My Morning Jacket party like it's 1969

[my_evening_jacket]

http://seattleweekly.com/features/0340/music-morning.php



October 1 - 7, 2003

Music Review: Out of Time

My Morning Jacket party like it's 1969.

by Rod Smith WE'LL NEVER GET away from the '60s. No matter how much space we put between ourselves and that blessed/accursed decade, no matter how many technological innovations arise, no matter how many wars and revolutions, the '60s, like a bad case of herpes, are going to come back to haunt us again and again. Just look—and listen—around. More than 30 years after David Bowie and Roxy Music supposedly consigned the "we decade" to dust (and 25 after punk rock pointed out that its corpse was beginning to stink), '60s revivalism rages unchecked—in the proliferation of jam bands, the garage-rock explosion, tie-dyed earth monkeys, and weekend mods—even in life itself, as folks routinely (and correctly) compare Iraq to Vietnam and any peace-oriented event that draws more than 10 people inevitably propels the ponytailed codgers and codgerettes in the house into paroxysms of reminiscence. Hell, when Simon and Garfunkel get back together, even if only for a tour, you know shit's gotta be bad.
Fortunately, there's more to the '60s mania currently gripping the planet than regurgitated nonsense and rampant nostalgia. Take My Morning Jacket. As the Louisville, Ky., quintet's new It Still Moves (RCA) reveals, they're not strictly a neo-'60s band; they simply derive the bulk of their inspiration from some of the earthier manifestations of rock's Jurassic era, especially Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Let It Bleed-era Rolling Stones, and the Band's first two albums. Normally, such a well-worn constellation of influences would damn a contemporary rock ensemble to humble bar status or, worse still, the field-yup fiefdoms lorded over by the likes of Big Head Todd, where people who go to shows usually buy two beers at a time—one to drink, and one to slosh around in the air. Luckily, MMJ mastermind Jim James is fancy enough with the pastiche and production to keep the proceedings well away from either of those conceptual corrals. Plus he's really good at experimentation, one '60s trick that doesn't usually see all that much play among revivalists.

Much of MMJ's charm springs from James' flair for reconciling seemingly disparate elements: the forlorn Orbisonian melody and chirpy chords—straight out of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' "Sherry"—that form the verse of album-opener "Mahgeetah," for instance. Not one to settle for just one novel juxtaposition when he can have a whole fucking bunch of them, James tosses a half-tempo chorus reminiscent of the Beach Boys circa Smiley Smile into the sonic Cuisinart, along with some ebullient bluegrass picking, a Rolling Stones-ish turnaround or two, even a dramatic stop-and-start interlude wrapped around the song's closing guitar solo so nicely that it sparkles in its good-old-fashionedness like a brand-new Nehru jacket rescued from a forgotten corner of a department store warehouse. My Morning Jacket aren't the only band stringing mini-movements together, late '60s-style, in the service of expanded song structures, but they do it well—and minus the proggish abruptness of Deerhoof or the piratical bombast of the Coral. And they use reverb as glue better than anyone in rock.

UNFORTUNATELY, James' machinations don't always yield results as refreshing as "Mahgeetah." "Golden," with its Sam Cooke-meets-the Band gambit, somehow comes out all wrong, like Grandaddy doing a John Denver cover. And the endless procession of "Watch us party like it's 1969" moves can get a bit fatiguing after a while. The band veers dangerously close to colliding with "Free Bird" on "One Big Holiday," only to pull out of what seems like a tailspin straight into the fiery Velveeta pit with a landing as delicate as a swallow's. They seamlessly integrate early Springsteen slow-jam-inflected guitar flourishes with a Sabbath-meet- the-Allman Brothers freak-out on "Run Thru"—pretty nifty, especially given the acidic four-on-the-floor interlude that leads to the song's climax. For all of its spectacle, though, "Run Thru" provides a prime example of the album's greatest weakness—its lyrics. James doesn't necessarily write bad ones, he just tends toward the abstruse and solipsistic. Undoubtedly, "Oh shit run thru the ghetto/They will hear you/ Mornin' bell tolls at home/Rings loud back where I come from/Calls me back/Often times I would hope and pray/Then faith came my way" means something to him. It might even mean something to the rest of the band. Unfortunately, they fail to convey whatever that something is to the listener, though the combination of apparent urgency in the words and James' relaxed delivery does create an interesting kind of tension.

