Mark Mordue
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Anyone witness to a recent [2002] solo live tour by the rock musician Steve Earle would have no qualms telling you about the greatness this aching bear of a man exuded on stage. Drawing on elements of folk, country and blues, this 'roots' performer summoned up a peculiarly troubled form of American heroism and its troubadour, protest spirit, echoing a lineage from Lightning Hopkins to Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.
A lot of fans were prone to read between the lines of his maverick tales for the personal shadows that motivated them: the wandering teenage years; the drug problems and time spent in jail that all but destroyed his significant early promise; the six ruined marriages; and the way the 45 year old had gone straight in the last seven years to produce what Nick Hornby in the New Yorker called "the relaunch of... one of the most creatively successful careers in contemporary American music," noting this "renewed version of Earle gives every impression of wanting to claw back the years he wasted."
Aside from his dedication to the cause of ending capital punishment in the USA , Earle also teaches songwriting, runs an independent record label, writes for theatre, and here has produced his first collection of short stories, Doghouse Roses. With a dash of black humour perhaps these tales are offered much like the antagonist's gifts of flowers in the title story - as compensation for bad behaviour and emotional damage. As expected certain stories feel like fleshed out and over-extended versions of his songs, but even in the weaknesses one still senses the same lyrical drive that Michael Ondaatje described, in almost awestruck terms, as "his songs of furious loss".
Doghouse Roses begins powerfully enough with a clearly semi-autobiographical tale about a country musician addicted to heroin and crack cocaine, being ferried out of L.A. by his emotionally exhausted record company girlfriend. There's a striking sense of silence and space to this depressed road story, the existential apartness of the self-absorbed junkie who can't rise from his habits, well captured in the metaphor of a desert drive at night and a lingering sadness that can't be resolved. It's a knockout.
Elsewhere though Earle telegraphs his conclusions, their obviousness and forced neatness, way too easily. This spoils 'Wheeler County', the tale of a drifter who sets down roots, with an unnecessarily clichéd last ride and mars the post-Vietnam War encounter story, 'The Reunion', with some tidy coincidences that do nothing for what otherwise might have been a fine two-hander about veterans from opposite sides of the fence coping with the culture of death, duty and damage from which they spring.
There's also a sizeable ego at work in Earle's stories, a self-romanticizing that can get laborious and surprisingly self-oblivious - especially from an otherwise acute observer of human nature. There's a less surprising anger underlining that ego as well, but it doesn't finally carry what I'd call the repulsive puritanism in 'Billy the Kid', the story of a Nashville Jeff Buckley meets Gram Parsons who is never discovered because of a tragically premature death and the friends who elect to destroy his recording tapes to protect him from industry corruption. It reads as an Earle revenge fantasy, an aesthetic suicide wish, and the beatific tone doesn't wash it clean.
Earle is also prone to undramatic expositions of fact - sometimes in the guise of rather stiff conversations - that lay undigested within certain stories and break the mood completely. But I feel like I'm being terribly harsh when this book also offers so much.
It ends with a devastating story about the husband of a murder-victim witnessing an execution, Earle moving through the details of character, crime and punishment like a smooth-idling long black limousine. As in 'Doghouse Roses', 'The Witness' rings with semi-autobiographical intensity (Earle witnessed the execution of a friend on death row) as well his tough poetic eye:
"The last six miles of the drive from the city out to the state penitentiary was a dark, lonely stretch of two-lane blacktop winding through a no-man's land of second-growth timber and fallow farmland - a kind of airlock between the prison and the free world."
If this was the first book of an unknown writer, you'd be watching to see how he developed and mark him into a territory still in the shade of Hemingway, Carver, Ford and Banks. It'll certainly be interesting to see if Earle can both elaborate on and resist the sketch-point power of his songwriting in his story telling on the page and take it up another notch. The signs are he can.
For the moment we have a very flawed, at times annoying collection with a few killer punches and the need for a much tougher editor (arguing with Mr Earle would be no easy task to be sure). Beyond that we might contemplate the way Earle's stories still have an emotional impact even when they show so many flaws. The reason, simply enough, is a highly committed voice, surprisingly political, behind the tales - a sense of belief that more refined writers could do well to consider when the smoothness of their words overruns the heart they've left behind. Fortunately for us, Steve Earle still wears his on his sleeve.
- Mark Mordue
- First published in Sydney Morning Herald Spectrum Books section on May 25th, 2002 and then 12Gauge.com (USA) also in 2002.
DIED PRETTY
ED KUEPPER
Enmore Theatre,
Sydney, Australia
08.02.08
Have you ever experienced that moment in a performance when it feels like the band in front of you has peeled away its own skin to reveal an entirely more intense and grander being? Great musicians strive to get to such places. And during their encore rendition of ‘Winterland’ Died Pretty did just that.
