The Band to Band of Horses

In which we consider bands so band-like they began their name with the word "band"...

The Band
Coalescing while backing Canadian rock and roll godfather Ronnie Hawkins and the electrified Bob Dylan, an honorific was never necessary for the Band. The name was both humble and arrogant, a nod to the anonymity from which they sprung and a proprietary eponym (like "Kleenex" or "Xerox") for their brand of country rock that, while considerably different from the hits of the late 1960s, formed a template for four decades of edgy would-be folkies. (And, if you want to continue the analogy, probably the first band to popularize anachronistic clothing.)

The Band was comprised of four Canadians and one Yank, but all were masters of Americana, transplanting the mythos and emotional sweep of the rural heartland into the electric age. They were also somewhat unlikely counterculture icons, given their frontier milieu and their associations with "traitor" Dylan (who famously skipped Woodstock; the Band, however, played on). If there's a people's band, pre-E Street division, this is it.

Music From Big Pink introduced the quintet with a bit of songwriting assistance from Dylan. His three co-credits are unsurprisingly some of the best tracks on the record: the opening "Tears of Rage" is actually a slow, melancholy shuffle and a warning that we're going to be dealing with some very raw emotions. In "The Weight," guitarist Robbie Robertson picks up on these cues in a heartsick classic that announces his presence as the group's creative 500-pound gorilla. Robertson certainly didn't have a monopoly on talent in the Band, but "The Weight" is their quintessential song, something so pure and sweet and clear of conviction that you almost forget how achingly sad it is. A sob story about a transient who tries hard to be good, I also dig that it name-checks Nazareth, Pennsylvania, home of the Blue Eagles and C.F. Martin & Company--a.k.a. Martin Guitar, the manufacturer of the popular hollow-body guitars favored by many musicians of the era.



Big Pink has some nice symmetry in its closing number, "I Shall Be Released," another showcase of Dylan's lyrics that cauterizes the wound opened on "Tears of Rage" and offers some hope, however distant.



The rustic feeling is enhanced and the training wheels are removed on The Band, and the result is the group's creative masterwork. A deeper commitment to roots music is obvious through the record from "Across the Great Divide" to "Rag Mama Rag" to the pretty awesome Grateful Dead impression on "Jemima Surrender." Most are probably familiar with "Up On Cripple Creek," an early ode to the quirky dream girls that so captivated the secretly-grounded men of the beat, hippie, punk, New Wave, 'alternative,' and hipster generations. It's easy to get swept up with the narrator of "Creek" as he describes his staunchly loyal, doughnut-in-tea-dipping paramour who, perhaps coincidentally, is not his wife.



The Band balances the jug band work-outs with countrified arias with a tenuous foundation in historical fact - the slinky "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" and the epic "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." What these songs may lack in verisimilitude (or, um, claims on a higher morality in the case of "Dixie") they make up in verve and tears and gut feeling. There's an urgency I detect on this album, something about many of the tracks that perfectly captures an immediacy that's like sitting in on their original recording sessions. They have a life about them, and "Dixie" is the nerve center.

Two specific things impress me about "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down":

1. It turns me, a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee and detractor of revisionist Southern claims about Civil War history, into putty in old Confederate hands.

2. It was recorded, like the rest of The Band, in Los Angeles. This is kind of like if Jimi Hendrix recorded his version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Brussels.



The years after The Band marked an inevitable decline in the face of corporate rock's ascendancy, and the Band had the good sense to bow out after their 1976 swan song, The Last Waltz. The fissures were already showing by 1970, though, with "Stage Fright" capturing a new era of uneasy feelings about the group's sudden fame and fortune.



