Back Tracks 10

I decided to do a semi-serious record review this week, as opposed to the sort of "introduction to a favorite recording" style I've taken in most past posts. Through a little birdie I have in my hands an advance copy of the upcoming Cracker/Leftover Salmon album O Cracker, Where Art Thou?, scheduled for release May 6. For a quick background, Cracker is the band formed by Camper Van Beethoven guitarist/singer David Lowery upon that band's demise in the early 90's. Leftover Salmon is a self-described "polyethnic cajun slamgrass" band from Colorado formed in the early 90's. According to their joint press release:

In the Summer of 2002, Hickman [Cracker's lead guitarist and sometime singer] and Lowery met up with the members of Leftover Salmon in Cracker's homebase of Richmond, VA. As a lark they performed a version of Cracker's Eurotrash Girl. The crowd loved it and it inspired the two bands to work together.

"We hung around the studio for two nights and jammed like the old days when you have a bunch of friends over to jam and reinterpret songs," says Lowery.

So what are the results? a ten song album that would have been a decent 6 song EP. I've been an on-again/off-again Cracker fan for a decade, so I am familiar with the majority (7 of 10) of the original release versions of these songs. Now, none of these songs are drastic reworkings - Cracker has often had a touch of Lowery's country ramblings and Hickman's blues bases; adding a little bluegrass stomp or Southern rock guitar slide isn't a radical step.

Some great successes do emerge; Get Off This benefits greatly from it's transfer from "college rock" (it always sounded to me like a Spin Doctors song) to bluegrass. The little reverb heavy organ runs, almost reggae mandolin (a beautiful high chuk-chuk-chuk of muted chords) and more joyous and smiling lyrical delivery from Lowery. Likewise, the Louisiana boogie that lies just below the surface of Sweet Potato keeps the train on track, and again the Mandolin touches work well. The press release calls it a "Little Feat inspired jam", which is very prevalent in the Dixie Chicken rip-off piano solo (you can even hear Lowery say "be my Dixie Chicken" very quietly at the end of the solo). But Little Feat were better than this.

Which is the problem; Little Feat, or Camper Van Beethoven, or Union Station or Dolly Parton (on her last couple of CD's) have done this "reimagining" better. The novelty doesn't hold through the entire album - most importantly, it fails on the songs where it needs to succeed the most. Cracker has two song's that were moderate hits - Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now) and Low.

Teen Angst (which is arguably the song that put the post-mortem on "college rock") was an end of the world, screaming R.E.M.-on-steroids old school rock 'n' roll rave-up. Here, it is cast as a 4/4 bluegrass stomp, complete with lightning-fast mandolin and requisite buta-bup-bup-bump snare drum. It seems long. And pointless. And WAY too much a knowing wink - to something we (as listeners) are not privy to. Low is more disappointing. It starts great - 23 seconds of the low register of the Mandolin playing the guitar riff. Then the verses just kind of happen. A little haunting, but not menacing the way they are in the original. And the chorus is untouched - just an unplugged version. I always felt the original was a bit long at 4:36 - the redo is 6:26.

Song length has plagued Cracker before, most notably in live favorite Eurotrash Girl. The recorded version (originally issued on the Tucson EP before being tacked on as a hidden bonus cut on Kerosene Hat) is an 8 minute tongue-in-cheek travelogue of a college boy looking for his lost love. An amazing track live (I was, accidentally, at it's first unveiling in Richmond), the recording is great for 4 minutes. The reaction is "this is great! Funny, dry, perfect!" At 5 minutes, "it's pretty good", at 6 minutes, "HMMM", at 7 you say "why?", and it ends and you shake your head. The version foisted on the listener here is a country waltz. Even cut to 6 minutes, it's far, far, far too long.

I wanted to like this. And 4 or 5 songs (including songs I was unfamiliar with, most notably Ms. Santa Cruz County) are decent. Maybe throw on Teen Angst to interest the less dedicated fan. But 10 songs for a vanity novelty project is much too much.