Volume 5, Issue 1
January 9 - January 22, 2003
That country music is big around these parts.
And we don't mean Chris LeDoux in a pair of butt-tight Wranglers. We don't mean line-dancing ing with orthodontists from Arvada to "Friends in Low Places," spendy Justins and easy intolerance. Nope. We mean itchy wool coats in tarpaper shacks. Cold fingers on a short bottle of corn. Missing teeth, found religion. The kind of stuff that, if you're in the right place at the right time, you might hear from Slim Cessna's Auto Club.
They were a Denver band, making twang with a seeming revolving door of members. Now they're scattered to the four winds with a yet- again revised lineup but still remain together, in what they variously describe as an "impracticable" and "impossible" arrangement. For instance, Slim himself (sings, "gets in the way," per Munly) lives in Rhode Island but Munly (banjo, guitar, stuff) lives here --and who knows where to find the Revs. Glasseye (harmonium, pedal steel) and Dwight (Jesus and Mary double neck), Judith Ann (bass) or Tim Munly (drums)? One can't imagine there'd being much practicing.
Not that anyone notices. The Auto Club sound is a bold and spry one, traditional but postmodern with forays into electricity and a whole bunch of such music-writerly non-sense. Enjoyable sounds that you can share with your whole family, that's what they make.
"We are just a little country band from Denver," Mr. Cessna said before the group' s recent two-day stand at the Bluebird. They got started "about ten years ago -- just me and some friends drinking beer in my basement."
Isn't that how it always starts? Like we said, the members have come and gone, and come back, and left for other bands and left other bands and then left. This Denver scene might as well be a Sweet Sixteen party in Ault. If you ain't family somehow, you're probably the bartender.
"It originally started with all of the regular Denver folk," Munly said. "This is truly an inbred crowd."
Indeed. Formed from offshoots of 16 Horsepower, The Kalamath Brothers " whoever else has been kicked out of a band," as Munly said "and with the help of ubiquitous local Bob Ferbrache, The Auto Club has been a central figure in the local scene and remains so, even with its members in different states. They packed the Bluebird on New Year's, they've built up a solid fanbase on the East Coast, they will more than likely begin recording something sometime soon (their last recorded effort --naturally with a different lineup-- Always Say Please and Thank You , came out in 2000) and Jello Biafra thinks they're cool.
"We kind of hit our stride when we signed with Alternative Tentacles, . Munly said. "Jello comes to all the shows. Traps you backstage, trying new bits on you." Ah yes, Alternative Tentacles. -- Mr Biafra's famous halfway house for weirdness, where Slim and the other kids share space with old Lard t-shirts and Free Mumia! bumper stickers. At the very least, ten years from now they'll still see their CDs for sale, right next to that "Man With The Dogs" poster.
Other than making a fan out of the shortest angry man in punk rock history, being an Alternative Tentacle hasn't changed their station significantly. They are still a country band with a hard edge of bizarre. They still offer not one, but two, Reverends per concert and they still have offshoot bands of their own ad infinitum (Munly, Munly & The Lee Lewis Harlots, Rev. Glasseye and Wooden Legs, Blackstone Valley Sinners, etc. etc.). They still seem to enjoy themselves. You might, too.
But not if you spend all night on that damn mechanical bull. Have some shame. -- Jack Michaelson
photos by Soren McCarty
All Rights Reserved © 2003 Go Go Media, LLC, Denver, Colorado