Bloodless Coup

Drive By Truckers, 1/10 - 1/12, The 40 Watt, Athens GA

Yes, it's another review/discussion of the Drive By Truckers. It's (partially) my blog, so I get to do these things.

The Drive By Truckers have released a new album (Brighter Than Creation's Dark); it's substantially better than 2006's "A Blessing And A Curse." This was (according to Patterson Hood) a tough year for the band - they lost Jason Isbell (off to the solo world), quit their label (see the end of the article), and didn't release new material (no new material means no new airplay, which generally means no sales and less concert attendance; in short - less money). I would argue that it might have been tougher for the fans - with all that uncertainty, we weren't really sure what they were up to, and if we'd get to see/hear them again.

On top of all of that, the music industry is in severe crisis. As has been widely reported, sales of CDs have fallen massively over the previous year (about 10% down from 2006). That figure sort-of masks the crisis, as 2006 sales were below 2005 levels, so the two year decline is even steeper. Touring revenues were down as well (bands weren't making up the loss in CD sales in concert tickets). In general, music economics sucked.

So, between the macro (music industry collapsing) and micro (departing members, no new album), I wasn't sure how much DBT there would be in 2007. I saw them at their (traditional) New Years Eve shows, at which they announced they were taking 2007 off. I figured it would be a long year, and hoped that it wouldn't be over (bands taking long times off, anecdotally, seem more likely to break up).

I was clearly wrong. 2007 turned out to be a heck of a DBT year (bucking the larger music scene trends; more on that later). I suspect that losing Jason Isbell was somewhat of a crisis of confidence (and combined with the trouble with the label made for a possible end-of-band scenario). The year saw them do two albums; the aforementioned "Brighter Than Creation's Dark" and backing Betty LaVette on her Grammy-nominated "Scene of the Crime." In addition, DBT embarked on a lengthy tour where they left behind all their electric guitars and played only acoustic versions of their songs. This was called the "Dirt Underneath" tour, and I was fortunate to see several of these (some in May, some in June, some in October). A really cool idea that proved to me (once and for all) that you don't need loud Marshalls and Gibsons to make rock. (As an aside, I suspect the "Dirt Underneath" tour was done once Jason left in order to sort out what the band was up to - a sort of "where are we now" pilgrimage that had the nice side benefit of making them some money.)

One of the advantages of the "Dirt Underneath" shows was that DBT played many of the songs that would appear on the new album; I remember hearing some of the new songs back in the May show. The presence of new material was reassuring; it was hard to believe the band was breaking up if they were still writing. It was also really good stuff; the new music had a more country bend, but seemed more personal and stronger. The stuff from "A Blessing And A Curse" didn't have any personal connection to the band (I can always see Patterson actually burying a banker in a sinkhole, for example), and the new stuff seemed like a return to form. This, I decided, was hopeful.

Which brings us to the three shows in January. DBT is heading off on a lengthy tour (they had a European leg scheduled, but the collapsing dollar has killed that), and they wanted to sort the new album out in a live setting before the real tour. So (according to Patterson Hood), they took over the 40 Watt (a legendary small club in Athens, Georgia, which is sort-of the unofficial home for the band) for a week (while they only played three public shows - Thursday, Friday and Saturday - Patterson did thank the club for the "week" they had there, leading me to guess that they had played a few more test runs earlier in the week).

Binky and I got tickets for all three shows back in November (or whenever they went on sale). We spent most of Christmas break with our various families (fun, but not vacation) and were looking forward to getting away from everything for a while. Plus, Athens looked to be a really fun town (we were there briefly for one of the "Dirt Underneath" shows, but didn't really get to hang out).

One of the advantages of liking a relatively small band is that the fan base is correspondingly small. In this internet age, it's easy to form communities between people who don't (physically) see each other. The DBTNation mostly hangs out at ninebullets (here), spending way too much time and effort talking about all things DBT. The three nights at the 40 Watt promised to be a chance to put faces with names for the first time (in addition to the shows). For reasons never fully explained (likely a fight with their ex-label), DBT had canceled their traditional New Years Eve shows, so these early January dates were serving in their stead. Lots of DBT fans were flying/driving in from all over. This also meant that the crowd was likely to be more DBT friendly than some random place in Pennsylvania or Minnesota.

The first night (January 10) was special. There is a local charity (Nuci's Space) that DBT has supported in the past. DBT (and the 40 Watt) did a benefit; all the proceeds from the show were going to the charity. As a draw, DBT said they would play the new album (Brighter Than Creations Dark) in its entirety. This was (likely) any fan's chance to see every song live. They didn't play the songs in the order on the album, but were close. You can listen to the live show (or any of the three) here; the taper (Sloan Simpson) makes some of the best bootleg live concert tapes I've ever heard.

