Colin returns with a Watershed tour update and thoughts on Gillian Welch, Dwight Yoakam and tribute bands.
Read MoreFor Me, Dwight Yoakam is Country Music.
Colin with a rave review of Dwight Yoakam.
Read MoreThe Pencilstorm Interview: Jerry David DeCicca - by Colin Gawel
Now residing in Texas, Jerry David DeCicca returns to his old haunt of Columbus for a show Sunday, November 11th at Ace of Cups. (2619 N High St.), 6pm showtime. (Click here for more info ). Jerry is spending the rest of 2018 touring to support his latest record, Burning Daylight, released on Super Secret Records. He was nice enough to tap out some answers to my questions on his phone while traveling. - Colin Gawel
C.G. - You released two very different sounding full length records in 2018. Was that always the plan? What got into you?
J.D.D. - I wrote the songs on Time the Teacher awhile ago, thinking I’d be recording them in Texas with an acoustic guitar - lots of fingerpicking - and some friends. But then the chance to work with some UK producers came up. They wanted to take my songs out of that dude-with-acoustic guitar world (which has always been a bit cliche, but more artistically conservative than ever lately) and create a new world for my songs with piano, horns, and backing vocalists. They removed my guitar. It took a while to make that album. Lots of bouncing files & mixes, that sort of stuff. Then there were big labels interested, because they loved the album, then not interested because I’m, uh, old-ish and lacking metadata and management. (I think that’s a nice way to put it...) So then the producers released it on their own label. Well, that took up a ton of calendar pages. In the meantime, Super Secret Records in Austin asked me to make record for them, so I did that, too. It just piled up. I thought releasing two records - and my best two, I think - in the same year might be cool, especially because of how different the records are from one another. I may have been wrong. The verdict is still out.
C.G. - You recently wrote an excellent essay about your affection for 90's-era Springsteen and fighting your own depression demons in your youth. Did you subconsciously create your own Human Touch and Lucky Town? (Click here to read the essay at Talkhouse.com)
J.D.D. - Well, Human Touch was an exercise. Lucky Town is high art. Darkness & The River are probably better analogies, though I’m comparing them in terms of ideology, sound, and politics more than similar levels of quality. And I appreciate you reading that essay - it was easy to write, tough to live.
C.G. - In related news, you have the drummer who played on Lucky Town playing on Burning Daylight. You always seem to work with an eclectic range of musicians on your projects, what is your process for deciding who plays on what?
J.D.D. - In music, as an artistic pursuit and a marginal career, geography is destiny. I use what’s accessible to me and what feels right. I try not to reach too far away from a home base for collaborators - I’m still more comfortable having looked into the whites of the eyes of players to give life to my songs. Making records with people is still intimate to me. Time the Teacher was full of brilliant strangers, but one of the producers I deeply trust, so that’s what helped me let go of control. The drummer in Burning Daylight, Gary Mallaber, has long been a favorite. He took a bigger leap of faith than me, flying into nowhere west Texas based on a random phone call. I am working with more strangers these days, but that’s because I moved somewhere not knowing many people. But, I’ve got good instincts and music is still my vehicle to make new friends.
C.G. - You seem to spend as much time producing records for other folks as you do recording your own songs. What’s happening on that side of the glass?
J.D.D. - I just wrapped up final mixes & approving masters for two records I produced due out next year. One is a new Chris Gantry record. It’s gonna blow minds, best thing he’s ever done. He had one huge hit, “Dreams of the Everyday Housewife,” that Glen Campbell cut. He was a favorite writer of Johnny Cash and Kristofferson, had lots of other cuts. It’s an incredible album. He’s in his 70’s and one of the best acoustic guitar players I’ve ever heard. The other artist is a guy named Will Beeley. He had two records in the 70’s reissued by Tompkins Square recently. This is his first in almost 40 years. We made it in San Antonio. He’s an over-the-road trucker now. You’ve heard of Americana Fest? All those people are bullshit, playing & writing fan fiction, fashionable garbage cans in the shape of an acoustic guitar. Beeley is the real deal. As soon as you hear his voice you’re reminded that authenticity can’t be defined, but you know it when you hear it.
C.G. - Very cool. I’m excited to check both of those out. Switching gears, as a young man, you worked at Used Kids records during the height of the Columbus Indie music scene, alongside such notables as the late Jerry Wick, Bela K. and Ron House. How did a Springsteen-loving newbee such as yourself land such a prestigious gig anyway?
J.D.D. - They were all music freaks. So am I. Freaks attract freaks. I was friends with you back then, too, so connect the dots…..
C.G. - What are some of the bars & bands you remember from your days on High Street?
