East Side Story

On Ole Mossy Face’s new EP, Carnival Work, lead vocalist and drummer Casey Sanders sings, “We own this whole town.” Sanders isn’t arrogant—he and band co-founder Mason Vickery don’t own shit, and they know it. The song, “Calls and Walls,” makes the claim because OMF are so unconcerned with the established music business that they’ve already won the game. As Sanders, a Scene employee, later sings, “I’m so drunk, and I’m so broke / I think this whole fucking thing is a joke.”

This pro-slacker aesthetic is typical of the East Nashville contingent, a group that also includes such bands as Hands Down Eugene, and The Carter Administration. These Nashville acts share an unkempt approach that’s as unassuming and charming as their stomping grounds; they’re also making some of the city’s most convincing music.

Carnival Work’s “The Walk,” for example, is a mid-tempo slosh that’s driven by the arpeggiated banjo of Derek Wolfe. A rock rhythm section (comprised of Sanders and producer/bassist Jared Reynolds) eases in and out as Vickery’s lap steel glues the track together. Much like the Stones’ “Torn and Frayed,” the result makes moot any distinction between country, R&B and pop.

On “The Bleeder,” the soil-obsessed Sanders sings of “blood stained on my shoe,” and “riding that highway to hell / every night.” God only knows what he’s talking about, but one suspects that a forensic study of the pebbles in a dive bar’s parking lot might reveal evidence of it. Sanders bandmates back him up with a halftime waltz that’s equal parts Buffalo Springfield and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Sanders and Vickery met in 2000 when the former answered a “drummer wanted” ad posted by offbeat country singer D Striker, who was putting together a band for the first Nashville installment of his “Friday the 13th” series, which takes place every time that day and date coincide. (Striker began the event in Athens, Ga., in 1998—the tradition continues this Friday as Striker and OMF share the bill at Layla’s Bluegrass Inn. Vickery and Sanders started working on songs and performing as a duo, with Sanders singing and playing hi-hat, bass drum and guitar simultaneously. Eventually taking the name Ole Mossy Face, the revolving cast grew to include guitarists Joe McMahan and Troy Daugherty along with Hands Down Eugene’s Matt Moody and Andy Willhite. The latter three contribute to Carnival Work, which is OMF’s third EP-length recording.

“We’re trying to put ourselves out there and do a good job, but always thinking that today’s not really the day,” Sanders says. “We’re too busy having fun to do too much, and we can always worry about it later. That’s why it took so long to get Carnival Work out. We started recording it at Dean Bratcher’s No Budget Studio in 2003. Then Marc Chevalier mixed it but never did anything with it. Then in 2004 we said fuck it, we’ll get Eric McConnell to mix it. Then we needed to get it mastered, so we took it back to Marc and finally got it done in 2005. Lastly there was the artwork, and that took another two years to do. Basically, it’s been through everybody’s hands at this point.”

Rather than suffer from this sloppy-seconds method, Carnival Work benefits. Its lack of caring is a badge of honor—a tribute to the struggles of a true rock band in a town overly concerned with the smooth and inoffensive. Like the Stones’ Exile on Main St. or The Velvet Underground, the record effortlessly blends the artful with the unseemly. But don’t expect Ole Mossy Face to care about such accolades—as Carnival Work’s “Sun Plaza” says: “We don’t feel the need / to succeed.”