Vintage Review: Pete Berwick's Ain't No Train Outta Nashville (2007)

A few years back, legend has it, a young punk rocker followed Jason Ringenberg’s trail out of Illinois and sojourned to Nashville with guitar in hand. This young man, like so many before him, was looking for fame and fortune in the Music City. He wrote the right songs, worked the right clubs and played the game like everyone told him he should but, tho’ not for lack of talent or ambition, he found naught but heartache in the hallowed home of country music.

This young man found a manager, a silver-tongued fool who talked a good game but did little to advance his career. The young man recorded an album full of fine songs that nobody got to hear. After years of trying, he found himself beaten, bruised and battered, chewed up in the gears of a star-making machine that has little regard for talent, heart and soul; pissed off and pissed on, this young man left town and went back home, leaving Nashville that much darker and less interesting a place…

Like too many faithful, Pete Berwick found that there ain’t no train outta Nashville. Hundreds of hopefuls flock to the Music City each year, and for every Tim McGraw or Faith Hill that finds fame, there are dozens that return home to Illinois, Oklahoma and points beyond, leaving behind their dreams and a piece of their soul. How many future Hank Williams or Patsy Clines have been denied the city’s embrace after spending years traipsing up and down Music Row, how many have given up their musical ambitions in the face of indifference and corporate ignorance?

In Pete Berwick’s case, there’s a happy ending to the story. Unlike many who give up music altogether after suffering through the traumatic experience of trying to make it…whether in Nashville, New York, Los Angeles or wherever…Berwick refuses to go quietly into that good night. Five years ago, when the urge to create new music became stronger than the beatdown he took in the Music City, Berwick wrote the songs that became Only Bleeding. A powerful album that seamlessly mixed rock and country with punk attitude unlike anybody since early Steve Earle or Jason & the Nashville Scorchers, Only Bleeding was a defiant message that Berwick’s Nashville experience may have left him bloodied, but definitely unbowed.      

After the release of Only Bleeding, Berwick spent a year or so banging it out on the Midwestern circuit, playing smoky clubs and funky honky-tonks before once again retreating from music. However, the muse is hard to deny, and Pete starting thinking about the “lost” album that he had recorded back in Nashville in ’93, the one that nobody got to hear. Taking it down from the shelf and listening to it with fresh ears and the benefits of hindsight, Berwick decided that it was too good a bunch of songs to let go to waste, and I agree with him.

Ain’t No Train Outta Nashville is a brilliant collection of hard-knock tales that reveal the Music City for the provincial small town that it remains in spite of its big city ambitions. These songs are about the lovable losers and hopeless dreamers that flee their one-horse towns every year to go somewhere, anywhere else in search of something that will break them free of their lives of quiet desperation. Although written a decade-and-a-half ago, these songs still resonate with truth and beauty and are just as true today, in the face of corporate homogenization and the “American Idolization” of music as they were when Pete wrote them between his shift at the car wash and “writer’s night” at some Nashville club. Although the words here apply to many nameless travelers going down that same road, I suspect that they are also more than a little autobiographical.   

Ain’t No Train Outta Nashville kicks off with “Rebels and Cadillacs,” a rowdy rave-up with scorching guitar and honky-tonk piano that brings a traditional edge to this blistering portrayal of musical hypocrisy (perhaps more so than when Pete first sang these words). He decries the MTV star “with a diamond ring and a pure silk scarf, singing his concern about the homeless man,” adding “I couldn’t help but notice his Acapulco tan.” Over at CMT you’ll find “more of the same, some talking hat with a common name, singing a song about the poor man’s blues, while turning on the heel of his snakeskin boots,” the singer boldly declaring that “I don’t want to be no rebel in a Cadillac.” With this opening song, Berwick has staked his turf, drawn a line in the sand that is pure punk attitude with Hank Williams’ twang.   

“Six Pack Town” is more than a place, it’s a state of mind as well, the sort of place that people try to escape from to “find” themselves. Berwick’s description of the town as a “stop and half on the road from nowhere” is deceptive because although “there ain’t nothing going down,” it’s still home, a place where people know their neighbors and care about their neighborhood. “Six Pack Town” is working class, small-town America, the kind of place that produces soldiers and singers, dreamers and madmen…the kind of place that people have a love/hate relationship with, the kind of place that never leaves you, even when you’ve left it behind...

