Now-and-then music (10)

Now Music
Blood on the Slacks
Golden Smog
released April 24, 2007
(Lost Highway)

The Divagator likes power pop: catchy tunes a la The Beatles, big jangly guitars, songcraft, harmony…it’s all good. Golden Smog is a Midwestern outfit that provides all these things in spades. Throughout the band’s existence, Golden Smog has garnered attention more for who’s in the band rather than its old-school approach to pop music. Gary Louris, the mainstay of The Jayhawks, is a regular. So is Soul Asylum’s Dan Murphy. Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy has also been a part of the band’s revolving-door membership, although he opted out for this latest release, Blood on the Slacks, citing a full schedule with his other gig.

Having other gigs has been a defining feature of the band’s members. Golden Smog has always been more of a “side project” than a regular outfit, and until last year’s Another Fine Day, it had been eight years since the group offered up a new studio album. That this new disc follows so closely on the heels of the other makes one wonder if Golden Smog is now less a side project and more full-time job. More likely, the modest success of Another Fine Day prompted the boys to get back in the studio and, perhaps, pull together some other recordings that didn’t make the previous collection.

And to be sure, Blood on the Slacks doesn’t rate as highly as Another Fine Day. It seems a little hurried. There are but eight tracks, and only a few are polished pop songs. The cover of David Bowie’s “Starman” rates highly, but it’s pretty much straight out of the can and note-perfect. The Gary Louris-fronted “Without a Struggle” is a very nice song, worthy of any Jayhawks’ album. “Scotch on Ice” is an infectiously weird love song, addressed, it would seem, to a cooler, love doll (or perhaps a combination love doll-cooler), or some similarly inanimate object. In fact, “Scotch on Ice,” for me at any rate, tends to sum up pretty well the band’s aesthetic approach. First and foremost, it’s a pretty song, featuring nice guitar work, harmonica, and harmonies. The structure of the song is pretty straightforward and traditional. There are nods to various pop-music influences, most obviously and outrageously the repeated “…and it’s getting better!” that harkens back to Sgt. Pepper’s. But make no mistake, this song is about, well, something, anything, but a real, live woman:

She’s down in my socks
Getting ice for my scotch
Never bending my ear
Just chillin’ my beers

She don’t say much
She’s cold to the touch
Sometimes it’s rough
With her handles and stuff...

Golden Smog has always occupied that thin margin between homage and parody, devotion and disparagement, and “Scotch on Ice” perfectly blends the two. After all, simply reprising The Beatles’ catalogue would be a little boring…when we want to hear The Beatles, we can always, you know, listen to The Beatles.