“Everything We Thought We Wanted” (Blackbird Record Label)
By Eleni P. Austin
“Well, I’ve been better, and I’ve been worse, I’ve been blessed and I’ve been cursed, don’t worry baby, you ain’t the first.”
That’s The Far West looking for redemption and romantic rapprochement on “Meet Me Where We Parted Last,” a cut off their great new record, Everything We Thought We Wanted. Somewhere between Buffalo Springfield, The Band and Clem Snide stands The Far West. The Los Angeles four-piece released their self-titled debut in 2011. Lee Briante (vocals, rhythm guitar, harmonica), Robert Black (upright and electric bass, backing vocals), Aaron Baker (lead, slide and acoustic guitars) and Brian Bachman (drums, acoustic guitar, backing vocals), migrated to L.A. from New York, Texas, Chicago and Richmond, Virginia, respectively.
Although none of them really came from musical families, all of them grew up in musical households. Early influences included classic Country artists: Ray Price, Willie, Patsy, Merle, Charley Pride, Buck Owens and Hank Williams, Sr., along with Folk legends: Dave Van Ronk, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan and outliers: Ravi Shankar and Charlie Daniels. As well as The Beatles, X, The Clash, Metallica, and most especially Roots Rock progenitors, The Blasters.
Between them, the guys play a plethora of instruments, adding trumpet, violin and trombone to the usual mix of guitars, keys, bass and drums. They all started young, and once puberty hit, they each cycled through a series of nascent bands. Somehow, all gravitated to Los Angeles around the same time, drawn to warmer weather and the implied promise of musical camaraderie.
Lee and Robert first connected through Craigslist. Lee had posted a Musicians Wanted ad that said, “something like this” and featured Waylon Jennings version of Shel Silverstein’s “A Couple More Years.” (Bob Dylan covered it too, in the otherwise forgettable 1987 film, Hearts Of Fire). Brian came on board thanks to a friend of a friend, originally on guitar, but he had to bow out, due to a prior commitment. Aaron was also discovered via Craigslist a few days after he arrived from Chicago. Brian returned to the band as their drummer.
Gigging around town, they quickly acquired a loyal, local following. Endless woodshedding paid off and The Far West road-tested their Rootsy sound out on tour. Before long, they were opening for heavy-hitters and heroes like Jackson Browne, Nikki Lane, Laura Marling, American Aquarium, Lucinda Williams and Dave and Phil Alvin.
Hot on the heels of their critically acclaimed debut, their sophomore effort, Any Day Now, was released in 2014. In between tour dates, they began to record a third opus. It was nearly completed when life, and world events conspired to grind their progress to a halt. First, a couple of the guys in the band became parents, then the pandemic hit. When they were ready to get back to work, they discovered that the place where they had been recording and storing their masters had closed. It took about a year to locate the missing masters.
But the delay became a a blessing in disguise. Their first two albums were recorded at a pretty quick clip. Now they had the luxury to hunker down and add some new colors and textures to their sonic palette. The result is their latest long-player, Everything We Thought We Wanted.
The record crackles to life with “See For Yourself.” A drumstick count-off is immediately supplanted by lanky guitars. gamboling keys, angular bass lines and a slipstitch beat. Introspective lyrics accept responsibility for a wrecked relationship, but still manage to shift some of the blame: “Well, I’ve been poor, but I ain’t never been rich, and I’ve been dug but I ain’t ever been ditched, you had to see, see for yourself, just like everybody else/Now that you know, with all that knowledge where do you go? Now that you’ve seen the light and the dark and the spaces in between.” Bramble-thick guitars skitter and sway on the break as flinty slide guitar sidles through the mix.
Love on the rocks seems to be a leitmotif that threads through the record, (but not in a louche, Neil Diamond way). On “These Lies,” diffident guitars get fractured in the echo and sway, as the slow-cooked arrangement is cocooned by wily keys, rawboned bass lines, plangent piano and a thwocking beat. Lyrics toggle between delusion and disenchantment: “She’ll come back, just wait and see, she’s been crying every day, she tells me she’s been lonesome over me, and this heart can stay strong, and I won’t cry for her when she’s gone, I tell myself, I tell myself these lies each night to go on.” Prickly guitar riffs and churchy keys execute an agile pas de deux on the break. Hangdog harmonies shroud the final chorus, which unfolds like an epiphany: “Like a dream, I’ve been sold, paid in full, but never owned, pretending that everything is fine, and when the light of the day, slowly gives way, I need something, I need something to call my own.”
Blazing guitars ignite like a prairie fire on “Soft Place To Land.” Acoustic guitars dovetail with singed electric riffs, woozy keys, thready bass and a barely there beat. Lyrics yearn for an emotional rescue following a brutal break-up. Pining for Miss Right, he’ll settle for Miss Right Now: “…Night time comes and I don’t know what to make of it, I got this aching feeling, can’t get the hang of it, if you ask me to stay, I won’t be hard to persuade.” On the break, raspy guitars cede the spotlight to reverb-drenched riffs and haunted piano. The shaky denouement offers a final plea: “And I feel just like a junkie when I’m shuffling through the streets, still in love with the thing that hurts me, getting over my grief, understand, I could use a helping hand, I’m a man with nowhere to stand, I need a soft place to land, I need a soft place to land.”
Meanwhile, on “In Your Own Time,” scratchy rhythm guitars, twangy slide riffs, wiry bass lines and Honky-Tonk piano are anchored to a snappy, two-step rhythm. Lee’s sprightly vocals wrap around vaguely philosophical lyrics that wrestle with the vagaries of life and grown-up commitments: “And I have a friend who just had a baby, but he wasn’t quite sure if he was ready, some things come to you, in their own time/In their own time, things will come, just as surely, as the rising, and in the night, she will come when she comes.” Shimmering slide guitar tangles with bucolic banjo notes on the break, mirroring the lyrical sangfroid.
