By Tris McCall
From: The Graves still live in Metuchen, and I believe Mister John Gleason teaches primary school somewhere around there. But their new label – Kill Buffalo – is based in Brooklyn. Perhaps because of this, the Roadside Graves have come untethered from the Turnpike. These guys have always sung about the West; for the first time, they sound like the West. And they do it without falling into any of the Will Oldham clichés that are currently wrecking contemporary folk-rock.
Format: Full-length long-player. I’ve heard this called their sophomore album, and that’s not entirely accurate: before the amazing If Shacking Up Is All You Want To Do, the Roadside Graves released a little-known split LP called When The Walker Runs Down with kindred-spirits Hope, Star & Browning. Back then, John Gleason wasn’t the only lead singer – guitarist Jeremy Benson took the central mic for a few numbers – they didn’t use much piano, and they didn’t have a steady rhythm section. Still, there were plenty of clues to indicate where they were headed. Gleason was already an articulate and expressive punk-poet, and he already had his themes and settings in order: the desolation of the American highway, the misery of the honky-tonk and the roadside bar, and the pain of the broken home.
Fidelity: There is evidence to suggest that The Roadside Graves upped their production values on No One Will Know Where You’ve Been. This album does sound a little better than Shacking Up – the low end in particular – but you’d probably have to listen to them back to back in order to tell.
Genre: Folk-rock. This is not trendy art-Americana like O’Death; they don’t waste time trying to fool you into thinking their albums were recorded on wax cylinders. These guys aren’t Appalachian fakers or Dust Bowl wannabes – they’re acoustic-strummers from suburban Jersey who like to sing about how country music is the new punk rock. The Springsteen jones is still evident (check out the Bittan-esque piano and xylophone runs on “Family And Friends"), but the older they get, the more their recordings remind me of Workingman’s Dead. They’re probably not trying to hear that (or their publicist isn’t), but what can I say?; they want me to say it like it is.
Arrangements: Benson has brought along a grab bag of traditional instruments – an accordion, a xylophone, banjo, assorted percussion, a fiddle. But if you’re expecting something a little more Lonesome Jubilee from the new Graves album, recalibrate your projections: these songs are still built around country-rock beats, broad major chords on the guitar, and barrelhouse piano. Unless they aren’t; and when they aren’t, it’s usually just Gleason singing something sad and slow over sparse accompaniment. Roadside Graves shows are often non-stop hoedowns, so it’s always a little surprising how many ballads turn up on their albums. No One Will Know follows the pattern the band established on Shacking Up: a rush of speed, followed by pained, reflective ballads.
What’s this record about? I’ve given Gleason shit before about his treatment of his female characters. What I think I failed to mention was that the reason I was even calling him out in the first place was because his sketches were so vivid and so real: if he was just some dirtbag in a biker bar singing about how his baby had done him wrong, that wouldn’t have been invested with enough imagination to affect me one way or another. But when John Gleason tells a story, that story springs to life in color and texture, and that means there are consequences to his representations. You could lodge the same complaint against Elvis Costello, or Bob Dylan, or Kanye West: if they weren’t so good at engaging your emotions and drawing you into the scene, it wouldn’t hurt quite so much when they drop the hammer on you.
But time is mellowing Gleason: there’s no relationship study on No One Will Know quite as warmly detailed as “Winter In Tennessee," but there’s no hard rhyming about black girls’ sexual prowess, either. And for a writer who’s never been afraid to stride into feminist crosshairs, he’s also surprisingly – and increasingly – interested in the female psyche. No One Will Know Where You’ve Been is all about girls: sisters, lovers, whores, mothers, runaway brides, you name it. And no matter what names he’s calling them, it can’t be denied that he’s sympathizing with them all – that there’s a desperate compassion that underpins even his crudest commentary. He’s well acquainted with human frailty of all kinds, and he turns his lens on the women he encounters because, well, because who doesn’t like to look at pretty girls?
The set concludes with the harrowing “Oh Boy, It’s A Girl”: a detailed portrait of the aftermath of a miscarriage, and a love-letter narrated by a scoundrel. His protagonists might be dirtbags, but they’re wry, and observant, and you can’t help but pull for them. Like Townes van Zandt, Gleason casually exposes the steel inside the heart of the desperado; if it’s a little weathered by time and worn by the elements, he trusts that you’re simpatico enough to appreciate a little corrosion.
The singers: The Roadside Graves’s MySpace page likens the band’s sound to “Peter, Paul and Mary drunk.” There’s no Mary in this band, though – Gleason’s got the highest voice, and he’s almost always singing lead. He’s got a tendency to pull sharp, which must make him a real challenge to harmonize with. Jeremy Benson takes the bass parts, intoning impassively in that oaken voice of his; if Gleason sounds like a hick provocateur kicking up dirt in front of the general store, then Benson is the real backwoodsman, down in town to pick up some kerosene for the heater and some ammo for his shotgun. Rich Zilg (also of Hope, Star & Browning) contributes some vital sweetening – his parts are rarely mixed loud, but they’re always essential. On the gorgeous “Stranger” – the first successful Roadside Graves song where the narrative is almost an afterthought – all three pull back a bit from the brink of outright intoxication to something more subtle and ruminative. It’s still tipsy, sure, but the Graves are developing into genuine singers as well as first-rate storytellers.