“The Years We Left Behind” is one of the most brilliant and moving songs that these ears have heard in nearly 50 years of listening to, and loving music. We’re every one of us getting older, and facing down a half-century of frustration, unfulfilled promise and lost opportunity brings with it the tendency to reminisce about “the good old days” that, to be honest, were mostly anything but good. Wise beyond his years, Berwick sings:  

“Everywhere I go these days, it seems I always hear;
People talk about desperation, heartache and despair.
The broken-hearted dream that died, the memory from the past;
The good old days, the glory days, the love that didn’t last,
And the childhood that disappeared too fast.

Sometimes at night when all is quiet, and I am all alone;
I hear the voice of yesterday through people I have known.
Some are laughing, some are crying, some of them have died.
I always thought the grass was greener on the other side,
I guess that’s why I can’t kiss the past goodbye…”  

“Time doesn’t wait for no one,” sings Berwick on the chorus, declaring that “it’s not patient, it’s not kind; it seems to me we see the future only through our eyes so blind,” concluding that “we’re living in the years we left behind.” Pete’s insight is both poetic and bleakly realistic – we can’t escape our past, no matter how hard we try, and our future is just the sum of the experience and heartache that we’ve lived through. None of us is unblemished by the past yet, when facing our inevitable mortality, we hang on to those memories like a life raft as the minutes tick by ever more loudly. Berwick addresses these concerns with dazzling beauty:  

“When nighttime turns to morning, still I’m clinging to the past.
I want to stop the clock some times, those hands just turn too fast.
I don’t want to get old; it’s a shame how fast time flies.
If heaven’s what we’re living for, then someone tell me why,
Why no one, why nobody, wants to die?”

You’d think that after a stroke of musical genius like “The Years We Left Behind,” that Ain’t No Train Outta Nashville would flicker and burn out from lack of energy. No, Berwick has lulled us into a warm, quiet remembrance only to kick us back awake with the jolting “Devil Knows His Name,” an eerie, Western-tinged tale of betrayal and escape. If the protagonist of the earlier song finds comfort and solace in his memories, the figure at the heart of “Devil Knows His Name” is trying to outrun the nightmares of his past. Washes of haunted instrumentation flow through the song like a tumbleweed until the guitar explodes and the song fades into an uncertain fate…

The album’s namesake, “Ain’t No Train Outta Nashville,” tells the story of every hopeful songwriter and singer that ever made their way to the Music City in search of something to build a life upon. With the lyrics set to a swinging rockabilly beat, the song’s truth lies beneath Berwick’s tongue-in-cheek delivery, the words summing up the songwriter’s experience. Describing a staggering blur of beer, cheap motels, bad jobs and dashed hopes, he sings, “I play most times for free, and sometimes I just play to eat.” There’s no way to escape intact, “once you’re here, you’re here to stay, if you’re a songwriter, they just throw the key away.”

The hauntingly beautiful “Only Bleeding” ties Ain’t No Train Outta Nashville with its predecessor and it fits perfectly well on either album as both recordings, in their own individual way, are primarily about the continued chase of fame in the face of constant rejection or, worse yet, lack of recognition. Displaying the same sort of defiance as Dylan’s “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” Berwick’s Midwestern drawl sums up the intense loneliness and the darkness felt by every songwriter and poet in the face of indifference. The song’s protagonist is an almost divine figure, shouldering the sins of everyman and offering salvation through his own pain, as expressed by this, and every other song that touches upon the bleak fate that befalls us all, from Springsteen’s “Darkness On the Edge of Town” to Joe Grushecky’s “Blood On the Bricks.” In the end, however, by forgiving those who would sin against him, the poet triumphs against those who would try to silence his or her words.   

Fittingly, Ain’t No Train Outta Nashville ends with the one-two punch of “Rusted Ball and Chain” and “This Used To Be A Town.” Berwick searches for answers on “Rusted Ball and Chain,” finding nothing but more questions. He reaffirms his commitment, however – to life, to love, to music – singing “freedom’s just another word, if you ain’t got a dream. Without a dream, your freedom, it just don’t mean anything.” And for those who doubt his efforts, he adds, “people try to put me down, and throw me off my track, but I just keep on keeping on, there ain’t no turning back.” Roaring down the lost highway in that ghostly Cadillac, Berwick is in it for the long run and won’t be dissuaded by the obstacles that are thrown in the path of every creative person. While others would give up with a whimper, this singer carries on regardless of the weight.

