|
 |
| |
|
When I scroll to the back of Rolling Stone now and see what's charting I'm perplexed. Who's buying these records?
-Ed Anderson |
|
|
| |
|
Photo by Eric Schwab
Sounds Better In A Song
Most popular music today won't last longer than a Happy Meal in the hands of a toddler. Few will listen back fondly to Fergie's "London Bridge" or Sisqó's "Thong Song" in a few years time. On the other hand, BTF makes music for the long haul. Their studio debut, Bar Room Semantics, played like a great mix tape that showcased their stylistic range and considerable chops. The brand new follow-up, Vagabonds and Hooligans, is a career maker - a confident, shining example of songcraft at its finest akin to Randy Newman's 12 Songs, Drive-By Trucker's Decoration Day, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker's Damn The Torpedoes. Played again and again, Vagabonds and Hooligans only grows in depth and charm.
"It's hard to know what's worth developing and what's rubbish," muses Anderson. "If I'm trying to come up with something and I can't get it out of my head then I usually feel it's worth developing. You can sense when you have a melody you need to run with. If I'm waking up with it in my head the middle of the night then it's a keeper."
Ed Anderson & Luther Dickinson by jeffmullerphotography.com |
"I'm real picky with the songs, obsessing and serious about it, but you don't need a fuckin' degree in jazz to play these tunes! We're all Zappa fanatics, who we appreciate as much as Son House. There's something to be said for both. Son House played out-of-tune, jumping time all over the place, but the basic unifying theme for these two is it's coming from a place that's true. You can tell. It's like soul radar. It's coming from somewhere that's real. It's not poseur bullshit."
On his lyrics, Anderson says, "I've been trying to get less literal, leave things more open to interpretation. Some people think it's strange and ask me what they mean but when I hear that I feel like I've succeeded [laughs]. It's whatever you think it is. That's what it is. They can be way off from what I was thinking but that's cool."
Knob Twiddling
"We're definitely studio junkies," comments Anderson. You can hear their growing production savvy most clearly on Vagabonds' one-two punch of "Corinne" - a soaring distillation of crystalline moments on par with vintage Neil & Crazy Horse - into "A Long Time," a barroom weepie that sounds like it was cut in the same '50s record store recording booth where Elvis sang to his mama. Sonically, the two cuts are worlds apart yet both hum with haunting creativity.
Ed Anderson by Adam George |
"['Corinne'] is the opus or anthem of this record. The guitar solo is the resolution, the triumph of overcoming. It's this release from the blue balls we've built up," Anderson remarks. "It ended in the same key that 'Been A Long Time' started in. It was only the second or third time I'd played it. [The producer] put up just one mic above the piano that also picked up my vocals, which is why it sounds like a room recording. It was just a take to get it down and it ended up on the record. It was a real old piano, slightly out of tune. We used this old marching band drum to do the hits. We tuned it so loose that when you barely touched it with a mallet you got this low rumble out of it."
This obvious pleasure in studio experimentation is present on their debut, too. Anderson says, "With Bar Room Semantics, on the song 'White On My Walls' Matt was playing a mallet on a couch pillow and I was playing an old rusted brake drum with a drill bit. We played for four straight minutes and then laid the song on top. The idea was we wanted a percussion bed with no actual instruments. We love doing stuff like that – singing through hoses or running a guitar through a Lesley cabinet."
Anderson cites the Beatles' studio explorations as a major influence, adding, "They had such good songs and those harmonies! What I know about harmonies, making two voices into one, I learned from the Beatles. Everybody played what they were supposed to. Ringo is probably the most underrated drummer of all time. There's tons of great things about the Beatles but the way they approached arrangements really served the songs."
|
