Jale "Despite"

Following up on yesterday's post . . .

The opening band that night was a Canadian 4-piece on the same label as the Scud Mountain Boys.

Jale had had a lot of success in their native land, and they were receiving great reviews here in the States for their jangly, tuneful indie-pop.

I was early to the show, hanging around the bar with a lot of time to kill, so I made sure brought along my copy of their CD "So Wound," and a sharpie.

I'd never been an autograph seeker, but it seemed like a neat thing to do, to get the 4 members to sign my disc and then bring it back to play on my radio show.

I approached Jennifer first.  She had a serious air about her, but brightened visibly when I started talking about the album artwork and photography, which I gathered she had a hand in.

Then she got serious again.

"Did you buy this CD today?"

I was a little embarrassed.  I stammered out that no, I didn't buy it.  I was in radio and I got it for free.

Eve, one of the guitar players was pleasant and answered some lyric questions I'd tossed out, but she was on her way to do backstage.

Laura was friendly enough to sit down in a booth with me and chat for a minute while she signed my disc.  But after a few questions, she asked the same thing that Jennifer asked, looking over my shoulder toward the merch table, which wasn't even set up yet.

"Did you just buy this?"

I felt weirdly guilty.  No, I didn't buy it.  I was totally riding free.  I was a leech-y, industry-type who'd got himself guest-listed and now had a free CD I was looking to get signed.

But my "no" was enough for her.  She smiled and excused herself with the very awesome line, "Well, nice talking to you, but I gotta go get glamorous."

Mike, the drummer was the last one to nab.  He'd recently joined the band and seemed kind of eager to chat about it.

I had lots of questions about Sub Pop and life on tour and he was pretty open.

The band was pretty disappointed with the support they were getting from the label.  And looking around the bar, it was hard to argue with that.  Up-and-coming Sub Pop band, with critical steam behind them, visits a major college/music town, and there's only 30 people there?

He talked about how the band was doing very well in Canada, coming from a vibrant Halifax scene, where they were selling out larger venues to enthusiastic audiences.  By contrast, this American tour had been a slog, almost feeling like a back-step, to thinner crowds and a fair amount of indifference.

He was doing his best to be the band's cheerleader, to keep his bandmates' spirits up, despite the demoralizing aspects of being an unknown band making its way across the USA.

And that's when it struck me.  They weren't asking about my CD because they noticed the notch on the bar code that pegged it as a freebie.

They were simply surprised to meet someone who had been listening to their record and came to the show with a knowledge of who they were.

This theory bore out later in the night as Jale played.

Each of the three women in the band wrote and sang and did quite a bit of harmonizing.  But Mike's voice did appear on one of the album's tracks, late in the record, called "Despite."

It's a "conversation" song that Jennifer sang, with Mike coming in after the first verse as the male response to the female narrator.

Because the show was sparsely attended, I was standing pretty close to the stage.  And when Jennifer started singing "Despite" I realized she was directly between me and Mike.  So when his first line came up, I leaned to the right, to look around her.

But he wasn't singing.  In fact, he wasn't even miked.

I looked back at Jennifer, who was singing Mike's lines, lowering her voice for the male parts.

Because I was right in front of her, she had noticed that I was looking for Mike to sing, and she cracked a smile, breaking, for a second, from the downbeat emotion of the song.

It was a sweet little moment.



Hear the song on Youtube.

The single from "So Wound" is one of my favorite pop songs of the 90s.

Hear the song on Youtube.

Scud Mountain Boys "Penthouse In The Woods"

I don’t think any of us imagine a modern road trip as a solitary event.  But it was.  This was the 1990s.  No cell phone.  No one to talk to.  No satellite radio.  Just me and a cassette deck.

And I was happy.

I had a pretty uncomplicated life.  Young and single with a job in radio.  And I was on my 2nd day of a road trip.

Yes, I know I’m my father’s son (the man does a lot of crazy driving), when I tell you that it didn’t really seem out of the way to go from Washington, DC back home to Abingdon, Virginia, via Chapel Hill.

But I had spent the day on the National Mall (more on that, later this week), and now I was heading toward the famed Cat's Cradle.

Two of my favorite indie bands of the moment were playing a show in Chapel Hill, and yeah, it wasn't exactly on the way home, but when you're young and single, what's an extra 5 or 6 hours of driving, if you get to see two great bands?

That night I'd see the Scud Mountain Boys and Jale, but I had rolled into town early.