In the end, the singer does escape, getting out of Nashville only to go home and discover that “This Used To Be A Town.” The memories of the past have been betrayed by the unrelenting march of “progress,” the kind of small-town development that tears down the past to rebuild every town in the image of every other town. “Time bulldozed it away, built a couple of malls, and they both look the same,” he sings, “don’t they realize the childhood that died when they tore it all down?” It’s an uneasy commentary on the state of America, a sad exclamation mark on the old saying that “nothing stays the same.” It’s also a down song to end the album on, reinforcing, perhaps, the idea that you can’t escape the past, so you may as well embrace it, protect its innocence lest somebody comes to take it away.      

The best album of 2007 was actually recorded in 1993 and, surprisingly, it was so damn far ahead of its time that it sounds as fresh, dynamic and topical today as it would have fourteen years ago; maybe more so. Too rock & roll for Nashville’s taste, too country for the coasts, Pete Berwick has nevertheless been on the verge of his “big break” for almost two decades now. Luckily, it hasn’t kept him from making great music. Ain’t No Train Outta Nashville is proof that you can’t keep a good man down, and if you ain’t listening to Pete Berwick, then you ain’t listening to shit… (Shotgun Records, released 2007)

Review originally published by Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog, 2007

Vintage Review: Pete Berwick's Hell To Pay (1995)

Pete Berwick has been plugging away at the Nashville country music establishment for a number of years now, tragically too hard a rocker for their delicate sensibilities, too country to fit into any alternative rock straightjacket. He just keeps writing songs, though, good ones, too, full of heart and soul and fire. Hell To Pay slaps a handful of these tunes onto one demo tape that, if anyone in the industry had any ears (or balls) would get Berwick the major league try-out that he deserves. I’d be willing to bet that he’d hit it out of the park on the first swing, with cuts like the jaunty “Hell To Pay” or the striking “I Ain’t Him” good for at least an extra-base hit.

The brilliantly wicked “Rebels and Cadillacs” pisses on the entire entertainment biz with a few choice verses while “Vacancy In My Heart” is a spirited, rollicking recounting of love lost. Berwick’s material bristles with attitude and passion; stick him in a studio with a sympathetic producer and watch the ol’ boy kick the shit out of not only those Music Row cowboy wanna-bes but all those faeux punk rockers, as well. In a music world mostly comprised of watered down whiskey, Berwick is the 200 proof real thing. (Shotgun Records, 1995)
 
Review originally published by R.A.D! Review and Discussion of Rock & Roll zine, 1995 

Vintage Review: Pete Berwick's Only Bleeding (2002)

Like many a troubadour before him, Pete Berwick made his way to Nashville in search of fame and fortune. Also like many artists that walked that same road, he ended up returning home years later without much fame and even less fortune. Berwick did all the things expected of an artist in the Music City, playing his songs at “writer’s nights” in local clubs at night and working a day job at the car wash while waiting for his big break. He signed a songwriting deal with a storefront publisher and hooked up with a fly-by-night indie label. What seemed like a sure thing, a track placed in the River Phoenix movie The Thing Called Love, came to naught when his manager lacked the juice to get the song included on the soundtrack album.

After his Nashville fiasco, Berwick moved back to Chicago, older, wiser and just a little worse for the wear. He gave up music for a while, playing sporadically and writing a few songs. Luckily, the story doesn’t end with this tale of dashed hopes and broken dreams. The attraction of the muse is a strong one, and I’ve personally never met a serious artist who could be kept away from their creative outlet for long. Berwick gathered a group of grizzled Chicago rock-and-blues veterans to record one song in the studio; they ended up recording Only Bleeding, a ten-track reaffirmation of the power of rock ‘n’ roll, and a fresh start for Pete Berwick. A fiercely independent songwriter and performer who has found that he doesn’t need the corporate label system to make a musical statement, Berwick’s fourth album is the accumulation of almost a decade of artistic trials and tribulations.
      
Only Bleeding showcases all of Berwick’s various influences and incarnations, the songs mixing rock, country, and blues in the creation of a heady musical elixir. “Must Think She Loves Me” and the hilarious “Nuclear Boy” are energetic, punk-tinged rockers while “Cold Steel Gun” is a barroom weeper complete with T.C. Furlong’s delicious steel guitar and Berwick’s appropriately morose vocals. With the biker anthem “Outsider” Berwick has created a new musical genre – “metallic country” – the song a defiant declaration of alienation that matches Nashville twang with tasty power chords. The title track is a Dylanesque country blues tune with wonderful vocals, Berwick’s mournful mouth harp work and well-placed piano courtesy of Denny Daniels. The album-closing “Standing At the Gates of Hell” is a lively rocker with brilliant imagery, the story of a poor working class loser who dies and shows up “at the gates of hell” only to find that they won’t let him in. It sounds a lot like Jason & the Scorchers – another obvious influence – but with Berwick’s Rodney Dangerfield-like lyrics and dynamic delivery it’s a wonderful pairing of roots-rock and honky-tonk soul.    

