06.25.06

The brightest stars sing the saddest songs

Posted in back catalogue, cricket spazzes, lucero - June 25th, 2006 at 7:55 pm by Cricket

I wrote this whole review of the new Allison Moorer album, Getting Somewhere and just scrapped it. I’m not happy with album and I just can’t get behind writing a bad review for someone I generally love. And since we’re all about the love here at HCT headquarters I guess I’ll just move on to something else. [Yeah, that was a rough call, I agree. Maybe next time, Allison, we'll pimp you out then.—Mimi]

You know what I love? Lucero. As anyone who knows me can attest to, I have not shut up about this band for a while now. And yet I’m shocked to find not everyone (including some of my friends) is still listening to them. So what’s to be done? The new album, Rebels, Rogues, and Sworn Brothers isn’t due out until September 26th. I could review their recent re-release of the Attic Tapes? Or perhaps review of 2005’s Nobody’s Darlings? A summary of their career thus far? No, if you want a summary of their career you either already own or need to get the DVD Dreaming in America. And picking a single album to review? Too hard for me to choose. So instead how about my top ten favorite Lucero songs? Yeah? Okay!

Lucero is another of those bands I see people trying to pin down to a style and they can’t. It’s not exactly alt.country, or southern indie rock, or cowpunk, or whatever the term of the week is. The lore says Lucero was started when Brian Venable and Ben Nichols thought it would be great to play quiet, old-style country songs at punk shows. Lucero never really lost its punk roots, but Nichols’ lyrics are in my loud, brash, non-humble opinion some of country’s best. Mostly songs about drinking, leaving a girl, or a girl leaving you (or never getting the girl to begin with), interspersed with some incredibly moving war songs and a smattering of story songs. But a good song is not made from lyrics alone, and the band has continuously stepped up with music that really underscores and dances with the lyrics Lucero produces. With Nichols on vocals and guitar and Venable on guitar, they are backed up by awesome bassist John Stubblefield, and Roy Berry, who is not only an insanely great drummer but may have been a crazy cult leader in another life.

Narrowing it down to ten songs was a huge challenge, so I’ll present them in no particular order for you, as creating a hierarchy of Lucero favorites would probably break my brain.

Surprisingly, I always think of That Much Further West as my favorite overall album of theirs (by a very narrow margin, mind you, I like it all) and I’m sort of surprised how few songs off it made the top ten.

“Dodging Bullets” (Coldwater Sessions) – This song is, as far as I know, only on an old demo collection which you can find floating around here and there. “I’ve been dodging the girls/like bullets from a gun/it was only a matter of time/’til I got myself shot by one.” This song’s full of manly cowboy-ish angst about remaining stoic and free from the heartbreak of love until that one girl finally gets you. I think punk, emo, country and cowboys can all relate to this. I know a million girls who can relate to it as well. And dozens who love songs like this for the desire to be that girl who finally breaks through all his barriers. [These are girls who read romance novels, correctamundo?—Mimi] [YES.—Cricket]

“The War” (Nobody’s Darlings) – A really heart wrenching song about a WWII soldier that traces his story from being drafted, through training to ending up in Belgium. The song consists of just Ben and his guitar. His vocal styling on it is incredible, moving, the deep whiskey scratch of his voice is completely suited to kind of song/storytelling. The line: The preacher said “Boys, he who is killed tonight will dine with the Lord in Paradise”/One boy spoke up, said “preacher come on, eat your supper with us. I grew up around a bunch of men that served in WWII and they told some dreadful stories when I was child. I feel like this song really honors what they went through, touching on the fear, the strength and the conflicted feelings they all must have had. The song really does speak for itself. If it doesn’t give you chills, you clearly have no soul. [Who is attacking people and being hyperbolic NOW?—Mimi]

“Tears Don’t Matter Much” (That Much Further West) – In a way this is pretty much a bunch of shout-outs to Ben’s friends, but it’s more than that. It speaks to the bond of friendship, how you can see the greatness in your friends and how that lessens whatever pain you have. Plus Cory Branan shout-out: “Cory Branan’s got an evil streak/And a way with words that’ll bring you to your knees/Oh he can play the wildest shows and he can sing so sweet,” which, I believe, is what led me to discover Cory. This song is surprisingly upbeat, it fills me with joy every time I hear it. [This is my favorite of their songs, too.—Mimi]