J.D.D. - Bars: Stache’s, Bernie’s, Larry’s. Everyone at those places were kinder to me than they should have been. Bands: too many to name, but so many Big Brothers & Big Sisters let me tag along. You were a big part of my development. I was 20 years old when you & Joe began tolerating me. You took me inside your house one night and listened to my songs. After 4 or 5 tunes, you told me none of my songs had a bridge, we talked about Dwight Yoakam, and then you taught me how and why to write a bridge, it’s purpose & content, musically & lyrically. I remember every word, still. You were so right!! I was so excited you told me you liked this new record, because I applied what you taught me over 20 years ago to many of these songs. I owe you a beer.
C.G. - Wow! I do remember that night, though the details escape me now. I don’t know how we wound up at the Watershed house on 65 E Patterson, but I suspect it was late and beers were involved. Ok, final question. If I would have told the 20-year old Jerry that in 2018 he would release two full length records and travel from Texas to play a show in Columbus at a club owned by Marci Mays, what would he have thought?
J.D.D. - I would have said: of course! I knew I was going to make records that were art > commerce, that was the plan. I thought it was going to look different than this - more sustainable, more listeners, more opportunity to explore. But that was the 90’s then, the heyday of music, financially, where money trickled down to weirdos like me. I knew I was going to live somewhere else. I love Columbus, but also obsessed with the adventure of the Next. I mean, when I was 20, I was still a kid. But I knew I valued music as art, that I wanted it to be heavy and deep and be taken seriously. I really do appreciate how sweet you were to me back then. It meant a ton, then & now.
C.G - Always a pleasure, my friend. Safe travels and hope to take you up on that beer soon.
Did Steve Earle Have the Best Three Album Run in Rock History? - by Colin Gawel
Steve Earle and the Dukes will be playing the Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio Sunday, June 10th.
Among the many subjective questions music geeks like myself love arguing about online and in line at bars is the classic quandary: What are the best three album runs in rock n roll history? (Not including live records), Hell, almost every band with some success has made a pretty great record. Less have made two in a row. And fewer have cranked out three consecutive five star efforts.
I would like to use this space to suggest that starting with I Feel Alright and continuing with El Corazon and Transcendental Blues, Steve Earle had an amazing three record run that deserves to be mentioned among the most worthy of all time.
I Feel Alright (1996) A great record by any standard, context is what really pushes I Feel Alright into five star territory. By this point in his career, Steve Earle was just an addict who under-achieved despite his enormous talents and opportunities. And quite frankly, as he writes in South Nashville Blues, was always on the verge of being killed or locked up again.
Along with Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle was going to save country from Nashville and its Music City excesses. And though all the guys in my band Watershed liked Steve Earle, something was always a little off. Guitar Town was good, not great. Exit 0 was uneven to say the least. And for all of its calculated AOR success, even Copperhead Road had kind of an unfocused, muddy pall about it. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked the record, but compared say, If There Was a Way by Dwight Yoakam, it was just missing something..
Turns out what was missing was sobriety and a clear mind from Mr. Earle. Following The Hard Way, Steve disappeared for five long years before dipping his toe back in the water with the folky Train a Comin’. It was pretty cool and the Watershed van was happy to be spinning some new Steve Earle again, but for guys who has spent New Year's Eve seeing KISS on the Crazy Nights Tour a mere seven years before, we weren’t really prepared for the mighty wind Steve had blowing on this record.
Then…. Steve dropped I Feel Alright. From the opening chords of the title track to the stunning finale of “You’re Still Standing There” (featuring a jaw-dropping cameo from Lucinda Williams), this record ruled our world.
The very next year El Corazon was released. The album opener stopped me dead in my tracks. Nobody led off a record with a song like Christmas in Washington. Did they? That ain’t your granddaddy's Xmas song. Republicans bad. Woody Guthrie good. El Coro felt like an extension of the previous record and Steve was still rolling. Heavier moments like Here I Am (Live with The V-Roys!) balanced with heartbreakers like Fort Worth Blues. Man, Biggie would drive the van, dip and play this one all night long.
(Ok, I know I’m cheating a bit, but Earle's next record, The Mountain, was a collaboration with the Del McCoury Band recorded as a tribute the founder of bluegrass music, Bill Monroe, who had died in 1996. We are going to skip that one.)
Just when it seemed Steve was going to disappear up his own ass on a bluegrass bender he released his best, and possibly my favorite record of all time, Transcendental Blues (2000) Outside of Darkness on the Edge of Town, no record has meant more to me than this gem. Just spin it top to bottom over and over until you die. I have never tired of the title cut despite not being able to spell the word Transcendental or really understanding what it means. Even after reading the definition and after repeatedly looking up how to spell it.
Coffee customers staring at me. I better jump. Check out these amazing records and catch Steve at the Newport June 10th or on tour later this summer with...wait for it…. Dwight Yoakam and Lucinda Williams.