It’s with “Gotta Get Out of Here,” the centerpiece of Only Bleeding, that Berwick hits that once-in-a-lifetime adrenaline O.D. where decades of rage and frustration are expressed perfectly in a three-minute rock song. In the tradition of Eric Burdon’s “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” or Bruce Springsteen’s “Jackson Cage,” the song is about hopelessness and dashed dreams and, in a more personal vein, the torment of being a talented musician in a land of mundane mediocrity. When Berwick sings “I got a daytime job, teevee at night, if the boredom don’t kill me, then the cigarettes might,” he’s expressing the fears of every factory worker, slaughterhouse grunt and service industry wage slave who suspects that there must be something more to life. For Berwick, the song itself is an act of transcendence, its performance “getting” him out of here, his tortured vocals and screaming guitar allowing the artist a brief moment of escape. It’s a powerful musical moment, a solid example of why most of us started listening to rock ‘n’ roll in the first place.

Berwick sees the world of human relationships and frailties with a folkie’s sensitivity and writes about them with the poetic blue-collar perspective of a Steve Earle or Bruce Springsteen. A gifted songwriter and charismatic performer, Berwick is a true rock ‘n’ roll survivor, an artist of integrity and vision who never even stood a chance in the industry babylon that is Nashville. Only Bleeding offers an eclectic mix of styles that defies industry homogenization to deliver a strong and thoroughly enjoyable musical experience for the listener. Pete Berwick has been singing his songs for a small, if faithful audience for far too long; with Only Bleeding, people will be forced to listen. (Shotgun Records, released 2002)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 2002 

Vintage Review: Max Vague's The Field (1996)

Rock ‘n’ roll has fielded its share of starry-eyed dreamers, insane geniuses and dedicated fools throughout the past four decades. Said artists have covered just about the entire gamut of available subject matter, from the usual lyrical staples like life, love and intoxicants to topics too disgusting for even these jaded ears. Precious few poets have really turned their eyes to the skies, however, and wondered aloud what might lie beyond this earthly dimension. The few who have usually tend to dance on the fringe of commercial acceptance, tagged forever with "cult favorite" status. For every Peter Gabriel, there's also a Roky Erikson or Nik Turner.

Whether Max Vague is a madman or a genius is not up for me to say. I suspect that there's a little of both residing in the man and artist – a certain musical genius, to be sure, but also a little foolishness for thinking that an album as lyrically vital, intelligently introspective and musically daring as The Field could find a receptive ear among the great gurus of radio and records. The Field is Vague's third album, following an impressive debut, Love In A Thousand Faces, and 1993's excellent S.O.S. The Party's Over. Vague is, perhaps, Nashville's most daring and adventurous artist. Although the home of country music, rhinestones and twanging guitars holds the promise of many rock & rollers who tend to walk on the proverbial edge – talents like Self or the Floating Men – Vague is not content to merely balance frightfully, preferring instead to crawl out and see just how far he can get on that branch before it snaps in two. With three albums under his belt, he's yet to take a tumble...  

A concept album twenty years past its prime and a good decade ahead of its time, The Field is a masterful collection, a song cycle that tells an unusual and haunting story about alien abduction. That it's a true story, told by an individual close to the band and filtered through Vague's mighty songwriting pen, makes The Field and its songs all that much more powerful. There are a lot of familiar musical elements that The Field shares with its predecessor, S.O.S. The Party's Over, but they serve as a connecting lifeline rather than a simple rehashing of material. S.O.S. is, indeed, an introduction to The Field, the two serving as bookends to frame a fantastic story.     

The Field begins with a disconcerting "Fever Dream," a low rumbling and jangled chiming leading almost immediately into "The Face In Your Window." Punctuated by a constantly repeating, wire taut guitar riff, "The Face In Your Window" launches the cycle, with our protagonist beginning their unearthly sojourn. From this point, the songs roll right by, a captivating, seemingly seamless composition made up of fourteen songs that sit separate and yet are melded together by a shared storyline and recurrent musical signatures. Among The Field'’s many moments, several nevertheless stand out.
    
