The influential British music mag Melody Maker recently tagged a Nashville band as one of 10 acts to watch in the coming year. That the band in question is Lambchop, though, makes the distinction even sweeter. Even after touring with Lollapalooza on an alternate stage in 1994, even after opening the East Coast leg of Yo La Tengo’s well-received 1995 tour, the languid, mesmerizing nine-piece ensemble—part country, part chamber music, part indescribable racket—has remained blessedly oblivious to the international buzz gathering around it.
To the band’s bemusement, that buzz is only growing louder. The group has just released its new LP, How I Quit Smoking, on Merge Records, the hip independent label owned by members of the Chapel Hill, N.C., band Superchunk. And in April, the band embarks on a monthlong European tour, an itinerary that sends nine Lambchop members rolling through the Dutch, French and German countryside aboard a sleeper bus. The tour was organized by the group’s German label, City Slang, whose other acts include Hole, Superchunk and Guided by Voices. Once plagued by the sparse attendance and grubby dives of their early gigs, Lambchop now has to face something far more alarming—the threat of success.
“It’s harder to find the time to write now,” says Kurt Wagner, Lambchop’s engagingly unpretentious guitarist and lead singer, as well as the author of its spare, enigmatic songs. “The more you do, the more crap gets in the way of what you do.”
An artist and classically trained guitarist who studied cello at the Blair School of Music, Wagner started Lambchop as a lark with friends Mark Trovillion, who plays bass, and Scott Chase, a wrench and lacquer-thinner-can virtuoso. After the friends spent some time “standing around yelling into a tape recorder,” Wagner recalls, they adopted an open-door band policy that allowed basically anyone to participate, regardless of musical ability.
Most of the people who showed up are still with the band: Paul Niehaus (formerly of the Dickens and P.J. and the Dusters) on pedal steel; saxophonist and cellist Deanna Varagona; organist John Delworth; drummer Allen Lowrey; Jonathan Marx on cornet; and Paul Burch on drums. They’re a diverse bunch: Wagner lays floor for a living; Lowrey is employed by the city of Brentwood. Horn man Marx is the Scene’s entertainment editor, Delworth works at a record store, and at least two members pay the bills with carpentry.
“We assembled all the musical misfits in Nashville,” says Wagner, chuckling. “If someone knew how to play an instrument, we made him play something else.”
When Lambchop first started playing club dates around town, one local musician described its sound as “a bunch of gears grinding with a few missing teeth.” But by the time the group released its first LP, I Hope You’re Sitting Down, on Merge in 1994, Lambchop had expanded its repertoire to include ballads of mysterious, inexplicable beauty, murmured by Wagner against an unpredictable sonic landscape of sobbing steel, clattering percussion and rueful horns. This summer-shower sound—a gorgeous, distant swirl of strings, steel, keyboards and horns—dominates the 14 tracks on How I Quit Smoking.
The dreamlike intensity of the record extends to the band’s live show. (“Dreamlike” may be too ethereal a word to describe a band that laughs often between songs and performs in cowboy hats and skinny ties.) At a crowded Yuletide Springwater gig last year, the mournful horns and melancholy steel conjured up nothing so much as a Salvation Army band, plaintive and openhearted all at once. While Wagner sat front and center, eyes closed, intoning softly into his microphone, his bandmates played as if entranced. If Wim Wenders made Westerns, this would be the soundtrack.
“[Slowing everything down] is the only way to control a bunch of electric instruments,” says Wagner, who cracks that the band’s deceptively quiet sound really means he’s “just getting a little older.” But he believes the group’s looseness still allows for moments of unexpected beauty, excitement and tenderness. “The songs are just kind of a framework,” he says. “It works out in a nice way—everyone has to pay attention, but they can be all the artists they can be without me messing them up too much.”
Wagner is looking forward to the European jaunt, if only for respite from questions about whether Lambchop is a country or alternative band. “Over there, I’m not sure those things have any meaning,” he explains. “They look at music differently, not as musical genres but as music. When we say Lambchop is a country band, that makes sense to them, because they think of country as Connie [Smith] or Jim Reeves, not Garth Brooks.”
But the European press nonetheless has its own whims. “Woodchuck Nation,” an offhand phrase in the first LP’s liner notes, was taken as the name of a movement by at least one overseas journalist. (It was actually just a goofy salute to the band’s favorite brand of cider.) Since then, he’s used the term to describe the stark country-influenced band Freakwater and similar groups. Hey, it beats the hell out of “alternative country.” Look for How I Quit Smoking at Lucy’s and other local music stores.
Look out London, here come the Scorchers!” exults Jason Ringenberg in the opening words of Reckless Country Soul, the four-song 1982 EP on Praxis Records that kicked off the career of Jason and the Nashville Scorchers. In the past decade, the original EP, which contains pedal-to-the-metal versions of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and the group’s anthem “Broken Whiskey Glass,” has become a collector’s grail. Fans, however, can content themselves with the long-overdue CD release of Reckless Country Soul on Praxis/Mammoth.
In addition to the original four songs, the CD assembles five of the famed outtakes from the group’s Fervor sessions with Memphis producer Jim Dickinson, including amazing alternate takes of “Help! There’s a Fire” and “Pray for Me Momma (I’m a Gypsy Now).” The package gets bonus points for Rick Hull’s outstanding liner notes, which trace the band’s history back to its earliest appearances in Nashville and Murfreesboro. Check Lucy’s Record Shop, Tower, and other fine record stores for the 10-song CD.
