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Wrong Side of Memphis ( 1998 )8.5 (MUNICH RECORDS 1997, ’98) Murder / Papa, Oh, Papa / Ft. Worth, Texas / One Way / Just Like a Dog / Average Guy / Ballad of Frank and Jesse James / Idle Conversation / Wages of Sin / John Deere Yeller / Thanksgiving Day / Heavenly Feast / First There Was / I Don’t Exist / Welcome Jesus An anomaly in contemporary rock right from the start, Johnny Dowd, a 49-year old moving company owner, debuted in 1997 (in Europe in 1998) with this sparse (most of the songs feature only Dowd himself) and often morbid collection of country noir. More closely related to Nick Cave, Sixteen Horsepower, and Tom Waits than to Uncle Tupelo, Steve Earle, or The Jayhawks, Dowd’s twisted tales of murder, obsessive dedication, and other sinful behavior can be truly disturbing. The music is a fitting match for his lyrics: “Murder” sets the awkward tone with a hypnotic country-blues rhythm accompanied by Dowd’s distorted slur, as he reports a murder (“there’s been a murder here today, the weapon was a knife, the woman wore a wedding ring, I don’t think she was his wife”). “Ft. Worth, Texas” is the story of a convict on death row reflecting on his sinful life. The protagonist “shot and killed (his) girlfriend, then (he) sat and watched her die”. There’s no time for repentance (“there’s still too many people I hate”), although his only company is the ghosts in his head. The minimally executed and bluesy “One Way”, which contains several biblical references (a thorny crown, a sword in the side, the burden of the cross), is followed by “Sick Like a Dog”, one of the album’s scariest songs by virtue of its hypnotic percussion, eerie synths, and Dowd’s croaking voice informing us that “Momma Death ain’t got no respect”. |
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like “Average Guy” and “Wages of Sin” are other
ventures into the neo-gothic religion-obsessed worlds of Flannery O’Connor’s
Wise Blood or A Good Man Is Hard to Find, and Nick Cave’s
The Ass Saw The Angel, where mentally scarred outcasts try to
live with their obsessions (often women, liquor, and their own sinful
past).“Ballad of Frank and Jesse James,” in which the murderer
of Jesse James asks to be buried next to his victim, reminds me of Lou
Reed’s calmer work, with a guitar tone that’s a ringer for
VU’s “Jesus”. All this makes Wrong Side of Memphis, despite a few minor shortcomings (“Idle Conversation” and “Welcome Jesus” are lightweight collages that merely function as atmospheric mood pieces), one of the most intriguing debuts of the past few years. It's not that Dowd's main themes (love, loss, death) are that remarkable, but the uncanny way in which he presents them, often combining seemingly contradictory instrumentation, makes sure he's out of step. With a lo-fi debut like this, it was hard to predict where he’d go next, but very few people expected him to choose the path he chose for his subsequent albums. |
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Pictures from Life's Other Side ( 1999 )9 A Picture from Life’s Other Side / Worried Mind / Ballad of Lonnie Wolf / Hope You Don’t Mind / God Created Woman / Blood Evidence / The Girl Who Made Me Sick / Greasy Hands / Vietnam / Just Because / No Woman’s Flesh But Hers / Bad memories / Mystery Woman / Butcher’s Son / Wish I’d Been Honest Dowd’s lo-fi (some critics even called it “no-fi”) debut probably raised quite some eyebrows, not to mention a few hairs, as his uncanny mix of country-blues, morbid infatuations, and plain weirdness didn’t quite fit into any specific genre (or maybe he just belonged with the other outcasts such as Tom Waits, or even Captain Beefheart, two other artists with a genuinely original universe). Anyway, Pictures from Life’s Other Side does the unexpected by upping the ante, proving itself to be an unequalled album of deconstructionist roots music. Dowd is more eclectic than ever: he mingles elements from country, blues, folk, and rock, and to finish it off, he throws in some weird keyboard effects and very peculiar percussion (courtesy of Brian Wilson, who also appeared on Dowd’s debut). Also added to the line-up are Kim Sherwood-Caso (icy vocals) and Mike Edmondson (keyboard, piano, banjo, xylorimba, guitar). |
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| The title song starts off with a waltz rhythm, while Dowd’s crow-like voice repeats the lyrics of the first couplet of a Hank Williams song with the same title. Then, the song suddenly transforms itself into a tough riff-rocker, and the biggest difference with the previous album becomes obvious: Dowd has left the primitively produced stage behind, and has opted for a very full and detailed sound (although he sometimes wilfully selects a primitive and ragged sound and instrumentation). Hints of keyboards enter and leave the picture, several layers of guitar are added, and the drumming becomes a propulsive force. The percussion is also the first thing about “Worried Mind” that caught my ear. Wilson seems incapable of drumming “normally”, and prefers weird rhythmical patterns that at first seem to be all over the place. The keyboards are far more to the forefront too, and create a weird atmosphere in combination with Dowd’s almost whispered vocals. After two couplets, we’re in for another surprising return to Hank Williams, as the refrain, sung by Sherwood-Caso, is that of the country classic “Jambalaya” (“Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and fillet gumbo…”). While Dowd’s debut contained the “Ballad of Frank and Jesse James”, this album contains the wicked “Balled of Lonnie