Proving – if there were any doubt left – their ecstatic and lyrically romantic take on what is loosely called ‘garage rock’ was always of the highest ambition.
For the Pretty it’s a sound that embraces the Velvet Underground, Television, The Stooges, The Doors (that trademark organ swirl) and early Echo and The Bunnymen (that rolling thunder sound) as well as a dark and streaming intuition of the psychedelic that drives deep into what ultimately feels like singer Ron Peno’s inner space.
Without guitarist Brett Myers pushing the melodic direction of the band ever forwards – if not quite ever upwards – Peno’s lyrics could turn too interior, too fucked up and beaten. Instead one of the beautiful ironies of their songwriting partnership is the strange joy that emerges in even the saddest songs.
It’s a quality that was always one of Died Pretty’s most distinct songwriting moods: a feeling you were embarking on a mysterious journey; a sense of momentum and some kind of grace being granted.
As the launching act for the Don’t Look Back series where local Australian and overseas groups return to a classic album and play it from start to finish, Died Pretty’s visitation of their 1991 album Doughboy Hollow was a stunner. It was well matched by Ed Kuepper’s supporting adventure into his 1992 recording, Honey Steel’s Gold.
Honey Steel’s Gold is one of Kuepper’s re-invention albums, the kind he seems to make every five years or so. Live this seam-shattering confidence was present in a sound that could have emerged yesterday: the behemoth swing and laconic tension in Jeffrey Wegener’s drumming and Kuepper’s splintering guitar work; the cascades and chimes and sour melodies; and that almost sarcastically mournful voice of Kuepper’s that seems to drag behind the music, then sling a lyric at your feet like a corpse.
Following an act as certain of itself as Kuepper and his band is no easy task. There’s no room to be weak. Indeed, when Died Pretty hit the stage and strode into the Doughboy Hollow opener ‘Doused’, an epic piece of sorrow about a gambler down on his luck (‘his Midas touch has all dried up, his hair has all turned grey’), the song felt bigger than them. There was a feeling Died Pretty did not quite believe they were here, that this music belonged to them anymore.
Thirty seconds of doubt later the band was suddenly possessed and inside their moment. It never stopped from then on till the finish. In a full house that would give them three standing ovations for the three encores that would follow Doughboy Hollow – encores that eventually constitute an entire other set of songs like ‘Everybody Moves’, ‘Stoneage Cinderella’ and ‘Turn Your Head’ – Died Pretty weren’t just in command, they were unleashed.
There’s a lot of talk these days that the album is dead, speculation that i-Tunes and the i-Pod have killed everything – including bloated CDs that go on interminably – but the power of a single song. Something about the Don’t Look Back series and these two acts tonight is a reminder of how powerful the LP (long-playing) experience can still be.
Watching Died Pretty and Ed Kuepper I nonetheless began to wonder if live performances of this magnitude might fade like the LP itself and the notion of an inter-related and sustained set of songs?
If a decade on from now great live bands will be thinner on the ground? If a great live experience might become as rare as the ability to write or read a good novel? Will the speed of our pleasure sap our attention, our scope? I have to honest – if Died Pretty and Ed Kuepper strode the stage tonight like colossi, I also felt a glimmer of them as saurian creatures we might well regret the passing of.
Whatever those thoughts, an encore song like ‘Winterland’ (which comes off their album Lost) didn’t sound like a spent force reliving old dreams. It came on like a band still expanding and exploring, still taking their music further out than ever. A part of this was a textured electronic outburst in the middle of the song that intimated at the band’s new horizons when they finally broke up in 2002.
Even without that ‘touch’ some things become timeless precisely because their roots are so clear, at least to a hometown audience like this. Many of whom would have felt part of a magical time when Doughboy Hollow seemed to resound out of every stereo in the Sydney inner city suburbs of Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Chippendale and Newtown in the summer Saturday afternoons of 1992, when the album resounded like an anthem for peoples’ lives and what might burst open that very night: a kiss, a breakup, a party, a death.
Out front of it all then and now was the diminutive Ron Peno. His antecedents were obvious: Iggy Pop and Stevie Wright and Bon Scott. Peno is their equal, a poet of the body as much as lyric and voice. Shy and shadowy, an almost Gothic figure as he slid and shuffled and bent and twisted and pranced, he finished with a nervous little wave as if it was all hard to believe. Then, as he sang it in ‘Turn Your Head’, it was time to “turn and walk away”.
- Mark Mordue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysu9DGMiOxI
- An abridged version of this review was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald 11.02.08.
Comments
Beautiful review Mark. We can only hope that performances like this don't become a thing of the past.