Formerly based in San Diego and Los Angeles, nu Millenia Records is one of the latest music companies to set up shop in Nashville. But this isn’t just another record label: Nu Millenia specializes in a new format called the “enhanced CD,” which acts like a music CD but turns into a multimedia trip if stuck into your computer’s CD-ROM drive.
Previous attempts at these combination discs had two problems: On some older discs, if you played them in your regular CD player and forgot to skip the first track, the resultant tidal wave of hissy computer code could either damage your speakers or give you a splitting headache. These discs were also prohibitively expensive, costing about $25 to $35 even at discount stores.
Nu Millenia has vanquished the first problem with a new mastering technique known as mTrax, and it’s hard at work on the second. The company’s next disc—and its first country release—will be in stores by the end of the month for a more reasonable $17 to $20. The disc is a Clay Walker biography that includes a tour of his Texas ranch; the singer expounds upon his life and work through clickable wagon wheels, picture frames, beer taps and so forth. When played in a regular player, the disc will feature some of Walker’s rare and unreleased tracks.
Thus far, Walker is the only country artist signed to nu Millenia. So why open a Nashville office if you have just one country act? Company officials explain they’re currently negotiating with other record companies here, and in the next few months they’ll be signing more country acts to the label.
Allan James is the most recent London music industry veteran to relocate to Nashville. He runs a European label, But! Records, which is currently negotiating with several major labels for American distribution. But!’s inaugural release last April was a CD by the Strawberry Zots, an Albuquerque-based psychedelic-pop band. The company has since released disks by Fisher, an English band; January’s Little Joke, another Albuquerque band; and two Dallas-based acts, Stranger Than Fiction and singer-songwriter Kimber Landsman (the latter of whom has enjoyed Top 40 success in the United Kingdom).
James also manages all of the But! acts. In the past, he’s managed such U.K. acts as the Jazz Defectors (on Factory Records), King of Fools (Imago Records) and Judie Tzuke (Columbia and Polydor). As an independent promoter in the ’70s and ’80s, he worked in the U.K. for Elton John, Van Halen, The Cars, Foreigner, Killing Joke, Bryan Adams, the Eurythmics, Whitesnake, Slade and Rainbow. In Nashville, he hopes to enlist local acts for management and for major-label release through distribution deals set up by But! Records. Interested bands can send material to James care of Benson and Cherry Assocates, 1207 17th Ave. S., Nashville, TN 37203.
Valerie Reynolds, host of Channel 19’s Gay Cable Network Show, has just released her first CD, a blues album entitled Good Woman Blues. Reynolds wrote all 12 songs on the album, including “We Ain’t Gonna Take It No More,” an anthem calling for an end to domestic violence. Another noteworthy song, “The Leading Role,” is dedicated to Reynolds’ aunt, Elizabeth Short, the “Black Dahlia,” whose gruesome (and still unsolved) murder in 1947 remains one of the most notorious crimes in Hollywood history.
The singer-songwriter will celebrate her new album with an appearance at the Crowne Plaza Hotel March 1, followed by a CD-release party 7-9 p.m. March 8 at the Chute on Franklin Road. Look for Good Woman Blues at Tower and Majical Journey Gifts on Louise Avenue, or write Reynolds Productions at P.O. Box 120356, Nashville, TN 37212.
Elliptical dispatches: Celebrity sighting of the week: Elvis Costello, who was spotted at last week’s NEA-sponsored Ron Sexsmith show at the new club Al E. Katz. Costello, in town to record a track with the Fairfield Four, had praised Sexsmith’s album as his favorite of last year. After the Canadian singer-songwriter’s set, he and Costello met backstage for the first time. Those of us who missed the event are still smacking our foreheads with ping-pong paddles. Also in the audience: Mark Knopfler and Scene reader Adrian Belew. Congratulations to the show’s young promoter, Jason Wilkins, who certainly scored a bullseye....
Mark Schatz, the versatile acoustic musician whose Rounder LP Brand New Old Tyme Way features appearances by admirers ranging from Alison Krauss to Jerry Douglas, performs 9 p.m. Thursday at the Station Inn. Expect some familiar faces in the audience....
Tracy Nelson, who received Nashville Music Award nominations for female vocalist and blues album of the year, has also been nominated for a prestigious W.C. Handy Blues Award as Female Artist of the Year. The winners will be announced May 2 in Memphis. In the meantime, Nelson will begin recording her third album for Rounder next month....
Mark Aaron James and the Borrowed Souls are now playing 8:30 p.m. every Tuesday night at Jonathan’s in Hillsboro Village and 5 p.m. every Wednesday at Cafe Elliston. James and his band, who have a self-titled CD out on Nashville’s Blue Star Recordings, list Billy Joel, James Taylor and Hootie and the Blowfish among their influences; if that lineup resembles the content of your CD player’s carousel, by all means check ’em out....
The Ultimate Talent Search, a Christian music contest sponsored by Embassy Music, has extended its deadline until Feb. 24. The grand prize winner in the song competition will have his/her song recorded and sent to radio stations across the country, and more than $50,000 in prizes are promised. For more information, call Eric Stanton at 371-5846....
Corrections: Peter Rodman’s show on FM 100 is entitled Sunday Night With Peter Rodman, not City of Song, as reported. And Black Oak Arkansas recorded “Jim Dandy,” not the Ozark Mountain Daredevils of “If You Wanna Get to Heaven” fame. Our apologies to Michael “Supe” Granda.
