4.22.2005
Strange days, indeed
Last night brought one of the strangest shows in recent memory courtesy of Mark Olson and the Creekdippers in Iowa City. After establishing that Victoria Williams would not be lending her Edith to Mark's Archie, we headed down to catch the show. There were only about 20 people in the club when the show began. As the opening act left the stage, the five strangest looking people from the crowd climbed onto the stage to assemble as the Creekdippers. I've seen Olson enough to know that this would be no Jayhawks revue; he's doing his own thing now and good for him, right? Well, this made his past shows positively normal by comparison.
He opened with a song that made reference to "G.W.," Houston and Texas. I quickly realized he was singing about George Bush. Then came other political songs, with lyrics such as "I want to punch George Bush..." and "your parents killed my parents" (with petrochemicals, if memory serves). As he moved from bass to guitar to dulcimer to keyboard, Olson led this rag-tag group through several pointed songs about the Bush presidency. They were funny in a slightly uncomfortable way. It lacked punch, however, because his side lost. Heard last fall, maybe these would seem powerful, like Steve Earle's "The Revolution Starts... Now." But like Earle's disc, Olson's music just seemed stale. I'd be as likely to cue up Earle's disc now as a Yankee fan would be to pop in a tape of last fall's ALCS against the Red Sox -- why relive the miserable defeat?
Still, as my friend Jim said, Olson has "that voice," and last night there certainly were flashes of what made his music so special. The performance, however, was akin to hearing a friend's band practice in the garage -- you'd tell them they sounded pretty good while knowing they'd never make it anywhere.
It seemed strange that Olson would do so much of this new material without talking about it. Did he have a new disc? In fact, he does. And, when it came out, these songs were much more timely. Though there's no mention of it on the Creekdippers website, his latest disc is Political Manifest, which includes songs like "Portrait of a Sick America" and "The End of the Highway, Rumsfeld." It's a strange little project, taking the time to record a record that is almost instantly out of date. Stranger yet is selling it through an obscure website that all but guarantees that you'll still have a dusty box of them shoved in the back of your closet long after Jenna Bush leaves office.
He opened with a song that made reference to "G.W.," Houston and Texas. I quickly realized he was singing about George Bush. Then came other political songs, with lyrics such as "I want to punch George Bush..." and "your parents killed my parents" (with petrochemicals, if memory serves). As he moved from bass to guitar to dulcimer to keyboard, Olson led this rag-tag group through several pointed songs about the Bush presidency. They were funny in a slightly uncomfortable way. It lacked punch, however, because his side lost. Heard last fall, maybe these would seem powerful, like Steve Earle's "The Revolution Starts... Now." But like Earle's disc, Olson's music just seemed stale. I'd be as likely to cue up Earle's disc now as a Yankee fan would be to pop in a tape of last fall's ALCS against the Red Sox -- why relive the miserable defeat?
Still, as my friend Jim said, Olson has "that voice," and last night there certainly were flashes of what made his music so special. The performance, however, was akin to hearing a friend's band practice in the garage -- you'd tell them they sounded pretty good while knowing they'd never make it anywhere.
It seemed strange that Olson would do so much of this new material without talking about it. Did he have a new disc? In fact, he does. And, when it came out, these songs were much more timely. Though there's no mention of it on the Creekdippers website, his latest disc is Political Manifest, which includes songs like "Portrait of a Sick America" and "The End of the Highway, Rumsfeld." It's a strange little project, taking the time to record a record that is almost instantly out of date. Stranger yet is selling it through an obscure website that all but guarantees that you'll still have a dusty box of them shoved in the back of your closet long after Jenna Bush leaves office.
