CD Odyssey Disc 1192: The Smalls

Over the past week I got three new (to me) albums. They are:

• Mr. Lif “I Phantom” (2002) – Mr. Lif is a rap record my buddy Ross bought me. Pretty great stuff. I loved it on the first listen and I’m looking forward to exploring further.
• The Avett Brothers, “Four Thieves Gone” (2006) – my third (and earliest) album from indie pop/folk band the Avett Brothers. I found it just OK on my first listen but I’m looking forward to a deeper dive soon.
• St. Vincent, “MassEducation” (2018) – St. Vincent reworks her 2017 album Masseduction with an all acoustic rendition of the same songs. This album blew me away on the first listen and is likely to get a lot of play in the weeks ahead.

Look for all these albums in a review coming here soon…or not soon. That’s up to some random dice I roll. Isn’t it deliciously exciting not knowing? It is for me.

Disc 1192 is… To Each A Zone

Artist: The Smalls

Year of Release: 1992

What’s up with the Cover? Probably a picture of the band, but with a lot of treatments and filters applied. I declare this cover…OK.

How I Came To Know It: Direct from their merch table at a show at Sugar Nightclub back in 2014.

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Smalls albums. I like them all but somebody has to be last and “To Each A Zone” is it.

Ratings: 3 stars

“To Each a Zone” is a mosh-inducing hair-swinger of a record that may be the Smalls muddiest, grimiest album in all the good and bad ways that suggests.

The Smalls are a nineties grunge band, and “To Each A Zone” embraces the combination of melodic structure, punk energy and metal crunch that defines that movement.

These guys lay down an impressive groove on this record, dropping cable-thick riffs with plenty of reverb. The first few tracks make you want to just stake out a small square of dancefloor and shake all your hair into your face. For the short-haired out there that have seen this phenomenon and wondered if it is actually a good time let me assure you, it is. This is one of the great things about having long hair.

The riffs on “To Each A Zone” aren’t super creative but they are timeless and the Smalls play them at a high level. Sometimes all you need in life is a crunchy riff, well played. Other times I wanted the songs to be a bit more dynamic and varied, but this is a record that is going for an overall mood, not singular moments. Knowing that going in (which I did) helped me appreciate it on its own terms.

Bassist Corb Lund also has some great moments, particularly on “Horse Thief” where he is the star of the show and even gets a bass solo. You have to be careful because a little bass solo goes a long way, but on “Horse Thief” the Smalls keep it appropriately restrained.

I also like the vocals of Mike Caldwell despite his semi-mumbling style. His voice is back in the mix so in order to hear what he’s saying would be hard anyway, and his delivery doesn’t make it any easier. Near the end of “BB on the B” Caldwell sings “Don’t you see what I’m sayin’/It’s the same thing I’ve been sayin’ all along.” No, Mike, I don’t hear what you’re saying – you mumble too much! That’s OK, though, because the song has such a great groove I forgive it. It isn’t always about the words; sometimes it can just be about the feeling.

There are a lot of classic blues riffs mixed in and grungified, and a couple of songs (“BB on the B”, “Shuffler’s Song”) reminded me of early ZZ Top the way they took old blues riffs and gave them a hard rock edge.

The front half of the record is better than the back half, but both have a nice energy. The production is dulled out, but it is done on perfect to create a miasma of sound. “To Each a Zone” knows what sound it is trying to achieve and it gets there. While I didn’t like it as much as my other Smalls albums, I wouldn’t change it. This record’s visceral, soot-covered sound suits it well.

In fact if I had heard this album when I was 22 (when it came out) I bet I would have liked it even more, but I was too busy listening to Celtic folk back then to notice. I regret nothing, but I’m glad to have broadened my horizons since.

