Part I: Context Is Everything
About 18 months ago, I posted a blog entry entitled “The Decline of Dave Matthews Band: A Quiet Tragedy.” It was a piece that I stand by today. It needed to be written.
Although Dave Matthews Band and its members have always continued to hold a special place in my heart, and much of the blog “Quiet Tragedy” was nostalgic and respectful, the need to write the essay came from a very dark place in my journey with the band.
But in much the same way that the band has changed, my life has changed dramatically over the past 20 years, the past four years since Stand Up, and the past 18 months since “Quiet Tragedy.” Some of the things I wrote in that essay – or that have been leveled at the band by any armchair bandleader – are no longer completely true; some are still true, but I (and maybe the fanbase as a whole) have just accepted them; and still there are others, debunked or brought into sharper focus by the extensive documentary blitz surrounding Big Whiskey. This essay is a much more optimistic piece, to discuss Dave Matthews Band’s music, history, motives, and peculiarities; to note how those items reflect on my personal experience; to review the album Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King; to offer a continuation of and response to “The Decline of Dave Matthews Band: A Quiet Tragedy”; and to level a guess at the future and ultimate fate of the band, on the basis of the above.
On one hand, it would be great to be able to review Big Whiskey based on its 13 tracks alone, but in reality the context surrounding the new album is what makes it so significant. This is why hired critics’ assessments often end up falling flat, little more than a blurb about the band with canned expressions like “loose-limbed jams.” This album is so much more than that. On another hand, the album’s true significance will only be able to be measured by history. But either way, recent years have brought us to a place with the band that is worth discussing, centered around the release of the new record.
There have been several key turning points in the last 18 months of the band’s history: the announcement of Rob Cavallo as producer and of Tim Reynolds as guitarist on Stand Up’s successor, the departure of Butch Taylor as keyboardist, Roi’s injury, Coffin’s introduction, Roi’s passing, the band-sanctioned leak of “Funny the Way It Is,” the spring tour, and Big Whiskey’s release. The band’s membership has seen a four-person shift (Roi and Butch out, Tim and Rashawn in). As a result, their strengths and weaknesses have changed – even from what they were two years ago, but certainly from what they were fifteen years ago.
By the beginning of 2008, fans were ready for something big. Stand Up’s successor would be arguably the most significant album of the band’s career. Without a strong album, the band would be trying its fanbase’s patience. Few fans appeared angry or personally upset with the band for its post-millennial output, but many seemed resignedly disappointed and sad about the loss of focus for the band and its often-brilliant frontman.
The death of Leroi was an awful, tragic event. Fans like me were deeply touched by his passing and were given the opportunity to assess Roi’s and the band’s importance in our own lives. It was a profoundly emotional time for fans from throughout the band’s almost two-decade history, and I suppose the silver lining came in the form of a reinvigorated focus among the band and fans alike. The 2008 summer tour was already that of a re-energized band before Roi’s injury, and I would never imply that the band used Roi’s death to re-energize the fanbase along with them. It’s just that Roi’s death made us WANT to believe in our favorite band. We realized that we hadn’t just fallen in love with their music; we had fallen in love with these people, and we had fallen in love with the things they had made us feel. It’s too bad that it took the death of a member to make us realize that, but I suppose that is the way that life is designed.
So in the months leading up to Big Whiskey, there was a cautious mix of optimism, giddy excitement and sadness in the air and on the boards. We missed Leroi the same way we missed what the band used to do to us, and I think to many fans, getting pumped about the band again was a great way to pay tribute to Roi’s memory. Combining that with the infectious energy of Obama’s “hope” era, the excitement among the fan community was intense and welcome. But still, there was a sense that the verdict was out. How could they possibly write an album that would live up to the fans’ expectations without a founding member? Dave has always taken his inspiration from some pretty dark places, but every man has his breaking point. Dave hadn’t shown us that he possessed the self-awareness toward his songwriting that he once had, and he still seemed unlikely to snap back into it. Of course, as fans, we were not completely aware that what can be considered the band’s weakest years in terms of output coincided with some major rifts in the band’s relationship with itself. Luckily, a set of new approaches had already informed the early Cavallo-led sessions for the album (which came before the 2008 tour and Roi’s death), and the band emerged from Roi’s passing determined to live up to their once-great discography.
My life has probably seen as much growth, if not nearly as much upheaval. The biggest event to shape my life has been the recording of my debut album. This project has completely changed the way I think about and listen to music, including DMB. The headphone listen, something I always admitted is important but never really did myself, is now an important part of my album listening routine, and hence I have recently been hearing aspects of my favorite bands and albums that I previously took for granted. Stand Up holds up better on headphones. The hip hop beats kinda fit the songs in a perverse way, and I’ve grown to really enjoy “You Might Die Trying” on a live stage. Ultimately, I think it pretty clearly represents an era of bad decision-making and identity crisis for the band, but with more than a few things to enjoy based on their own merits. It’s definitely not a good album; in fact, it might only sound better now that BWGK essentially fixes the SU misstep.
Here’s the bottom line: Big Whiskey is a triumph. It’s not perfect. It has strengths, weaknesses, and eccentricities. But BWGK is a remarkably rewarding listen and effectively proves wrong the naysayers who never thought the band capable of such an artistically strong follow-up to Stand Up.