I did the following interview with Nick Cave over the phone in 1994 for the now defunct Juice Magazine in Australia. He was just about to release Let Love In, still one of my favourite records by him. It's full of vitality, even joy or at least humour, in a typically skewed and erotically dark Nick Cave way. Our conversation was free and easy, almost careless at times. I'd been up all night before we spoke and was basically in a don't-give-a-fuck-who-I-am-talking-to-or what-I-say mood, without wanting that to seem like I was being unfriendly or that I was unprepared. I've seen this interview get posted around the net a bit and my interviewing 'style' get criticized. But I know Cave and I had fun talking. Sometimes it just rolls off the tongue...
Mordue: Could you describe for us a favourite walk you take in Sao Paolo, Brazil?
Cave: Well, I make my favourite walk daily. Which is up to my local bar. Out the door, up the street, past the junkyard where the chickens and the old junkyard dog sits. And up a steep hill to my favourite bar, SanPedro's. There's this giant barman there who is the fattest guy I've ever seen. He is constantly described by locals as a huge woman, but he's a man with a moustache. He looks more like a giant baby to me. I sit there and read, drink, and contemplate the meaning of life. Then I walk back down.
M: So what were you reading at the time of Let Love In? I was wondering about literary influences on the lyrics.
C: I draw influences from everywhere, in terms of a line that will excite me - and maybe a song will develop out of it. It can often come from the worst airport novel you could ever find. It doesn't necessarily have tobe good literature to be inspiring. I couldn't tell you what I was reading at the time. I read three, four books a week.
M: 'Let Love In' is a very positive and celebratory statement.
C: It's supposed to be. There isn't much irony in it, although people have expressed that interpretation of the title. It's the idea of letting love in and experiencing what love has to give. It's not necessarily allgood - but it's all worthwhile.
M: What about the lines in the first single, Do you Love Me? "I stacked all accomplishments beside her/Yet they seemed so obsolete and small."
C: Yet I seemed so obsolete and small... Well, I feel that way. That's a very personal song, actually. It's a nice line, I think.
M: Later you say, "Do you love me?/Like I love you?" I think when two people are trying to get along, in a way they are trying to make love be the same. But that is the big miscommunication.
C: Yeah, yeah, that sounds okay. (Laughs) I was really going to try not to go into what the songs are about. I did that with Henry's Dream and I always regretted it.
M: How come?
C: I think it demystifies everything. It's like an actor talking about his role in a film. If he does a good job of acting it, you don't need him sitting there on some entertainment program talking about what his character is supposed to be. I always find that immensely irritating. I just didn't want to have to spell out the songs, that's all I'm trying to say.
M: I'm not necessarily asking that of you. I'm just interested in using them as points to leap off into discussion. Jangling Jack really jumped out at me as the album's sing-a-long track.
C: That was written very quickly. And I hope it sounds like it. It's about an Englishman going to America and getting shot. It's my little ode to America. I deliberately wanted it to be as throwaway and as short as possible. So the only way I could record the song was if I could make it in under three minutes. We had to pare it down and down and down. It's about two minutes, fifty. It's just a hateful little track about a certain aspect of America which disgusts me.
M: In Jangling Jack I also got an impression of you hating a man being cool and excessively confident.
C: Well Jangling Jack isn't the object of hatred in it. It's the guy who kills him actually... It's just a quick, throwaway song.
M: Loverman was the other song that I got into. When my friend and I were listening to it, he described it as 'a real togs-off rock & roll song'.
C: (Laughs) I don't know about a 'togs-off rock & roll song'. Very briefly, it's about a guy or person destroyed by his life, feeling that he can become something if he is rejuvenated by the object of his desire. It'sa flailing mess of a song. And of course he can't be.
M: So you don't think a woman can redeem a lost man?
C: (Laughs) I think it's a myth, but who knows?
M: I like the incantation at the end: "I am what I am what I am..." It reminded me of some cartoon character.
C: I think it's Popeye: "I am what I am what I am".
M: I love the simplicity of the opening to She's Nobody's Baby Now, where you talk about trying to "unravel the mystery of Jesus Christ, the Saviour". It made me wonder about the first time you had a notion of what Jesus was in your life? And then maybe you rejected that in your upbringing?
C: You want me to talk about that?
M: Yeah, if you could.
C: Well, the line is in a verse in which someone is trying to work outwhy he isn't with a woman anymore. But at some point along the way I had some vague religious notions about things. I still read the Bible a lot.And I still think that Jesus Christ is an extremely enigmatic and exciting figure. But I can't really get my teeth around the resurrection and thevirgin birth. I mean, I just can't believe that. I look at him objectively these days.
M: So you don't find yourself becoming more religious?
C: I don't find myself becoming religious at all.
M: A song that made me laugh was Lay Me Low, about when you die. And the cavalcade of cars and the six page feature articles that will be written. It made me wonder if you ever fantasised about having one of your songs played at your own funeral?