Best tracks: Payload, Horse Thief, Only Thing Goin’, Nero Divla (To Each a Zone)

CD Odyssey Disc 1186: The Smalls

I’m feeling a bit tired tonight after a fun long weekend of celebrating. It was a worthy cause, though – today is Sheila’s birthday. Happy birthday Sheila! I am so lucky to have you in my life.

OK, enough love and tenderness – I need to get my grunge on.

Disc 1186 is… Waste & Tragedy

Artist: The Smalls

Year of Release: 1995

What’s up with the Cover? In the days before either sitting or smiling were invented the only joy was to be found in a full and fearsome beard. It was a stark joy, for a stark time.

How I Came To Know It: I saw the Smalls on a reunion tour about four years ago and bought all four of their albums that night at the merch table.

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Smalls albums and “Waste & Tragedy” is my favourite.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

The Smalls make music which is for throwing your hair in your face and pointing your face to the floor, with muddy guitar riffs that shake the lower spine. This is the nineties most famous sound: grunge. While the Smalls would never achieve the fame of Soundgarden, Pearl Jam or Nirvana they made some smokin’ grunge in their day, and “Waste & Tragedy” is some of their best.

Like all Smalls albums, “Waste & Tragedy” is filled with in-your-face ferocity, chugging out crunchy guitar riffs that are deceptively simple. On some of their records this ferocity threatens to drown out the song structure, but “Waste & Tragedy” finds the right mix of mud and lightning.

A big part of this is the playing of Corb Lund. Lund would later switch to a solo country career but here he just plays the bass and does a fine job of it. There are a couple of riffs that are a bit too similar to one another, but they’re good riffs, so it’s hard to complain.

Singer Mike Caldwell has an almost careless delivery, but his natural talent for staying the pocket keeps him on course. In terms of what he’s singing about, I couldn’t tell you. I could only pick out a couple of lines at a time, but what I heard was cool.  This music isn’t really for the lyrics anyway (although it is worth noting that many of the fans at the live show knew ALL the words, so maybe I’m wrong about that). For me it is about the groove and the restless energy so while the album came with a lyrics booklet I didn’t bother to look any up.

Hands down the best song is “Pity the Man With the Fast Right Hand” which has both a funky Lund bass riff, and a bit more sound separation than many of the songs. This lets it breathe and develop over time. In places it sounded like early Red Hot Chili Peppers crossed with early ZZ Top, topped with a layer of rocks.

“Hollow Hello” sounds a bit too much like Kurt Cobain singing “Hello…how low” on “Smells Like Teen Spirit” but maybe that’s the point. “Uranusexplodes” lacks focus but the title is super funny, so I give it points for that. If you haven’t made some joke about the planet Uranus then you haven’t lived. I’ll never forget the day I learned that Uranus had deposits of methane gas and spent that afternoon quizzing my Grade Eight science teacher with this knowledge. While he tried to teach us far less interesting things about the planets I interjected with straight-faced queries of “Is it true Uranus has deposits of methane?” “Are these deposits ever in danger of exploding?” Comedy gold. I don’t recall if I pushed it into detention territory, but it was certainly possible. But I digress.

“Waste & Tragedy” is a good soundtrack for disaffected youth. It has a rebellious edge, filled with vitriol and bad choices. I couldn’t follow all of the lyrics in “Take It From a Ryeman” but the song had ‘sullen drunk’ written all over it. It also has a relentless lurch to the riff that makes you think of someone stumbling about after one too many of Canada’s answer to malt liquor.

“Waste & Tragedy” is the Smalls demonstrating just the right mix of power and groove, and while I couldn’t bring myself to grade it out at four stars, it came close. Lately I haven’t reached for a Smalls album often, but when I do it tends to be this one.

Best tracks: Pity the Man with the Fast Right Hand, Maybe That Prophet Scared You, (Take It From a) Ryeman, Waste & Tragedy

CD Odyssey Disc 886: The Smalls

Happy Friday! I’ve had a day full of chores, and I’m feeling a bit knackered. I also had some fun though, buying some new music for my collection (and eventual review), watching some Wimbledon and eating lunch at my favourite taco joint. Life is good.

