"It's Just A Dream He Keeps Having"

Jess and Dominic are back in town already. I know this because Jess called me up at 7.00 am this morning to ask for her car keys (as I had both of the car keys to the Sunfire. See, Beth had just driven the Sunfire back to Norman after the wedding, as Jess and Dom were going to Shawnee for the night in the truck. Then they gave me a set of keys for the house--Jessica's keys, as it turns out, which had the other key to the Sunfire on it. So I ended up with both keys). So I went over and gave her the keys so she could go to work this morning. Turns out they got back around midnight Saturday/Sunday, and actually came over to the house on Sunday morning (I noticed when I went over yesterday morning that the truck was missing and that lights were on in the house which I had never turned on). So yeah, they're back, and that's groovy and all. For me, it means no more having to keep track of the cats. It also means that many more people to hang out with now, which is nice. It's been getting too quiet around here.

Ev wants me to join a roleplaying game he's starting Wednesday. I'm gonna give it a shot, 'cause it could be a lot of fun and a nice distraction from other stuff. Plus, Ev's a rather creative game master, to put it mildly (it's like saying the Beatles were a decent little band, or that the mobsters in the Godfather movies had an interesting way of doing business).

I've been listening to a lot of Americana lately. What's that, you ask? Well, it's rather hard to describe as a genre. It's rather like alternative country, though not as heavily influenced by punk. Americana is a weird fusion of country, folk, blues, rock, and bluegrass, with even a bit of gospel thrown in for good measure. As a musical form, it was really defined by Bob Dylan and the Band on The Basement Tapes, a collection of demos and song ideas that moved through American musical genres like ducks through water. The thematic content of Americana deals with love, both requited and unrequited, as do most songs in contemporary music (by contemporary I basically mean anything that's not classical, opera, or musical soundtrack. Pop music, basically). But more often, Americana deals with crafting a mythology of America. The Band--though four of the five members were Canadian--was masterful at this, with such songs as "The Weight" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." Americana conjures images of times gone by; of what used to be, for better or ill.

Contemporary Americana doesn't focus on this mythology-making as much, though it does draw from it and from that tradition. The line between Americana and alternative country is fuzzy at best, and many bands could fall into one or both categories quite easily. Groups such as the Old 97s, Wilco, and Whiskeytown exemplify the best that contemporary Americana has to offer.

I think the reason I like the style so much is that it's so hard to define. Since Americana incorporates elements from so many different musical traditions, it's hard to pin it down. Americana is more of a metagenre, like Rock and Roll (it's hard to think of hard rockers like Led Zeppelin and singer/songwriters like James Taylor as being in the same genre, but putting them in the same broad metagenre works). This ambiguity is one of the strengths of Americana--bands aren't tied down to one specific style, but can move fluidly from one style to the next, incoporating it all into one broader form.

The genre's other strength is that it tends to retain some of the rough edges in the music. While the albums may have a warm, inviting sound and feel, there are still a few ragged spots in the sound, allowing the music to retain that warmth and a sense of immediacy and energy. It's not too slick or over-produced, something that a lot of contemporary music--no matter the genre--seems to suffer from. Don't get me wrong--sometimes, I'm in favor of slick music, too, but most of the time, I'd rather get something that hasn't smoothed over every little quirk in the music. It's those quirks that give the music personality.

Not to put to fine a point on it, I actually think Cross-Eyed Yeti would basically fall into this meta-genre. Clif and I genre-hop all the time, one minute playing a straight-ahead blues or boogie song, the next playing a country-rock song, and then switching it up to roots-rock. Styles and genres aren't supposed to confine a band, but to allow them to stretch out and explore possibilities. That's what most artists in the Americana metagenre are doing.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: Wilco, "Summer Teeth"