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JAMES
McMURTY
Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 8:00pm
The Mint
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Friday, February 12, 2010 - 8:00pm
McCabe's Guitar Shop
 On Just Us Kids,
James McMurty follows up his critically acclaimed Childish Things with a dozen new, sharply drawn illuminations as he
continues to hone and expand his considerable gifts. And the self-produced opus
(James' fourth venture pulling strings on both sides of the glass)
unquestionably represents his most ambitious, accomplished and ass-kicking
presentation to date.
Just Us Kids will
be the first release for Nashville-based Lightning Rod Records; label president
Logan Rogers previously worked as Vice President of A&R for Compadre
Records on McMurtry's previous two albums.
The Texas native long has been known as an astute,
clear-eyed observer and concise, no-holds-barred chronicler of the human
condition, but a growing socio-political edge fairly exploded just prior to the
2004 elections when his scathing, palace-rattling We Can't Make It Here was made available online as a free download.
The seven-plus-minute diatribe against social injustice and the
Administration's hypocrisy and deceptions repercussed wildly across the
Internet and the airwaves, igniting a grassroots firestorm that has brought
legions of new fans to the singer/songwriter's work. As of this writing,
fan-made videos of We Can't Make It Here
have been viewed more than 150,000 times on YouTube.
Released in autumn of 2005, Childish Things featured an uncensored version of We Can't Make It Here; the CD spent six
weeks at #1 on R&R's Americana Music Radio Chart in 2005/2006 and racked up
James' best sales totals in a decade en route to capturing nods for both Best
Song and Best Album from the Fifth Annual Americana Music Association Honors
and Awards.
Just Us Kids - McMurtry's ninth full-length album - picks up
on the heat of Childish Things, and
while he insists that "the majority of the songs are not political," it's also
clear that he's not even close to abandoning his burgeoning role as a searing
political gadfly.
So, roll over Kate Smith - this "God Bless America (pat
mAcdonald Must Die)" bears no resemblance to the ubiquitous Irving Berlin
chest-thumper; it's a scorched-earth cataloging of the old-boys' club
glad-handing, cronyism and "belly up to the trough" feeding-frenzy of corporate
and state war profiteers.
Cheney's Toy
juxtaposes the Hollywood hubris of the Bush administration against images of
Guantanamo and a brain-damaged U.S. veteran (free downloads of it have been
provided at both McMurtry's and Lightning Rod's websites for a
"make-your-own-video" fan contest).
The Governor
probes the roles of class and wealth in the solving and prosecution of crimes,
and "Ruins of the Realm" sorts through the fallout and detritus of a cynical,
unilateral approach to global "mapping."
Just Us Kids is a
sonically-majestic, lyrically-grounded heartland rocker that takes a bemused
look at the passage of time relative to one's own sense of age and image; with
one's sense of internal youthfulness belied by the inevitable flesh failures,
the title track glides through the years, arriving at the mid-life realization
that we're "not so skinny, maybe not so free/not so many as we used to be . .
."
Freeway View is a
honking, breakaway rock 'n' roller propelled by Ian McLagan's dazzling
ivory-tickling while, according to James, the Dylanesque Hurricane Party inhabits "an old man cussing himself for what he
misses and what he missed, occasionally noticing what's happening now - it's a
reminiscence at the end of the world."
The sublime Ruby and
Carlos looks at a relationship eroded by miscommunication and conflicting
ambitions (with Gulf War Syndrome further roiling the waters). Ruby and Carlos
aren't doomed by a single fatal flaw; instead, their love is exhausted by a
series of minor disconnects, finally dying the death of a thousand cuts. Fire Line Road looks at incest and meth
addiction as the normal, everyday, ghastly horrors that they are - exposing
some of the ugliest dirt we've always swept under our societal rug.
The moving set-closer You'd
a' Thought (Leonard Cohen Must Die) imbues its tale of a couple strained by
individual weaknesses and stubborn old habits with a generosity of spirit and
wry resignation. McMurtry says the parenthetical tag is there because "the
lyrics kinda reminded me of a Cohen song, and I was still writing it while we
were supposed to be recording it, and it just went on and on. So when I finally
came up with it, I said ‘If it wasn't for Leonard Cohen, you wouldn't have had
to spend half the day waiting on me.'"
The core band throughout is McMurtry on guitar, his longtime
road band The Heartless Bastards
(bassist Ronnie Johnson and drummer Daren Hess) and "guest Bastard" Ian McLagan
(The Faces) on keys.
Extra texture arrives via some hand picked, well-placed
cameos: Timbuk3's pat mAcdonald adorns several tracks with his patented,
haunting harmonica and all-around otherworldliness. Swamp-king C.C. Adcock
(McMurtry: "He's as subtle as a brick through a windshield . . .") saws off
some six-string mayhem on the raucous opener Bayou Tortous, and the splendid Jon Dee Graham (whose band shares
the Continental Club's stage with McMurtry & Co. on Wednesday nights in
Austin) shreds maniacally on "Fireline Road."
And that's James' 17-year-old son Curtis McMurtry blowing
baritone sax on Bayou Tortous.
McMurtry's own guitar work tends to be overlooked relative
to his spectacular tunesmithing, but despite his poor-mouthing - "I can't
afford to pay to have it done, so I had to learn how to do it myself" - it's a
flinty, muscular style perfectly suited to punctuate and emphasize his cogent,
acerbic revelations.
These recent years have found James McMurtry's many skills
steadily coalescing into an increasingly substantial, formidable whole: the
voice, the tunes, the stories and the musicianship have become elementally
interwoven to create the inimitable fabric of a distinct, singular artist who's
determined to get to the heart of the matter, shake things up and do whatever
it takes to make a difference.
In his regular column for Entertainment Weekly, noted author
(and passionate rock 'n' roll enthusiast) Stephen King cited McMurtry as "the
truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation."
Amen to that. And Just
Us Kids makes it clear that there's much more to come.
-Jim Musser, January 2008
The
Mint
6010 W. Pico Blvd. LA
323-954-9630
McCabe's Guitar Shop
3101 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA
310-828-4497
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