album review
Bob Wire’s Sentimental Breakdown
By Chris La Tray, 3-21-08
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Years ago I had a 1976 Cadillac El Dorado, green, with a white top. It was a huge vessel; the backseat alone was cavernous enough to host an orgy if I’d had a mind (or the means) to. A band could have used the hood for a stage. I loved the car, but it needed a lot of work, so I ended up selling it for $500. I could tell the guy who bought it loved it more than I did the moment he laid eyes on it. He was an older guy, small and wiry, and had the gritty drawl of a chain smoker. His hair was swept up in an Elvis-styled cut that made me wonder where the ducktail ended and the sideburns began. He said he’d take the caddy, left, and came back a couple hours later with his money. $300 in cash, and the other $200 was a mix of quarter rolls, dime rolls, and a big jug of mixed-up change that we counted out together on the hood of the caddy.
I had not really thought of that car, or the character who bought it from me, for years. Then it all came back to me as I was nodding along, beer in hand, as Bob Wire and his Magnificent Bastards ripped into a tune called “Cadillac Jones” during a live show I attended a couple months ago. It surfaced again when I popped his new album into my CD player to listen, and the song kicked the record off to a rousing start. I recognized the hook immediately, and smiled.
The eternal struggle for bands who thrive when stumbling around on stage is to capture the energy and vibe of the live show on tape, package it up and deliver it. I don’t know whether or not Bob Wire made an effort to do that, but intentionally or not he pulled it off. Sentimental Breakdown, Wire’s second release since going solo, is everything a kick-up-your-heels-and-yee-haw country roadhouse show is all about, minus the bad breath and beer stains.
Country music is not just big hats, shiny boots and pickup commercials. The foundation of the art form is built on folks coming down out of the hills with their instruments, laying traditional melodies down in one take, and having that recording blasted out over North America courtesy of the old border radio stations of Texas and Mexico. Or Hank Williams strumming his guitar and pouring out his soul through a single microphone direct to acetate. The music of the early days was immediate, intimate and heartfelt. Modern country is a mishmash of million dollar recording budgets, limos and award shows that have totally lost the plot. Successful? Very. But in a glitzy, hyper-processed, pop music kind of way that seems light years from the muddy origins of country music.
Bob Wire understands this. That is not to say this is some analog obsessed, vintage-gear-or-no-gear-at-all outfit. This record was tracked in Wire’s home studio over a period of several months, using home recording technology that guys like Faron Young, Lefty Frizzell and Ray Price couldn’t even dream of. It is, however, an approach that takes the music back from The Man. Rather than wait around for his music to be “legitimized” by some suit deciding that maybe he can make a buck or two off a guy’s creativity, Wire decides, “Fuck you, I’m taking it directly to the people myself!” The internet has picked up where the border basters left off. In an era that sees the spreading ripple effect of a recording industry squeezed by the actions of people fed up with decades of being spoon fed only what a handful of executives want them to hear, it is the DIY ethic of artists like Bob Wire that provides the best hope for not just country music, but music and musicians in general.
Of course none of this matters at all if the songs suck, and they don’t. Eleven songs – ten originals and one cover – comprise the recording. These songs are lean and mean; precise arrangements, compelling melodies, and a dedication to “don’t bore us, get to the chorus!” proves that Wire takes the craftsmanship of songwriting seriously. Most of the cuts I could remember having heard from that live show, which proves the hooks are sharp and set themselves deep. Like the best of what we call country music, these songs are character driven, whether it is the caddy loving protagonist of “Cadillac Jones” or the angry, at wit’s end police officer of the epic “Hotel Maximillian,” a track which reminded me of Springsteen’s “Highway Patrolman” (from his stripped-down masterpiece, Nebraska) not so much in sound or style, but in sentiment. In this case, however, the man at the center of the tale has a different take on the bonds of family than did the Boss’s Joe Roberts.
Simply put, Bob Wire writes songs about people, not about the songwriter telling the world how country, rich, or otherwise badass he may think he is. He doesn’t want any boots up anyone’s ass, he wants them on the dance floor. Even the songs rooted in humor – and it wouldn’t be a Bob Wire record without them – still revolve around some kind of loveable loser, blissfully unaware of how the world really works. It all wraps up with a foot-stomping romp through John Denver’s “Country Roads,” a crowd pleaser live that works just as well, if not better, closing a CD as it does a tequila-fueled third set. At least when I roar down the highway singing at the top of my lungs, I don’t have to worry about getting doused in beer.
Sentimental Breakdown is an excellent release from one of underground country’s finest characters. I recommend it for living room dance parties, road trips, and as something to fill the space between pilgrimages to the road house. Hell, if these guys would only turn up to 11, it would damn near be a rock album!
CD available at Rockin’ Rudy’s, Ear Candy and Budget CD’s in Missoula.
Also available soon online at CDbaby, iTunes, and Rhapsody.
More info at http://www.bobwiremusic.com
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