James McMurtry scowls out at the crowd like he can't stand the sight of us, and he sings not like some fool stooping so low as to entertain or some goddamn thing.
| Scott Spychalski |
"Poems" is the word, of course. Those words are worth overhearing. A McMurtry show is part state-of-the-heartland address, part collection of narrative verse, part boogie gee-tar extravaganza. It's part party, part eulogy, and - for those who value words and feeling over virtuosity - part godsend.
McMurtry specializes in tough-minded songs charting the decline of the great American middle, now strip-malled and condo-ed, a once-proud breadbasket where all regular folks have the chance to grow today is fast-food bellies and tea-party resentments.
He talk-sings of a land and a life gone wrong, of a mid-American wasteland - his word - where worn-out souls haunt suburban tracts like "cinderblock cell"s ("Fireline Road") or no-place apartments overlooking an exit-ramp ("Freeway View"). His characters have lost the jobs they hate ("We Can't Make it Here Anymore"). They cook speed ("Lobo Town"; "Choctaw Bingo"). They long for a beauty that isn't there ("The Lights of Cheyenne"). They bullshit that they'll get out, head for California or someplace ("Just Us Kids.")
| Scott Spychalski |
Mama used to roll her hair /
Back before the central air /
We'd sit outside and watch the stars at night. /
She'd tell me to make a wish, /
and I'd wish we both could fly. /
Don't think she's seen the sky /
Since we got the satellite dish. /
Pissy as he looks, he's got command. That thin snarling voice suits his monologues of disappointment. (Below the Mason-Dumbass line / the food gets worse, a character complains. We go on good behavior when our youngest comes home, another admits.)
He's also a hell of a guitar player, coaxing out a rough-edged, unbeautiful racket that sounds unlike anybody else. For half last night's show at a sold-out Knucklehead's, McMurtry led a powerful three piece made up of his excellent Heartless Bastards (Ronnie Johnson on bass and Darren Hess on drums.)
On songs like "Just Us Kids" or "Freeway View," his chords make shorter leaps flowing from one to the next than many songwriters' do, but their flow - their almost incidental rise and fall - suits the geography of the land he writes of. Each chord builds to the next like the tallgrass builds to the flinthills.
The early highlights included "Red Dress," a hypotic blues dirge so sharp, funny and simple it sounds like a Randy Newman original given full rock treatment, and the epic "Choctaw Bingo," a relentless gush of family-history madness over a road-tripping Chuck Berry riff. (Imagine if Berry's caddy in "Maybellene" was motor-vating over the hill hopped up, lit up, struck by lightning, the engine in flames and the radio blasting some book-on-tape of Absalom, Absalom!) About ten minutes in, as he sang "We'll have us a time," McMurtry came this close to smiling.
(I am holding my fingers far apart, for your information.)
| Scott Spychalski |
| Scott Spychalski |
| Scott Spychalski |
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Alan,
AWESOME review bro. Seriously you knocked it out of the park. James McM is the same presence...sultry, ornery, but he absolute KICKS ASS when playing a live show filled with great songs.
Peace
Wow, I think a James mcMurtry song actually commented on this review. That must be a first.
Couldn't go. The unemployment check came after he sold out. Saw him the other 2 times, he was here. 1st concert, was my 1st date, with the woman I now live with. Met her at a Joan Baez concert. I had heard McMurty on KKFI's Blues Kitchen, playing Choctaw Bingo. 2nd show was outside. We were front & center & she was in a skin-tight "Where You'd Get That Red Dress."
Best part of the 1st date, she kissed shy me, before we got out of the car. "Now that we have that out of the way." We kissed all night long as we danced all night long. If I was working, we'd be on the dance floor every night. But we can't make it here no more.
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