Disc 886 is….My Dear Little Angle

Artist: The Smalls

Year of Release: 1999

What’s up with the Cover? A drawing of what I assume are cultists heralding the rise of Rlyeh. Or just a bunch of people in robes. The art is by someone named Ursus from Vancouver and the CD booklet is full of more of his art, all of which I really like. Most of the other paintings are of people in elegant clothing sitting or standing near chairs. It’s better than it sounds.

The cover also features the Smalls’ logo, which is one of the worst band logos ever, and a big reason why I own this album. Speaking of which…

How I Came To Know It: A couple years ago I went to a Smalls reunion concert (I think my friend Cat put me on to them – hearing Corb Lund was their bassist made it easier). I was chilling at the merch table and didn’t like any of the t-shirts (they all had the aforementioned logo) so on the advice of some drunken fans I bought not one, but all four Smalls albums. Speaking of which…

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Smalls albums, which is all of them. Of the four, “My Dear Little Angle” is tied for second with their self-titled album.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

The Smalls is one of those bands with a small but dedicated following, even years after they disbanded. “My Dear Little Angle” is the last record they would make, and it is a strong exit.

The Smalls are a hard rockin’ band characterized by driving guitar riffs and the haunting and tortured vocals of Mike Caldwell. All their albums have a Seattle grunge feel to them, but with a much more stripped down punk edge.

While possessing all these qualities, “My Dear Little Angle” also has the most range of any Smalls album, and even has a few country touches around the edges. This isn’t surprising since by 1999 bassist Corb Lund already had one foot firmly in that world, and was fixing to complete the transition (country artists “fix” to do things). In fact, one of the tracks on the album is “My Saddle Horse Has Died” which Lund would go on to countrify for his 2007 album “Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!”

The album starts off with furious power with the title track, a swampy song that chugs along with a brooding intensity that is hard to resist. I didn’t bother, and when it came on I found my head bobbing uncontrollably, regardless of how many people were watching. This is music that comes from the balls, and also grabs you by them.

The power keeps coming with “Murdering Me” which is more Seattle grunge sound, a little more slightly than the title track, but still tracking muddy boot prints across the inside of your skull. Caldwell’s accusatory vocals as he demands to know “why are you murdering me?” feels threatening and pleading in equal measure.

For the most part all the songs on the record are mood pieces, designed to get into your spine and make you thrash about, with lyrics that are secondary to the tone the music sets in your heart. Is it all a bit oppressive? Yes, delightfully so.

There are other influences on the album as well. “VCR” is a bluesy number that was reminiscent of the Tragically Hip and the band even does a cover of Aretha Franklin’s “Natural Woman” without a hint of irony or humour. A lot of earlier Smalls albums are pure rock experiences, and I enjoyed how “My Dear Little Angle” branched out, and yet never felt disjointed.

The album has two strong tracks near the end, with the angry and self-destructive “Tell Us About It” and a weird sixties guitar track crossed with a country song on “What I Need.” Both tracks are innovative and fun to listen to, and would have been a fine end to the record.

In fact, given all these good tracks, stylistic range and the superior production, this record should have put it solidly as the band’s second best album if it weren’t for one cardinal sin; the dead air track.

The final track on the album is “Ride On Through,” a meandering jazz track that fades out after three minutes, then has 18 minutes of dead air, followed by a stoner version of “My Saddle Horse Has Died” and then a sped up version of the title track that sounds like a 33 album played on 45. That kind of shit is fun to do at home when you’re 8 years old, but it doesn’t belong on a record.

I listened to all 18 minutes just so I could get good and angry, and boy did I get angry. Enough to knock this otherwise excellent record down to three stars. It is still worth owning, but if you haven’t made some weird promise on a blog to give it a full listen, do yourself a favour and turn it off after track 13.

