About me
subject appears to be a white male, early 50's, pathologically tall/skinny. brain patterns show evidence of a life in alcohol - first swimming in it then running from it. fingers show wear from years of guitar playing. heart presents slow repair, through writing, from being broken by rock and roll.
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The Dulliad: Getting Over The Afghan Whigs
The time has come, I write, to speak of many things. Like Greg Dulli, Rick McCollum and the legend of the Afghan Whigs. I’ve been typing my brains out trying to hip the world to a band that doesn’t exist anymore. Sorta like everybody and their critical brother does with the Velvet Underground. The only trouble is I’ve done so at the expense of the fine, fine music created by both Dulli and former Whigs guitarist Rick McCollum in the years since the Whigs’ breakup.
My bad, but let me, weakly, explain. The Afghan Whigs (1987-1998) were more than just my favorite band during their existence. Their whole deal: music, lyrics, subject matter, performance, stance etc spoke directly to me while I was starting on my then-latest journey of self-discovery. The Afghan Whigs played the soundtrack to my crawling out of the bottle and confronting what I saw in those vibrating mirrors on the 1st stretch of road to getting sober.
I’d just left NY in 1993 after 20 odd years of heavy, heavy drinking, the last 5 yrs in a classic co-dependant relationship with a lovely manic-depressive girl. We’d spent those years keeping each other sick between bouts of phenomenal sex and as much real emotion as we could muster. Knowing, finally, that I was on a dead-end trail, I got on a plane in 1993 and moved to Colorado, got a job and eventually moved in with my now ex-wife. One day in Greeley, CO I read a review of ‘Gentlemen’ by the Afghan Whigs where the reviewer said, in best rockcrit shorthand that ‘… it sounds like Big Star doing Berlin.’ Which was enough for me to buy it. The record FLOORED me, still does to this day. I never had to write a record about that dissolute relationship of mine ‘cause Dulli and Co did it better than I ever could.
I had, of course, heard about the band before the release of ‘Gentlemen”, not that they ever got the kind of press they deserved, or the kind of press given Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden etc, but it wasn’t until “Gentlemen” that I got on board. I’ve since procured their catalog and urge you to do the same. The problem was what attracted me to this music was the way it brought into a cold light what might be considered the worst of human nature. Never judgmental or sensational, records like “Gentlemen” and “Black Love” spoke in harsh funky cadences of the evil that men do and maybe, at heart, are. I found this to be strangely liberating.
Being the repressed Catholic I am, there was an element of ‘forbidden fruit’ in the way Dulli reveled in his worldliness, he asked “Do you think I’m beautiful? Do you think I’m evil?” and I had to admit the answer to both questions was, for me, a resounding ‘yes’. Which led me to the struggle of the appreciation of the beauty of Evil. Yes, I know, I think about this stuff way too much but I am what I am and consider the addition of stimuli towards self-examination to the general booty shake rockinroll experience to be a benefit. Unfortunately, my attraction to Dulli’s persona (and only his persona. I’m not gay. NOT THERE’S THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!!) made my ex-wife a little crazy. Part of me wished that I could be the type of man Dulli represented on these records, which was/is silly, ‘cause I don’t think it was much more than just that: Dulli representing. The ‘man’ of these records was a caricature, or at most simply a slice of the whole man who made them. I was suckered again by the allure of image, but damn if I don’t still walk with a touch of swagger when I play these records. Which I still do on a regular basis.
Suffice it to say, this darkness MOVED me and continues to do so. But, upon hearing of the Whigs’ breakup I cut myself off purposely from Dulli’s next project, The Twilight Singers. My loss, as I’ve since bought their 1st 2 Cds (“Twilight” and “Blackberry Belle”) and while having heard mp3s from “She Loves You”, their new ‘covers’ CD which I intend to buy this week, and I have to say I love them all. Differently than the Whigs’ canon, but equally. It was hard for me to move on after “1965”, the Whigs’ last CD, a funky but less harrowing excursion (If they’d gone out with “Black Love” I’d have been happier, but who cares what makes me happy?) ‘cause I felt like I’d lost the closest thing I had to a drinking buddy in my newfound sobriety. The Twilight Singers are more fleshed out, more orchestral than the Whigs, although their power is now clear to me, I had a hard time getting into them at first. It was like seeing an old girlfriend who you knew was no good for you (and vice-versa) finally happy in the arms of another man. Maybe I’ve grown up a little, maybe I’ve got more ‘perspective’ or something but I’m finally open to the wonders of the man’s new joints.
The other engine of the Afghan Whigs and the reason God invented the wah wah pedal is guitarist Rick McCollum, the nearest thing to a guitar hero the ‘90’s ever produced and then ignored. Upon the Whigs’ demise he fell off my radar (not that I looked real hard, I was crushed by the Whigs’ demise. Hadn’t felt so bad about losing a band since my beloved Mott the Hoople cashed in back in the ‘70’s. Mott the Hoople -sigh- now THERE was a band!!). Recently, though I emailed Dulli at his myspace.com page and asked what Rick was up to. I was pleased to find out that he has a new band, Moon Maan, who have been performing for over a year and will be releasing a CD in April of this year. Full length samples of new material can be found at http://www.moonmaan.com and I urge you to check them out. Moon Maan sounds a LOT more like Afghan Whigs than do the Twilight Singers. Not to say it’s a rehash of old glory days, no, just that Moon Maan has the grit and out and out Rolling Stones on crack abandon that endeared me to the Whigs in the 1st place.
I’ve spent a lot of time on this site and in my life bemoaning my perception that there’s no more great music to be found. It’s my own fault ‘cause I stopped looking. Some of the best, most interesting music I’ve encountered lately comes yet again from the minds, pens and guitars of Greg Dulli and Rick McCollum. There are links to all the above at http://www.thetwilightsingers.com . Click, please and enjoy some of the best music this 21st Century has to offer.
Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:36 |
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