My first stop was to find a good local record store, and yeah, I killed an hour or so there.

What to do next, with several hours to go before showtime . . . ?

Walking down the street, I happened upon a little movie house.

"When does the next show start?"

"In about 10 minutes."

"Lone Star" was the feature, written and directed by John Sayles, who was (and still is) one of my favorite movie makers.

Cut to 10 hours later, after a great movie, a cheap roast beef sub, and a wonderful (if sparsely attended) indie show.

It was well after midnight, at I was a good five hours away from home, but hell, I figured I'd just drive instead of shelling out some money I didn't have for a motel.

I know that's not much of a story, but I'm telling it for this reason---I remember it as one of the best days of my life.

In fact, just that 3 minute period, when I found myself wandering down a street and in front of a movie theater and I was in the position to say, Yes, I think I'll just go see a movie . . . that remains one of the best moments of my single life.

Is that a little sad? 

The objective voice in my head says it sounds a little sad to say that the best day of your life was about enjoying a drive, movie, meal and concert, by yourself.

But I can't really deny the feeling inside, when I think about how nice it felt to be so free that day . . .



Hear the song on Youtube.



See the movie trailer on Youtube.

Scud Mountain Boys "Letter To Bread"

I went to an all girls college.

Not for school, of course. No, just to visit a friend.

One of my closest friends went to an all Women's college in Roanoke, which was just about two hours away from Abingdon, Virginia, where I lived.

And, perhaps not surprisingly, I'd regularly drive up to Roanoke on the weekends, to a) see my friend, and yeah, b) hang out at an all girls school.

I was single, in my 20s. Where else would I want to be?

This isn't a post about girls or dating or flirting or getting drunk or acting like an awkward teenage boy who hadn't figured out girls when in fact I hadn't been a teenager for many, many years so why was I coming off like such a loser. This is a post about after that.

In those days, I was working nights. I'd get out of bed no earlier that 11am. To the radio station in the early afternoon. Off at midnight or later. And then I'd be up for several hours, drinking or writing or listening to music or watching TV or whatever, until 3 or 4am.

And if I had a Saturday off, I'd go an spend the night in Roanoke.

After a weekend of just being one of the girls, Sunday night would inevitably wind down, as my friend and her cohorts head off to their dorm rooms or study areas to call it a night. And I'd head home.

Getting in the car for a nearly 2 hour drive at 11 or 12 at night, wasn't an issue. I was awake, and happy to have something to do. Even if that something to do was just drive and listen to The Scud Mountain Boys.

My friend Teri had sent me a cassette tape of this band. They, like Teri's band Tizzy, were a Western Massachusetts outfit, a college student/graduate collective of musicians, making a record. Tizzy and The Scud Mountain Boys shared a producer, and that's how a pop-punk drummer heard about an roots/country band from New England.

The cassette combined their full length CD "Dance The Night Away" with selections from an earlier release called "Pine Box." And if I popped the cassette in, right as I pulled out of Roanoke and onto the ramp for Interstate 81, it would carry me all the way down the road, until I was on the exit ramp for my town.

I-81 is a truck route, and yeah, there isn't a lot of anything between Roanoke and Abingdon, except straight stretches, big skies and rolling, rocky farmland.

Much like the Vineyard, southwest Virginia is low on light pollution, and on a clear night (and when I was clear of 18 wheelers) you could see a million stars. It was dark. It was quiet. It was perfect for the Scud Mountain Boys.

The songs on "Dance The Night Away" are built around a slide guitar, slow gorgeous melodies and melancholy lyrics. Time flew by when I listened. Two hours seemed like minutes.

I'm not such an obsessive that I have an actual catalog of this information, but I'd wager that I have listened to "Dance The Night Away" more than any other album. Period.

The band issued one more record, "Massachusetts," and broke up. I did manage to see them live once (a story for another post), but was always bummed out that they didn't do anything else.

Of course, principle songwriter Joe Pernice has been very active, putting out Pernice Brothers records, solo albums and occasional one-off projects like Chappaquiddick Skyline.

But what a thrill to read, out of nowhere this fall, that Joe had reconnected with his old bandmates, and that they had agreed to do a handful of shows this winter.

I'll take the almost two hour journey up to the Brighton Music Hall, next Saturday night, January 14th, for what I hope will be a special night.

And yeah, if it's not too much, for the ride home, for old time's sake, I'll pop in the old cassette and let it carry me home.


Hear the song on Youtube.