Dog (2000)

7

2/3rds Jim’s Head / Pats the Rub / Sole Spirit-Ghost / Wash Streets/Walls of Blood / Wrath You / Evergone / Goat Driver / Blue Suit Tobacco / Sweet Red Wine / Dancing Magnetic People / Clear Creek / March Stretch / Socials / Damn the Bloom

… and now for something completely different. Texas’ The Baptist Generals sound as unique as they’re hard to pin down. They’re the most rudimentary of bands, a unit that wraps itself in a no-nonsense, no-fi production. They’re too fiery to be folk, too coarse to be alt country, they’re too smart to take themselves serious and reside in a no man’s land between Will Oldham, Johnny Dowd, Vic Chesnutt and a rusty, black guy playing the blues on his back porch, while dogs chase tumbleweeds and the preacher’s sermon is still audible through the cheap wooden walls of the community church. They’re a band of barns, buckets and basics, and have a singer – C.S. Flemmons – who, despite being a guy in (I presume) his late twenties, early thirties, sounds like a grandpa singing through some sort of metal can. Even though they’re often electrifying, their sound is strictly acoustic, and like one guy once wrote about Flemmons: “He plays the acoustic guitar the way it was meant to be played: like a motherfuckin’ drum.” He beats out chords instead of picking the strings delicately, while also the drummer seems to limit himself to the bare necessities, i.e.: no cymbals on this record, baby. As you might expect after reading the above, their 4-track recorder songs are nearly impossibly raw, but that’s made up for by their passion (the spirit of a Southern brimstone preacher filtered through a punk’s approach), knack for coming up with vivid imagery (opening song is about a guy who got his head cut off on the barbed wire) and unencumbered ferocity. And when was the last time you heard a kazoo in a song? “Crosstown Traffic”?

The album’s standout song is undeniably “Pats the Rub,” which boasts this HUGE acoustic groove that pumps so goddamn hard, you’ll want to bang your head. Imagine the Violent Femmes at their peak, replace energy with possession, Gordon Gano’s whine with Flemmons’ cracked voice howling lyrics such as “You’ve come for kiiiinndneeesss, she pats the rub” and imagine it’s all delivered by a bunch of savage madmen raised on corn, the Old Testament and fear of the devil. Makes no sense? What about “Sole Spirit-Ghost” then, a merger of a Dylan who never got farther than Duluth and a Navajo Indian’s funeral chant. Sometimes, the dark and fierce identity of the band obscures the fact that some of the songs could’ve done with a bit more flesh, but as often, you’ll wonder how the hell a pawnshop guitar and a few kettles could be used to such a great advantage. Take “Wrath You,” for instance, where the insistent kettle-hammering makes the slashing drone of the guitar even more intense. It also makes you wonder how many guitars this guy thrashes on a monthly basis, the way he abuses them. The rest of the album continues in this vein: “Socials” is quite similar to “Sole Spirit-Ghost,” “Blue Suit Tobacco,” is the album’s most touching song (ah, what is it with those waltzes?), while “Goat Driver” is about the simplest song recorded, with the strumming of an idiot savant and vocals that sound as if their coming from a vacuum cleaner. “Sweet Red Wine” is so loose it threatens to collapse every second, but before you’re aware of it, you’re drenched in the Deliverance-ambiance of “Clear Creek.” The Baptist Generals are an insult if you worship at the altar of digital revolution, but if you’re in for something really, really basic that stresses the importance of expression over anything else (I always imagine this is what The Grifters and 16 Horsepower would sound like after they’d been locked up for a few years in a dark, moist basement), Dog might be what you’re after.

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No Silver / No Gold (2003)

8.5

Ay Distress / Alcohol (Turn and Fall) / 500 League Reunion March (in a Plymouth) / Going Back Song / Creeper / Preservatine / On a Wheel / Feds on the Highway / Diminished / Burning / St. Christopher's Medal / Going Back Song

The most painful, hilarious and meaningful moment of No Silver/No Gold arrives towards the end of "Ay Distress," when singer/guitarist Chris Flemmons, who's been plowing his way though the intensely mournful song, is suddenly interrupted by the sci-fi ringtone of his cell phone, which causes a fit of rage so real ("GODDAMMIT!… OH GOD!… FUCK!…," after which he starts banging on the garage wall) it makes you wonder whether it was staged). It wasn't, as Flemmons is not the kind to fuck around like that. He may be a jokester in everyday life, but he takes his music very serious. Likewise, he may not be much of a guitar player, barely capable of keeping up with boyscout campfire strumming, except that he doesn't really strum that much. He beats, mistreats, abuses the snares half of the time, such is the nature of his barely controllable passion. As on their debut album, Flemmons & Co. provide you with a blood-raw set of songs and even though there may not be an immediate stand-out like "Pats the Rub" or "2/3rds of Jim's Head," the more consistent No Silver/No Gold is actually the more worthwhile album. Instead of 4-track, they've moved on to the luxury of 8-track recording, but the fervour of the spiritual, the intensity of the exorcism (this is where Flemmons comes awfully close to the doom-laden work-outs of like-minded souls such as Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Johnny Dowd) and the balance between beautiful sincerity and callused ugliness are still very much intact.

There are several problems the average listener will encounter when trying to understand the appeal of The Baptist Generals, because they seem to revel in their obscurity (it takes quite a while to get used to the unforthcoming melodies, lyrics and even song titles of No Silver/No Gold), can sound - and Flemmons' vocals in particular - pretty grating and take the "dumb it down"-ethics to quite an extreme, with a raw, bleak, creaky sound that makes no effort whatsoever to cover up flaws, mistakes and spitefulness. When these guys rock (like on "Burning"), they do so with an amazingly brutal fierceness and lack of finesse. Likewise, when Flemmons' less introspective songs are played, you may cringe at the sound of the piercing vocals ("Alcohol") or distorted mess ("On a Wheel"). There's a lot of ugliness and there's insanity as well, as the repetitive "Creeper" ("Hey little girl, I had a swell old time tonight") is entirely deserving of its title, betraying a sick perversity that holds more of a threat than the entire catalogue of most "heavy" bands out there. An acoustic guitar (probably not even properly tuned), tambourine and vocals are all it really takes. However, despite these 'specials,' No Silver/No Gold is still very much a wholly personal, introspective record that has the gloom of Flemmons' father's death hanging over it. As argued before, it might take a while before these songs give away their secrets, but when they do, the pay-off is rewarding. Refusing to be lumped in with any style in particular, The Generals' music touches the core of what also makes Dylan's creations pure American folk music. It may be inspired by genres and predecessors, but more than anything else, it's the timeless quality of the music that will impress the most, as the father tribute "St. Christopher's Medal" (brushes, acoustic guitar, vocals), the nearly-conventional sway of "Going Back Song" and the seven minute funeral trance of "Diminished," could've been recorded at any time since the 40s. Occasionally (during "Preservatine," for instance), it makes sense The Generals are from the city that also gave us Centro-matic / South San Gabriel, or that they're sometimes compared to lo-fi pop heroes Guided by Voices, but usually, they're even more Woody Guthrie, idiosyncratic believers driven by the flame. And if they're a little rough around the edges for most listeners (some online critic actually called this the worst album of the century so far), that's the listeners' problem, as collecting stamps is still an option as well. Bands like this, and guys like Flemmons, they're the backbone of the bloated corpse of rock 'n' roll.

Read album reviews of similar or related artists: Johnny Dowd - 16 Horsepower - The Gun Club

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