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Readers of Pencilstorm might remember my piece from 2017 about Micah Schnabel’s new album at the time Your New Norman Rockwell. That record was a breakthrough for Micah, widely known as one of the songwriters and creative driving forces of the Columbus, Ohio based band Two Cow Garage. Left behind were tales of late night parties with other bands, odes to literary outcasts like Holden Caulfield, and laments about the one that got away. They were replaced by a more mature, albeit apocalyptic landscape of lost souls working in late-night convenience shops and the reconciliation that comes years after making the decision to put art before money and exist on the outer fringes of conventional society.
It’s been a busy couple years for Micah since that record came out, mostly spent on the road supporting it by himself (meaning no band. His partner Vanessa Jean Speckman’s pop-up art is an ever-present part of the show) including some significant time in the UK and a couple circles around the states. Last week, fans were elated to hear that he had a new record to drop, some aghast to learn that 9 labels had passed on it, one even offering to explain to him, after spending well over half his life on the road and writing songs, why no one would listen to it. That’s harsh, but hardly surprising given the drivel widely consumed as popular music these days.
Enter The Teenage Years of the 21st Century - a new DIY collection of songs. The record plays like the next logical step after ...Rockwell - continuing on with a similar feel and narrative. The record starts with some jazz chords that set a pretty scene before we learn that “A nuclear war is knocking at the door…” and it’s pretty clear right off the bat that we’re not much better off than we were in 2017. We’re still led by morons, we still have no money, and we’re still just trying to sort out life on the fringes, balancing tne need to eat with the unwillingness to compromise our art. The politics of healthcare, white privilege, immigration, and the underlying anger and fear of Trump’s America are all explored to varying degrees, but with a questioning observational longing for equality and understanding moreso than the easier, more obvious, and lazy path of preachy righteousness that some more popular bands have adopted.
This record is a little more rock and roll and might resonate a little closer to the heart of die-hard Two Cow fans than YNNR did. There’s more driving drums and guitar riffs. Songs like “Gentile Always”, “New Shoes” and “A Celebration” would have fit seamlessly on the last 2CG record, with their call and answer guitars (mostly provided by the talented Jay Gasper), Springsteenish pianos, and sing-along choruses. Ever-present in all of Micah’s lyrics are the visuals - the baby boomer robbers wearing a Ronald Reagan ski-mask or late-night goofing around the radiology lab in a Maine hospital on an early Two Cow Garage tour. There’s moments of nostalgia too, which provide a brief and welcome break from the doom and gloom politics, singing about sleeping under a snooker table in Ireland, meeting Vanessa in San Francisco, and drinking red wine on the steps of an art museum in Croatia.
In “How to Ride a Bike” Micah sings about how expensive it is to be alive, but he’s quick to point out that being dead is a lousy alternative. In “A Celebration” he commits to getting up tomorrow to watch the sunrise. One common thread to his music over the years is just this - everything is a disaster, our systems are broken, people are lost, our world is plastic, but there’s hope, there’s a reason to get out of bed. A new album from Micah is just that.
You can order Teenage Years of the 21st Century on Micha’s Bandcamp page. The digital is available now and the vinyl is due in March.
Columbus readers should plan to attend Michah and Vanessa’s 5th annual Holiday Office Party at the Rumba Cafe on December 18th featuring the first Two Cow Garage set in some time among other great bands and vendors, and a toy drive for Firefighters for Kids.
Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit and fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos.
www.thetucos.com
Follow them on Facebook to read his road blog about their adventures on the dive-bar circuit.
www.facebook.com/jeremyportermusic
Twitter: @jeremyportermi | Instagram: @onetogive & @jeremyportermusic
www.rockandrollrestrooms.com