"Epiphany" is an ethereal cry for sanity, the traveler captured by their own fear and growing sense of distance. "I will make it out of this 2x6 foot box," sings Vague, the line opening and closing the song with a distinct sense of terror and determination. "The Trade" illustrates the abductee's feelings of persecution and paranoia, with repeated abductions from childhood through adulthood not uncommon, creating in the individual a sense of disconnection and uncertainty: "Why do you keep coming back to me, haven't you had enough?" sings Vague in harsh, distorted vocals. "What is this preoccupation with me, haven't I suffered enough?" The disconnected "Rapture," with its echoed, dreamlike chorus of "we fall" repeated endlessly, creating a sense of floating while a gently strumming guitar supports Vague's lofty vocals.  

By the closing of The Field, Vague has brought our traveler full circle, through a myriad of thoughts and emotions, to a final confrontation with themselves. "I'm O.K." is a reaffirmation of life and purpose, a four minute musical struggle for identity in a psychological sea of confusion. "You sucked away my energy, you took the things that made me really me," sings Vague, "you roughed me up against my will, now tell me who the fuck I'm supposed to be." By the closing of the song, and the album, however, our protagonist has faced their demons and won, delivering a hearty lyrical 'piss-off' to those forces in the universe, both mundane and otherworldly, that seek to rob us of our dignity and individuality: "no compromise, no pity, no self help, no revelations from now on," Vague triumphantly delivers, just above the razor-sharp and repetitive riff that runs through the song and appears throughout The Field. "I made it all come out the day I faced your eyes and then refused to run. So you can take your fucking lights and your tables and your eyes and go away."

Musically, The Field mixes the familiar influence of a half a dozen artists – I won't insult the artist by making comparisons – you'll just have to get the disc and figure it out for yourself. I will say that there's plenty to discover musically hidden beneath these lyrics, the multi-layered and complex soundtrack of The Field yielding something new with every listen. The music is mesmerizing, an alluring combination of deceptive electric ambiance and passionate rock & roll fury. The guitars are thick and omnipresent in the mix, the percussion understated and purposeful while a consistent bass line supports the entire process. The band that Vague put together for The Field is top notch, with all of the players – guitarist Steve Green, drummer Robert Kamm, and bassist Ross Smith, a seasoned Nashville veteran of local legend Aashid Himmons' various bands – have an undeniable chemistry and a cohesion that belies their brief time together. A relative neophyte in the studio, Vague has grown as a producer over the course of three albums; his work on The Field is quite impressive given its complexity and dimension. 

The Field is a carefully-crafted piece of art, a heady tale of trial and redemption told through the eyes of an alien abductee. Although Vague has created a specific story, he has also unwittingly delivered a wonderful metaphor for life itself, the traveler of The Field representing every single one of us who views life from the outside looking in, with all of the attending uncertainty, doubt and psychic obstacles that accompanies such alienation (whether chosen or imposed). Released under Vague's own MetroLord Records imprint, The Field is a triumph of form over fashion, of honesty and sincerity over trite trendiness and musical pretension. At some time over the course of the past few years, I stated publicly  that Max Vague was too damn good to get signed by a major label, too unique to receive significant radio airplay. I stand by that statement today. It still remains to be seen whether or not anyone will prove me wrong. Until then, I can only sum up The Field thus: fucking brilliant! (MetroLord Records, 1996)

Review originally published by R.A.D! Review & Discussion of Rock & Roll zine, 1996

Vintage Review: Ken McMahan's That's Your Reality (1997)

The last time that Ken McMahan checked in here at the ConMedia world HQ, he was delivering a fine initial solo effort, Ken McMahan & Slumpy Boy on the French Dixie Frog label. Produced by ex-Georgia Satellite frontman Dan Baird and including the talents of folks like Stan Lynch, Terry Anderson, and Bill Lloyd, the disc was a steamy slab of blues-infused roots-rock. Needless to say, even with the fine pedigree the album brought along with it, Kenny couldn’t get in the back door at RecordCoAmerica, that one great major label whose A & R poseurs were too damn busy trying to find the next great alt.rock breakthrough to get their heads out of their collective behinds long enough to actually listen to some GREAT FUCKING ROCK ‘N’ ROLL rather than miring themselves in martinis and misanthropy.