The show itself was good. Not the best I've seen them play, but that seemed reasonable (new material, some of which was tough to translate from a studio-acoustic setting to the live-Marshalls/Gibsons setting). We were right up front (with a whole pack of NineBullets people). They played the (relatively) mellow stuff first ("Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife"; "Daddy Needs A Drink"), and moved onto the rockier ones ("Three Dimes Down"). I was particularly surprised to find some of the less exciting album songs come alive in the concert; "The Righteous Path" sounds a lot more like some of Patterson's "The Dirty South"-era anthems ("Sinkhole", "Lookout Mountain"), with a "hard working southern man doing my duty" vibe to it. "That Man I Shot" is a protest song (about Iraq), but rocks really nicely. I particularly like it because it traverses a nice middle ground; it nicely showcases the ambivalence many of us feel about the entire enterprise, and humanizes the confusion of how to do the right thing. I'd be curious to have veterans give their take. I hope Patterson learns the words one of these days (he was reading from notes even on the third night). I hope this one becomes a staple of theirs. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was Shonna's "Home Field Advantage." She sings three songs on the album; all nice, but I hate the production. They gave her a ton of reverb, and she sounds like she's singing in a tile bathroom. Live, however, the song picks up steam (killer intro; Brad Morgan - the drummer - works overtime), and Shonna's not in a bathroom, so it works. Nice anthemic rocker.

They made their way through all nineteen songs. A hell of a show. The encore (a brief four or five songs) was back to their old stuff. The crowd went nuts (predictably). Nice version of "Marry Me" (one of my favorite Cooley songs). The crowd also started to get very, very rowdy. I think that only the hard-core fans had heard versions of the new songs, and the rest of the casual DBT fans were a bit in the dark for most of the night. When the familiar songs came on (at the end), the combination of familiarity and excessive alcohol caused a number of them to stampede forward. This was the ugliest scene of the weekend, but I've seen worse. I think it got so bad that it annoyed Patterson (who was casting ugly/drunken looks at some of the moshing frat-boy types) into calling the show off prematurely. I could be wrong, but that's the way it looked to me. Overall, the first night was a more mellow vibe (other than the moshing). We got out late, and to bed by 4AM.

It's worth talking about Athens here. Really nice town. I've spent some time in college towns (Chapel Hill, Asheville, Ann Arbor, Morgantown), and Athens is just as nice as any (and better than Morgantown). Nice bunch of restaurants (everything from vegetarian to Thai to nouvelle to a great bar with Belgian beer on tap), nice music stores, green spaces, a cookie store, a local paper, four coffee houses, and a vintage clothing store. And that's all in the one little corner we stayed in. Now, if it only was on the water...

I've not got much to say about the openers for the first night. There were two the first night. The first was forgettable (I've forgotten them); the other was pretty good. Don Chambers and GOAT were the second openers, and they rocked. Don Chambers looks to be about 50 (maybe less, but he's been rode hard and put away wet), and played an electric banjo (with only four out of five strings). They had a "percussionist," who played a ladder with a mess of hubcaps stapled/riveted to it, along with a trashcan. They played the same sort of southern-rock/country-punk/protest/angry sort of music that DBT do, but with their own sort of chaotic twist. I tried to find the album in Athens, but everyone was sold out (more a function of their lack of business sense than demand, I think - I don't think Don Chambers really cares about making sure the local stores are stocked in CDs). Anyway, I'd certainly see them again.

The second night was a traditional DBT rock show, except heavy on the new album. I think this confused the crowd (the first eight songs were new and 10 of the first 12 were from the new album). This makes sense from the band's perspective (they were trying to work out new material), but I think most of the fans were thinking they'd get more of a mix. This was fine by me (and most of the other nuts up front), but it did change the crowd dynamic. It was the quietest DBT show I've been to (at one point Patterson actually told the crowd they should be rowdier; something unprecedented, I think). They played "Why Henry Drinks" (something I've never heard live before; very nice) and a smokin' version of "Angels and Fuselage" to finish the night. Again, looking back at the set list, I can see how this was an odd show for the more casual (or "normal") fan; they played almost the entire new album, and sprinkled in old stuff fairly rarely. Since the new album wasn't out, the crowd really didn't know the new songs, which was part of what threw the crowd and made it quieter than expected. A nice show, but I suspect it will get lost in the archives next to the bookends of the 10th (the entire Brighter Than Creations Dark) and the 12th (see below).