The record is stacked with superlative tracks, but the best ones leap-frog across the grooves. Take “I Hope I Don’t Bleed,” which puts the band’s mordant wit on full display. Brian pounds out a tribal tattoo on the tom-toms as flickering rhythm riffs bookend sturdy bass lines, nimble keys and slide guitar licks that uncoils like wild, thin mercury. Perhaps, anticipating a not-so peaceful, easy feeling, macabre lyrics hope for the best, and expect the worst: “Well, I hope that it’s raining when I did, big old drops just falling from the sky, yeah I hope that it’s raining when I die, good Lord, wash my sins to the river wide.” Squally guitars punctuate each verse like a wordless Greek chorus, subtly indicating (to paraphrase Curtis Mayfield), if there’s a hell down below, we’re all gonna go. Dave Alvin unleashes a scorching solo that pinwheels across the break, following a revelation of sorts: “Cause we come into this world with nothing and that’s just the way we’re gonna go, cause you can’t, no you can’t take it with you, that, you already know.”
The aforementioned “Meet Me Where We Parted Last” is an elastic little rocker that’s powered by guitar licks that are finger-pickin’ good, boomerang bass lines, pliant keys and whipcrack beat. Sharp lyrics paint a vivid portrait of a hapless Romeo afraid to trust his instincts: “I could cut and run, like I always do, I could stand here and open up my walls and expose my heart to you, it’s always the same, I’m running for my soul, instead of putting down stakes, I’m always pulling up tent poles.” Happily, the buoyant melody and arrangement belies the narrator’s equivocation. A majestic horn fanfare darts through the break just ahead of a spiky guitar solo.
Then there’s “Better Days,” a spicy musical gumbo that features Professor Longhair-flavored piano runs, frisky harmonica, stinging guitars, loose-limbed bass and a rat-a-tat beat. Lyrics wax nostalgic for things that haven’t happened yet: “Many years from now, maybe things will look better, we’ll look back on these hard times, say maybe, maybe those were the best days ever.” Airy mellotron hopscotches across the arrangement, just ahead of the final benediction: “No need for crying, no time to regret, not made to follow, and I ain’t done yet, I wanna live, I wanna live in better days, many years from now, maybe things will look better.”
Meanwhile, “Happy Now” sun-dappled acoustic guitars, distorto Blues Rock riffs, shivery keys, buttery piano and spidery bass lines are harnessed to a tilt-a-whirl beat. Lee’s laconic mien nearly camouflages cautiously optimistic lyrics like “Things may be bad, but I’ll find a way, to make it up to you, somehow, some way, don’t know how we kept it together for so long, when everything I try to do is wrong.” A bendy guitar solo connects with coltish piano notes on the break.
An insistent alarm clock ring signals the start of “Miss Me Too.” A jangly, Power Pop/Country Rock confection, it shares some musical DNA with Bob Dylan’s “Absolutely Sweet Marie.” Filigreed fretwork swivels from salty to sweet, colliding with wheezy keys, ticklish bass lines and a knockabout beat. Restless lyrics anxiously count-down the minutes of a long-distance relationship, wondering “Are you dreaming, I’ve been dreaming too, wanna see you too, you say you wanna see me too, my thoughts end up all scattered, just the way I always do, and I keep hoping that you’ll miss me too.”
Finally, these transplanted Angelenos conjure a bit of High Desert zeitgeist with “Joshua Tree.” A kissin’ cousin to both Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” and Neil Young’s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,” the arrangement matches shaggy acoustic guitars to stately piano, thrumming bass lines and a sturdy backbeat. Hoping to put some emotional tsuris in the rearview, lyrics trade big city density for desolate, wide open spaces: “Now out near Yucca, and Twenty-Nine Palms, it turns out I had brought my troubles along, cause I’ve never seen anything that didn’t only take place in my brain, Joshua Tree, you been good to me.” A scraggly guitar solo twitches across the break, ahead of this final flash of insight: “I went to the desert, for days and nights, and I took it all with me, at least in my mind, and everything I’ve seen only happened in my head, if you think about it long enough, you’ll wind up dead, Joshua Tree, you’ve been good to me, set me free.
The record closes with “Over The Hill.” Wheezy harmonica partners with searing slide guitar, tremulous Mellotron, feathery guitars, indolent bass lines and a chunky beat. Equal parts lonesome lament and restless farewell, lyrics shake off this mortal coil with aplomb: “Over the hill doesn’t seem so bad, with the hard work over, the free ride can be had, now I’m getting on, well, that’s how it goes, in the evening you’re young, in the morning you’re old.” On the break, willowy slide guitar lattices crushed velvet keys, the flutter and wow of the Mellotron and a tick-tock beat. As the arrangement drifts into the ether, the sun seems to set on the far west: “Over the hill and far away, further along than yesterday, on the downhill side, life is a thrill, so I wanna be up, over the hill, I wanna be up, over the hill.” It’s a pensive finish to a great record.
Much as The Fab Four relied on producer George Martin, anointing him the “fifth Beatle,” co-producer Michael Whiteside plays a similar role for The Far West. This time out he has augmented their sound with piano, organ and backing vocals.
The funny thing is, most people forget that the “California Sound” was originally invented by musicians who left their hometowns to create something wholly organic in a sprawling metropolis where the air was performed by smog and night-blooming Jasmine. The Far West join a storied diaspora that includes Joni, Gram and Neil, plus assorted Mamas, Papas, Monkees and Byrds. Everything We Thought We Wanted secures their place in the rich canyon firmament.
