January
24
Adding Transparency To A Critical Process, Week Three: Fred Eaglesmith And The Oscar Noms
Monday night at the congenial L.A. club the Mint, the merchandise saleswoman abruptly left her table of CDs, DVDs, hats, jewelry and books, all related to Fred Eaglesmith, and seemingly disappeared. It seemed odd.
She reappeared minutes later. Behind the drums. Another slice of the unrelenting life below the music industry radar.
Eaglesmith, a Canadian singer-songwriter with a dark and dry - make that extra dry - sense of humor, has been making a music career far below the mainstream radar for nearly 30 years now. He books his own shows and is never tethered to a record label; he certainly has a little bit more cash in his pocket these days from Toby Keith recording his tune "White Rose." (Eaglesmith now has a gold record).
People looking to compare him to someone else often mention Bruce Springsteen or Tom Waits, but that only confuses things; the three men certainly draw on recordings from the late 1950s for some of their inspiration, but Eaglesmith goes for the more rural and more unrefined. The three possess a gruff voice and he has a gruff exterior to match, lending an extra helping of credence to a perspective drawn from the isolation of his homeland and the isolation involved in escaping that home.
"Tinderbox" is the name of his next album, his 15th in 28 years on 11 different labels, and it's due in March. It's a stylistic evolution from his previous work. He calls "alt-gospel" - and judging from the songs he performed at the Mint the chords, the choruses and the enthusiasm are drawn from the church. His distinction in the language: he will never be heard uttering the words "Jesus" or "lord." With banjo or keyboards, drums and stand-u bass behind him and his hollow-body electric guitar, they make for an impressive sound, big on reverb, Bo Diddley and boisterousness.
The sound of the road rumbles through all of Eaglesmith's songs - the gravel hitting the wheel wells, the creak of a truck door opening, the cadence of the rim hitting the asphalt when a tire goes flat. The buzzes and whirs of a mobile life fuel many of his songs, his characters often long for a simpler life or at least one familiar from their childhood.
While watching him Monday with a dozen fans at the Mint, I was bit antsy, concerned that I'd be up at 4 in the morning to head over to the Academy's headquarters to listen to the Oscar nominations being announced. It's those first few hours that follow the 5:38 a.m. announcement that the Oscars are strictly a celebration of movies and movie-making; there's no glamor, no celebrities, no politicking, no red carpet. 
It took a day for it all to set in, but then it became obvious - the characters who populate "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" are Eaglesmith's kind of imperfect people, battered, bitter and bold. Like the Coen brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson, and unlike many - we'll call them working-class songsmiths - Eaglesmith is not about the elevation of the common man but the depiction of an actual life, operating at the eye level of a another man.
Like those characters, he's not a relationship guy so he won't be talking about that. He's aware of his prejudices and he doesn't hide them: he's anti-marriage and anti-hippies; he's pro-trains, pro-drugs and pro-vintage country music. Curiously, use this level of thematic darkness in a film and become celebrated; venture there in song and get relegated to the upper reaches of the underground.
The Mint and the Academy are about one mile away from each other and they're worlds are not about to collide. Eaglesmith said his was playing his sixth show in 48 hours and I think he was exaggerating - it was probably more like 60 hours.
He has a jam-packed itinerary that does not include showcase halls in major cities. Southern California is represented by a Delbert McClinton blues cruise out of San Diego; northern California includes a show in the old mining town of Grass Valley. You can see him perform on a train headed into northernmost Canada on a journey to see polar bears. He fills entire weekends in towns such as Bellows Falls, Vt., and Gruene, Texas, and in November he played seven different cities in the Netherlands in eight days.
When it comes to music that feels real and rooted, he Eaglesmith model is the picture of the future, the artist and the businessman rolled into one, preaching to converts almost one at a time.
Week three of chronicling my year, Eaglesmith and Corey Harris were the week's concerts (93 shows and 279 acts to go).
Playing in the house: Air Traffic - "Fractured Life," Shelby Lynne - "Just a Little Lovin'," Neil Young - "Live at Massey Hall 1971"
In the car: Shelby Lynne - "Just a Little Lovin'," Eliane Elias - "Plays and Sings Bill Evans"
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