Part II: Negativity and Fan Duty
But there’s a problem: I can’t help feeling guilty that the fans somehow contributed to the band’s negativity and lack of focus. I do not count myself in the camp of out-and-out naysayers; I have always been most frustrated by the band’s unrealized potential, yet hopeful for future projects. Still, it is a chilling prospect to think that my mostly-negative first essay has been floating around the AntsMarching and Nancies (may they R.I.P.) boards over the entire course of DMB making this album. I hope no one in the band’s camp got the wrong idea. In that essay, I had called out the band for not attempting to play “Blue Water,” which they ended up piecing together in the concerts leading up to the 2009 Nashville show that I attended, but which they haven’t played since. Coincidence? Probably. But it did make me wonder about the effect the fans can have on what the band does. Additionally, it seemed clear that the band was looking to the boards for cues on what cover songs to integrate into their sets, so it’s obvious that someone was paying attention.
So I worry about negativity among the fans. We like to think that the band listens to the fans, but I think few of us would like to be responsible for any comments that might add to the band’s negativity. Their interpersonal and professional problems with each other have been well documented in the last several weeks. Everything seems to be great now, and much of me wants to believe that this band will be around forever, but at this point it seems unlikely that the band will carry on for decades more. They’re kind of like your friends in high school who were dating and then almost broke up but reconciled, only to actually break up two weeks later. I am not saying a breakup is imminent; I’m just pointing out that it’s probably NOT the case that every tiny thing that was bothering Stefan about Boyd (exchange any band member for X and Y) has gone away. It could be a ticking time bomb, but we don’t know.
Clearly, not everything has been smooth sailing. Tim is back without much in the way of explanation; Batson was fired as their producer after aborted 2006/7 sessions; Butch left; Boyd’s parts on the new album are few and far between. It’s hard to think that the band WASN’T familiar with the discussion boards’ love for Timmy and disdain for Batson or Butch, or the widespread opinion that Boyd’s playing isn’t what it should be. How much do fans’ opinions affect the band? What is our duty here?
Then again, I was watching the Piedmont DVD (which is by no means a great concert, video, or album), and I noticed that there seemed to be an inordinate amount of lines that Rashawn plays with Boyd, on the same notes, in harmony with Roi (or, as it would stand today, Jeff). I formed a theory to myself that maybe the band brought on Rashawn to “tune” Boyd through a MIDI algorithm, onstage in real time. Boyd’s playing has certainly gotten better over the past few years, so I believed it’s possible that there is live editing going on. While this is still within the realm of possibility, the Fuse documentary helped focus things a little bit. It seems to be more the case that Roi was urging the band to feature a more filled-out horn sound. It was a simple theory, but it’s an even simpler solution as to the question of Rashawn’s presence, and it teaches us that the truth is usually far less interesting than what our imaginations would lead us to.
Does the band listen to the fans? Darn tootin’. That’s one of the things that makes them so great. We should be sensitive to the band’s creative process and not be so unreasonable in our expectations. Fans need not be responsible for liking everything the band does either, though. It’s a delicate balance, and one that I’m a little more mindful of now.
Part III: The Lost Album: The Songs That Didn’t Make It
The fact that the follow-up to Stand Up was important was obviously clear to the band. Fairly soon after the album’s release, they were back, working on more music with Batson. Some of it was quite a solid step-up from Stand Up’s material, and some of it was fairly forgettable. Combining those songs with several others that the group has not committed to studio plastic gives us a “lost album” of sorts, including at the very least the following songs:
“A Dream So Real”
“Shotgun”
“Eh Hee”
“Falling Off the Roof”
“I Won’t Give It Away”
“Sister”
“Break Free”
“Round and Round”
“Can’t Stop”
“Butterfly”
“The Idea of You”
“Kill the King”
“The Fly”
If the band had taken the best of those songs and combined them with other discarded gems (“JTR,” “Sweet Up and Down,” etc.), I think they could have come up with a very good album. But they didn’t, for whatever reason.
I felt a strange sense of disappointment when I saw that BWGK was not going to feature any of the material written and performed since Stand Up’s release. This is a tricky feeling to rationalize. How could I be disappointed about MORE material, especially when I know how hard they’d been working on the new disc, meaning that the material they’ve chosen is probably of high quality? Well, Everyday ditched 1999-2000’s LWS songs, and Stand Up ditched the new 2004 songs, except for “Hello Again.” However, I never thought the 2004 songs were that great. The 2006-7 songs had flashes of brilliance though. I particularly love “Break Free,” “The Idea of You,” “Shotgun,” and “A Dream So Real.”
Does it hurt the new album that none of these songs are featured? Not really.
It’s harder for us all to be critics, now that we’re all a little more familiar with the band’s inner workings and rough patches. There could have been any number of reasons certain songs don’t end up working in certain projects, and it’s kind of unfair of us as fans to speculate without knowing all the facts. And I have live versions (some officially-released, some taper pulls) of all of these, so I can listen to the songs whenever I want, even assembling a live version of the “lost album” myself. Still, I would be thrilled to see studio versions of some of these songs pop up soon.
