HEY HEY, MY MY
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By Joe Gross
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, July 3, 2003
Will Sheff, the leader of Austin band Okkervil River, had a great idea. He shared this idea with his friends in a couple of other like-minded Austin bands, Grand Champeen and Lil Cap'n Travis. They agreed that it was a good idea, because it involved music they believed in -- and that none of these bands would be here without. Sheff's idea was this: The three groups would cover Neil Young's classic albums "On the Beach" and "Tonight's the Night" live. "You're not going to get to see those songs played by Neil Young, circa '73," Sheff says from his Austin home. "So why not do it yourself?"
But this is Austin. Even though Young is headlining the second night of Willie Nelson's Fourth of July picnic, wouldn't it make more sense for Austin bands to cover the Flatlanders or Doug Sahm or Stevie Ray Vaughan?
Well, those are great artists, no doubt. But these days, Neil Young, a guy from Canada who has lived in California for almost his entire career, feels just as crucial to Austin music as Willie or Doug or Stevie Ray. Just look around, and what do you see? Alt-country acts that all but hoist their copies of "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere" onstage with them. Bar bands that can launch into "Like A Hurricane" on cue. Punks who have to admit "Live Rust" is the toughest concert album of all time.
Though Austin has a strong musical identity, it's also a schizophrenic one that ranges from the noisy psychedelia of the Butthole Surfers to the purebred country of Jimmie Dale Gilmore. It's no wonder the Clash cottoned to Joe Ely, or that this was one of the first places in America where you could see tribal tattoos on the denizens of a dance hall.
Neil Young, likewise, has always embodied that split personality, setting quiet country ditties against feedback-drenched rockers. Of all of the icons of his generation, he's the only one who tried to meet punk, and then grunge, on its own terms.
And Young has always followed his own path, making the sort of anti-commercial gestures that loom large in Austin music's sense of self-worth. "He was just totally unafraid to (anger) people who love a certain aspect of his music (in favor of doing what he wanted)," Sheff says. "So much of indie rock and punk can be traced back to that."
Michael Crow, guitarist for Grand Champeen, has a Neil fetish that just won't quit. "I'm kind of a geek," he says over the phone. "I have a Les Paul Gold Top with a Gretsch pickup," just like Neil.
"I definitely think he's influenced us," he adds. "We don't sound like him, but (there's) the lack of pretention that he implements, this visceral power in his music."
"It's the honesty of it," Lil Cap'n Travis bassist Jeff Johnston says. "The way he just leaves the mistakes in and all that.
"It's just real."
Tonight's the night
There aren't many people at the Mercury at 9:30 p.m. last Friday, but that's pretty early in a town where shows ending at 2 a.m. are the rule. Slowly but steadily, the club fills with a mix of Merc regulars, folks here to see the bands and a few people who look like they might have picked up "On the Beach" and "Tonight's the Night" when they came out.
Sheff is pleasant but quiet, softly chatting with bandmates and well wishers, looking over at the stage every minute or so. "I'm hoping not to talk too much," he says. "I blew my voice out at our last rehearsal."
He wanders off with some other Okkervils -- a few of whom have a distinct look of "this could go horribly wrong" deep in their eyes -- to talk last minute details. Young's three-disc compilation "Decade" is playing over the loudspeakers.
As the club fills, it's hard to tell who is a Neil fan and who's a fan of these bands -- but since Neil's music is where Austin's head is at these days, the assembled seem to be both.
Matt Cook is both. The bassist in the band the Tinys, he knows the guys on stage pretty well, and adores Neil Young. In fact, he's a distinct sub-species of Neil Young fanatic: the Nils Lofgren Cultist.
For those who only know Lofgren as the ringer in the E Street Band, it should be mentioned that he played on "After the Gold Rush" when he was but 17 years old. He played guitar and piano on "Tonight's the Night" and had a solo career in the early '70s with his own band, Grin. "I love Nils," Cook says. "I even feel a tiny bit bad that I'm not up there, playing along with them, but I can't wait to see this show." Cook recounts a story of meeting Lofgren at a signing, bringing every album Lofgren played on to be signed. "He was cheesy in the best possible way," Cook says, "He wrote 'Believe!' next to his signature on all my records." It could be this evening's motto.
At around 10:45, with a solid crowd in the room, the music starts. Lil Cap'n Travis and Grand Champeen sing most of "On the Beach," the former's harmonies and the latter's straightforward rock well suited to the material.
Lil Cap'n drummer Mandon Maloney does a lovely job singing "Walk On." Country-rock rule No. 243: When you have a singing drummer, it helps if he looks and sounds like Levon Helm.
And suddenly, this show isn't just a neat idea; it's a reality.
"On the Beach" is great, but "Tonight's the Night" is a minor revelation. The album is a weird, drunken messy affair, a soused memorial to Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bill Berry, both of whom were killed by heroin.
But the bands transform the hurt and sorrow into a raucous wake. Grand Champeen turns the dark "Come On Baby" into a sorrow-smashing benediction. Okkervil organist Jonathan Meiburg's reading of "Borrowed Tune" is deeply moving. Lil Cap'n Travis take the middle of the album, gliding through "Roll Another Number," "Albuquerque" and "New Mama" before Okkervil returns for "Tired Eyes."
At around 12:30, almost everyone hits the stage for the title tune's reprise, before smashing into "Don't Cry," the first song off of "Zuma." Now we're in the bonus round, something for the fans who have stuck through it all. This could go on all night, and it's a testament to the material and the bands and how Austin feels about both that there are still so many people here for what's basically a very elaborate karaoke night. From the stage, Okkervil bassist Zach Thomas calls this "the most fun I've ever had playing a show." Sheff says it's the best time he's had in 26 years.
By the time they get to "Cortez the Killer," everyone is pretty well messed up. It seems like everyone's on stage. It's a mess, someone gets sick, and the whole thing's on the verge of total collapse.
A heart of gold
Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon, whose band once toured with Young, got at the spirit that animated the evening when she wrote, 20 years ago, that "People pay to see others believe in themselves." Young's music believes in itself as totally as any in rock history. Good, bad, misguided, brilliant, terrible, morose, uplifting: It is always 100 percent him. In a town where people can't help getting on stages to deal with the people they can't handle day to day, and people keep paying to see them be free, Young's music has to resonate.
The day after the show, Okkervil River are wickedly hung over, but Sheff is trying to describe how it went.
"These records, they're such masterpieces it could have looked like a dog (relieving itself) on a cathedral or something," he says.
But it didn't turn out that way.
"When you listen to an album like 'Tonight's the Night,' you hear this existential party, and this friendship, the closeness of these people. All the guys in these bands are good friends."
He pauses again on the question of why Young resonates with Austinites.
"I like music that's really raw and sort of breaks something inside of you," he says. "The Texas musicians who mean a lot to me are people like Townes Van Zandt and Daniel Johnston and Buddy Holly and Jandek. Young fits right in." |
