I have driven across Nebraska in the summer, both directions, a few times. There is no way to get around the fact that it is a long drive and as you make your way, you can't help but be amazed at the sameness as you pass mile after mile. There are wonderments along the way, like the moments when the Platte drops down and winds around the highway and you can't imagine how that water keeps moving through this flat plain and isn't it wonderful how it connects the mountain water from the east of the continental divide with the big ole' Miss. Or when you hit the western end of the state as you start climbing into Wyoming and the outcroppings of rock begin to appear and the fields of sunflowers bending to the slanting sunset stretch for miles. But ultimately, when you are driving through Nebraska, you are generally pretty much just looking forward to being in Wyoming or Iowa and, well, that is saying something isn't it?

And that is how I feel about the new album. There are a few interesting moments here and there, but the sameness comes across less as a well thought-out consistent collection and more as a somewhat unimaginative routine effort. I have put this album on a lot in the last few weeks since I got it along with the new Wilco album (couldn't help it), but I continue to find myself losing attention and then wondering where I am--what song I am currently listening to as it sounds a lot like the other songs?

The album opens just fine, but then never really goes anywhere. There are moments when you say that is a nice waltz, or nice low-key growly guitar, or etc. But there are just as many times that it is unremarkable at best. I could kind of dig the long, slow musical dirge as I watch the miles past theme if the lyrics were stronger, but they end up being somewhere between overstated to bad poetry for the most part.

Now, I am over-doing it a bit here--I am still hoping for another Son Volt album that I can really dig, but for now, I am going to always choose Trace or The Search from the spectrum of SV albums before this one.

So before this post starts to feel like dirving across Nebraska, here are a couple tunes to give you a sample. It was hard to choose given the sameness of the album, but here is the opener and one of the few electric guitar tunes on the album.

Son Volt (Buy Album)

Dynamite

When the Wheels Don't Move

Incredible Shrinking Music Stores

I had to stop at the neighborhood Borders to pick up a couple copies of that new Dan Zanes kid disc for a couple upcoming birthdays, so I perused the bins a bit and came out with:

Al Green: Lay It Down
Ryan Adams and The Cardinals: Cold Roses
Son Volt: The Search

The Al Green I have obviously been toying with and the Ryan Adams, well that is a whole other post (still!), but the Son Volt is another story. I first looked for some Uncle Tupelo--Anodyne specifically on the recs of the good readers here. The only UT was an Anthology. Always a bit suspicious of "best of" albums I passed. So over to Son Volt although I had no real plan here. Not to worry there was one choice and I mean one--so into the collection it went.

That was the successful part of the exploring as next I would go over to the jazz section--and I use the term "section" loosely. This particular Borders is pretty new and for a while had a pretty good selection of music including jazz and classical. However about a month ago they "consolidated" and the music section went to about half its size and you can imagine what is going to suffer in that equation. It is little wonder given the options out there for getting music, and so that is where I end this, with a question.

Where do you get your tunes? Best shopping options including downloading (I guess)--although it was hard enough for me to go from albums to discs--I am not sure I can ever make the complete switch to not having a case, liner notes, etc. to fondle while listening to a new disc for the first time.

The Tangled Tweedy Web

Okay, so I have a few artists/bands I have been listening to lately that most of you have probably been listening to for five or ten years and I am just catching up. Just bear with me and remember that this means that when you weigh in you get to be the smart ones! And, for those more behind than me, don’t worry, I will still provide context and links so you can check out all these good tunes as well!

For starters, I had every intention of writing about Ryan Adams and Whiskeytown who I have been listening to pretty heavily lately, but in that wonderful way that the web works, I started looking for others who were writing on Adams to see what they had to say and found this blog. On one hand, Payton has more reviews and information about Ryan Adams here than you can shake a stick at making one wonder if another post on Ryan Adams is going to be necessary, evah, but the real problem is that I got to reading this post on Jeff Tweedy, front man for Wilco—another band I am catching up with.

This post made me realize that there are these earlier Wilco related bands that I have no knowledge of but all sound interesting. Most notably the key here is Uncle Tupelo featuring Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar (although there is an earlier history to the whole story) who then decided they couldn’t stand each other and Farrar forms Son Volt while Tweedy and company become Wilco. Interesting.

So, over to the Pandora I go--where you all surely know that you load in artists or songs and the wonderful Pandora opens up its boxes and creates a radio station of sorts playing music that has similar qualities to those you chose—and throw in the Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt to one of my stations and happily go back to writing and tuning.

I hear a song that I don’t recognize, which is not an uncommon occurrence with Pandora, but this sounds like a really cool Wilco track so I look at who it is and lo and behold, it is . . . . Golden Smog! Good grief, who is Golden Smog? Turns out that this is yet another iteration of folks playing together occasionally that includes a few notable people that includes Tweedy up front part of the time.

So dear readers, where is a guy to start? Which iteration? Which discs? This includes Wilco. Wobs has been good enough to share Being There, Yankee Foxtrot Hotel, and Sky Blue Sky which are all quite fine and worthy of your time, although I am particularly fond of Sky Blue Sky with its cool 70’s vibe. In fact, as a bonus I am going to through in this performance of one of my favs on the album which is particularly pertinent since Neats (the wife for those who don’t know us) and the Boys are off at the grandparents.

Now I am not some “obsessive I have to have everything by an artist kind of a guy”—okay I was until I understood that bands make albums of different quality and my obsession was forcing me to by baaaaad albums. But surely someone will tell me where to start untangling the Tweedy web and what I should listen to . . .

I’m listening.