It’s also clearer to me that the band thinks of each different tour as a show, with certain people on stage every night, playing certain cover songs and certain DMB tracks in particular ways. Maybe it’s important that songs like “The Idea of You” exist and then float away into DMB shows of the past. Or maybe we’ll get it on an EP in the fall. You know they must’ve recorded it, or at least considered it. We heard “Sugar Will” on the Fuse special, apparently recorded several weeks after the album was done. It seems likely that they’re planning another release of some sort. All 19 compositions that have been released so far fit nicely on one standard-length CD, so a “deluxe edition” reissue with an additional EP before Christmas is a definite possibility.
But the reason I may have wanted those songs on there was that they represented something to me, as someone who was rooting for the band during that time. Stand Up was so bad that everything written since its release has had a special significance to me. I placed particular importance on those songs, because I could see the band’s hard work in progress. “Cornbread” and “#27” were two of my least favorite of that group, and ironically those are the two that had the most staying power in the live set. But the material gathered between 2006 and 2008 seems like a lost album to me, one that could’ve probably been as good as Big Whiskey. But I doubt that it would have been BETTER, unlike a finished LWS or 2004-songs album would have likely been in comparison to what we ended up getting instead. I guess it was important for the band to separate themselves from the last few years, which I applaud. I just hope some of these good songs don’t fall through the cracks forever.
Part IV: Seeing Through the Hype
The band has had a rough go at it over the last 10 years. They’ve lost their focus more than a few times and fallen prey to the strong allure of status-quo record making. Just as they regained their footing, they lost a founding member and had to deal with the suffering that loss brings. Ultimately, they appear to have come out triumphant. That being said, it seems inappropriate to decide that the band has rectified and rethought all the bad decisions they made during an unfocused period. In other words, I think it’s also important to assess the album in terms of the band’s habits over the past several years, approaching the record with a healthy amount of skepticism and educated analysis. If we look at Big Whiskey that way, it’s easy to see the DMB hype machine working its magic.
I love Big Whiskey and what it represents in all its context. But this is an album, and they want to drive record sales and bolster goodwill among the fan base. Therefore, I think the move to have Tim come back was a move to please the fans and try to recapture something from the first few albums, and I think the hiring of Cavallo was a relatively safe choice. Having Tim featured along with the band on magazine covers strokes the fans a little bit, and maybe adds some street cred from jamband fans who liked Tim’s playing with Trey in the Dave Matthews & Friends collective. (But as far as I’m concerned, Timmy is the man and can be considered a member of DMB as much or as little as he wants. Also, I think we can all agree that Dave & Tim acoustic versions of these songs are going to be pretty great.)
Butch’s departure is shrouded in mystery, and rumors abound, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Butch was a casualty in the band’s attempt to distance themselves from their work over the last decade. Which is kinda too bad. I always liked Butch and what he represented: the DMB everyman. He wasn’t an official member of the band, but he was vitally important onstage, yet very unassuming. His solos might have gone on too long, but the rest of the band is just as culpable in that policy mistake. I always liked his style of playing, and I think the band and fans will miss it eventually. Then again, I can’t really argue with how great the current iteration of the band sounds. If keeping Butch out of the picture is all it takes for DMB to make a good record, then keep him out, by all means. But overall something feels wrong about the Butch departure.
The album’s great, so maybe we don’t need to be as worried about what the hype machine says, but I guess my biggest worries are for the band personally. We can tell a lot about what they say, what they don’t say, and how they say it when they’re promoting an album. I will also point out that the band’s most recent account of what we might call their “dark years” (ca. 2000-2007) doesn’t completely add up. The band has always been putting on a good face and saying things to the camera to sell the new record. While to him, Everyday was once so inspiring and Stand Up a rhythmic juggernaut, Dave now admits that those were not the band “at its best.” It is interesting to see the band admitting that they’ve had personal issues, on Scenes from Big Whiskey, the Fuse doc, etc. It’s equally interesting to see them disown Stand Up and Everyday. I think Dave said that they should have been billed as “Dave Matthews Band featuring…” albums. I can’t help but be reminded how positive the band was about those two when they came out. The whole thing seems pretty calculated now – a piece of marketing directed at the fans who have been critical of the band for the last several album release cycles.
Just as the album cannot be divorced from its context within the DMB timeline, it cannot be separated from its status as a constructed, commercial entity. However, I will admit that this album’s marketing campaign appears to be much more sincere, signaling either the band’s successful marketing drive toward me, who’s been caught hook, line, & sinker, or a genuine shift in the band’s attitude. I hope it’s the latter.
Part V: Comparison and Definition
The new album was developed and released at a crucial point in the band’s existence. Without a great new record, the music industry and the fans might have written the band off once and for all, the band crumbling under the weight of unmet expectations. The context surrounding the record is complicated but well known by the fans. It is impossible to divorce this album from its context in DMB history and as part of the band’s discography. The album is in dialogue with everything else the band has done, so it therefore makes sense to look at the album in comparison with what has come before. With that in mind, some aspects of the new album are problematic, some are true to the band’s roots, and some push the band’s boundaries in new directions.
