Let\u2019s be clear about one thing from the get-go: Golden Smog is not a supergroup.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yes, it includes members of Soul Asylum (Dan Murphy), the Jayhawks (Gary Louris, Marc Perlman), Run Westy Run (Kraig Johnson) and Wilco (Jeff Tweedy), and has featured drummers from the Replacements (Chris Mars), the Honeydogs (Noah Levy) and Big Star (Jody Stephens), but as Perlman tells it in this new collection\u2019s liner notes, \u201cWe put the kibosh on [the supergroup label] right away\u2026 None of us were that famous to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n
What the Smog (as fans affectionately call them) have always been is a collection of friends whose paths crossed frequently on the fertile The band\u2019s roots trace to 1990, when Murphy, Louris and Johnson started playing one-off acoustic-trio gigs for fun.\u00a0 One legendary night a small horde of local musos decided to form an ad hoc group to open for the Jayhawks.\u00a0 Before you knew it, half the \u2018Hawks were in the band, too, and they were off, playing gigs whenever they felt like it and issuing a sloppy-fun all-covers EP called On Golden Smog<\/i>, which might have been the end of it if the group hadn\u2019t had such a good time playing together.<\/p>\n Three years later they were back, this time with mostly original songs, for their full-length Rykodisc debut Down By The Old Mainstream<\/i>, featuring Mars in drums.\u00a0 Due to various contractual obligations, though, the band were forced to play under pseudonyms.\u00a0 With typical panache, they chose to use their porn star names (middle name plus street you grew up on).\u00a0 By their second album, 1998\u2019s Weird Tales<\/i>, the band was operating more like the real thing, with contracts all sorted out, studio time booked at Ardent in Memphis, and Jody Stephens manning the drum kit.<\/p>\n This new Rhino disc collects the best tracks from those two initial albums of shambolic alt-country-rock wonderfulness, which have more recently been followed by a third full-length (Another Fine Day<\/i>) and EP (Blood On The Slacks<\/i>) on Lost Highway Records.\u00a0\u00a0 The songs here are the guts of the original Golden Smog vision, shaggy yet effortlessly tuneful romps that are the distinctly individual product of a group of distinctive individuals.<\/p>\n Everyone contributes to songwriting and there isn\u2019t a duff track here, but a list of the highlights would have to include the sweet country-rock sway of Johnson\u2019s \u201cLooking Forward To Seeing You\u201d and Tweedy\u2019s \u201cLost Love,\u201d the Wilco-influenced Louris-Johnson co-write \u201cJennifer Save Me,\u201d and of course Louris\u2019 jangly sing-along anthem \u201cUntil You Came Along,\u201d featured twice here, in both its Weird Tales<\/i> incarnation and a 1997 alternate take.\u00a0 Not as serious but at least as enjoyable are clever goofs like Murphy and Perlman\u2019s smirky \u201cRed-Headed Stepchild\u201d and Johnson\u2019s very funny \u201cHe\u2019s A Dick.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to the new version of \u201cUntil You Came Along,\u201d this collection features a previously unreleased cover of Brian Wilson\u2019s \u201cLove And Mercy\u201d with Tweedy on lead vocals.\u00a0 It\u2019s a pleasant enough if typically understated track, with rich chorused vocals on the bridge and nice jangly guitars.<\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing earth-shattering here, as these guys would likely be the first to tell you.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t trying to make the Greatest Album Ever, just the albums they would have the most fun making.\u00a0 So what you get in the end is a bunch of well-crafted songs recorded by a bunch of extremely talented guys who play together for the best reason of all: because they love to.\u00a0 The fact that they\u2019re willing to let us listen in — well, it\u2019s kind of a privilege.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7332],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41123","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-golden-smog","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41123"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}