Rock and Hard Places (45 page)

 

 

 

W
HEN
UNCUT
MAGAZINE called and asked if I fancied this one, I was initially hesitant. It wasn’t because I had any reservations about either of the groups I’d be spending time with. I admire The Hold Steady hugely, and as for Drive-By Truckers, well, sometimes, when a cut from “Decoration Day,” “The Dirty South” or “Brighter than Creation’s Dark” pops up on my iPod at an apposite moment, I think they might well be the best band in the world. It wasn’t even because I already had a trip to the US planned at around this time—to Philadelphia, to write an afterword for another book amid (or so I anticipated and hoped) the first days of the Obama era (I’d chosen Philadelphia partly because of its stature as the birthplace of America’s glorious democratic experiment, mostly just because I like the place). What gave me pause was the prospect of being, for the first time in years, properly on tour—as in sleeping on the bus, massaging throbbing and hungover temples while someone’s drummer soundchecks—even if only for a couple of days.

Because it’s awful, it really is. Even the bits which aren’t awful—the laughter, the in-jokes, the camaraderie, the odd surreal surprises that touring scatters in your path—only seem like they’re not awful because they represent a fleeting respite from the awfulness of it all. Touring is—well, okay, was—not such a bad way to spend one’s early twenties, when the average male human, certainly,
is barely distinguishable from the average male baboon, and is therefore abundantly pleased by the trivial, mindless gratifications offered by this way of life. For grownups, however—for people, that is, like Drive-By Truckers and The Hold Steady, who have hinterlands, families, friends, lives, interests, the habit of reading unillustrated books—it’s a wretched, detached, deranging and lonely vocation.

These are, of course, the views of the author, not necessarily of Drive-By Truckers or The Hold Steady, hardcore road monsters all—people absolutely driven to be driven, and a good thing too, as the more people get to see both groups live, the happier our world will be. The fact remains, however, that the piece that follows amounts to a snapshot of intelligent and sensitive adults voluntarily submitting themselves to weeks at a time of a daily regime of twenty-three hours of boredom, irritation, humiliation, drunkenness and fitful sleep erratically redeemed by a sixty-minute (give or take the encores) hit of adrenalised excitement. To which the obvious retort is that it still beats working, and I’m sure that’s true, but not by as comprehensive a knockout as the uninitiated might imagine. It requires truly extraordinary commitment, and an acceptance of ennui verging on the Zen, to resign yourself to a day waiting in a car park to play to a half-full venue.

All that said—or, rather, all that whined—I’m glad I went (for one reason or another, whatever the story, wherever the location, I’m always glad I went). I got to go to two cities I’d never been to before. In Atlanta, I saw the Coca-Cola museum, which is as brilliant as it is strange. In Tallahassee, I met the single fattest person I’ve ever encountered, the driver of a taxi I hailed (his girth was such that the lower third of the steering wheel was completely enfolded by his surfeit of stomach, and he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt because he couldn’t, though as he was essentially his own airbag, I don’t suppose it mattered, much). And I saw two great shows by two great bands, which works out at four great shows.

“THIS SHIT IS so good,” declares Patterson Hood, brandishing the bottle meaningfully, “that they . . . they put a cork in it.”

One senses that this is praise indeed for whiskey, where Hood is concerned. He waves dismissively at the lesser screw-capped bourbons
huddled on the tour bus kitchenette, and passes the eight-year-old Basil Hayden’s across the aisle. One swig confirms his judgement: high octane honey. Hood, a man gripped by ungovernable enthusiasms even at his most relaxed, has not long ago taken his last bows after a triumphant, riotous performance by Drive-By Truckers and The Hold Steady at Atlanta’s Tabernacle, and is somewhat amped. Meet the wife (hello). Here’s a picture of my daughter (she’s lovely). You gotta hear the new Jenny Lewis (I have, but carry on). Next to Hood, Drive-By Truckers’ tour manager, Matt DeFelippis, demonstrates the importance of modern communications technology in coordinating the modern rock tour. The Truckers’ other primary songwriter, Mike Cooley, has phoned in lost while attempting to return from a post-show drink. He’s muttering menacing imprecations about the tramp he paid four dollars for erroneous directions, and going so far as to suggest that General Sherman had the right idea when he burnt Atlanta to the ground in 1864: a spectacular heresy from a son of Alabama. Matt sighs, flips open his laptop, calls up Google Maps, and talks the guitarist in. It’s already nearly 3:00 AM, and we still have a six-hour drive to Florida ahead of us, just as soon as all are aboard.

