Confessions of a Fanboy

I heard “All I Know,” the first single from Dust, for the first time on the road to Colorado. I still remember my excitement.

“A new Screaming Trees record!”

“So,” she said, sounding about as disinterested as humanly possible.

“You don’t understand,” I said, pleading my case. “It’s Lanegan!”

I should have turned the Subaru around right then and there. She didn’t understand. It’s not that she didn’t like music. She just liked… bad music. Mostly. There wasn’t all that much in common between the two of us and we were both too young, stupid, and immature to see, care, or understand where that would lead. The car continued west.
My memory gets sketchy at this point. I know the car broke down in Manhattan, Kansas, and that we did kill some time at a shopping mall while it was being fixed. I think that’s where I bought Dust.

She wore a sour expression every time I played that record. Maybe it was because it reminded her of Manhattan. I could understand that, but I’ve always thought the more likely explanation for her crossness was that she could see how happy I was listening to it. Seeing how neither one of us ever understood the other all that well, I’m probably wrong on both counts- except for the scowl. That was definitely there. Maybe she just didn’t like Screaming Trees. I understand that even less than the other two possibilities, especially when it comes to this particular record.

It took less than five seconds for me to realize this was going to be a different kind of record. Acoustic guitars and sitars, Middle Eastern-tinged electric guitar sounds, a deep, thick bass, and hand percussion are the first sounds to emerge from “Halo of Ashes.” I was hypnotized by the sounds and the groove and Lanegan had yet to utter a syllable from his impossibly cool, once-in-a-generation voice.

“Halo of Ashes” is a stunner, and I love it more today than I did all those years ago mostly because of a deepened appreciation for the talents of multi-instrumentalist Barrett Martin. In 1996, I would have referred to him as a drummer (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). Referring to him as a drummer isn’t inaccurate, it’s inadequate. When I bought the record, I noticed a litany of instruments besides drums that he was credited with playing. I was impressed by it, but I didn’t process the full richness of the textures he adds to these songs. You would all do well to check out his two solo records, The Painted Desert and Earthspeaker.

While we’re talking specifically about the soundscape of Dust, there are two external names in need of checking. Producer George Drakoulias, a friend and colleague of Rick Rubin, might not seem an obvious choice to produce a Screaming Trees record. How much credit does he deserve for the organic-sounding psychadelia of the album? That is a difficult assessment to make as an outside observer with no inside information, but the fact the album exists at all should tell you something about Drakoulias’ contribution to the record. In addition to Drakoulias, Benmont Tench leaves huge aural footprints on this record. Tench, of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, plays on eight of the album’s 10 tracks. His mellotron, organ, electric piano, and piano work rarely take center stage, instead creating sonic flourishes that give these songs added depth.

Of course, those are things I discovered after buying the album. The reason I had to buy it, the reason I started listening to Screaming Trees in the first place is the voice of Mark Lanegan. Others of this generation are more famous, none are better. My life has been very different than what little I know of his, but that is the beauty and power of art. Our troubles may have been different, but we’ve both had them. When I hear him sing of his, I connect with it. I connect with it powerfully enough to think maybe I have connected with him. I’m sure he’d cringe if he actually read that last sentence. I’ll admit, I cringed writing it. When the cringing is over, I still it. Well, I still feel something.

I used to travel with a lot of CDs in the day before iPods. Even if I was just driving five minutes up the road for a Coke, I can’t remember ever traveling with only one CD. Even if I knew I was driving to a music store to buy a new CD and would soon have new music, I left the house with at least one (and usually more). Dust has made more trips with me than I could ever count. I didn’t listen to it every time I brought it with me, but it was always a record I wanted to have close at hand, just in case. It is not a classic driving record- even the more uptempo numbers are too stately to be considered highway anthems, but when scanning the shelves of my CD collection before taking a long or short trip there was an undeniable magnetic pull between me and this record. I like listening to it while driving.

The car that headed west with two passengers returned east with one. It turns out I logged more miles with Dust than I logged with her. The album never grew on her and as difficult as this might be to believe, neither did I. I am positive things worked out better in the end for me. I gained a lot from that experience and we all know experience is rarely gentle when it teaches. At least I gained a faithful travel companion- the kind of companion I would want to have with me if I was ever stranded on a deserted island.

Filed under: Tags: Barrett Martin, Citzen Dick, Mark Lanegan, Screaming Trees