For better or worse, a band has a sort of contract with its fans, and DMB has a particularly unfair one at that. By virtue of even existing, the band expects a certain reaction from its followers. To generalize, I have seen an expectation from fans that the band should stick to the sounds of the 1990s DMB, while still innovating in the studio. That is virtually impossible to do without every song sounding like something they’ve done before. But few other artists see such expectations from their fans. No one expected the Street Legal Bob Dylan to sound like Freewheelin’. 15 years is a long recording career (hundreds of artists can start from nothing, rise to the top, and fall away in a fraction of that time), and it’s an especially long time to be living up to the promise set in the first four of those years, but that’s the reality for DMB.
So the fanbase wants the band to stay truthful to a core DMB sound while innovating with (and succeeding at) new sounds. Unreasonable as those expectations are, does BWGK please those two criteria? Yes and no.
I started thinking about what defines the DMB sound. If one were to ask someone on the street who was familiar with the band (and articulate and concise) but not a fan, it would probably be, “acoustic rock band with sax and violin and a mix of jazz, folk, rock, and world music.” That description sums up UTTAD and Crash (and even BTCS) pretty well but has a difficult time with everything since, including BWGK. In fact, I played three tracks from Big Whiskey (“Time Bomb,” “Seven,” and “Squirm”) for my friend who is not a DMB fan, and then I asked him whether he would have expected any of those songs to be by Dave Matthews Band. He thought for a second, and then answered simply, “No.”
I think a lot about hypothetical situations; for instance, I think about time travel and alternate realities and timelines, or what would happen if one thing had been different in the past. I guess it’s a “Dancing Nancies” intro thing. But here’s what I was thinking: if I could go back in time and give the new album to myself 15 years ago, and Big Whiskey were the first DMB album I’d ever heard, I would be falling in love with a very different band musically than the one on UTTAD. I might not have fallen in love with the band at all – who knows? (I probably would have had a problem with “Time Bomb”’s F-bomb.) There were several definitive characteristics of the band on the first record that don’t appear on the new disc: lots of soprano sax and violin, no electric guitar or keyboard, lengthy songs, etc. This doesn’t have to be problematic, but to many it might be, only because it attempts to redefine what Dave Matthews Band is.
BWGK isn’t a disappointment. Far from it. It’s one of the most thrilling records I’ve heard in a long time. But I will say this (and I will attempt to take my own history with the band out of it and be completely objective, which is difficult): I think we can say with confidence that no other band in 1994-5 could have come out with “Ants Marching,” “What Would You Say,” or “Satellite.” Those are the songs that defined DMB. Nothing on the new record reaches that status or even gets that opportunity. Lots of bands could have recorded many of these Big Whiskey songs, and there are probably a handful of bands that could have recorded this exact album or something close to it. Does that make it bad? No. I think it indicates that DMB have consciously pushed toward a more mainstream sound over the last 15 years, and that shift has culminated in a masterful, if not completely unique, record.
What can be said about the lack of violin and sax? Well, less saxophone makes sense: even though they have Coffin at their disposal, the band proper is currently saxless. Less violin? I think Boyd’s in the mix more than we think. Although fans seem to love the album, there is some trepidation here that certain signature sounds were muscled out. Is Cavallo a “rock” producer? Yes. So was Lillywhite, though, so I don’t think anyone can blame Rob for too much guitar and not enough violin and sax (by the way, I was thrilled to see Lillywhite on the Fuse doc, and it’s too bad that he was a casualty of the band’s identity crisis. I think he was great for the band, and I hope he can work with them again someday). Lillywhite’s shadow still casts a huge shadow on everything that’s come after, though, and it’s hard not to think of Cavallo’s heavy use of strings and keyboards as a bit of an orchestration cop-out and something that Lillywhite would have been able to accomplish using only guitars, sax, violin, and bass. If there’s a reason why the first three albums defined DMB, Lillywhite definitely was a key piece to the puzzle. But all speculation aside, for whatever reasons, this is the record that the band wanted to make now.
The things that made each of the band’s albums unique post-UTTAD are included here: Crash’s electric guitar atmospherics and extra percussion from Carter, BTCS’s expansive sense of composition and arrangement, Everyday’s muscular edge and tight song structures, and Stand Up’s processed beats (used here in small moderation). The first three RCA discs had a certain personality, and BTCS can be seen as the culmination of a trilogy of sorts. Is BWGK the last volume in the Everyday/SU trilogy? No – musically and production-wise it’s closer to 2002’s LWS re-do Busted Stuff and Dave’s 2003 solo album Some Devil.
The fact that the band has been playing a few Some Devil songs in concert shows that they are more eager to mix in that repertoire, which I feel is a good move. In fact, much of this album feels like a Dave solo album, which makes me think that DMB modeled a bit of Big Whiskey after Some Devil’s relatively successful approaches to songwriting and production.
Part VI: Big Whiskey’s “Dirty Work”
BWGK benefits from the pioneering of past DMB projects. Crash and Everyday were once objectionable to fans for their embrace of electric instruments (if you don’t believe people didn’t like Crash, try to find some archived Internet discussions from 1996), Before These Crowded Streets for perhaps a too-extensive reliance on guest musicians, Busted Stuff for its apathetic production, Some Devil because of its string-heavy sound and the fact that Dave didn’t want to release it with DMB, and Stand Up for the hip-hop beats and a rougher vocal style from Dave. Each album has received its share of criticism at time of release, and each has aged in different ways.
