“Now we’re gonna play all the hits,” James McMurtry growled into the microphone a quarter of the way
into his set at the Music Hall
of Williamsburg. He and his longtime band the Heartless
Bastards (not to be confused with The Heartless Bastards) then launched into
“Choctaw Bingo,” one of the most brilliant pieces of American songwriting in
the last twenty years and probably McMurtry’s best-known number, thanks to its
circulation on internet and satellite radio.
You’d likely never hear it anywhere else; its themes of casual
incest, drugged children and good-natured methamphetamine production tend to
keep it off major airwaves.
Listening to James McMurtry is troubling, as is seeing him
perform, because it leads one to seriously question the sanity of most A&R
types and radio programmers. For nine
albums now, McMurtry has been cutting razor-sharp character-based songs and
heartbreaking ballads rooted in real life, all without the help of major labels
or radio. His songs often seem more like short stories than rock and roll
tunes, which makes sense considering his literary pedigree: His father is Larry
McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove and
countless other books, and his mother was an English professor.
This is not to say the man can’t juke and
jive. His songs usually hang around
traditional rock arrangements with drums, bass, keys, the occasional fiddle or
mandolin, McMutry’s guitar, and on his recent Just Us Kids, his own son wailing sax.
On Friday night, McMurtry and company came to rock, playing
an equal dose of tunes from Just Us Kids
and older, seasoned tracks including “Childish Things,” “Restless,” “Red
Dress,” and “No More Buffalo.” In recent
years, McMurtry has written several anti-Bush epistles, including the scathing
“We Can’t Make it Here Anymore,” which was surely a highlight of the night’s
show. During “Ruby and Carlos,” the
mid-tempo ballad of a couple whose conflicting ambitions split them apart,
McMurtry sounded like he was telling the story from a barstool, while couples
held each other in the audience, hoping they’d never end up like the characters
in the song.
Halfway through the show, Tim Holt joined the band and
proceeded to pull some serious guitar solos.
He scorched through “Childish Things” and “Fireline Road,” adding intensity and heat
to the power trio of McMurtry, Daren Hess and Ronnie Johnson. With Holt taking over the leads, McMurtry
focused more on storytelling, which he did with a voice reminiscent of a
deadpan Townes Van Zant.
Holt led the band through an extended version of “Too Long
in the Wasteland,” jamming in full swamp-rock style with Johnson’s splashy
drums, Hess driving his bass like an ’85 International, and McMurtry and Holt’s
guitars roaring.
After a brief offstage rest, McMurtry and the boys returned
for a knock-down, drag-out version of “Peter Pan” off the album It Had to Happen. A fitting ending for a night full of
McMurtry’s signature ballads combined with hard-rocking, hard-edge numbers that
I know from experience play better deep in the heart of Texas
than they do in Brooklyn.
James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards will continue
their U.S.
tour until January, when they usher in the New Year with their first European
tour.
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