The Art of the Rock Show

Drive-By Truckers

Jackson Free Press

June 16, 2010

My first rock show was in sixth grade. I saw the Smashing Pumpkins on their Infinite Sadness Tour. Guitarist James Iha and bassist D’arcy bounced around on the immense stage as they played, while Billy Corgan moaned and wailed into the microphone like he was dictating his suicide note. This was energy and passion. The show instantly became a concert benchmark for me.

As the years went by, though, I realized that maybe what I had seen wasn’t necessarily as good as I thought it had been. The more bands I saw, the more I realized I was watching the same show with different characters. The lead singer always stood at the microphone and sang, eyes closed, passionately pleading and howling. Other band members jumped around, demonstratively whipping the necks of their instruments up and down and side-to-side, in a display, I suppose, of their uncontrollable aggression.

Eventually, it just stopped working for me.

The first time I saw the Drive-By Truckers was 2002, and this concert changed everything. The band alternated between arena rock and country without losing an ounce of urgency—their sound always tinged with musical and mythological Southern influence.

But it wasn’t just the music that made it such a great concert. It was the first time I felt a genuine connection between a band and the crowd. One of the memories that sticks with me was Patterson Hood, the lead singer, and then-guitarist Jason Isbell looking at each other and letting their enthusiasm overwhelm them as they burst into huge smiles. These guys were living every boy’s rock-star fantasy, and they knew it. It was a completely organic moment and so refreshing. The new benchmark had been set.

I saw the Truckers again a few months ago in New Orleans, and while the lineup had shifted slightly, that enthusiasm was still evident. They have long been a band representing the lower middle class, a strata that in recent years has been repeatedly brutalized. These themes are naturally prevalent in the Truckers’ music, and while they are always mentioned in their concerts, they are never the focal point.

The band could easily harness their populist anthems to work the crowd into an anti-establishment frenzy. However, they recognize that these emotions aren’t constructive. While their songs about foreclosures and broken homes aren’t always the happiest stories, they do manage to lace them with humor and hope—two emotions that are considerably harder to evoke than unchecked rage.

That is not to say you leave their concerts with no sense of anger at the government and the entitled. It is impossible not to. But those feelings take a back seat to the feeling of unity and proactiveness the band instills in you. After a Drive-By Truckers concert, the few hundred strangers you entered with won’t quite feel like strangers anymore.

The Drive-By Truckers will be coming to Hal & Mal’s June 26 in support of their newest album, “The Big To-Do.”

Original Article

Harder Than it Looks

James Iha, Taylor Hanson, Adam Schlesinger, and Bun E. Carlos

Jackson Free Press

May 6, 2009

Depending on your sentiments, power-pop is either music in its purest form or a vacuous and overly simplified genre. I have always been among the defenders, largely because it can be one of the most affecting types of music when done correctly. However, getting it right is a difficult assignment. Potential supergroup Tinted Windows’ recently released self-titled debut is evidence to this difficulty.

Listing the band members of Tinted Windows is like introducing the starting five of the NBA All-Star game: Taylor Hanson (Hanson) on lead vocals, James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins) on guitar, Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne) on bass and Bun E. Carlos (Cheap Trick) on drums. These four heavyweights have a firm grasp on the principles of pop music, and their melodies reflect this.

The album has numerous catchy songs. “Kind of a Girl” and “Without Love” both wriggle their way into your head and down to your lips with little resistance. Hanson has developed a more-than-serviceable rock ‘n’ roll voice since his pre-pubescent Hanson days. Iha comes up with enough memorable guitar riffs to fill the record, while Schlesinger and Carlos—whose work is the band’s primary influence—give the album its direction.

Therein lies the problem, however. While Fountains of Wayne and Cheap Trick are good at pumping out catchy riffs and hooky choruses, they betray the ideals left behind by power pop’s forefathers such as Badfinger and Big Star.

Truly great power-pop bands always put their primary emphasis on feeling. Power-pop at its best is perhaps the most nakedly emotional of all rock music’s subgenres. Listen to “Thirteen” by Big Star and note the sentimentality it coaxes out of you; listen to Raspberries’ “Overnight Sensation” and try not to get caught up in its intoxicating joy. Other genres simply cannot approach this poignancy.

Granted, these songs—and the genre in general—have historically focused on simple things. It bears noting, though, that simple and asinine can be mutually exclusive. The pursuance of a girl is no doubt a hackneyed song subject, but articulate, fresh lyrics can rejuvenate the feelings that come with it (insecurity, heartbreak, jubilation). Modern power-pop has regrettably fallen into idiocy with bands like Jimmy Eat World and All-American Rejects, who don’t make the effort to articulate emotion, preferring instead to hide behind over-produced hooks.

While Tinted Windows doesn’t quite sink to the present-day level of banality, they remain too concerned about the record’s sound to communicate genuine emotional depth. One of the album’s catchiest songs, “Dead Serious” is a testament to this. It should be a heart-rending plea to a woman, conveying the vulnerability one feels in the days leading to a breakup. Instead, it’s a baseless showpiece for the album’s pristine production. It’s a shame this song, and the album as a whole, chooses to eschew sentiment because Taylor Hanson belted one of the more blissful vocal tracks in pop music with “Mmmbop,” and James Iha was the instrumental backbone for some of the ’90s most emotionally raw rock songs.

Power-pop is a genre that only works with soul-baring truthfulness. If the band chooses to substitute this for anything else, whether it be production or inanity, it merely becomes James Blunt with prettier harmonies.

Original Article