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"There were several crates of canaries on that train, and when it crashed there was this eerie silence for several seconds and then the chirping of birds."
Leave it to the Old 97's to find beauty in a train wreck. Bassist Murry Hammond, an admitted "rail buff," is telling the tale of his band's namesake, the mighty, cursed Old 97, immortalized in song by Vernon Dalhart and Johnny Cash. "And then the moans of the few survivors starting coming up out of the wreckage. Supposedly, the canaries mated with some of the sparrows around there, and to this day you can see these canary/sparrow hybrids around Danville, Virginia."
When the Old 97's roll into town, you're likely to find Hammond in the old rail yard. "We all, in our own ways, have a brainy, nerdy side," he says with a smile. "And that's how mine comes out."
The Old 97's nerdy side has been out since they formed eight years ago in Dallas, Texas. Rhett Miller, backed by Hammond, lead guitarist Ken Bethea and drummer Philip Peeples -- the best purveyors of muscled, twangified pop songs since Buck Owens' Buckaroos -- sings witty, lovesick ditties that might make Woody Allen blush. How many roadhouse slingers do you know that would belt out, "I've got issues . . . like I miss you"?
If their early albums pinned them down as alt-country flag bearers and their slightly too slick 1999 outing, Fight Songs, tried too hard to be radio friendly, the Old 97's fifth journey, the just-released Satellite Rides, proves once and for all that they are a rock & roll band.
"On Fight Songs, we sort of made a conscious effort to trim away the loud guitars," says Bethea, describing what he calls the album's "wussy" sound. "It didn't feel as natural . . . You turn all your guitars down and then go out and play 'em with the guitars right back up. So this time we said, 'Well, let's just play the songs the way they sound right to us.'"
Miller winces at the use of the "w"-word, but does agree that Satellite Rides is the essence of the Old 97's. "This record is probably the closest we've ever come -- definitely the closest we've ever come -- to capturing the sort of rock & roll show we put on."
However, the new album also marks the continuation of Miller's blossoming as a pop craftsman -- the most striking aspect of Fight Songs, which boasted tunes like "Oppenheimer," which a young Neil Diamond would be proud to call his own. Miller now spends much of his time in L.A., mixing with the city's Largo crowd, playing solo shows at the Hollywood club on the same bill with the likes of Fiona Apple, Elliott Smith, Aimee Mann and ringleader Jon Brion. One of the fruits of his performances is Satellite Rides' "Question," a simple love ballad on which he's accompanied only by his own guitar.
The song is among Hammond's favorites. "It's the sweetest song we've ever done," he says. "It doesn't have anything to do with misery or broken hearts or drinking, cheating, running around . . . it's a pure, sweet moment. I don't think there are many moments like that in music, period. And we've got one." While other songwriters were penning their sparkly Y2K albums, Miller and Hammond -- who contributes two originals, including the wryly demonic "Up the Devil's Pay," which Peeples calls "one of the coolest sounding songs we've ever recorded" -- were writing about love among the ruins. Satellite Rides is full of references to dying towns, broken phone lines, drunken dads, sunken ships and, naturally, the starry-eyed dreams of those in their wake.
The masterwork is "Buick City Complex" -- equal parts melancholic, desperate, and comic -- in which Miller's protagonist, stranded in a doomed auto town, poses the questions to the last woman in town, "Where are you gonna move? Do you wanna mess around?"
"I think 'Buick City' is the most accomplished moment we've ever had as a band," Miller enthuses. "There's a sort of subtlety that we'd never achieved before: the dynamic of it, the quiet verse, the up chorus."
The "up chorus" is the selling point for Bethea, who agrees with Miller's assessment. "When the chorus hits on 'Buick,' it's really big," he says proudly.
"I think there is a series of cycles that the record goes through: falling in love, falling out of love, being trapped in love," Miller says. "You know, birth, marriage, death . . . "
"And remarriage," quips Hammond.
"Death and remarriage," Miller agrees, laughing.
Cue the singing birds.
BILL CRANDALL
(April 5, 2001)