Bobby Bare Jr. Album Reviews

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From the End of Your Leash (2004)

From the End of Your Leash (2004)

8.5

Strange Bird / Valentine / The Terrible Sunrise / Visit Me in Music City / Your Favorite Hat / Don't Follow Me (I'm Lost) / Let's Rock & Roll / Borrow Your Girl / Things I Didn't Say / Your Adorable Beast / Beguiled, Bashful, Burnt / ???

From the End of your Leash Damn, 2004's gonna be an excellent year for rock music (in the broad sense): The Drive-By Truckers just released their third awesome album of the decade (hattrick!), The Libertines proved they're worth the hype with their sophomore album, The Black Keys topped The Whites Stripes' bare-boned garage rock with Rubber Factory, Steve Earle confirms he's not only a true American hero but also a storyteller of grand stature, America has already had the opportunity to rave about Mastodon's new standard for contemporary metal (Europe starts now), Danny Cohen's released one of the most charming outsider albums (Dannyland) in a long, long while, Mclusky proved that sheepshaggers can make it to the big league, Mark Lanegan finally gets the recognition his first band should've received 15 years ago, Wilco's still going strong, there's been a downpour of excellent Americana and cosy singer-songerwriter songcraft (Ron Sexmith just keeps on going, man) and the list goes on and on. Then there's also From the End of Your Leash by Bobby Bare Jr.'s Young Criminals' Starvation League, arguably the most uplifting, silly and nonsensical album of the year (unless Coldplay hush, complete and release their next humorous gem before December 31st, that is). Trying to explain his music to a newbie is like eating peas with a fork, you may nail it down once in a while, but it's frustrating as hell. Maybe it's best to imagine a ramshackle crossover of folk, country, pop, rock, a dash of soul, and the whole thing marinated in a cowpunk-sauce. Or imagine They Might Be Giants fronted by an absurdist cowboy on a roots trip. Even though some may call him more of a parodying humorist than a sincere musician, this is more about creating a pastiche, which implies thorough knowledge of the genres tackled in question and perhaps even a dose of respect. The fact that Bare's father scored a few dozen hits in the country charts may have something to do with that. Whether he's tackling country, sparse singer-songwriter folk or power-pop, Bare Jr. knows damn well what he's doing, but it's the little details that suggest he's making fun of the whole shebang. "Let's Rock & Roll," for instance, seems like a melancholy, introvert piece of Americana, but that's when you start noticing the lyrics aren't exactly fitting:

There's vomit running down the walls
That vomit don't care where it falls
And that vomit, it came out of someone
And that vomit, should be cleaned up by someone

… which is then followed by the recurring line "Let's rock & roll, let's rock & roll." The album's crammed with insane lines like that: "Visit Me in the Music City" paints a picture of Bare's hometown Nashville (Roy Acuff cut off his umbilical and tied him off with his yoyo string) as a heaven for musicians, where there's room for cowboy boots, you don't even have to sing on key (because "producers with computers can fix it all, in Nashville, Tennessee"), and the police carry capos, in case you wanna change the key ("…in Nashville, Tennessee"). Then there's "Valentine" (the song that made me buy this album after I'd heard it on a roots-compilation), a song starting off not unlike Blur's "Coffee + TV" with one repeated riff, after which the love story starts. It's all very cute and very poppy, and then you get to the chorus and there's an joyous explosion of sounds, a soulful horn section joins in and the lyrics are "Valentine, I killed my valentine, and I laughed until I cried, for my valentine"… but it's so HAPPY you'd think he just won the lottery. It would all have been less interesting if the shock effect was the main goal, but these songs are so well-crafted and natural (whether it's the piano ballad "Don't' Follow Me (I'm Lost)," the pretty conventional country of "Beguiled, Bashful, Burnt" or the rocking hidden track with its wonderful "I don't wanna be that motherfucker, who makes you so blue you become mean") that Bare and his crew of 20 (featuring likely candidates like Will Oldham and Paul Niehaus from Lambchop, but also surprising cameos by a.o. Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk)) are ultimately not just goofing off. It doesn't really matter, since nothing can go entirely wrong with such a magnificent bunch of songs on every day themes like killin', using drugs, lovin' and heartbreakin.'