Wolf”, about a guy who shot himself at a trailer park, and “he did not die, he’s paralysed, can’t even wipe the tears from his eyes”. Next is “Hope You Don’t Mind”, which on a surface level sounds like any other folksy song, but this time it’s about a man who’s obsessed by a schoolgirl (“I got your picture in my wallet, I got your picture on my wall, I got your name tattooed on my arm”), marking him as another misfit who can’t maintain normal relationships with women. That’s what the bulk of these songs seem to be about, as the morbid tales of murder from Wrong Side Of Memphis have largely been replaced by reflections on lost loves. In Dowd’s world love is generally lost either because of man’s inability to stay monogamous (“Greasy Hands”), or simply because of the contrasting nature of men and women (the Waits-like “Bad Memories”, “Wish I’d Been Honest”) – either way, the ending is the same, and there are no happy endings. “God Created Woman” offers another interpretation of the incompatibility of men and women: “You knew Cain, you knew Abel, your sister was a Jezebel, your love is no gift from heaven, your love is a dog from hell” and “God created a woman, but she’s the devil’s next of kin”. The music, another waltz perverted by some suitably jerky and dirty guitar soloing, is one of the album’s highlights. “The Butcher’s Son” a punkish rocker with a delirious Dowd uttering the story of two teenage lovers planning to flee their home turf (“this whole town’s full of hypocrites, bankers, lawyers and communists, call me trash, my family too, to hell with them to hell with you”) is further proof that Dowd can rock as well as play subdued. The most memorable song on the album, however, is the chilling “No Woman’s Flesh But Hers”, introduced by a man who got into a car accident with his wife. He came out of it unharmed, while “three years now she’s been in a coma”. The husband’s dedication is obsessive as he tells of how he’ll touch no woman’s flesh but hers. The subject matter itself is already quite unusual, but it’s the unadorned rendering of the details that makes this song so remarkable: “three hours not a word was spoken, found out later her neck was broken, three years she’s been in a coma, back in Paul’s Valley, Oklahoma”. The hypnotic drumming and synthesizers, and another ragged guitar solo by Dowd in the latter part, make this song the album’s icing on the cake. Some of the songs ("The Girl Who Made Me Sick," "Just Because," "Wish I'd Been Honest") on Pictures from Life’s Other Side are not half as good as the standout tracks, but the latter are of such a stunning, original, and often gripping quality that it’s fair to say that Dowd may already have painted his first masterpiece. Moreover, it's truly intriguing to witness an artist of his age being more adventurous and challenging than many acclaimed contemporary "innovators". At the age of 50, Dowd's come up with a sophomore album that proves itself to be an emotionally rich and musically varied Feast of Fools. |
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Temporary Shelter ( 2000 )
Stumble and Fall / Vengeance Is Mine / Cradle to the Grave / Big Wave / Hell or High Water / Angel Eyes / Golden Rule / Hideaway / Sky Above, Mud Below / Planet Happiness / Death Comes Knocking If David Lynch were to make a new film that combined the best from quite different movies (yes, that’s an understatement) The Straight Story and Blue Velvet, he may have already found a soundtrack in the shape of Johnny Dowd’s Temporary Shelter. Combining grand cinematic songs with abrasive tales from the darker side of the human psyche, Dowd has come up with another unsettling goth-country opera. “The highway of life, it ain’t no free way, for the cruelty you inflict, someday you’ll have to pay” is the doom-laden first line from “Stumble and Fall, an opener even weirder than the title song from the previous album. Drummer Brian Wilson, has taught himself to play Moog bass pedals in the meantime, and these ultra-deep bass sounds (Dowd was never accompanied by a ‘regular’ bass player), combined with Dowd’s jagged guitar and the thin synths (courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Justin Asher and new full-time member of the band) make up for a “Black Sabbath goes gothic”-comparison. “Hell or High Water”, also distributed on a vinyl single format during Dowd concerts, is another example of this style, with eerie percussion, gut-wrenching bass, and Dowd’s quavering voice going all over the place. |
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The band doesn’t forget to rock either: “Big Wave” deals, both lyrically (“I’m still waiting for that perfect wave, to take me to that special place”) and musically, with surfing matter, although in Dowd’s case, we never know for sure. “Golden Rule” is an energetic rocker in which Dowd’s deconstructed guitar solo (it makes him sound like an idiot savant version of Robert Quine), Kim Sherwood-Caso’s robotic voice (it sounds unhumanly flat) and his Texoma drawl make up for another highlight. “Cradle to the Grave” and “Angel Eyes” are two instances of Dowd making music at his most cinematic. In the former the almost unbearably slow tempo, multiple vocal layers, ethereal backing vocals and eerie accompaniment create a very chilling atmosphere; while “Angel Eyes” with it’s uncommon length (+8 minutes), pummeling percussion, and the contrast between Dowd croaky voice and Caso’s voice, becomes an almost hypnotic lullaby, again resembling some of Morricone’s desert tracks. The album’s unexpected, but successful, experiment is probably “Vengeance Is Mine”, a danceable (!) tune in