Now McMahan – former axeman of the much-beloved Southeastern power blues trio the dusters – has put together a permanent touring version of Slumpy Boy, knocked out That’s Your Reality, his second disc for Dixie Frog, and is now poised to play live in your hometown. I recommend that you ring up your local neighborhood baby-sitter, draw a few dollars out of the ATM and roll on down to the club to catch Slumpy Boy ‘cause, if That’s Your Reality is any indication of what the band will be delivering live and on-stage, then we’re all in for an evening of good old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll the way that it was meant to be, with lots of guitars and heavy amplification.

That’s Your Reality, you see, is no wimpy “my life sucks, think I’ll grow a beard” carbon-copy “alternative” crapola, no sir, this 12 song collections rocks relentlessly from start to finish. At the proper volume, it’ll peel the paint off your living room walls and blow the windows out of your neighbor’s house. Play it in your car stereo and it’ll super-charge your engine like a set of racing cams and a tank of Turbo Blue™, melting the tar on the highway behind you. McMahan has picked up a little more of the songwriting duties this time out, and by god, I think that the boy’s got it all figured out. As good as his first solo disc was, That’s Your Reality is even better, the material highlighting McMahan’s growing ability as a wordsmith. Cuts like the rollicking “Fredonia,” the introspective “Everything Turns To Dust,” or the piss-off, get lost good-bye of “Reality” showcase an artistic maturity above his previous efforts.

Musically, McMahan is a vastly underrated guitarist, bringing a freshness and vitality to his material, deriving strength from his influences without ever mimicking them. Every cut here is a fat, multi-layered, guitar-driven rocker, evoking the best of almost half a century of rock ‘n’ roll history, throwing in just enough elements of country and the blues to keep it honest and interesting. If you prefer your rock to be of the two-fisted, hairy-chested variety, if you worship at the alter of bands like Humble Pie, the Georgia Satellites, the Faces or Lynyrd Skynyrd, then That’s Your Reality is right up your alley. With That’s Your Reality, Ken McMahan & Slumpy Boy deliver a disc that burns like a four-alarm fire and hits like a drunken prize-fighter. (Dixie Frog Records, released 1997)

Review originally published by Thora-Zine (Austin TX), 1997

Vintage Review: Ken McMahan's Ball & Chain (1998)

Ken McMahan is a friend of mine. In the interest of honesty, I have to begin any review of his work with such a disclaimer. I’ve gotten drunk with Ken, broken bread with him (or, in our case, shared pizza), talked about music, his career, the universe in general. He’s a great guy…and with all that ethical bullshit out of the way, I can also honestly say that McMahan is one hell of a rocker as well.

Case in point: Ball & Chain, McMahan’s third album for the French Dixie Frog label. With each subsequent outing, Kenny’s songwriting gets tighter, more structured, and more interesting. His consistently invigorating six-string work improves with each album and on Ball & Chain he’s added some interesting flourishes, musical dimensions that are absent from his earlier work. Throw in a backing band that’s as tight as a fist and as scary as an I.R.S. audit and add the musical and intellectual contributions of McMahan’s partner-in-crime, Dan Baird, and you’ve got one helluva foot-stomping rock ‘n’ roll record.    

With his former band, the power-blues trio the dusters, McMahan earned a well-deserved reputation across the Southeast as a fine blues guitarist. His solo stuff tends to run more towards the rock end of the spectrum, however, Kenny cranking up Ball & Chain with “Way of the World,” a fiery little number that sets the tone for the rest of the set. The world-weary lyrics of “Something I’ll Never Know” are punctuated by constant swamp-rock guitar riff that is literally drenched in saltwater and cypress. McMahan’s traditional cover song this time out is Robert Johnson’s “Kindhearted Woman,” a song Kenny claims for his own with a fat, looping guitar line that creates an instrumental cadence for the vocals.

The title track is one of two McMahan co-wrote with fellow Nashville talent Tommy Womack. Opening with some nifty honky-tonk piano, the song becomes a rollicking working-class anthem, a sort of “why me, Lord?” plea for the everyman. My favorite cut on the album, however, is “Wicked World.” Written by Dan Baird, ex-Georgia Satellite, acclaimed solo artist and member of Nashville band Betty Rocker, Baird knows his way around a song, and “Wicked World” is no exception. A bad-ass slice of dark-hued rock, McMahan’s haunted vocals and the accompanying concertina-wire sharp guitar licks combine to make for a powerful musical moment. McMahan sounds like he’s got Robert Johnson’s fabled hell-hounds on his trail, his guitar howling while bassist Kyle Miller and former dusters’ drummer Jeff Perkins provide a steady heartbeat to fuel Baird’s tale of secular woe and spiritual despair.