Tonight has been the third of the twenty-three-date
Rock’n’Roll Means Well
tour. Drive-By Truckers and The Hold Steady are taking turns to headline, and in Atlanta, in deference to the Truckers’ local roots—most of the band live in nearby Athens—The Hold Steady had taken the early slot, and demonstrated that they had friends of their own in the building: the signature shout-along refrains of “Stay Positive,” “Constructive Summer” and “Massive Nights” had all but drowned out the band. Even by his own hyperactive standards, Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn had been animated, whirling and twitching and conveying the impression that his guitar strap was all that was holding the constituent—and apparently unrelated—parts of his body together (he dances about as much like a late-thirtysomething white guy from Minnesota as might be imagined). It’s a jarring, compelling spectacle, these wordy, coolly literate songs, soundtracked by the supercharged bar blues of The Hold Steady, delivered by this seething, bespectacled, anxious apparition: Bruce Springsteen trapped in the body of Elvis Costello.

It was always going to be Drive-By Truckers’ night, though—most
of the audience had looked like one or other member of the band, many men sporting beards rivalling those of drummer Brad Morgan, women favouring the high-piled hair of bassplayer Shonna Tucker despite the style’s recent disgracing by Sarah Palin. Patterson had lumbered on ahead of his group looking, in silhouette under the spotlight, like a grizzly stalked by hunters. He’d beamed out at the crowd, just beamed, until Cooley had cranked up “Three Dimes Down.” From there, the Truckers had unleashed a stellar selection of their bleary boogie, culminating in a furious version of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” Finn joining in on backing vocals, followed by a barrel through Jim Carroll’s “All the People Who Died,” involving a certain amount of instrument-swapping between the Truckers, The Hold Steady, road crew and friends of the bands.

Tonight’s show has also, like this tour as a whole, functioned as a heartening national unity ticket, set as it is against the backdrop of the final stages of a sensationally rancorous presidential election. Drive-By Truckers and The Hold Steady appear, at first glance, a positively cartoonish illustration of America’s enduring North-South divide. The Truckers seem almost an archetype of Southern rock—thick of facial hair, heavy of riff, lyrically interested in drink, despair and defiance. The Hold Steady seem an hysterically stereotypical exemplar of Northern college indie—wordy, nerdy, bespectacled. What can be said of both bands is that, in both cases, there’s far more going on than the passing observer might conclude. The Truckers, Hood in particular, have omnivorous musical interests (over dinner before the show, Hood had launched, quite unprompted, into an impassioned and detailed soliloquy on the genius of Squeeze) and a lyrical outlook that is curious, compassionate and really not terribly philosophically congruent with much of the writings of Lynryd Skynyrd. The Hold Steady, for their part, rock as hard as any old-school bar-room rattlers, the unreconstructed fretboard-wringing of lead guitarist Tad Kubler suggesting what might have resulted had Steve Gaines survived the 1977 plane crash which wiped out Skynyrd, then—in an admittedly unlikely career move—successfully auditioned for The Attractions (Kubler has also impressed the heck out of me, at least, with what must be the first unironic live deployment of a twin-necked Gibson since the release of
Hotel California
).

Another thing the two groups have in common, for the next twenty shows at least, is a hell of a tough act to follow.

