THE
YAYHOOS @ Poor David’s Pub, Dallas
March 13, 2002
THE
YAYHOOS
@ Poor David’s Pub, Dallas
March 13, 2002
WORDS: Ken Shimamoto
PICTURES: Mike Burke
One of the advantages of passing on SXSW this year: getting to see this great,
multifaceted band in an, uh, INTIMATE setting in a small Dallas dive (there
mighta been 20 people there, and four (eight? My "plus-one" cancelled.)
of THOSE were on the guest list. Proof positive, as if any more were needed,
that there IS truly no justice in rock’n’roll.
The Yayhoos are, for those of you who’ve missed out, the rootsy-rock "supergroup"
fronted by ex-Georgia Satellite Dan Baird and legendary muso (Blackhearts, Del-Lords,
Roscoe’s Gang, Steve Earle) and producer (Nils Lofgren, Bottle Rockets,
Go To Blazes, half of the "alt-country" cosmos) Eric "Roscoe"
Ambel. Rounding out the group are bassist Keith Christopher from Billy Joe Shaver’s
rock group Shaver and drummer/solo artist Terry Anderson. In no way are the
riddim boyzzz lesser partners, either; this band boasts four, count ‘em,
FOUR strong songwriters and singers (lead AND harmony), and they’ll change
instruments at the drop of a hat in the middle of the set, too.
When I call Poor David’s to find out what time the band will hit and how
long they’re playing, I get the eerie sensation that I’m talking to
Lou Reed on the Velvets’ "1969 Live." "They’re playing
two 45-minute sets," says the fella, "or they might just do one long
set." My sense of direction in Dallas being for shit, I arrive at the venue
half an hour late, but luckily, I was given some bad intel (a plot to sell more
alcohol? YOU decide!!!), and the band hasn’t started yet. Parking on lower
Greenville Avenue is cheaper than it is in Deep Ellum, where the Dallas clubs
I usually frequent are located – only five bucks vice seven. Feh. I order
a four-dollar beer and position myself at a table in back. It’s weird being
in a place that’s all tables and chairs instead of the customary Rawk club
open dance floor – weirder still to see most of ‘em empty, but whatthehell,
it’s a Wednesday night in the middle of SXSW week and most of the hip cognoscenti
have decamped for Austin, "America’s Live Music Capital ®."
Onstage, a tall, rangy longhair in a fur hat that looks like a dead cat is tuning
a guitar, and I think, "Goddamn but this band has some ugly roadies."
Shades of my first sighting of the Onyas’ Mad Mack – turns out the
fella is none other than Dan Baird, who’s composed at least one bar-band
classic (and says that he’s waiting until 2006, when it’ll be 20 years
old, to see if bar bands are still playing the Georgia Satellites’ mid-eighties
hit "Keep Your Hands To Yourself" – back in the day, an oasis
of Stones-y raunch in a desert of blorp-bleep synth-pop bullshitola and "power
ballads;" only then will he start performing it again). Meanwhile, the
amiable Keith Christopher is introducing himself to everyone in the bar, as
a result of which, Baird says before they begin, "You all KNOW us now,
so even if you hear something you don’t like, you won’t let us know!"
I
hear a familiar voice emanating from the bar behind me and turn to introduce
myself to Eric Ambel, who’s changed his look considerably since all the
photos I’ve seen were taken (short hair, glasses). I’ve been admiring
the vintage Fender stuff onstage, and get to enjoy the privilege of talking
gear with Roscoe, who reveals that he owns FOUR Les Pauls with P-90s: a man
who knows what he likes. There are also three Telecasters onstage (Roscoe’s
equipped with a P-90 in the neck position, Dan’s, and one that Terry Anderson
will play later); two of them boast gorgeous airbrushed designs. Later, I get
to try out Roscoe’s guitars and discover that the man uses one of the heaviest
string setups I’ve ever heard of a human being using: .012s to .056s (just
a tad lighter than Pete Townshend’s .013-.056s, and Roscoe uses a plain
G in place of Whonose’s piano wire, but then again, ‘Scoe makes it
sing a lot sweeter, too, high and lonesome like a lap steel, but with a fat,
dirty tone like Neil Young’s).
Appearance-wise, Terry Anderson (who wrote the Georgia Satellites’ SECOND-best
song, "Battleship Chains," as well as "I Love You, Period"
for Baird’s solo "Love Songs for the Hearing Impaired") has also
shed his long hair and beard and now could be mistaken for a high school football
coach, except for the soul patch that might make an uninitiate down here in
Texas think he was a BLUES drummer, but his performance proves that he’s
neither a whistle-blowing taskmaster nor a rote purveyor of shuffles. Later
on, I spend my last 10 spot on a copy of his first solo album, "You Don’t
Like Me," which I’ll subsequently discover I coulda copped for $1.49
from Half.com. Oh well; after tonight’s performance, I’ll feel like
I NEED to be subsidizing the arts. The record is pretty grand, anyway, nearly
as much so, in fact, as the Yayhoos album, and he’s got two others, as
well (the latest, "I’ll Drink to That," having been released
on Not Lame last year) that I now need to find.
