Down By the Old Mainstream

Look even cocept albums and rock operas are not perfect but as far as some good old boys(I know they are all from or live around the city) kickin' back and playin" some songs this album is pretty Damn' Good! 5 stars may be over rating it but come on!

In only five days Golden Smog wrote and cut their debut album, a masterpiece of the genre. So Down by the Old Mainstream features songs about "Pecan Pie" and an Everyjerk who borrows money and never pays it back ("He's a Dick"), as well as a crisp cover of a Faces' sob song, "Glad and Sorry." There are also the kind of smart melodies and harmonies it takes years to perfect and music that is as comfortable as an electric blanket on a stormy night. Think of the Byrds and the Stones shuffled together by some cosmic blackjack dealer. More appropriately, think of Soul Asylum guitarist Dan Murphy, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, ex-Jayhawks Gary Louris and Marc Perlman, Kraig Johnson of the dirt rockers Run Westy Run and drummer Noah Levy of Minneapolis' Honeydogs. And think of Golden Smog as a sort of bender, its members tanked on a mutual love of country-rock twang and the rush of creating spontaneous music. The band formed around Murphy, Louris and Soul Asylum singer Dave Pirner, who were lurching about their Twin Cities home turf, looking for action between gigs. They found it by hitting the bars and playing covers, and they put five of those on 1992's On Golden Smog EP. With Pirner busy dating Winona Ryder, the new Smog are more ambitious. They write their own songs and have expanded their semiacoustic palette with mandolin, piano, Dylanesque harmonica squeals and lots of Murphy's savvy slide guitar. It pays off on songs like "V" and Murphy's Soul Asylum leftover "Ill Fated" – strong character portraits with powerhouse choruses reinforced by the brassy harmonies. That's all that's slick. Splinters of laughter, ad-libs and fingers slipping on strings are also in the mix. But what makes Down by the Old Mainstream sweeter than pecan pie is the inviting sound of people having fun.

In 1995 I was lucky enough to be in the High School near the epic center of the Alt. Country movement. Down By the Old Mainstream was the pincle album of the movement. It combined talents from the big the members of alternative country: Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, the Jayhawks' Gary Louris, and Soul Asylum's Dan Murphy . Golden Smog was an outlet for the stars to simply have fun and drop the pretension and form of their parent group's albums. The songs have a geniunine feel with a throw back to the golden age of rock and roll feel. This album has a charm that is sometimes lacking from latter Golden Smog albums. This is album is like a timecapsule filled with everthing good about the alt. country movement.

This album sounds like Jeff Tweedy and his Minnesota buddies got together for a long weekend with a few cases of beer and no wives. The result is a meandering collection of pleasant but forgettable tunes. The boys expound on subjects as deep as "Pecan Pie" and serve up lazy cliché-drenched lyrics ("It don't matter if I lose, it's how I play the fool" from "Nowhere Bound." Huh?) The simple melodies follow predictable chord changes, with a minor chord or two thrown in for that oh-so-sweet Jayhawks sound. I'm glad the boys had fun; hopefully it will clear Tweedy's head for the next Wilco masterpiece.