But the fact of the matter is that every departure from the band’s UTTAD sound requires a certain amount of struggle (“dirty work”) to be accepted by the fan base. By the time a new project comes around, people usually have simmered down about the last album and focused on whether or not the songs are good and how they’re all coming across live.
Except for the lack of violin and sax that it results in, the heavy use of electric guitar seems almost quaint now, a far cry from the uproar that greeted Everyday and, believe-it-or-not, Crash, although all of that album’s electric comes from Timmy, who now always seems to get a free pass for his contributions to the band’s sound. In making the electric a welcome and not-so-controversial possibility in DMB’s sonic palette, Crash and Everyday do Big Whiskey’s dirty work.
And guest musicians are now more the norm than the exception: they have become a regular part of the band’s sound each tour, from Butch and the Lovely Ladies in 2001 to Jeff and Timmy in the back half of 2008. The only other big-named guest on the record, Danny Barnes, does a great, understated job on a few tracks (I’ve loved his playing since I stumbled upon his old band, the Bad Livers, in the late 1990s). A few other contributions to the sound come in the form of keyboard riffs, a guitar part here and there, and some tasteful strings conducted by Beck’s dad David Campbell (hey!). Guests have become a big part of the DMB tradition and sound, so it makes sense that they’d rely on some of their friends and a few hired guns for the new record. BTCS and the band’s live show do Big Whiskey’s dirty work.
As for the strings, besides snubbing Boyd a little bit, I think they’re a welcome addition. “Squirm” is a powerhouse, and it would not have the same sprawling, Zeppelinesque mysticism without some in-your-face string acrobatics and subtle orchestral flourishes. “Too High” and the rest of Some Devil do Big Whiskey’s dirty work.
Besides, the dry, tossed-off production of Busted Stuff is nowhere to be found. Not coincidentally, BS is the only album that DMB has recorded with no guests. It’s probably DMB’s worst sounding album, and BWGK sounds much better in contrast. Busted Stuff does Big Whiskey’s dirty work.
[A note about production: Overall, Cavallo’s production is warm yet polished. “Polish” is a funny word because it is so ambiguous. Certain aspects of the album’s sound are very rough – for instance, the fades between songs are sloppy mastering, but I’m sure that those sorts of things were calculated too. The album is polished, but not overly so. It’s the right kind of polished. Never before has the band been so confidently loose on record, which I think is a great thing.]
But most of all, BWGK benefits from Stand Up. On SU there is a notably large string presence, and it mostly sounds pretty good, to Batson’s credit. The glossier production on Stand Up paves the way for a smoother sound, and I think BWGK uses that possibility in interesting ways. Stand Up, despite having some subpar vocal performances, has some pretty intricate vocal arrangements, an idea refined and used in moderation on the new record. But ultimately, Stand Up isn’t written very well, so BWGK seems much better in contrast. Stand Up does MORE than its share of Big Whiskey’s dirty work.
So is there anything shocking or objectionable about BWGK, other than the fact that it’s pretty good and feels loose? Mostly no. Although it doesn’t really sound like any other project the band has done, it’s a different type of album for them, because it actually mines fairly equally from the ideas first submitted for approval on projects spanning the band’s history.
Part VII: Big Whiskey, Song-by-Song
An album rises and falls mostly on the strength of its songs, so I offer a song-by-song critique.
“Grux”/“#35”
It’s important that Roi starts and ends the record, and I applaud them for that, but “Grux” and “#35” are unremarkable musically. I think it was crucial to the band to have Roi on here as much as possible, but the inclusion of these two indicates to me that he’s not on a lot of the other tracks. We know Roi’s on “Why I Am” and “Lying in the Hands of God,” but do we know about any of the others? “Grux” works because it effectively captures the sound of the band noodling onstage before the opening blast of “DDTW” or the hypnotic first notes of “Seek Up.” “#35” is disappointing considering the hidden tracks of the past: “#34,” “Last Stop (Reprise),” “Seek Up (Reprise).” At best, we can say that “#35” is an interesting Reichian studio experiment, since it’s clearly one sax phrase looped over and over again. Also, a hidden track? Really? What year is this? I didn’t know we were still doing this in 2009. There’s gonna be less surprise to it, because 95% of the times “You and Me” will get played will be on a computer or iPod with a scrolling time meter. Lame. I already separated it into two separate tracks with Audacity.
But it’s pointless to review some minor bookends, when the meat of the album is the 12 songs.
“Shake Me Like a Monkey”
“Shake Me Like a Monkey” leaked a few weeks ago, so I heard this before most of the rest of the record. In fact, the first 20 seconds or so were on a fly-on-the-wall studio clip a few months back. The main riff’s similarity to Cameo’s “Word Up” is notable, but it’s just a funk beat with an ascending natural minor bassline from a flat-six root up to a tonic. Pretty common. Definitely not worth calling the plagiarism police. The multi-tracked vocals sound sly and disaffected, almost robotic, in the best possible way. Admittedly, upon first listen, I was disappointed by Dave’s lyrics and melody, which seemed tossed-off and arbitrary to the background music, but the song has definitely grown on me.