Even though much of what McMahan sings about is, well, kind of depressing – stuff like lost and unrequited love, romantic betrayal, and a man’s burden to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders – he does so with such style and energy that you never realize the somber nature of the material. Unlike a lot of today’s wet-behind-the-ears “one hit wonders,” young musicians who have barely ventured outside their hometown, McMahan has experienced a bit of the world. He’s been following the dream longer than he’d probably care to admit, but what comes across in his music and on CD is the sheer, unadulterated joy of being able to play rock ‘n’ roll. It’s this element that’s missing from contemporary music and it’s something that McMahan has in abundance. Ball & Chain is a strong tonic, a fresh breath of life for a flaccid rock corpse in sore need of the stiff kick in the ass McMahan provides. Now, will somebody stateside please pick up this record before I have to come to your house and do something impolite? (Dixie Frog Records, 1998)   

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 1998

Vintage Review: Max Vague's Love In A Thousand Faces (1983)

Amid the thousand and one faceless metallic hair bands which grace the "Music City" there stands Max Vague, a Nashville newcomer, and a welcome anomaly - a singer/songwriter of considerable talent, an artist who is neither country or hard rock. Love In A Thousand Faces is Vague's impressive debut, a 14 song collection showcasing Vague's lyrical prowess and immense musical skills. The songs presented here, hard-edged pop/rock replete with melodic experimentation, evince a variety of influences – the Beatles, Peter Gabriel, many electric British folkies – but are freshly original and completely uncategorizable.

It is difficult to pigeonhole Vague, which is good (preferable, actually) for a young artist. At times this debut overwhelms with Vague's interpretation of the pop format, other times it amazes the listener with his tendency (and ability) to take musical chances. You'll often find yourself saying, "what was that I heard?" Play it for your friends and they'll be saying, "what is that I'm hearing?" Love In A Thousand Faces is a thoroughly engaging disc and a fine introduction to one of Nashville's newest talents. (MetroLord Records, released 1983)

Review originally published by The Metro, 1983

Another Side of Nashville: Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver, Shooter Jennings (2007)

Kris Kristofferson - Live From Austin TX (New West Records)
In the annals of country music, the company he’s kept has often overshadowed Kris Kristofferson’s achievements. After all, it’s hard to hang out with heavyweights like Willie, Waylon and JC without suffering by comparison. However, Kristofferson’s friendship with those giants was built on his status as an equal. More than a mere songwriter – even if he has had some 500 songs recorded by other artists – Kristofferson built his own legacy over the past four decades by being one of the most original and influential voices in country music.  
    Part of the excellent Austin City Limits series, Live From Austin TX captures a dynamic Kristofferson performance from September 1981. Sure, the sixteen songs featured include the expected hits, one-of-a-kind songs like “Loving Her Was Easier” and “Help Me Make It Through The Night,” but it also offers much more. Drawing from his ’81 album To the Bone, songs like “Magdalene” and “Star Crossed” document Kristofferson’s divorce from singer Rita Coolidge and uncertainty over his future and career. It’s heady stuff, Kristofferson’s marvelous baritone supported by a whipsmart band that includes guitarist Stephen Bruton and keyboard wizard Donnie Fritts. With a back catalog in serious disarray, Live From Austin TX is a fine snapshot of the greatness of singer, songwriter and performer Kris Kristofferson.

Billy Joe Shaver - Greatest Hits (Compadre Records)
Many of country music’s greatest talents have considered him their favorite tunesmith, and his songs have been recorded by everybody from Bobby Bare and Kris Kristofferson to Elvis Presley. Chance are that you’re probably familiar with Billy Joe Shaver’s songs even if you have no idea of who the man is himself. Suffice it to say that what makes Shaver a great songwriter is that, for good or for bad, he puts a large part of himself into each of his autobiographical songs. As such, listening to Billy Joe Shaver’s Greatest Hits is like opening a book and looking at a cracked and faded old portrait of the artist.
    Shaver is a Texas storyteller in the vein of Guy Clark or Townes Van Zandt. He’s grizzled and gruff, humbled by too many miles and sobered by too much alcohol, and he pours his life into every song. Greatest Hits includes some of Shaver’s best known material, like “Georgia On A Fast Train” and “Old Chunk Of Coal,” as well as some of his best songs in “Old Five and Dimers” and “I Couldn’t Be Me Without You.” The album also offers up two previously-unreleased songs, but it’s the recent remake of the high-flying “Live Forever,” recorded with Big & Rich, that best showcases Shaver’s warm voice above his songwriting skills. Billy Joe Shaver’s Greatest Hits offers up old-school honky-tonk country with a bit of Lone Star spirit for both new and old listeners alike.