Best tracks:  My Dear Little Angle, Murdering Me, PIN, Tell Us About It, What I Need To Carry On

CD Odyssey Disc 677: Guy Clark, plus a Smalls concert review

Once again a giant album necessitated my absence from blogging for a few more days than I would have liked. Given the delay, it seems only right that this entry have Extra Limited Edition Content this time – and I give you that in the form of a concert review for the Smalls. Scroll to the bottom if that interests you, and this album doesn’t.

I admit that despite all this extra content, I am distracted tonight by my two favourite sports teams in the world (the Miami Dolphins and the Boston Bruins), who are both playing their arch-nemeses at this very minute (the hated Buffalo Bills and the equally reviled Montreal Canadiens). I am taping the football game and as soon as I am done here, that’s my next stop. I’d tape both, but I’m afraid one will announce the score of the other while I’m watching.

Anyway, it’s all very nerve wracking, but I’ll try to stay focused on the music for the time it takes to fill you in about the next album on the CD Odyssey. And the Smalls, of course.

Disc 677 is…. This One’s For Him: A Tribute To Guy Clark

Artist: Various Artists

Year of Release: 2011

What’s up with the Cover? Guy Clark with his wife Susanna. This picture was unexpectedly poignant for me, because in the process of confirming Susanna’s name I found out that she had died of cancer in 2012, only a year after this compilation came out. Guy and Susanna were married for forty years. As youthful as they appear in this picture, it is a reminder that we’ve only got so many days on this earth with the people we love, so enjoy each and every one of them.

How I Came To Know It: I only came to know this album very recently. I was listening to some Emmylou Harris tracks on Youtube and her duet with John Prine of “Magnolia Wind” came up on the playlist. After a bit of sleuthing I discovered it was off of “This One’s For Him.” The album’s track list was full of many of my favourite Guy Clark songs, many sung by artists I really admired. I ordered it on Amazon along with three of Guy Clark’s originals. Yeah, there’s been a lot of Guy Clark around the house lately.

How It Stacks Up:  This is a compilation of a bunch of cover songs, so it doesn’t really stack up. As compilations go, it is pretty sweet, though.

Rating: 4 stars

When I rolled this album I was instantly reminded of Guy Clark’s song “Old Friends,” partly because a lot of these songs feel like old friends for me, and partly because I just finished giving the whole album a marathon listen (three straight times through) right before I randomly rolled it. There isn’t a better test than that if an album is going to hold up than a whole lot of listens in a short period of time. “This One’s For Him” performed very well.

“This One’s For Him” was recorded to celebrate Guy Clark’s 70^th birthday, and it is a worthy present for the occasion. Clark’s music tends to be a lot of countrified musing and moseying, expertly done in a relaxed and conversational tone that is uniquely his own. Clark rarely strays from his formula, and so it makes sense that his tribute album is pretty much entirely done by country artists in a country style.

Often on these compilations I prefer to hear a song get a very different treatment from the original, but “This One’s For Him” still works based on the fairly consistent work of the artists involved. There are a lot of artists involved, too, with thirty songs spread across two albums, and over two hours of music. Fortunately, this is one double album worthy of the excess.

Many of the singers were well known favourites for me (Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, Kris Kristofferson, Patty Griffin) and others were complete unknowns (Kevin Welch, Rodney Foster, Jack Ingram) and I enjoyed both in fairly equal measure.

For the most part if it was a Guy Clark favourite for me originally, I tended to like the cover as well, but there were some notable exceptions. Vince Gill singing “The Randall Knife” just didn’t work at all. Clark’s version is full of the hurt and heartbreak of losing a father, and Vince Gill’s sounds like a hokey campfire performance. Patty Griffin, who I usually love, doesn’t really work on “The Cape” either. Maybe I’ve just heard Guy Clark singing the hell out of that song too many times.