C: No, I don't. I've never thought about it.
M: Never thought about a song in particular? Or never thought about dying?
C: I've thought about dying. Everyone has thought about dying! But no, I haven't made a list of songs I want played at my funeral. I haven't written all my good songs yet, so that would be a bit premature. I'm not planning on dying in the near future.
M: Is Let Love In a breakthrough for you?
C: Every record has its difficulties. Mostly for me it's in the actual writing of the songs, and this was equally difficult. There was as much panic and fear that I wouldn't have it done as there was with any other record. But once the songs were recorded it fell together so easily. And I believe that is because we worked with people we knew, and who understood our work. Especially Tony Cohen, the guy who produced it with me. We knew that we were doing something that was going to be good. Right from the early stages, the foundations of the record were really strong. We didn't relax at any point, but we could play around with stuff a lot more. And it was a lot more of a creative experience than the last one (Henry's Dream).
M: Tony Cohen must be amazingly talented - producing the Cruel Sea's The Honeymoon is Over, Dave Graney's Night of the Wolverine, and now this. He apparently brings out the best in people.
C: He has an understanding. He knows what to do, and gets on with it. And he's great with sounds. He enjoys making offensive records, I think. He just enjoys it. It's not a job to him.
M: There's a real energy to this record, more so than for a long time. I wonder if you wanted to come out towards your audience more, and seduce them, invite them in at the same time? Some of your records aren't easy to approach, but there's something inviting and playable about Let Love In.
C: With Henry's Dream I wanted to make an incredibly aggressive record with acoustic instruments - a raw, nasty record. And it isn't that. It's basically a rock record - and not much more - and that's not what I wanted to make at all. Let Love In has a wide range of song styles, there isn't such a concrete idea about it. The songs are joined very close together lyrically. But musically it's quite diverse.
M: Have you gone through times when you've thought, "Is my talent slipping? Are things falling apart? Do I have the strength to be the kindof performer that I used to be?" And with these questions, were you looking to refocus your power with Let Love In?
C: I've always gone through that feeling. I've always been in a panic about these issues. Right from The Birthday Party. I used to approach each record with a great fear - that it wouldn't be accomplished enough or whatever. And it continues. It's always very difficult for me to write songs, and I don't expect that will ever change.
M: Why is it so difficult? The image, in spite of the songs having their work, is that they do pour out.
C: Or fall out of the sky? Well, they don't. It takes me ages, months, to write a song. Occasionally I get what I describe as 'given' a song, where you just suddenly find you've written a song and you don't knowhow or where it comes from, but it sounds okay. Normally, songs take a very long time to write, and a lot of consideration. With the artwork for this record, behind the actual lyrics I've tried to put various pages from the working process of the songs. They're like a backdrop to each lyric, showing how much writing goes on. Some of them have ten, twenty verses, to end up being a three verse song. I'm always very finicky about that side of things. Probably too finicky. I guess that's a strength and a weakness at the same time.
M: There is such a thing as letting your conversational expression tell the story that needs to be told, and forgetting about the style or technique.
C: Yeah. I Let Love In is like that. And Red Right Hand was almost completely improvised at the moment of actually singing it. But the other ones, like the two Do You Love Me’s took ages to write. I don't think any one song is better than the other. I just think you have to get to a point, one way or another.
M: Currently I'm perfecting hunching over at the right moment on Loverman and singing along to it, or doing "Do-da-de-doo" down the street to Jangling Jack. I really do love this record, I think it's a beauty.
C: I love it too. I'm really very happy with it. I've survived in Sao Paolo for two months now. Usually by the end of the first month, because I just sit here and do nothing really, I'm champing at the bit to get out and start working again. Which is a basic panic thing that I get into. But here I am, sitting back with this, because I feel like I've really done something worthwhile with this record.
Comments
I like the personable approach you used. Cave is a intimidating figure, it's always nice to see people humanized.
Just recently I went out for drinks with Blixa Bargeld. Fascinating man.
Enjoyed the interview.
And yet another coincidence - just 2 nights ago, I was playing Grinderman for a guy who had never heard them, and he said after the 1st song he didn't really care for it. My girlfriend and I looked at each other in disbelief, and I blurted - is it a woman thing?
And she blurted, "every woman wants to fuck Nick Cave."
All the women I know, anyway.
My Trusted MOGs (10 of 88)
MOGs That Trust Me (8 of 114)
MOG Meter
Comments
sounds similar to his part in The Wire tv show. i didn't know about this book, thanks for the review!
Longtime Earle supporter here, so I too appreciate the heads-up. My affection for his music will probably move me to seek out the book. And, of course, I will keep in mind the old adage Caveat emptor.