The hard-edged sound fits the song. It is similar, thematically and sonically, to “I Did It” and “Hunger for the Great Light,” both electric funk-rock songs that celebrated the power of love. And if you think about it, going farther back, “What Would You Say” and “Too Much” mine similar sonic territory, but without Huey Lewis’s main message.
Is that a John Mayer reference I hear in the lyrics? The similarity might be coincidental, but its existence is notable. Dave is not a disaffected hipster Gen Y-er “waiting on the world to change”; Dave is essentially of a different era: a proactive hippy, an eternal optimist, “gonna change the world for you.”
“Funny the Way It Is”
It is interesting to look back at past first singles. “Too Much” was outstanding but a bit of a departure sonically in its harder-edged approach, “Don’t Drink the Water” has never been one of my favorites when judged as a single (although I think it’s great on BTCS and in a live set), “I Did It” was disappointing in spades, and “Where Are You Going?,” “Gravedigger,” and “American Baby” were solid but unremarkable. I think “Funny the Way It Is” fits in with those last three – a pretty catchy song with a few decent lines of lyrics, but nothing at all profound.
Some people have attacked this song lyric-wise. Dave has certain strains in his songwriting, and FTWII comes perilously close to falling in the heavy-handed progressive cause/awareness/social justice strain. However, I think it succeeds because it stops short of passing judgment or urging action, making for some interesting socio-ethical thought experiments. In this way, it reminds me more of “Typical Situation” than “Everybody Wake Up.” Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” didn’t offer any answers either, just food for thought (And yes, I know that Dave Matthews is not Bob Dylan ☺).
“Lying in the Hands of God”
“Lying in the Hands of God” is an early high point. It’s a beautiful song that uses much of Dave’s old writing as its vocabulary – love, death, the uncertainty of God and fate, the subjective nature of reality and experience, and possible drug references. The fact that it’s Leroi playing through the track adds to its standing as one of my favorites. How are the live versions? I haven’t listened yet, and I’m curious. The vocal delivery is haunting and occasionally ridiculous. The repeat of “mother” makes me laugh out loud every time. This is a great cut.
“Why I Am”
“Why I Am” is another highlight. It’s hard not to think of this song as religious, because “I Am” is in the title. I know this one also has a heavy Roi presence through it, both in the actual track and in Dave’s lyric writing, but the GrooGrux King of the lyrics can be seen as a Messiah/Christ figure. Alternately, like “Save Me,” the singer could be a sort of warped Christ figure himself, spouting out ambivalent Gnostic ramblings. Dave’s personal philosophical/humanist version of Christianity has always been fascinating to me, and I feel like this is the type of song on which college theology papers could be written. By the way, the chord progression at 3:28 is a little bit different than the “you and me of the world” part, a little closer to the chorus of “Lying in the Hands of God” – is this a reference to that other song and Roi? Maybe. Just throwing that out there.
“Dive In”
“Dive In” is really the first and only song on the record that I dislike. However, I will say that starting the song with an account of seeing a homeless man is an interesting way of drawing a parallel between our duty to our fellow human and our duty to the planet. But beyond that, I don’t think this song really offers much.
I’m a liberal individual. I think we need to take care of the world and take care of each other. I voted for Obama, and I even voted for Kerry. But I would like to state for the record that Dave’s progressive cause songs have consistently been some of my least favorite. They’re pretty heavy-handed and obvious, and rarely are they powerful enough to really change anyone’s mind. I appreciate his attempts to change the world through music, but I don’t think this is the way to do it effectively. And I love polar bears and fear for the future of the planet, but if I have to hear one more story about how they have to swim home because of the melting polar ice, I’m gonna scream. I’ll go up there and shoot them myself. The whole thing comes off as pretty self-righteous on Dave’s part. The music’s pretty forgettable too. If this song were gone, the disc would very much benefit.
“Spaceman”
But the album gets right back on track with “Spaceman.” I think this song’s a real treat. It’s almost three different songs, all pretty eccentric. There’s the spare yet multilayered funk groove of the verses, the electric guitar riff on the pre-chorus, and the banjo-led chorus. All three of these sections could have been the basis for separate songs, but somehow they make sense together, and I appreciate it. I can’t make much sense of the lyrics, past the “power of love” motif, but it doesn’t bother me.
“Squirm”
“Squirm” is the logical successor to “Minarets,” “The Last Stop,” “What You Are,” and in a different way, “Too High.” I think the song is pretty powerful, and I’ve definitely enjoyed it, but it does come off as a bit derivative of Led Zeppelin. Dave’s Middle Eastern strain always seemed to be more than a little bit influenced by Led Zeppelin, so maybe a clear homage is appropriate. I don’t really have a problem with it. It rocks pretty hard. “I’m not perfect; I’m flesh and bones, and I’m exactly what you need” is a standout line to me. It seems so out-of-place, but it makes me laugh in a very good way.
“Mr. Okra” appears to be the name of the produce vendor that cameos at the end of “Squirm,” and I think it’s a nice way to get into the New Orleans mood for “Alligator Pie.” By the way, does anyone know the entirety of what he’s saying? At one point, it sounds like he says, “We have busted a life muskrat.” Seriously.
