“Oh Smokey” (Foreign Leisure Records)
By Eleni P. Austin
“Oh, I’ve tried not to lie to my own desperate self, see, I tried to be straight with what’s real, I Evel Knieveled my way through it all, when I missed my mark and wiped out hard, was that you in the stands, face behind trembling hands?”
That’s Clem Snide coming to terms with the past on “Airshow Disaster,” a track off their latest album, Oh Smokey.
The Boston band began life in 1991, the brainchild of singer-songwriter, Eef Barzelay. Much like Steely Dan, they took their name from a character in a William S. Burroughs novel. After a few false starts, the band was up and running by 1994, and their debut, You Were A Diamond, arrived four years later. Their sound straddled the line between sardonic and melancholy, buoyed by alt.country and pure Pop accents. Clem Snide always seemed on the cusp of a commercial breakthrough or eminent collapse. They signed with Sire Records, only to be dumped before the release of their winning sophomore effort, Your Favorite Music in 2000. Although they found a home with the respected indie label SpinART, their line-up was constantly in-flux, with Eef the only mainstay. They caught a break when their song “Moment In The Sun” from 2001’s The Ghost Of Fashion, was used as the theme for the NBC series Ed.
They continued to make excellent albums at a quick clip, Soft Spot was released in 2003, followed two years later by End Of Love. 2009 saw the release of Hungry Bird and The Meat Of Life came a year later. Assorted EPs, MP-3 only efforts, along with a couple of solo outings, testified to Eef’s productivity. As it turns out, his music became a touchstone for artists like The Avett Brothers and Josh Kaufman, who has collaborated with everyone from Mary Chapin Carpenter and The Hold Steady to Bob Weir and Taylor Swift. Scott Avett handled production chores for Forever Just Beyond, Clem Snide’s first official release in a decade. Now, five years later, Josh Kaufman is behind the console for Oh Smokey.
The record kicks into gear on a tentative note with “Free.” Shaggy guitar riffs orbit pinging keys, phased bass and and a shuddery beat. Spooky lyrics seem to signal a shuffling off of this mortal coil: “Calling all the sunbeams, meet me in the breezeway, gather in the naked light of God’s love, smokey in the sunsets, twisting in the warm wind, skidding off the road into the rainbow’s fading fast.” Luckily the sweet chorus, fueled by celestial backing vocals manages to alleviate the angst: “Whisper to the flag man, I am unprepared to stop, a runaway truck ramp right to the heart, back up all the pedals and surrender to the pull, and finally break free.” As the song goes round the final bend, the arrangement gathers speed, drums lock into a martial cadence as guitars coalesce, wild, thin and mercurial, closing with a sustained buzz. The next couple tracks, “At Your Command” and “All Was Revealed” seemingly follow suit, knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door. The former is stripped-down to Eef’s naked vocals, rippling acoustic arpeggios, airy keys and barely-there percussion. All verse and no chorus, the lyrics search for answers from a higher power: “Tempted as I am by all these earthly things that only ever slip through my hands, oh, where do I end, and where do you begin? Guide me, as I take my final stand.” An extended instrumental outro bathes the song in a glow that pivots from ethereal to funereal.
The latter is a sweet-sour lament that turns on a ¾ beat. Sparkly guitar is matched by chunky percussion as Eef’s tremulous tenor wraps around unambiguous lyrics that long for release: “I prayed for light, but only got heat, felt something give way deep inside of me,” and noting “…then in death, all was revealed.” Still, on the bridge, for a moment he yearns for a space between eternity and damnation: “Is there somewhere quiet we could go, some sweet, old long-forgotten spot carved right into that living stone, our one true home where we deeply belong.” On the break, feathery guitars lattice tinkling piano and wordless vocalese.
In recent interviews, Eef has characterized the music here as “soon-to-be-divorced” songs. Along with the dissolution of his 25-year marriage, he also left his own in Nashville and parted ways with his longtime manager. The best songs here, covertly (and overtly) address this sea change.
On the aforementioned “Airshow Disaster,” he sort of implies that his marriage was doomed from the start. Swoony ukelele and filigreed acoustic guitar dovetail across thumping upright bass and plinky piano notes. Lyrics sift through the ashes of the failed relationship, hoping to connect the dots: “You know it always seemed to me we’d place the ramp where we felt, felt it was best, and as the sirens wailed, we just held each other’s hand, and floated inside of that moment, free from all time, and floated inside of that moment free from all time,”
On “A Stillness So Sweet,” metaphors shift from an aircraft collision to a sinking ship. Knotty acoustic notes unfurl slowly but shapeshift, quickly gathering steam once a loping shuffle-rhythm collides with serpentine electric notes and thrumming bass lines. Rather than parse past mistakes, lyrics acknowledge that they did their best: “We only ever have to offer up everything we are, better than to loosen up that grip, see no one here’s a passenger, captains we are all, going down together with the ship. A corkscrewed guitar solo spirals across the break, leavening the bitter with some sweet.
Meanwhile, “Smokey” juxtaposes blurred electric guitars with sylvan acoustic notes, thready bass, darting keys and a kick-drum beat. Much like the daredevil Evel Knievel is referenced in “Airshow Disaster,” here, stream-of-conscious lyrics conflate the almighty with another ‘70s Pop Culture icon: “Oh Smokey now, the Bandit’s gone, and it seems like every turn was wrong, but you don’t start doubting your own mind, and does I-40 even reach that place, where shit does not need to be faced? And birds don’t just start dropping from the sky….God loves you, more than you’ll ever love yourself.” Heavenly light exists outside of time. hell is real and spiritual hunger is satisfied on Sunday nights at Chik-fil-A.
The album’s closing tracks are cloaked in the specter of death and the light of spiritual redemption. “Angel Canyon (Song For Dan)” finds nimble acoustic licks washing over shimmery keys, slivery bass and a slipstitch beat. Lyrics address a friend seemingly at the end of his rope: “Cause you can’t tun and you can’t hide, when it’s your own body’s time to die, as you well know, it’s painfully clear, so may some sweet old song be the last thing you hear.” A restless farewell, it walks a tightrope between the temporal world and the hereafter.
Finally, “Unlocked” seems to fall in line with the proverb, “Pride Goeth Before The Fall.” Willowy guitars brush up against liquid keys, angular bass and a frayed backbeat. Seraphic la-la-la’s frame Eef’s reedy tenor as he offers an epiphany: “Man, shed them sorrows, just leave them by the rocks, to shrivel in the sun like dirty socks, we are barefoot on the path towards being free, we’ll find the right way out, just wait and see,” before insisting “the prison door was unlocked all the time.” As guitars pool and eddy on the instrumental coda, keening pedal steel collides with decidedly Simon & Garfunkel-y acoustic notes that quietly fade.
Although Clem Snide is essentially down to Eef, this was hardly a solo effort. While he played guitar, Ukulele and vocals, producer Josh Kaufman tackled guitar, bass, piano/keys and harmonium, JT Bayes provided drums and percussion, Annie Nero anchored the low-end on upright bass and backing vocals and Tyler Ray Nobel was featured on pedal steel.
A quarter of a century ago, the title-track from Clem Snide’s Your Favorite Music succinctly explained the allure of music in the simplest terms: “Your favorite music, well, it just makes you sad, but you like it, cause you feel special that way, you feel special, that you’re like no one else.” Much like that record, Oh Smokey manages to make you feel sad and special and a little lonely. The bitter meets sweet, sometimes that’s all you need.