The musicians: In concert, the Roadside Graves push like crazy – even if they establish a measured tempo during the first verse, by the second, they’re invariably off to the races. They all do it: they’ve got three hyperactive instrumentalists playing rhythm instruments up front, and an inspirational leader who likes to fire the group up by stomping his foot as hard as he can against the stage. You’d think they’d be able to get that under control in the recording studio, but actually, they don’t, or won’t. Many of these songs have discernable speed-ups in them: the title track seems to get faster after every chorus, and “Man At Every Port” gallops to the wire like a berserk stallion.
At its best (as on the climactic “Radio”), this technique draws you into the action and gives you a pretty good simulation of the Graves on a Saturday night at the Court Tavern. Honestly, it can also be a little disorienting, and at times it undermines the dramatic pacing of the songs. Pianist Mike DiBlasio isn’t quite as dominant here as he was on Shacking Up, but the septet has discovered the Hammond organ, and they’ve thrown in swells and squalls. Generally they’ve upped the ante wherever they could. The cake never topples, but in fairness, it teeters here and there.
The songs: If Shacking Up Is All You Want To Do felt like a relay race in which the same two chords and one melody were passed from track to track. I didn’t mind one bit. But if you were inclined to call the Graves’s songwriting seriously reiterative, I couldn’t exactly argue with that. Those two chords and one melody are back on No One Will Know Where You’ve Been, but the band also steps a bit out of their comfort zone: “Live Slow” and “The Black Hills” are vintage Appalachian balladry, and the title tune culminates in a minor-key chorus and a quick-strummed release. In general, the biggest change this time out is that Gleason’s words aren’t asked to run the show completely: the musicians are trusting themselves more, and even stepping tentatively into the limelight. Some of the best moments on No One Will Know are purely instrumental – the fiery jam at the end of “Radio,” and the long guitar passages, so reminiscent of pals American Altitude, in “Stranger.” They’ve also taken to humming and cooing more, which is just fine; they remember how the Boss did it, and they just follow his lead.
What differentiates this record from others in its genre? Last year, Christine Goodman’s Art House did a play called The Heist Project. Part of the show was a short flick about the last days of the Arts Center at 111 First Street, shot during the ’04 Studio Tour. She used a live version of “Family And Friends” to score the film, and let me tell you, there wasn’t a dry eye in Victory Hall while it was playing. Now, considering the subject matter, this was probably not surprising, but still, on paper, “Family And Friends” isn’t exactly a tearjerker. It’s a deeply ambivalent song about an attractive woman, and it’s got some downright nasty lines in it – in short, it’s quintessential Graves. Still, Gleason and the band manage to make every jab of the needle feel just, and every artfully-turned phrase feel almost unbearably moving.
This is the magic of the Roadside Graves. You can criticize their politics, or knock their chops, or call their melodies rudimentary. But the minute Phil Kunkle starts that Garden State heartbeat going, and Zilg begins strumming out those grand major chords, and Dave Jones locks in the roots with that familiar insistent throb, and Benson and DiBiasio start threading arpeggios and filigrees across the treble range, and Gleason stops stomping and adds that trembling voice to the Turnpike symphony, all your reservations fall away, the stars shine through the roof of the club, and you know you’re listening to the best band in New Jersey.
What’s not so good? This may be sacrilege to suggest, but I think the Roadside Graves should consider recording to a click track. The speed-ups and inconsistent tempos aren’t a crippling problem, but they’re noticeable enough that a muso snob might turn his nose up at the band. Gleason’s response might be “fuck him,” and if it is, well, that’d be a very Jersey position to take. But No One Will Know Where You’ve Been wants to establish that the Graves are taking their songwriting and musicianship more seriously, and that means we’re allowed to hold them to a higher standard than we did when Gleason was hollering about Mexicans and lighting himself on fire. Phil Kunkle is an imaginative drummer (his snare-hit choices on “Stranger” are just super), and his instincts are really good; I’m not picking on him here, especially since I think that the front-line rushes more than rhythm section does. But if Kunkle locked the band into a steady tempo and forced Gleason, Benson, and DiBiasio to hold back a little, I think it would impart a sense of grandeur and drama to the songs that is currently hinted at but not wholly realized. And I would hate to see The Roadside Graves miss out on the recognition they deserve because they play things a little too loose.
Recommended? There is nothing on No One Will Know Where You’ve Been that will supplant “Song For A Dry State” as the Roadside Graves’ centerpiece. That said, this is almost certainly a better album than Shacking Up was. That one was a coming-out party for Gleason and DiBiasio; on this one, all seven musicians (percussionist Colin Ryan is credited as a full-time member) shine. They’ve managed to make a “band” record without diminishing any of the impact of John Gleason’s poetry. If Townes van Zandt were still kicking, he’d love these guys.
Where can I get a copy/hear more? Further proof that The Graves are taking themselves seriously as a local institution and professionalizing: they’ve signed to an indie outfit distributed by Young American. They’ve got themselves a publicist, and they’ll even be touring this summer and bringing some Turnpike grit to the rest of the nation. I don’t know if there are any other artists on the Kill Buffalo Records roster, but this isn’t a limp imprint run out of somebody’s home studio. These guys mean business. They’ve started out with a kick-ass record; let’s all hope they do well with it. Meanwhile, the Graves will be stalking familiar Garden State territory: Court Tavern, The Parlor in New Brunswick, the Iron Monkey here in Jersey City. They’ll surely have copies for sale at those shows.
Indeed, the April 28 Iron Monkey show is a City Belt Day Job Showcase, with Jim Testa (of Jersey Beat) opening. Starts at 10, y'all.
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