“Alligator Pie”
It’s a Katrina song, but it would be entirely possible to enjoy “Alligator Pie” without ever realizing that. “Alligator Pie” is the first DMB song I’ve ever immediately imagined as a good song for someone to cover. If this one hits in the mainstream at all, I could see some of those Nashville honky tonk bands tackling this one. As a Southern stomp, this one sort of completes a trilogy with “Louisiana Bayou” and “Cornbread,” and I think this is the strongest of the three. I heard Dave talk about his daughter Stella saying “Daddy, where are you gonna put me in a song?,” and this track is probably full of family references, but “Daddy” could just as easily come from a flirty girlfriend as from a jealous daughter-sister (I’ve lived in the south for 2½ years now, so you’d think I’d know whether girlfriends ever call their lovers “Daddy,” but I don’t. Could be possible.). It does seem weird that Stella was jealous of Grace for being in so many songs, and this was Dave’s attempt to rectify that, but that he still puts Grace in there at a key moment. It’s a great line, but I think it’s odd. Also, I was originally thinking that Dave’s daughters were Grace and Anne, and that “Annie said, ‘Daddy when you gonna put me in a song?’” would have been a better line, but I guess that can’t really be changed! This one hits, and I guess having such a small complaint as changing “Stella” to “Annie” means that I like the song.
“Seven”
“Seven” works because of its time signature changes and the catchy chorus. We all know that Dave had a sly R&B crooner inside of him, so it’s good to see that come out on record. Counting this beat is a monster. The whole track is not in seven – significant parts are in 4 and 5. I still can’t tell whether the band’s counting in eighth notes or quarters. This one might just serve up challenges to the music nerd in me for years to come.
“Time Bomb”
I think “Time Bomb” is a lyrical tour-de-force, although I wish he would have repeated a fourth time at the end, so we wouldn’t have had to end the song with the “Jesus” line. But again, that is a minor qualm, and this song is pretty masterful.
If BWGK accomplishes anything new to DMB’s arsenal of identities and characteristics, it’s in canonizing the band’s occasional heavy-music tendencies on record, with “Time Bomb” and “Squirm.” Their previous heaviest track is probably “Halloween,” and that one comes off as almost cartoonish in comparison to these two new monsters. In fact, “Halloween” works on BTCS (however, arguably its weakest track), but it would have been awkward on this disc.
The album’s last two tracks are a huge shift in gear.
“Baby Blue”
On the surface, “Baby Blue” appears to be a simple goodbye/love song, but I think it accomplishes something much more profound and special, something that made me sob when I first realized it. Dave likes to take feelings he’s having about his loved ones and make them about romantic interests, like he did with “Grace Is Gone,” which was inspired by the loss of his father-in-law. It’s not exactly profound that this song might be about Leroi; I think that’s rather intentional. But by using more romantic imagery to describe letting go of Roi, the song ties together several of Dave’s songwriting strains into one piece: death and loss of loved ones, love of his wife and daughters, love of his friends, spirituality and “seize-the-day” resignation. As I thought of this, I realized what an amazing tribute this is to their fallen friend.
“Baby Blue”’s rough vocal at first had me worried this one was gonna be like some of the watery work-in-progress ballads of Stand Up, but luckily I was quickly disavowed of that notion. The song also seems to quote a bit of “Sister”’s riff, but I think that might be a bit of a coincidence, or at least a case of Dave “borrowing” his own material, just as “Cigarette Lit” borrows from “Hold Me Down,” “Captain,” and “Little Thing,” how “Dreams of Our Fathers” also quotes “Little Thing,” how “Pantala Naga Pampa” was a reworked “What Will Become of Me,” and several other examples. Can both “Baby Blue” and “Sister” coexist? I bet we’ll see both popping up on setlists through the tour.
“You & Me”
“You & Me” is the logical continuation of “Baby Blue.” It reminds me of the Stand Up album, and it wouldn’t have stood out as particularly bad or good on that record, but I really think it works here. Domestic life suits Dave, and although this is probably the main culprit for Jim DeRogatis calling Dave a “bonehead” in his recent review, I can’t help but smile and feel happy for Dave. He has created a life (or at the very least, a songwriting persona) where he believes that love is the ultimate answer. Afterlife, higher power, true religion, politics and law – none of these matter as much as the love that is here now, that we can offer our friends, lovers, family, and fellow human beings. To Dave, that might just be the closest way to define heaven. A simple love song to his wife might be much more significant in Dave’s world than in that of DeRogatis.
“Cornbread”
“Cornbread,” only available on the European edition, isn’t really missed from the album. The banjo work is great, and I’ve really grown to like this song in a live setting. What is this song about? To me, it seems to describe a gay relationship and a defense of such a union: “You know you are as Heaven intended you.” Anyone else get a “gay vibe” from this song? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I also like the horn breakdown that almost quotes Copland’s “Hoedown,” a piece that Coffin plays with the Flecktones. I think they quoted it more in full in Nashville at the show, but who knows. I was pretty messed up.