The opener, Glossary, was decent, but not as good as Don Chambers and GOAT (yes, they spell it with all capitals in the posters). They were fine at the time, but not in the top half of openers for DBT.

The third night (1/12) was one of the best DBT shows I've seen. DBT mixed new songs with older stuff, and seemed really to be fired up. The tore through classics ("Sinkhole", "Ronnie and Neil", "Zip City"), but (looking through the set list) I'm surprised at how many of the songs were new ones. The show seemed like it had more old stuff (and the crowd was significantly more lively), but there wasn't any less new stuff here than the previous night (11 of the first 14 were new). Huh; strange how you remember things differently than reality. I guess the songs were starting to sink in, or the band had more energy. Anyway, this show felt very different from the previous night. I've seen them many times, and this night had amazing energy and crowd response (not, I suspect, unrelated). They really seemed on fire; happy to be playing the songs (new and old). By this point, most of us nuts had heard the new songs enough to be familiar with them, and the whole concert seemed to "gel." As I said upstream, the new songs seem deeper and more personal than the "A Blessing and a Curse" stuff; the band seems more fired up about these songs than before. I dunno if this is true, or just that they were happy to be out on the road again (they are, clearly, a live band).

I've talked before about how good this band is live. I'm not going to re-hash that again. I'll only say that some bands make noise that sounds like their recordings, and some actually play music (and, of course, some don't even bother to make noise and use pre-recorded stuff; we won't talk about them). The Drive By Truckers clearly play music. They are really good musicians (not at the prodigy level - Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eddie Van Halen, etc.) in that they have been playing their instruments for years and are very comfortable and familiar with them. This means that they aren't struggling to make the sounds, but are playing the music. It also means that every time I hear them they sound a little different. They don't set out to re-create the sound of a song from the studio, but they play each song as seems appropriate for that concert. I'm not waxing grandiose here; I've heard "Lookout Mountain" as something akin to heavy metal and I've heard it played gently. Same song; different feel. It makes the live shows more; you don't know what you might hear (also; they have an extensive back catalog, so you literally don't know which songs you will hear - I think they have over a hundred songs at this point and they know - and play - almost all of them). So, while I've been to a dozen or show DBT concerts, none have been the same. This is by design; they don't do set lists, and they play whatever they feel like during a concert. It makes each concert experience different, and (I would think) brings back fans (some more often than others) - no one gets the same show twice, and you (the fan) get something unique the time you are there. When you go to a DBT concert you know you are getting something that no one else gets; every show really is unique.

For the last show of the weekend, it all came together (not that the other two were bad). The Truckers really rocked the house. The January 12th show was a hell of a show.

The openers were the Dexateens. We've seen them before (opening for DBT last March); they rock. A more southern sound than DBT, and a bit more bluesy and aggressive. A really amazing band (southernshelter.com has their set from the 12th, too; it's free and well worth a listen); easily the best openers of the three nights (though they played a short set). If these guys ever toured, I think we'd go see them alone. However, they don't seem to get around, so I've just seen them twice (and as openers). A really fantastic band.

I'm really glad DBT is back on the road, and supporting a heck of a new album. As I noted, I was worried what they might do in 2007. The music industry is in serious trouble, and one would think that a small/medium sized band like DBT would be at risk. I don't think that's the case. The music INDUSTRY is in trouble, but I don't think music really is. I've heard lots and lots of really good music (live and recorded) over the last two to three years; I think there is more and more good music out there in more and more styles. I think the business of music is in serious trouble; the old paradigm of large music companies who have expensive A&R people to "find" good music, who they then pass off to a multitude of marketing types to package their "style," all in the hopes of selling a million copies (platinum) is dead. In order to pay the salaries of all those middlemen (A&R, marketing, distribution, etc.) any of the big labels actually needs to sell a million copies (selling less means losing money); small bands (no matter what the musical quality) don't make enough to be worth keeping. Which means every major label is constantly under pressure to sell a million of Britney in order to make enough to pay their own salaries (and keep Britney in lawyers).