Colin Gawel founded Pencilstorm and plays in the band Watershed. He wrote this while spilling hot stuff at Colin’s Coffee in Columbus, Ohio.
Pencilstorm Hall of Fame Nominee: Dwight Yoakam - by Colin G.
Dwight Yoakam graduated from Northland High School here in Columbus, Ohio. He used to hang around School Kids records and talk to Curt Schieber. He dropped out of OSU and moved to L.A. and became one of two people in the world making cool country records in the 80's. (Steve Earle was the other.)
Flash to 2016. He is still one of the only guys making cool country records. He was and is still the coolest dude not just from Columbus, but from anywhere. He is an amazing songwriter and an even better singer.
And when it comes to acting, nobody plays an asshole like Dwight. I hear he performs that role often in real life. Maybe that is why he is so convincing in a movie like Sling Blade. A guy at the Grand Emporium Saloon in Kansas City once told me he once saw Dwight threaten his monitor guy with a knife over a shitty stage mix.
Clearly, Dwight Yoakam has the skills and hometown background to be welcomed into the Pencilstorm Hall of Fame. I encourage my fellow committee members to give his resume serious consideration. - Colin Gawel.
Below- A bootleg from 2014 showing why Dwight used to perform with bands like X and Husker Du.
The Pride of Northland High School.
Above- Being the coolest. Below-being a convincing asshole on screen.
"Turn my fucking monitors up, you motherfucker."
Dwight Yoakam at the Bluestone Preview
In the early '90s, when I was even dumber than I am now, I spent most of my time driving around the country in a van named Rocco and playing dive bars with the band Watershed. (You can read all about it in the acclaimed book Hitless Wonder.) Growing up in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, the only thing I knew about country music was that it sucked, whereas KISS, well, they rocked.
Thing is, the country music coming out of Nashville around that time did, in fact, suck. This is the era of "Achy Breaky Heart," "Boot Scootin' Boogie" and a whole shitload of Garth Brooks and Shania Twain. Or put another way, my idea of country was plugging in a cassette of Hank Williams Jr. and wondering what was this "Family Tradition" he was always singing about. To summarize: country sucked and I was stupid.
Still, from all of our travels, generous souls occasionally took pity on our poor barren brains and would share nuggets of musical enlightenment over beers before last call. The name Dwight Yoakam would come up repeatedly. Country doesn't suck, you dipshits just don't know where to find it, check out Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle.
Yeah, yeah, we should check out Dwight Yoakam. Whatever, old-timer. Country sucks.
So cruising late one night, Rocco was eating up I-71 while we listened to the Truckin' Bozo on WLW 700-AM and a mystery song came on. All our ears perked up. Damn, this sorta sounds like country except it doesn't suck. Now, the Truckin' Bozo was an overnight DJ who would take calls from big rigs all over the USA and occasionally play a tune so he never bothered to mention the title of the song or anything like that. But still, we all remembered that song and wondered who it was by.
Fast forward about six months and Mike "Biggie" McDermott pops in a CD (modern technology!) and says, "Might as well see what this Dwight guy is all about." We were all sort half paying attention when suddenly that song came on. "That's the song!!" we all yelled in unison. "That song" was "It Only Hurts When I Cry" and the album was If There Was a Way. We were smitten. Dwight vaulted into heavy van rotation and never left. If fact, we were so taken with Dwight, that we tried to slip a cover of "Turn Me Up, Turn Me Loose" on to a Watershed record. When the wise label suits at Epic got wind of our scheme they sent a memo that said in so many words, "What, are you guys crazy? No fuckin' way." It eventually showed up as a bonus track on a Star Vehicle re-issue when nobody cared what we did.
Yoakam and his master producer/guitarist Pete Anderson followed up If There Was A Way (1990) with This Time (1993) and Gone (1995). Each one better than the last. How was this possible? If there has been a more impressive three-record run in any genre, let alone country, I'd like to hear it. All three albums are stone-cold classics, a music production clinic and a tour de force of great songwriting. And to top it all off, Dwight can deliver the goods live and has one of the great voices in all of country music.
Dwight's latest album, 3 Pears, is his first new release in seven years and his best since Tomorrow's Sounds Today, but that is hardly a knock on his other records. Mainstream country is still best to be ignored, but everything Dwight Yoakam puts his name on is worth your attention (movies included).
Dwight Yoakam will be performing at the Bluestone in Columbus, Ohio Tuesday April 9th.
Colin Gawel writes for Pencilstorm, plays in Watershed and apologizes for the subpar grammar in this story. See, he wrote it while working at Colin's Coffee and rushed it to have ready for the Dwight Yoakam show the same night in Columbus, Ohio. We will polish it up for the archives. What do you think this is? Grantland? More at colingawel.com