The album release/special-edition system is a bit frustrating, although not as much as the Warehouse members-only aspects of the last several releases. As a child of the 1980s and 1990s, special-edition/international-only B-sides are a bit of a sore spot, requiring me to buy several import singles for songs that would end up coming out on the 2008 Odelay reissue anyway. But here it makes a certain amount of sense. “Cornbread” is not a fan favorite in particular, and I think the studio recording is pretty solid, but the U.S. album doesn’t miss it. The four songs on the Little Red Bird E.P. are solid but not essential. Am I mad that the band is asking me to pay that much more to have a complete set of studio recordings? A little, but the band knows that everyone’s going to download them anyway, and I bet they’re kinda okay with it. So why were “Cornbread” and “Write a Song” included on the European edition? Americana music is surprisingly huge in Europe right now, so the inclusion of another track with banjo adds a whole new appeal to the record. “Write a Song”? Maybe the band liked it but were urged to hold a “getting high” song from the shelves of the relatively puritanical U.S. Could be the case.
Of the 19 different compositions involved in this release, (13 album tracks plus “#35,” “Cornbread,” “#27,” “Beach Ball,” “Little Red Bird,” and “Write a Song”) Dave has writing credit on all 19, Carter on 15, Stefan on 12, Leroi on 10, Boyd on 9, Timmy on 5, and Rashawn and Batson with one apiece. This is notable for a number of reasons. Tim and Rashawn with writing credit? Sure, I’ll take it. Also, other than on Stand Up, this might be the most collaborative writing effort the band’s ever accomplished. I don’t have old liner notes with me, and I could check the almanac to be certain, but I don’t think there have been this many tracks credited to more than just Dave, other than the collectively-written crapfest of Stand Up, where all writing credit was shared among the band and Batson. Cavallo doesn’t take any writing credit, which probably doesn’t mean as much as it seems. Every producer is different, and what one producer might consider “songwriting” or “co-composing,” another might consider “editing,” or on a broader scale “producing.” It’s entirely possible that Cavallo had just as much of a hand in the construction of these songs as Batson, Ballard, and Harris. What might actually be most notable is that Lillywhite never got any writing credit. Anyway, it’s good to see the band taking an active role in songwriting, something that they appear to really be enjoying in the studio videos.
Part VIII: Homecoming
In the fall of 1997, I noticed on an early fansite that the band was soon to release its first full live album, Live at Red Rocks. I remember the fact that I stumbled onto that site feeling almost like a fluke, as in the previous weeks I had been taken up with ska and punk. DMB had temporarily fallen out of my top bands, and once I realized this, I felt horrible. It had only been for maybe a month or so, but that was the longest I had gone without listening to DMB since I had gotten UTTAD for my birthday in the summer of 1995. I felt like I was betraying some key part of me, and once I bought the live album, I was back in DMB heaven. It felt like a homecoming.
In the years since, DMB has come and gone from my most-played tracklist several times, often coinciding with a new album release or other major event. I have seen the band live only a handful of times, but each time was significant in its own distinct ways, shaped by (and shaping) my place in life at the time. Recently, I attended the April 25th, 2009, Nashville show. I went with my friend Jason, who is a fellow aspiring music industrian who has seen the band many more times than I. We spent all afternoon drinking beer and nerding out over DMB trivia and the best live performances. Much of the joy was in the anticipation and tapping into the fanbase’s huge pool of shared information. Heretical as it may seem, that day, DMB was a religion, complete with its own mythology, sacred texts, codes for living, and high holy days.
The concert itself was a grand occasion. We were down on the field, probably about 40 feet from the stage. It was three hours of euphoria. Now, Jason and I both got a little bit too drunk, so the last bit of the concert, including my most-desired performance, “Blue Water,” was a less-than-perfect experience, but still I felt the same sense of homecoming that DMB has offered me thousands of times over the last 15 years. I realized during the concert that things can change and move forward, and things can get really good or really bad, but DMB will always be a presence in my life. I can be very critical of the band at times, but a life without Dave Matthews Band is impossible to fathom.
In some ways, DMB gives me whatever I need at the moment. UTTAD got me interested in percussion, harmonica, guitar, and songwriting. BTCS got me interested in expanding musical boundaries. The “dark years” gave me the opportunity to grow and assess the band’s musical elements objectively, which has been an invaluable learning experience. The Nashville show provided me with a much-needed sense of homecoming, and in the fact that I got too drunk, an admonishment that I’m not as smart as I think I am. What Big Whiskey provides me is probably yet to be determined, but I know it will not offer me the end.
The fact that I am a DMB fan has shaped (and will continue to shape) my life and has made me who I am on the same level as where I grew up, where I went to college, the relationships and friendships that I’ve had, etc. Even after the band calls it quits, I could probably keep writing an essay a year for the rest of my life on what DMB means to me in my own personal experience. My fan tendencies have matured. Eighteen months ago, I wrote about how I had bought every volume of Live Trax out of obligation. I have since stopped such foolishness, and I no longer feel obliged in the same way. The band does not wholly exist in some governing universe, shaping our lives (and our bank accounts) as they see fit. Rather, just as DMB molds our life experience, our lives mold our DMB experience in return. As things change and stay the same, to me, the story of Dave Matthews Band is actually the story of my life, just as it’s the story of the band’s members and all of its fans’ experiences. DMB will continue to help me write that story, and hopefully I will continue to help the band write theirs, for years to come.
June 13, 2009
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