Press: Corvallis Gazette Times

[LaurieBlue]

http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2004/05/29/entertainment/columnists/night_rider/tenpas.txt

Rock 'n' roll fantasy

My Morning Jacket bridges the gap between Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd

To paraphrase Quentin Tarantino, there are two kinds of people in the world.

Elvis people and Beatles people.

That dichotomy might fit for the best, brightest and most bloody outrageous filmmaker working today, but in my humble opinion, there's a line that divides the world more evenly in two.

There are two kinds of people in the world.

Neil Young fans and Skynyrd fans.

The well-known feud between the two camps reached its head in 1974, when Lynyrd Skynyrd released the album "Second Helping," featuring the declaration of southern pride that is "Sweet Home Alabama."

Among their nationalistic praise for their homeland, the boys managed to squeeze in the following vitriolic sentiments aimed at one of rock 'n' roll's greatest songwriters.

"Well I heard mister Young sing about her.

"Well, I heard ole Neil put her down.

"Well, I hope Neil Young will remember,

"Southern man don't need him around anyhow!"

Lynyrd Skynyrd's comments were in retaliation to the songs "Southern Man" and "Alabama" by Young, which painted pictures of derailed Cadillacs, bullwhips, lynch mobs and southern tradition drenched in the blood of racism.

What few realize about the musical melee is that Young originally offered the song "Southern Man" to Lynyrd Skynyrd, in hopes that the house band for rebel culture would want to atone for the sins of their forefathers.

Obviously, that wasn't the case.

Still, there are times when I imagine that Skynyrd's touring plane never crashed just before the release of their awesome 1977 album "Street Survivors," featuring the prophetic song "That Smell," about the acrid odor of death.

In this rock 'n' roll fantasy, I imagine Skynyrd and Mr. Young reconciling and releasing the most potent split album in the history of the genre, the ultimate statement of Southern rock as filtered through the knowing eyes of a Canadian outsider.

Sadly, the deaths of Skynyrd singer Ronny Van Zant and two other band members prevented that dream from ever coming to fruition.

Happily, the fine, Bourbon-laced state of Kentucky delivered a four-headed baby named "My Morning Jacket," who fulfilled my imaginary prophecy like a doom-drenched royal family in a Frank Herbert book.

If Santa Claus' belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly when he laughs, then My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James' hair shakes like a pyramid full of Cobras when he wails on his Flying-V guitar.

A few weeks back, I caught the chosen one's fiery set at the Crystal Ballroom, and was transported back in time by 30 years, to a time when hair grew long, riffs pounded on and bands made music because it felt good.

None of this post-everything mentality of today, when groups seem more concerned with the duel of cool that is making the scene than they are with writing songs people will actually remember in 30 years.

No, My Morning Jacket are the real thing, creating narratives with backdrops that range from smoky, folky ditties about barroom dropouts to epic, multi-part compositions about the majesty of the open road.

Plus, they totally rock.

From the spare, emotionally evocative lyrics of Neil Young to the pummeling solos of a Skynyrd record, My Morning Jacket runs the gamut of everything that made '70s rock so classic.

Listening to their newest album, "It Still Moves," makes me misty and mystifies me as to why music like this isn't played on any major radio station. Is there no home for such sounds in the FM dial of today?

I shudder to think.

Their aural velvet Elvis is gorgeously eerie in a ethereal way, but packs the kick-drum sucker punch of rock at its most unrefined. Lately, I've been downright obsessed.

What follows is a short guide to their recorded output to help you, the interested listener, dive headfirst into the pure Kentucky spring water that is My Morning Jacket.

'The Tennessee Fire'

The group's first album proper is a raw nerve affair that goes down like a shot of Maker's Mark. Sounding like a college radio disc jockey's sweet dreams, it veers wildly from the sad ballad of outlaw empathy that is "Butch Cassidy" to the surreal proto-surf garnish of "The Dark."

The production is almost non-existent, but the collection of songs offered proof at the time that the future was as wide open as a tobacco field for these wild-eyed southern rogues

'At Dawn'

The follow-up to "The Tennessee Fire" proved that the band's sound, when given the light of a real recording budget, would only shine more brightly. While the murky production of the first album added an air of mystery to their melancholy madness, the clearer presentation revealed that there were still plenty of layers to peel back.

The songs on "At Dawn" are adorned with harmonica, piano and some violin, and so takes on a more rustic quality. "X-Mas Curtain" is a catchy little number about victimless crimes that perfectly surmises why our generation picks and chooses the laws we respect, and hence follow.

"Just Because I do," is a sweetly sincere love song that recalls the days when people such as Eric Clapton and the Allman Brothers wrote romantic music that actually made you feel something.

Then came the '80s, and bogus belters such as Rod Stewart and Aerosmith, who forever relegated the love song to sappy AM radio.

'Chocolate and Ice EP'

This mini-album contains six songs, but it really only needs one to blow your mind like William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury."

That song is "Cobra," and it's a doozy. What starts off as a disco-tastic declaration of longing, quickly morphs into a free-form acid-blues jam. From there, it segues into a cool lake of ambient sounds, then back into a molasses-coated rock song, and finally into a haunting acoustic spell that's like the cigarette after great sex.

'It Still Moves'

A letter writer to alt-rock magazine "The Magnet" complained that My Morning Jacket's new album is Southern-fried crud. I couldn't disagree more.

While there are fewer songs, the songwriting is as focused as ever, and the group seems to have found a new confidence in their ability to churn out blistering instrumental passages in the middle of unself-consciously majestic tunes.

"One Big Holiday" demonstrates the band's compositional prowess with aplomb, starting with a blaxploitation drumbeat that builds to some riffs that explode in the sky like illegal fireworks. And that's all before the first Jim James drunken-phantom vocals float in.

"Run Thru" has a Neil Young "Cortez"-the-killer psychedelic swagger and one of the most intense Moog-bass breakdowns of all times. Sometimes, when the drums and guitar start to rise back out of that breakdown, I feel the urge to throw myself off the tallest cliff I can find and will myself to fly.

"Masterplan" is, quite simply, one of the greatest songs ever written, and the man who can listen to it without tearing up is a stronger man than I.

All in all, the group's compact discs are some of the most consistently fantastic I've come across in the last ten years, and their live act takes them past any regional culture, and to realms beyond time and space.

Though you missed their last journey through the area, they'll be back like the road junkies they are. In the meantime, you've got plenty of listening to do.

I, for one, never leave the house without My Morning Jacket.

Jake TenPas covers night life and pop culture and edits the Entertainer. He can be reached at jake.tenpas@lee.net or 758-9514.

[The Boar]

That's a helluva review. This guy has definitely caught the fever! Someone buy that man a beer!  ;D