“Nights Like These” (Tennessee) – “Now I’ve only got this one wish/that I was good enough to make you forget/the only boy who ever broke your heart/’cause nights like these tear me apart.” Yeah, is your heart now as crushed as mine, just from reading that? [No, but it doesn't suck.—Mimi] No? You are a soulless bunch indeed. Man, the desperation of not being able to heal someone else’s hurt and bringing it on yourself anyway? Emo music wishes it had this much suffering. Emo music also wishes it didn’t mostly suck, but that’s a story for another time. Lucero never sucks. Especially not on this song. [This sounds suspiciously emo to me. I will have to ponder and get back to you on that—since I know that YOU are insanely emo.—Mimi]

“Old Sad Songs” (Tennessee) – There’s a bit of banjo-ing going on here that I feel should be in more of their songs. Only a few lyrics here, but they scan almost like an old Irish ballad: “I hear those fiddles cry/and I must go to them my dear/or else I’d stay the night.” It’s tight and short, which is really its only fault, since the song forces me to listen to it over and over again to get the full enjoyment of it.

“Raising Hell” (Lucero) – I have a couple live bootlegs of this song and maybe I love them a little more than the album version. The rawness Ben conveys in live performances is more suited to the story told here. I’m having a hard time not just pasting in the entirety of the lyrics here and going, “See? See?!” But then, y’all’s lives aren’t mine and maybe you’d just read it and go so? And then there would be sadness because we would have failed to communicate. So instead I’ll say this song is a story about a little brother raisin’ hell down in Texas with strippers and rodeos and whiskey nights and being compared to the older brother’s own life as he tries to decide exactly where he’s going and what he’s doing with himself. Hmm, I wonder if the Texas reference alone would be enough to make Mimi like this? The mention of rodeo? Is that enough to sell the rest of you too? [Well, cue it up!—Mimi]

“All Sewn Up” (Lucero) – A punchy cowboy beat underlies this song and, of course, I totally dig that, though as always it’s the lyrics that really get me. Is it because I’m all sewn up in bad tattoos, or at least have enough bad tattoos to really get this: can’t hide from the faded, bleeding truth/Well it follows me wherever I might move/All sewn up with bad tattoos“? Sure, tritely, wherever you go, there you are, but this is so much more poetic. And you know, maybe I need a drink before I go on. Am I in danger of veering into corny and clichéd here? Yikes. It’s okay, doing the next song without a beer in my hand might be some kind of sacrilege.

“Kiss the Bottle” (Jawbreaker cover) – I will not be able to contain my ridiculous fangirling here. This song was released as a B-side on a 7″ which, shockingly, I do not have—though I have probably half a dozen live bootlegs of it. Jawbreaker is one of my all time favorite bands and this is one of their best songs. To have Lucero cover it? Ice cream on a hot summer day. Seriously pure pleasure like you can’t even believe. Ben Nichols does Blake Schwarzenbach right with this here cover. It twangs just the tiniest bit. The lyrics are perfectly suited to Ben’s style and the song, which already broke my heart, pulverizes it when these guys do it. If you were an old school punk, or real early 90s emocore fan and aren’t sold on bands with twang? Check this out to start. If you couldn’t hear it before, it’s clear here how much Lucero owes Jawbreaker for combining heavy guitars with melody and deep lyrics.

“A Dangerous Thing” (Lucero) – We go back to the theme of “Dodging Bullets” here: masculine stoicism as a defense against heartbreak. The guitar strings you along, the melody pulls and plings you into a lower, darker, sweeter place. “well I’m leavin town on 40 west bound/my heart aches for no one/I’m right at home, driving alone.” What burns the most about this song is that the firm “I’ll go all on my own” sentiment is completely disrupted by Ben’s delivery, which is full of longing and desperation.

“Bikeriders” (Nobody’s Darlings) – This rocks more than their earlier stuff, less twang, but is probably a high point lyrically for Lucero. It tells a complicated story about a biker couple—a couple that struggles through fights and so many times when she tried to leave but couldn’t. It ends with “His boots are on your floor,/But the car’s parked right outside your back door/So leave him asleep in your bed/And you’re halfway to Chicago before goodbye is said.” There’s a deeply wistful “uh oooh oohh ohh” Ben does here that makes this into something more hurtful than just a tragic story of guy who can’t act right and a girl who loves him too much to leave; it really hits a dark part of real people’s lives. It’s storytelling, well done in any form, but particularly suited to song.

Are you sold yet? Maybe not? Lucero is a band you should really go see live. And you can go see them, I’m sure. They tour at least two thirds of the year. Check the dates and find a show near you. And yeah, buy their albums, or find the songs iTunes and check them out. Hell, get the songs from a friend, I swear you’ll be so sold you will go buy the albums.

Permalink