rankinblog

Patterson Hood Keeps A Finger On The Pulse

THE RIGHTEOUS PATH

I got a brand new car that drinks a bunch of gas
I got a house in a neighborhood that’s fading fast
I got a dog and a cat that don’t fight too much
I got a few hundred channels to keep me in touch
I got a beautiful wife and three tow-headed kids
I got a couple of big secrets I’d kill to keep hid
I don’t know God but I fear his wrath
I’m trying to keep focused on the righteous path

I got a couple of opinions that I hold dear
A whole lot of debt and a whole lot of fear
I got an itch that needs scratching but it feels alright
I got the need to blow it out on Saturday night
I got a grill in the backyard and a case of beers
I got a boat that ain’t seen the water in years
More bills than money, I can do the math
I’m trying to keep focused on the righteous path

I’m trying to keep focused as I drive down the road
On the ditches and the curves and the heavy load
Ain’t bitching bout things that aren’t in my grasp
Just trying to hold steady on the righteous path

There’s this friend of mine I’ve known all my life
Who can’t get it right no matter how hard he tries
He’s got kids he don’t see and several ex-wives
And a list of bad decisions bout eight miles wide
Trouble with the law and the IRS
And where he’ll get the money’s anybody’s guess
He’s a long way off but if you was to ask
He’d say he’s trying to stay focused on the righteous path

Trying to keep focused as we drive down the road
Like we did back in High School before the world turned cold
Now the brakes are thin and the curves are fast
We’re trying to hold steady on the righteous path

We’re hanging out and we’re hanging on
We’re trying the best we can to keep keeping on
We got messed up minds for these messed up times
And it’s a thin thin line separating his from mine

Trying to hold steady on the righteous path
80 miles and hour with a worn out map
No time for self-pity or self-righteous crap
Trying to stay focused on the righteous path

Patterson Hood / Drive-By Truckers © Razor and Tie Music (BMI)

Elegy For Shipfeifer's On Peachtree

Atlanta is pretty much legendary for paving over our history.  No building or neighborhood with any character is too important that it can't be torn down and replaced with some bloodless profit driven McMansion or development.  So it really shouldn't have come as any surprise when I took the family to Shipfeifer's on Peachtree for a gyro dinner yesterday evening and found the place closed, locked up pending a new lease, tenant, or the insatiable needs of a bulldozer and a dump-truck.

Shipfeifer's was always my first choice for a first date.  It had a great patio right on Peachtree, and if your date was not going well, you could always nurse your beer and watch the people and cars passing by.  They served excellent gyros.  Their cottage fries with feta dressing were one of the true junk food delights.  They even served a passable red velvet cake for dessert.  For a number of years I worked across the street, and I could always find solace in sneaking away from the corporate shark tank for some greasy comfort food.  It was even the setting for many off-site lunches over which careers and loves were pondered.  To go in a moment from eager gyro anticipation to the end of an era was more bitter than an old pot of coffee.

Online reviews indicated that ownership had changed and service and quality had suffered in recent times.  God knows that the food business is a chancy gig.  Most places don't last long and Shipfeifer's had hung in since 1974 at the same location.  So now they're gone, likely to be torn down or converted into some sort of fucked up latte stand for bored and stressed out office-dwellers to drop in for a $5.00 cup .  But for me, for the ghosts of the loves I passed the time with there, it won't ever be the same without the chance to sit once more on the patio, watch the traffic pass, languidly sipping a cold one and dipping a crisp cottage fry into the heavenly feta.  Progress sucks sometimes.

New REM Doesn't Suck

 

REM records since New Adventures In Hi Fi and the departure of Bill Berry have been one long slog of disillusionment for the band's oldest devoted homeboys and girls.  Up at least seemed to be an exercise in persistence and interesting noodling Eno-esque synthesizer tropes, the desperate slithering sounds of a band refusing to cease in the face of Berry's retirement.  But Reveal and the last record were more the sound of a band played out, cast adrift on a sea of winsome pop tunes and Stipean political diatribes.  Alternating between attempts at neo-Jimmy Webb croons and misplaced rap (!?) songs, the last 7 years of REM at times caused me to despair at hearing what comes next.

I actually felt the new record shaping up as a good one a year ago when I saw Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus Three at the Fabulous 40 Watt Club in Athens.  The Venus Three, including Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and  Bill Rieflin, were actually rocking, locking into a crunchy groove all night.  The news that McCoughey and Rieflin would be recording as well as touring with REM made me think that, yes, it's possible, REM might actually put out a rock record.  And they have.  Accelerate is 11 mostly short songs, filled with with thumping base lines, grungy guitars, and even the occasional Peter Buck(trademark) chiming Rickenbacker riff that served as the serotonin uptake re-inhibitor of my Chronic Town youth.  Rieflin has bashed the skins for Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, among others, and he puts drums further to the front of the mix than I've heard since Bill left.

Michael for the most part stays off the mopey whiny track that dragged so much of recent albums into the molasses, instead snarling and yowling his obscure indictments old-style, bringing back nothing less than the stark post-punk front man (with hair) he was in 1980.  Several songs echo the best moments of Document and Life's Rich Passion  In fact, I dragged Accelerate onto the ipod shuffle along with a cd of 1980 REM live performances Art Howard sent me a few years back.  The shuffle puts those disparate cuts back to back from time to time and they go together pretty nicely.  The boys from Barber Street have found their groove again.

So yes, my boyhood heroes grew older and bloated and pompous and lost their way (and their invaluable drummer).  I have cringed for the most part when confronted with their recent releases.  But I can assure you if you are jingling some coins in your iTunes account and just have to download something new for the player, Accelerate will set your toes tapping.