 

THE ATLANTA TABERNACLE is the kind of place that bands tell themselves they’ll play in one day, as they toil to make the endurance of lesser dives and dumps feel worthwhile. The room itself is spectacular enough—a former Baptist church and hospital, built in 1910, now a 2,600-capacity venue with three layers of seating beneath a soaring ceiling. However, it’s the separate backstage annexe that has all present grinning involuntarily as they wander the corridors. The catering is terrific, the toilets are clean, the dressing rooms sufficiently plentiful that a visiting journalist and photographer get one to ourselves and—these things really do matter much more to the itinerant musician than the colour-sorted M&Ms of popular legend—there’s a washing machine and tumble dryer. As Drive-By Truckers’ soundcheck thuds through the walls, The Hold Steady’s bassplayer, Galen Polivka, sorts piles of socks, shirts and boxer shorts. “Living the dream,” he smiles, and he’s not entirely joking.

In between soundchecks, with the accordion practice of The Hold Steady’s Franz Nicolay providing a soundtrack from an adjacent dressing room, Hood and Finn gather to survey the road ahead.
Rock’n’Roll Means Well
: discuss.

“I came up with the name for the tour,” says Finn, “but it’s based on one of Mike Cooley’s lyrics [in the song ‘Marry Me,’ from the Truckers’
Decoration Day
]. I thought there was something in that was kind of what people who understood rock’n’roll would . . . well, we’re both kind of older, as bands, and we have a pretty good take on what’s cool about rock’n’roll. And, you know, there’s a humour in there.”

Finn is thirty-seven, Hood forty-four. For Finn, success has come late, and quickly. He first took the stage with The Hold Steady in his adopted New York in 2003—partly inspired into action, he wants it noted, by seeing Drive-By Truckers live—and has already led them through four albums even as they discharged a relentless touring schedule. For Hood, this is all he has ever wanted to do, ever since he saw Bruce Springsteen on
The River
tour, having spun his disapproving parents a sensationally elaborate web of deceit to explain his night away from home. Rock’n’roll was founded as a youth cult, and perhaps
for that reason there remains a reflexive tendency to snigger at those who insist on practising past the point of that first fervid flush. Both men acknowledge this, but insist that they are (at least slightly) wiser, as well as older.

“It’s that middle era of touring where I think the problems are,” says Hood. “In the early days, you’re in the van and you’re just glad to be there, and you go and you go and you go. The middle is where it’s getting better, but it’s still really rough, and it’s nothing like you think it’s gonna be when it gets better—you’re riding in a bus for the first time, but it’s a shitty bus, and breaking down all the time, and the aircon don’t work, you get a record deal, and it turns out it sucks.”

“That’s also when the partying can kind of get a little weird for a while,” says Finn, “before you think, ‘I don’t wanna feel this way all the time.’ Now, I can go on tour like a normal human being, whereas two or three years ago, I was just on tour.”

The formalising of the Drive-By Truckers/Hold Steady mutual admiration society into this tour took place by email between Hood and Kubler after the two met in New York last summer. Hood loves The Hold Steady: the line “I’m trying to hold steady” in a newish Truckers song, “The Righteous Path,” is a deliberate homage.

“And I just thought,” says Hood, “this tour might be the best chance I ever have to see them play.”

Hood’s favourite Hold Steady song is “Chill Out Tent.”

“That’s the one that made me fall in love,” he declares. “I heard it a couple of times before I really listened to it, and the first time I got it, it was like . . . wow. Let me hear that again. But I’ve been on such a big kick with the new album lately, and I’m really loving ‘Lord, I’m Discouraged.’ Y’all have got the best titles.”

“I stole that from Charley Patton,” admits Finn, acknowledging the legendary Delta bluesman. “Well, that and the fact that whenever I upset my mother, she’d shake her head and sigh ‘Discouraging.’ My favourite Truckers song changes daily, but I was thinking about two. One is ‘Zip City,’ which is Cooley’s song, and one is ‘Heathens,’ which is Patterson’s. They both feature cars that have gone into ditches. I was thinking there should be another song, and it should be the ditch trilogy.”