In the end, it's this unwillingness to engage their audience lyrically that makes My Morning Jacket less a neo-'60s band and more like a highly intelligent, five-piece sampling device. But they know they can't turn the clock back, nor would they probably do so, given the option. The one element of the '60s that can never be regained is innocence, and if My Morning Jacket found themselves with a surfeit of that commodity, they probably wouldn't be able to make such elegant music in such a relatively concise manner. Plus, you can't help but suspect that they're abundantly familiar with the 1960s' one enduring gift to mass culture. No, not outdoor festivals—weed. And an ounce of weed is worth a pound of innocence anytime.



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[cmccubbin@work]

this was the worst damn review ever.  he panned "Golden"...hope this idiot got fired.

[aMD]

wow.  This is the worst review of the band  I've ever read.  I know that everyone's entitled to an opinion and that most of you believe that musical taste is subjective, but this guy's an idiot, right?  If not totally WRONG, at least ignorant.

[sweatboard]

uh, what?

[primushead]

Wow, I just realized that the article was written 3 1/2 years ago.

I was about to get real pissed there for a while.  I'll let it slide though...but dissing Golden.  There's no excuse for that.

[TEO]

JJ OWNS Golden! What the hell???

[The DARK]

"Close to colliding with Free Bird on One Big Holiday???" Who wrote this review? He sounds like the rest of America today, lumping them into the category of 60's and 70's stoner rock. Do people respect originality in bands anymore?

[EAZYE]

WHAT A COCKMUNCH >:(  Apparently he has some different views than most of us here.  I guess you're gonna have some people out there that don't like the jacket, and that's fine, but i have to strongly disagree that their weakest point is the......lyrics.
WTF!!!!!!!! :-/

[amybee]

ok...reading that was like listening to charlie brown's teacher...wah wahwah wahwah.  Now I'm a relatively intelligent being, but what is up with writers of music reviews (positive or negative) fluffing it up with obscure words and b.s?    ::)

[billybluebeard]

Bitching about JJ's abstruseness only shows that this guy can't think for himself / has no imagination.  He's probably stuck reading on a Seussian level when he can't find his thesaurus (and might find President of the USA lyrics a little more his speed, ie: "peaches come in a can / they were put there by a man / in a factory downtown").  As for his solipsistic lyrics, well, what should he write about?  Dragons and shit?  Whatever.  It's art.  A lot of it's "a meaning I understand", and the things I don't actually understand I'm drawn even deeper into.  One thing I've always loved about the Jacket is how easy it is for me to get lost and float away in their songs, and it's not just all the reverb, and it's not just the way that he sings... I've floated off just pondering the words of the songs.  I'd rather be intrigued than have every song broken down into bite-size pre-chewed pieces.  

And what the hell's weed got to do with anything?

I, for one, will not be reading the Seattle Weekly again.  

Unless maybe I go to Seattle.    

[.Walt]

WHAT A COCKMUNCH >:(  

thats a funny f'ing word  ;D

[LET_THE_FETUS_ROCK]

With a name like ROD how can he not be a Cockmunch!

[The DARK]

but i have to strongly disagree that their weakest point is the......lyrics.
WTF!!!!!!!! :-/

Just because that miniscule thing in his head he calls a brain cannot comprehend lines that aren't blunt is no good reason to diss the Jacket! Notice how he completely ignores every line in Steam Engine and One in the Same, but jumps all over "Oh shit run thru the ghetto". Did he just read the liner notes or something? How else would he think that One Big Holiday sounds like Free Bird? Missing a connection there...

[cmccubbin@work]

With a name like ROD how can he not be a Cockmunch!

it was probably written by ROD FARVA....

[megisnotreal]

With a name like ROD how can he not be a Cockmunch!

it was probably written by ROD FARVA....

let's all chip in to buy farva some new eardrums.

[The DARK]

Hey, take it easy on the goon! Without people like him, I'd look like an idiot.  :)

[Dorothy_Mantooth]

if weed equals innocence, then call me Shirley Temple.

[aMD]

if weed equals innocence, then call me Shirley Temple.

Why did  you have to bump this thread?  It makes me angry.  >:(

[whothrewthecake]

yikes.