Robertson had one last epic in him, "Acadian Driftwood," the centerpiece of the mostly-average Northern Lights-Southern Cross. Swapping famous American guilt (devastation of the American South, 1864-1865) for famous Canadian guilt (18th century deportation of Francophone Acadians from Nova Scotia to Louisiana), "Driftwood" takes even more poetic license than "Dixie," but is no less resonant in its lamentation of defeat. On a record that includes interminable synthesizer-driven jams and inexplicable Steely Dan pastiches ("Jupiter Hollow"), "Driftwood" is a jewel.



The extended edition of Northern Lights-Southern Cross also has the unrepentantly religious "Christmas Must Be Tonight," a glorious slice of holiday cheese. And now that we've mentioned treacly, misguided Xmas songs...

Band Aid - "Do They Know It's Christmas"
Band Aid 20 - "Do They Know It's Christmas 2004"
Many things have been said about "Do They Know It's Christmas" - it's pandering and trite, it's problematic, it's self-satisfied, it probably perpetuates the annoying/horrid cultural stereotype of the "starving African," and considering the checkered track history of European Christians intervening in African affairs, do they even care that it's Christmas?

Ultimately, I give Band Aid mastermind (and onscreen Roger Waters surrogate) Bob Geldof the benefit of the doubt. The Boomtown Rats frontman raged for several years against the myopia of the Me Decade and eventually won over many of his peers. It led to the creation of the modern benefit concert template (Live Aid) and was taken as a charitable challenge by musicians across the pond ("We Are the World"). Even naming the project "Band Aid" was an act of self-awareness that demonstrated Geldof's understanding of his very small role in addressing a very complex problem. It's the type of project that will always attract opportunists but as long as they're reciprocating some of that benefit, I don't see any major harm.

The song itself is extremely dated now, with a giggle-inducing spoken word portion stuck in the middle that forever captures some of the flavors-of-the-month (Dad, what's Bananarama?) alongside strange vamping (from Paul McCartney, of all people) and an intensely serious Christmas message from David Bowie that nearly stops the song in its tracks, mostly because he sounds like the only guy on the record besides Geldof who genuinely cares about famine relief. Also, Bono kind of being a dick...feed the world!



Musically, there is no real excuse for "Do They Know It's Christmas 2004" except, perhaps, for Chris Martin to take over the alpha dog vocals from Paul Young and for Dizzee Rascal and the Darkness' Justin Hawkins to do a call-and-response sing-rap. It doesn't even have the spoken word part. The word 'inessential' comes to mind.



Band of Horses
A band at their best when gloomy and anthemic, like the Shins crossed with Explosions in the Sky and scrambled with grits - "The Funeral" (from the debut Everything All the Time) and "Is There A Ghost" (from Cease to Begin) stand out in this regard.






Everything All the Time dances with a peculiar sort of alt-country darkness and as such might be Band of Horses' most interesting record to date, full of "Monsters" come to feed on us and the ministrations of "Wicked Gil" ('helping evil people to say things they show'). But Cease to Begin runs in the opposite direction, flirting with romantic dream pop in the likes of "Detlef Schrempf" (sadly not an ode to the former Mavericks/Pacers/Supersonics/Trailblazers sharpshooter) and "No One's Gonna Love You."



It's worth mentioning that Cease to Begin was recorded after a massive lineup overhaul that left only two original members, Ben Bridwell and Mat Brooke, which may account for the diverse tone of the sophomore record. Also contributing - the money made after "The Funeral" became a hot commodity among music directors for commercials and television shows. Normally I find this annoying, but in this case it couldn't have happened to a better song. And lest we forget their country roots, Band of Horses offers the mid-album stomper "The General Specific."



2010's Infinite Arms continues the slow expansion of the band's music palette but there's something about it that's just too willowy about it for my taste. It's a record tailor-made to grab the attention of the NPR crowd that likes their music alternative but not too abrasive. To oblige, the band tosses in some strings on "Factory" and busts out the Eagles harmonies on "Older" and "Blue Beard." It's still a quality record anchored by Bridwell's wistful vocal, which only helps the group maintain its creative stamp throughout myriad personnel changes and stylistic dalliances.