While Guy Clark is not known as the world’s most talented singer, he is a master of emotion and phrasing. He is also a damn fine songwriter, and it is fun to hear his songs done by other artists who can really belt it out, like Suzy Bogguss on “Instant Coffee Blues” Rodney Crowell on “That Old Time Feeling” and the Trishas singing beautiful harmonies on “She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” The often-underrated Bogguss is particularly brilliant as she sings about an awkward one-night stand, filling Clark’s lyrical mastery with a woman’s perspective.

Then again a lot of the other vocalists are just as limited as Clark himself. Fortunately they picked folks with enough folksy charm of their own to pull it off. Examples include a rusty-voiced Kris Kristofferson singing “Hemmingway’s Whiskey” (and sounding like he’s had too much of it over the years), and John Townes Van Zandt singing “Let Him Roll.”

A favourite for me is Steve Earle singing “The Last Gunfighter” as he spits out Clark’s masterful tale of an aging, once dangerous man now lost in a world that has passed him by. It is Steve Earle we’re talking about, so it is hard to go wrong even if the lyrics were sub-par, and with Clark they rarely are. “The Last Gunfighter” is some of his best work.

The album has a lot of favourites, though, and the pairing of fresh voices with great Guy Clark material is a wonderful thing. If you are interested in Guy Clark, I’d suggest starting with 1995’s “Dublin Blues” but once you have his ‘voice’ in your head, “This One’s For Him” will give you a nice overview of some of his classics, sung by the many musicians that his talent has touched over the years.

Best tracks (with artists): That Old Time Feeling – Rodney Crowell, Anyhow I Love You – Lyle Lovett, Homeless – Shawn Camp, Magdalene – Kevin Welch, Instant Coffee Blues – Suzy Bogguss, Let Him Roll – John Townes Van Zandt, Cold Dog Soup – James McMurtry, Magnolia Wind – Emmylou Harris & John Prine, The Last Gunfighter Ballad – Steve Earle, LA Freeway – Radney Foster, She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere – The Trishas,

Bonus content – Smalls Review! Saturday, November 8 at Sugar

On Saturday Sheila and I went with a bunch of our friends to a reunion concert of the Smalls. I’d only heard a few of their tracks on Youtube, so all I really knew was they played a sort of groove metal/grunge hybrid and that their bass player was Corb Lund. Having seen them live, I now know why fifteen years after they broke up they still have so many dedicated fans.

The Smalls kicked some serious ass live. They were tight, energetic and heavy as hell but still melodic. The show was at Sugar nightclub, which among other lame things 1) scans your driver’s licence through a machine before letting you in 2) requires you to check your coat (although I somehow managed to walk by when they weren’t paying attention) and 3) gives every guy a full frisk/pat down on the way in.

The show itself was like a time machine, but in an alternate universe where everyone had somehow remained cool when they got old. The audience was packed with seriously dedicated Smalls fans, many of them visibly drunk, but still able to sing along and knowing every song by rote. There were even dudes with full “Smalls” back-patches on their jean jackets, which is very cool for a lesser-known band.

The dance floor in front of the stage was crammed with slam-dancing drunks (I was happily up in a balcony). Watching them flow to the music was soothing – like losing yourself watching waves during a storm. No fights resulted, but I noticed that in maneuvering my way in and out of the bathroom everyone was very quick to say ‘sorry’ to each other and show respect – I think it was the knowledge that everyone around you was seriously jacked on adrenaline and…er…Jack Daniels that kept everyone hyper polite off the floor.

In short, it was a great crowd and a great show. I bought all four of their albums from the merch table. I was only going to get a couple, but as I was trying to pick, nearby hard-core fans kept pointing emphatically at different albums insisting that was the one I should get. This went on for a bit, until one extremely loaded dude just waved his hand vaguely over the lot of them and said – “Fuck! All of them, dude” – I took his advice, because I sensed in that moment he was my true spirit guide, and that I could trust him.