which the keyboards and bass pedals are used to great effect. A last worthwhile track is “Sky Above, Mud Below”, which musically reminds of Tom Waits at his most chaotic (somewhere between Bone Machine and The Black Rider), with bashing and distorted percussion and lyrics that offer insight into the mind of a man who grew up with a Jesus-worshipping mother and a father who was lost at sea. Unfortunately, this song is also the last interesting one on the album. Both “Planet Happiness” (on American editions replaced by “Lost Avenue”) and “Death Comes Knocking” are, notwithstanding the promising titles, ultimately to be considered as failed experiments. They are too lengthy (6:39 and 5:52, respectively), seem to ramble on and on, and the music simply isn’t captivating enough to keep my attention. They may work as poems with a musical backing, but as songs they just don’t deliver the goods and delve into boring monotony, and hearing Dowd utter “I call it Planet Happiness” over and over again, is particularly annoying. By far Dowd’s most experimental and studio-oriented
album, Temporary Shelter combines both the best and the worst
in Dowd’s catalogue. By consequence, its uneven quality is the most
enervating about it, although the weakest tracks situate themselves near
the end. If only the first seven songs would make up the album, we would
be dealing with a short, but mesmerizing third album. Now it’s a
sprawling and slightly overproduced album with its frustrating moments,
that just goes on for too long. |
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Live ( 2000 )
Golden Rule / Worried Mind / Vengeance is Mine / One Way / Thanksgiving Day / Hell or High Water / Mystery Woman / Butcher's Son / Lost Avenue / Stupid Song Damn! I just heard that I missed a Johnny Dowd-gig here in Belgium three days ago, and it was only about 70 miles from our place. I still have clear memories of the two shows I did see, though (and of course that’s the reason why I’m so disappointed I missed this one). The first show was in early 2001, right after Temporary Shelter was released. I wasn’t really familiar with Dowd and his work, apart from that album, but I was in for a surprise: it was one of those nights were nothing could go wrong. Dowd, clearly half-drunk traded one delirious solo after the other with Justin Asher, Brian Wilson did the weirdest things imaginable on his awkward drum kit and bass pedals, while icy-voiced Kim Sherwood-Caso didn’t show any emotion at all and did her thing. It was a long and exhausting show that left us spectators baffled and yelling for more. The second gig, about a year later, was much more controlled and tight. Especially for the occasion, Dowd had put on his fanciest suit, was apparently sober and delivered an impressive set that didn’t display the reckless abandon of the first show, but the musicianship was – if possible – even better. It also brings me to this artefact that I bought after that show (I never saw it in the stores, so it’s quite possible you’ll have a hard time finding it), one that always takes me back to those thrilling experiences of seeing Dowd and his band on stage. |
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Overall, Live gives a fairly good idea of what a Dowd-show sounds like, (despite the fact that an average performance of his is at least twice as long), and it dabbles in all three of Dowd’s previous studio albums. The songs from Temporary Shelter are uniformly impressive, “Golden Rule” and “High or Hell Water” sound as creepy and intense as their counterparts, having delightfully weird solos. The perverse-sounding “Vengeance Is Mine” maybe even eclipses the original version, benefiting form the sparser live sound that proves once again the production job on that third album might’ have been a bit overdone. Also “Worried Mind,” “Mystery Woman” and “Butcher’s Son” (all of them highlights on Dowd’s second album Pictures from Life’s Other Side) get successful renditions, the synth-parts of the albums usually replaced by guitar parts. From the debut the country blues “One Way” and the creepy “Thanksgiving Day” (announced as “Practise What You Preach”) are present (the second of which isn’t mentioned on the back cover). The first one is now in a more full-bodied and stretched-out version, with great faux-blues soloing, while the other sounds like the last lament of an eternal sinner looking for redemption. Finally, the live set ends with two non-album tracks, the enjoyable “Lost Avenue” that gets nearer to hard rock than you might expect from Dowd, and “Stupid Song,” a ballad performed by Dowd and Sherwood-Caso. It features some typical trademarks (peculiar conversational lyrics, the polarity of those two voices), but also a musical tenderness that’s rarely present in Dowd’s generally cruel fictitious universe. Live would be an ideal album to start your collection of Dowd-albums with: if you don’t like this one, don’t bother checking out the studio albums. It contains great playing (several of the songs have guitar parts/effects that are stunningly effective), the man’s original mix of roots elements and outlandishly disruptive influences creates an extra morbid tension, and above all: it offers proof of Dowd’s mastery of the song, as both song-structures and lyrical themes that are brought to you in an hereto unheard fashion. At 66 minutes it’s quite long, but it sure beats watching two episodes of Friends. Good luck finding it. |
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Read album reviews of similar or related artists: The Gun Club - 16 Horsepower |
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