But the internet has changed that. Sure, there is the illegal downloading thing, but the success of iTunes (and, as the Times story notes, the general rise in online sales; 45% up in just a year) shows that people will pay for what they can get for free. No, the internet has made the business of marketing music almost impossible. You (anyone) can listen to any music you want at this point - MySpace, bands websites, Pandora, samples from iTunes or Amazon, or steal it; it's there for you whenever you want. This has destroyed the music industry's ability to convince you to buy music. In the old days, you heard a "single" on the radio (and I could launch into a rant about how ClearChannel has destroyed radio, but that's another post) and then (on the strength of that single song) went out and spent almost $20 on an entire album. The ability of the industry to manufacture a single hit song on the radio drove the economics of the music industry; radio was key (the only means to reach the masses and get them to buy the album). But FM radio is dead at this point; who actually listens to radio to find new music? There are multiple points of access to music over the internet, and the music industry can't cope with the marketing nightmare of trying to get a hit single out over all of them at once. As a consumer, you can try - for free - just about any music you want to hear. So why should you fork over $20 for music you haven't heard? You won't, so the music industry model is dead (or is at least dying). So, people aren't spending money on crap anymore. Fine, sales are down; that's a problem for the industry, not music. The good bands (good, in this sense, being defined as bands who produce music that people want to hear, of whatever quality and style) don't need the marketing people (or, for that matter, the A&R people); they can reach directly to the fans and potential fans via all those internet portals (MySpace, web pages, Pandora, etc.). So the bands can sell music; the industry can't manufacture hits like the old model works.

(And, just to note, perhaps one of the reasons that 2007 sold fewer albums than 2006 might be because there was little good new music in 2007; as Billboard notes, the top six albums of 2007 (in terms of sales, not quality) were released in 2006 (and 14 of the top 20 were released in 2006). So, perhaps the fall-off in sales is due - in part - to the industry putting out even worse crap than in 2006. I'm not saying this is the whole story, but it might be a part of it.)

This is where the Drive By Truckers are. The Drive By Truckers shouldn't have any problems in this environment; they aren't looking to sell a million copies of anything. They need to sell enough albums/T-shirts/tickets to pay for their lives. What use is an A&R guy to them? What use is a marketing team to them? They sell by word of mouth (by idiots like me writing lengthy reviews like this that somehow manage to get another person to listen) and by limited airplay. The rabid fans in Athens were discussing the prospects of the latest album getting big, and talking about how it has music for all types of fans (country, alternative, rock, etc.); they figured it had something to appeal to everyone. I was too polite to disagree with them in public, but I'll do it here. The new album, more than any other, does have a variety of styles. That isn't likely to help them, however. The idiots who program radio stations aren't looking for an eclectic band that has many different sounds; they are looking for music that fits the demographic the radio station plays to. A band like DBT doesn't fit (neatly) into any box, and that confusion will keep them off the major airwaves. And unless you get on the airwaves, you aren't going to sell millions of copies. No, my prediction is that the new album will sell better because the band is good, not because they did an eclectic album that crosses musical genres. They'll do better in spite of being eclectic, not because of it. The band will reach the old fans, and pick up a few more. They'll sell more because of the quality of the music, not because the music industry is able to package them better.

And this is true all over the place. I saw Feist this year; nice show. Really talented lady. What does the music industry do for her? I got interested in her from word of mouth (a guy named Victor here in town mentioned her one night) and listened to her online. She sounded interesting, I saw the concert, and now bought the two albums. I've never seen her iTunes ad (Apple used one of her songs for iTunes) and never still haven't heard her on the radio. This is exactly how the NEW music industry works. There is a whole mess of medium-sized metal bands I follow (Killswitch Engage, Protest the Hero (new album "Fortress" is out in a week - I'm psyched!), Pelican, etc.) that have prospered and succeeded mostly by touring and making good music, not by getting played on MTV or radio (I don't think I've ever heard a Protest the Hero or Pelican song on the radio, ever.). What the industry did for them as recently as 10 years ago (discover them and market them nationally) they can do for themselves today. They may sell fewer albums, but since they don't have to support an A&R staff and marketing idiots, they can sell fewer albums and still make enough to make a living. Music isn't in any danger from the internet; the traditional music industry is doomed, however.

The collapse of the music industry had nothing to do with three nights in Athens. DBT has a new album - one they seem to be pretty proud of. The Drive By Truckers are on tour in February and March (starts out west, moves into the northern mid-west, through New England, then back down in the Mid-Atlantic). You likely won't hear them on the radio, and I'll be really surprised if the new album breaks the top 50 on Billboard (it might the release week, but it'll fade quickly). But that won't be a failure for them. They'll sell enough to pay for making another album somewhere down the road, and tour to make the money to keep them in beer and whiskey (and, I suppose, pay the mortgage).

Three amazing nights in Athens later, and I'm already seeing if I can string together a mini-road trip in March (hmm...Richmond on Friday night, Asheville on Saturday night - the Orange Peel is a great club). They really are a hell of a band.

Posted by baltar at January 20, 2008 10:34 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Culture | Media | Music