Lucid Culture

They’ve been sort of the opening act du jour on the

country circuit, opening for Merle and Willie Nelson

and Jerry Lee, et al.. If this is an attempt to get some

notice from the retro country crowd, it ought to work.

Hell, this ought to get them on the Grand Old Opry, if

they don’t mind songs about cocaine at the Ryman

Auditorium

 

The Jack Grace Band’s last album I Like It Wrong put

in some serious overtime on some of the better

jukeboxes across the counry. In fact, you could say

that it was the party album of the summer of 2004,

Suffused in booze and tested live on crowds of drunks

in dives all over town, those songs were every smart

party animal’s alternative to Jimmy Buffett. It may

therefore come as some surprise  that the new album by

the Jack Grace Band is an attempt to - gasp - make a

serious record. I say record because the cd is divided

into a distinct side 1 and side 2. A concept album, no

less, complete with little instrumental fragments

separating the songs, and something of a central,

unifying theme. The most surprising thing about it is

that it actually works. Tight, focused, thoughtfully

conceived, in other words, everything Grace’s previous

work was NOT. Which ironically was always his saving

grace - the band may have been a little loose, the

whiskey may have run rivers but you always knew that

if you went to see these guys live you would have a

good time. While it doesn’t look like anybody left the

bar for very long to make this album, it’s a hundred

eighty degrees from what you might expect after

hearing the last one. Is it possible that Grace has

actually matured?

 

The Martini Cowboy is packed with haunting, gorgeously

old–fashioned, 1960s style country songs with tasteful

electric guitar, soaring pedal steel, piano and a

rhythm section that swings like the dickens. You can

dance to this stuff more than you can Grace’s older

stuff. Because ultimately that’s why honkytonks exist:

where else can you squeeze your cheatin’ lover against

the jukebox and sway to the strains of Merle Haggard?

Who happens to be exactly who the first song, the

album’s title track, evokes. Straight up. When he’s on

top of his game Jack Grace’s songs sound like country

classics from 40 or 50 years ago. The cd’s second song

Broken Man continues in a purist vein, driven by Jon

Dryden’s beautiful, incisively minimal honkytonk piano

“I’m not gonna go out there tonight,” swears the

Martini Cowboy. He’s been burned too many times. Which

leads perfectly into the next song, Cry, a sexy bossa

beat and groovalicious bass player Daria Grace’s

bop-bop backing vocals only momentarily distracting

from its eerie minor-key drive and bitter lyrics. When

after a surprisingly jaunty, jazzy guitar solo the

thing stumbles out of its groove and literally falls

apart, the effect is nothing short of heartbreaking.

 

The album’s next track Trying to Get Away from Nothing

at All zooms in on our protagonist trying to pull

himself away from the brink. It’s a showcase for

Grace’s voice, a big, Johnny Cash style baritone that

can handle the over-the-top whiskey-drinking anthems

and the dark, disturbing ballads with equal aplomb.

After that song, we get Sugarbear, another  minor-key

Waits-esque number with ambient steel guitar, and

Rotary Phone, arguably the album’s best song , a

haunting, skeletal minor-key blues: “Let me tell a

story about the way it used to be/With a rotary phone

don’t leave a message for me/You’re gonna be an old

man too…”

 

The last song of the “A side”, What I Drink and Who I

Meet at the Track (Is My Business) is completely

self-explanatory - it’s one of those songs that

someone should have written long ago, and that it took

this long before someone did is a mystery. It’s a good

thing that it was this guy who wrote it and not Neil

Sedaka. I mean, can you imagine Neil Sedaka at the

track? No, you can’t. He’d get killed before he got to

the stands.

 

The “B side” begins with Uncle Luther. By now, the

Martini Cowboy has fallen in love. His Uncle Luther is

moving back to the shack he hasn’t lived in for ten

years and the Martini Cowboy has to get out. But

that’s not what’s bugging him. It’s that he can’t stop

thinking about her. Yeah, her, and it scares the hell

out of him. The following tune, Verge of Happiness is

so George Jones it’s not funny, in fact it’s scary,

right down to the vocals. Nobody ever did desperate,

lost love songs better than Jones, anyway, so it makes

sense. Happy in the Fall continues in the No Show

Jones vein  “I’m happy in the fall, but I don’t like

the landing,” Grace muses ruefully as the band swings

behind him. The album’s climactic track, Something to

Look Forward To - where the guy finally gets the girl

- is a bit of a letdown. Like at the end of Siddhartha

when the guy finally gets to India and all he finds

is…OMMMMM (hey, this is a serious album, I’m

trying to be serious about this).The cd concludes with a

real old-timey number called Spike Down, which sounds

like an electrified version of some obscure 19th

century folk blues.

 

There’s not a weak song on this album - which is more

impressive than you think. Hell, even Sergeant Pepper

had that stupid, phony raga tune that Harrison sang.

And Merle Haggard’s greatest hits albums all seem to

have those horrid pro-Vietnam War ditties he wrote

before he woke up and smelled the coffee. So the

Martini Cowboy’s in pretty good company. If this

doesn’t get him the big record deal (memo to the band

- WATCH YOUR BACK), Jack Grace can always fall back on

his side project Van Hayride, which plays country

covers of Van Halen songs. I’m not making this up. Not

a word.

This cd and Grace’s others are available at shows and online,

http://www.jackgrace.com

Jack Grace plays the Ear Inn, way west on Spring St. at midnight on May 14