Billy Joe Shaver - Everybody’s Brother (Compadre Records)
There’s often a fine line between sin and salvation and, like most outlaws, Billy Joe Shaver has one foot in the honky-tonk and one in the church pew. Shaver has long expressed the desire to record a “gospel” album and it’s fitting…the same weathered voice that speaks convincingly of barrooms and broken hearts is also perfectly suited for singing the praises of Jesus. And it’s not like religion is a little-traveled path for Shaver; he has typically included a spiritual song on each album through the years.
    With Everybody’s Brother, however, Shaver focuses more on salvation, bringing friends like Kris Kristofferson, John Anderson, Marty Stuart, Bill Miller and Tanya Tucker along for the joyous ride. Listeners expecting a collection of staid church hymns will be disappointed; although Everybody’s Brother has its loftier moments, much of the material approaches God from the sinner’s side of the fence, and songs like the rollicking duet with Stuart, “Winning Again,” wouldn’t feel out of place in a beer-soaked honky-tonk. Shaver’s performances, captured by producer John Carter Cash, are heartfelt and passionate while the album’s closer, a late-70s duet with Johnny Cash and a 15-year-old Eddy Shaver burning up the guitar, will put a smile on the face of any listener.

Shooter Jennings -The Wolf (Universal South)
For a musician, living up to a famous father’s legacy can be tough – just ask Hank Junior, or even J.C. Cash. It’s album number three for Shooter Jennings, not counting last year’s pitch-perfect live set, and it seems that Waylon’s boy done got it right…just forge your own path and let the comparisons be damned. In the past, Jennings has dealt with the looming presence of Waylon’s shadow either by rocking hard or by defiantly picking up the country outlaw torch. With The Wolf, Jennings seems to have hit the sweet spot, an artistic middle ground. There are fewer references to his infamous daddy in the grooves, and more musical experimentation. Jennings’ vocals are softer and more soulful, albeit stronger and more assured than on his first two albums, and sound less like Waylon than they ever have.
    In fact, The Wolf seems less inspired by the ‘70s “outlaw movement” than by the work of Texas wordsmiths like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. The slow story-song “Concrete Cowboys” waltzes to the sound of weeping pedal steel while the rocking talking blues of the autobiographical “This Ol’ Wheel” shoots straight to the heart of Jennings’ birthright. A solid cover of Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” is juiced up with spry fiddle and energetic vocals while “Old Friend” mixes some damn fine bluesy guitar work with Mariachi-flavor. Not to say that Jennings doesn’t get rowdy with his friends every now and then. “Higher” kicks up some dust with a swampy Southern rock vibe and the title cut is a grand, epic musical journey with swells of sound and crashing instrumentation. With The Wolf, Shooter Jennings continues to evolve as an artist and songwriter, doing it his own way…and of that, I’m sure his daddy would be proud.

All reviews published by Country Standard Time, 2007

Vintage Review: Max Vague's Timing (1998)

For Timing, his fourth release, Max Vague has pulled a few new musical twists out of the seemingly endless bag of tricks of his, mixing healthy portions of Britpop influence with his usual ethereal progressive fare. Songs like the stunning “Cold As This Machine” or “Paralyzed” show an increased vigor to Vague's songwriting, a maturity that incorporates even more diverse influences that ever before. With more melodies and livelier song structure added to his trademark musical marksmanship, Vague has developed into a world class tunesmith.

The title track, however, might well be Vague's finest moment. With its sneering throwaway line “you've come this far, you might as well swallow,” the song is a near-perfect accounting of the struggle an artist faces in retaining their integrity as well as a wickedly satirical look at an industry that devours lives and creativity alike. Originally conceived as an eight song EP, Vague and bassist Ross Smith flew off the deep end into insanity, ending Timing with a twenty-eight minute instrumental opus. There's a method to their musical madness, however. Dark, eerie, provocative and deceptively mesmerizing, “Crack In The Sky” serves as an excellent bookend to Timing, carrying the listener beyond the dreams spun with the preceding songs, sojourning into the dreamland from whence they came. (MetroLord Records, released 1998)

Review originally published by Thora-Zine (Austin TX), 1998