One of the sleepers of 2001 (and a keeper in 2002), the Yayhoos’ "Fear
Not the Obvious" was actually recorded way back in 1996. (Before that,
Ambel and Anderson both had solo deals with the East Side Digital label, and
the two of them and Baird had written together and played on each other’s
records.) "We wanted to play together, so everybody brought unfinished
ideas and we completed them in the studio," Roscoe explains. "We thought
they were just demos, but the girl from Bloodshot [Records] kept calling, wanting
to put it out, so finally we did." "We’re not trying to make
a big statement," adds Baird. "This band is about having fun."
"We don’t have to be SERIOUS and PROFESSIONAL all the time,"
agrees Christopher. "But at the same time," opines Roscoe, "this
is the most REAL band I’ve ever been in."
A real band they are, indeed, and if there’s another group of musos out
there that has more fun onstage, I’d like to see ‘em. They way the
dynamic looks to me, Ambel and Anderson are master craftsmen (which is not to
imply that they’re stiff or sterile; on the contrary, all of these guys
play FEROCIOUSLY), while Baird and Christopher are pure naturals (if you want
to see the living embodiment of joy and abandon in performance, just watch Keith
Christopher slink around the stage as he pumps out propulsive, achingly MELODIC
bass lines, his face a mask of ecstasy, a man transported, and try not to smile;
I double-damn dare you).
Before they start, Dan Baird takes a moment to carefully arrange the materials
on a table on his side of the stage: two Budweisers, cigarettes, ashtray; later,
Keith Christopher orders a shot of tequila. Kicking it off with "Oh! Chicago,"
Dan looks like a loose-limbed Keef caricature, all elbows and knees, pulling
off a neat double-stopped break before singing, his voice a rough-hewn instrument
that spews out more "phlegm, bile, catarrh, and other bodily humors"
(as John Mendelssohn once wrote about, uh, Rod Stewart) in a single song than
your average angst-ridden Alternacreep has in a lifetime, a litmus test for
righteous types who secretly harbor a prejudice against rednecks (listen to
"Hankerin’" on the album to hear what I mean), while Roscoe supplies
the requisite Chuck Berry quotient. "You must be kind to a redneck girl
with her high-class dreams," indeed.
As Geoff Ginsberg points out, Baird’s "Get Right With Jesus"
isn’t a RELIGIOUS song; rather, it’s an extremely un-PC tale of a
fella getting drunk on a 15-hour bus ride to Mobile, Alabama, borrowed pistol
in a paper bag, to kick his ex-woman’s ass; the sound is classic seventies
boogie, driven by Anderson’s very PRECISE thrashing and bashing. That said,
Baird’s still as saturated with salvation as George Jones, Gram Parsons,
Lou Reed, or any other great sinner you can think of (didn’t his old band
release an album called "In the Land of Salvation and Sin," after
all?). "Bottle and a Bible" is his hymn here, and ‘Scoe dresses
it up real fine with gorgeous tremeloed arpeggios.
Conversely, Roscoe’s "Monkey With a Gun" is a pretty straightforward
recounting of a Hank Williams, Jr./Kentucky Headhunters gig Baird once witnessed
("Gun dealers on the tour bus/Bocephus wants to get it on"), underpinned
by a classic Stones-like riff. Monday night football will never seem the same.
I’ll admit to being unduly partial to Roscoe’s "Baby I Love You"
("…but leave me the fuck alone"); in a just society where there
was radio worthy of the name, I’d be calling in a dedication to my ex-girlfriend
every night. ‘Scoe also plays a special request, the moody "Way Outside"
(which Roscoe co-wrote with Anderson and Baird, interestingly enough) from the
second Roscoe’s Gang outing "Loud & Lonesome."
For
"I Can Give You Everything" (co-written with NRBQ guitarist and non-relative
Al Anderson), Anderson steps out from behind the drums and straps on a Tele,
while Christopher takes his place behind the traps and Baird picks up the bass.
If I hadn’t seen it, I never woulda guessed it from the record; all three
musos acquit themselves far more than adequately on their alternate axes. And
when Terry sings "I got love enough to cover the world, I been saving it
up for just one girl," you’ve gotta believe him. Then he regains his
throne and Keith moves over to guitar to sing the heartbreakingly lovely (but
still rockin’) "For Cryin’ Out Loud," his voxxx reminding
me of another hale fellow well met, Ron Wood from the sloppy-drunk Faces, only
with more BALLS. (Keith’s drums on "I Can Give You Everything"
also have the same slapdash forward motion as Kenney Jones’ usedta at their
best.)
"What Are We Waiting For," the lead-off track from the album, is both
the nearest thing the Yayhoos currently have to a Big Hit Single and the only
rock’n’roll song I can remember that includes a line about Jackie
Gleason. When Baird sings "Come on in, there ain’t no line, it’s
happy hour all the time, with a deal like that you just can’t say no,"
as close to an operational definition of Heaven as you get in rock’n’roll,
all you can do is shake your head in wonder. Realizing this is definitely a
SONGWRITER’S band, they also do a nice line in surprising covers. While
I’m slightly disappointed we don’t get to hear the B-52s’ "Roam,"
tonight’s set DOES include the Lovin’ Spoonful’s "You Didn’t
Have to Be So Nice" (sung by Keith) and the O’Jays’ (!!!) "Love
Train," in addition to the version of ABBA’s "Dancing Queen"
that closes the album.
This band is a treasure, great on so many levels and yet totally unpretentious
and fun. Why, they’ve even got me listening to song lyrics again! By all
means, buy their record and see ‘em if you get a chance.
- Ken Shimamoto
1/2
