Buy Shit, Sell Shit & Get Out of Dodge

Riding back to my apartment in Cheney from Chelan I was excited to finally put on the new album from Shooter Jennings called Black Ribbons. I wasn't entirely certain what to expect. Jennings billed it as a concept album which had come to him during his cross country trip with his family. Driving his mobile home along the highways of middle America in the dark hours of the morning, Jennings was struck by the short range radio shows he was picking up. These weren't major stations or even small town stations, but old timers broadcasting from their basements or their back porches or up on the top of a hill (are there hills in middle America?).

What touched Jennings was the note of despair and rage flung out over the airwaves by these deejays, men whose voices and words evoked a tone and tenor of Armageddon. This was the Bible-belt after all, but these deejays spoke not only of religion but of politics and culture, and they spoke directly to the listener, intimately in the night.

Jennings conceived of an album with this same effect. Music interwoven with deejay monologues, little bursts and rants and the music itself a hodge-podge of sounds and styles but always circling back to the theme the deejay had chosen. An album with range and scope, both musically and lyrically, but also an album which would harken back to an older school of music, one where the audience put on an album and listened to it all the way through. An older time when listening to music was not merely background or even for footstomping, but was, quite intentionally, an experience.

Which was why I had put off listening to Black Ribbons until I had a nice long drive ahead of me. I wanted to hear it all the way through, no distractions. I had three hours between me and Cheney, plenty of time to play the whole album and get the full experience.

First off, let me say a word about the packaging. The whole of the recording industry needs to take a page out of Jennings' book here, because this is, hands down, the coolest, most entertaining packaging I've ever seen for a musical album. The artwork is arresting, with a torn American flag wrapped around the CD casing. Then, flip it open and it is literally a pop-out arrangement.

Surprise!

A man in a suit wearing a plastic sheep mask covering his face (those ones held on by a string around your head) is handing a black box to a short, pre-pubescent girl in a cute blue skirt. The words to “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” are radiating out of the man's eyes and into the girl's head (for some reason, the man possesses are eerie resemblance to George Bush).

Another flip, four black crows pop out and you discover the CD itself with the bold declaration across its front: Killing For Peace Is Like Fucking For Chastity.

(If you're not having fun by now, I don't know what's wrong with you).

As a further gift, you get a special tarot card, slightly larger than your average playing card. Mine says Martyr. I don't know if there are others.

As for the album itself...

This IS an experience. Avid music fanatic that I am, I've had a fair share of musical experiences. Black Ribbons is one of the most unique, most interesting, and one of the most fun. Taken as a whole (and I really don't see how you can take it in pieces) the album weaves a fascinating narrative, telling a story both through the music and, compellingly, through the spoken interludes of the deejay.

To give you a taste, here is the first deejay rant, entitled on the back: “Last Light Radio 11:01 PM” :

From the center of nowhere, atop the shoulders of giants, above the creeping fog of disinformation that clouds the American Union this is Will O' the Wisp and this is the Last Light Radio, your last beacon of truth and defiance. I've always started my shows by saying that all ships lost in the night search for the lighthouse on the rock of the enlightened, but good truth-seekers out there the battery is fading and the light is dying. I see that freedom has failed us and with no light the night's gonna be a long one. Woody Guthrie said this land is your land, this land is my land. Great words, but this land is their land now.

This is the last time your ears and my voice will be getting together, because as of midnight tonight our previously public airways will be commandeered for government approved and regulated transmission. The last breath of free speech will blow itself out. What rises in its place is gonna be the wind of thought control. Bad guys win, folks.

You know, I don't always play a lot of music on the show. Most of it these days is processed, bubble-gum bullshit churned out by the overlords of doublespeak and meant to turn a gray world grayer. But tonight I won't go without leaving a message. Tonight I've chosen to play the one band the American fascicrats don't want me to play. Tonight I'm going off the air with the music of Hierophant. For those of you not familiar you'll get a taste of Hierophant's music tonight, their message, their light. I started you off with Wake Up, from their 2009 album Bohemian Grove, their first and most radical. Remember what the song says: don't let em get you down.

The most important truth is love. All you need and all you need to know, as the poet says. Or was that beauty? Ah, what's the difference? Love your family. Love your neighbor. Love your enemy as yourself. Go on loving, it's what humans do best and the one thing they can't kill. Got it?

This is Will O' the Wisp; the time now is no time; the temperature is cold; the news is blue. But for now the light still shines.

From the same album now is Triskadekaphobia. That's fear of thirteen, my sons and daughters. As in thirteen o'clock.

Your listening to the last night and the last light.

Which pretty much sets up the tone and thematic of the album. What is impressive from here is the range of material Jennings incorporates. Many of the songs are loud, raucous, growling and spitting and tearing, such as “Don't Feed the Animals,” which borders on what we used to call heavy metal (although never quite reaching the same level of metal's musical disjointment...Jennings, thankfully, always remains musically interesting). Some of it here is a type of garage punk, such as the crashing “Fuck You (I'm Famous),” but other songs are achingly tender ballads.

Particularly wrenching is the number title track, a sad acoustic country (broken) love song.

Man down, tie a ribbon round my soul

I'm in the black and I'm out of control

Like a ship that's lost in the night

No direction, no guiding light

Jennings' vocals send shivers up the spine, the kind of howl that comes from some deep, inner source of pain.

Other numbers like “The Breaking Point” and “All of This Could Have Been Yours” showcase Jennings musical versatility while still knocking on the doors of lost loves, missed chances and shattered dreams. More upbeat tunes like the top-down, wheel-tapping “California Via Tennessee” keep the mood, at least at times, lively:

I'm alright

Whatcha gonna do

I went to California to get away from you

I'm alright

I seen all I gotta see

I sleep in California to dream of Tennessee

And, of course, as the narrative night pushes on our deejay host continues to rant, to rave, to comment, and to let loose with bitter but humorous statements such as: “Tonight's commercial: Buy shit, sell shit and get out of Dodge.”

Black Ribbons is an impressive, powerful accomplishment. If I were Siskel & Ebert I'd give it the old Two Thumbs Way Up! Since I'm just me, I'll tell you it's one of the best things I've heard. As an album, as an experience, it's standing in my Top 20.

So, if you've got some time, if you can set aside an hour of your day (or better yet, your night) do yourself a favor and pick up Black Ribbons. If nothing else, you can enjoy the packaging.

Oh, and in case you miss it...the voice of Will O' the Wisp: that's Stephen King.