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Vic Chesnutt
Silver Lake
New West Records NW6044
By Marianne Ebertowski
 Since R.E.M.'s
Michael Stipe coaxed him into a recording studio in Athens, GA
in 1990 to make his first album Little, Florida-born singer/songwriter
Vic Chesnutt has delivered a new CD almost every year. Silver
Lake is Chesnutt's 11th release and arguably his most accessible
and most daring at the same time. Recorded in the living room
of an 80-year-old "mansion on the hill" in Los Angeles,
the album sounds relaxed, almost cheerful, though that doesn't
seem to be a word to be used easily around Chesnutt. Produced
by Mark Howard of Lucinda Williams fame and featuring top notch
musicians like Doug Pettibone on guitars, ex-Spy Boy Daryl Johnson
on bass and Patrick Warren on keyboards, Silver Lake
's musical territory could be described as Sergeant Pepper meets
the Beachboys on (Sparkle)horseback.
Lyrically Chesnutt divides songs between "slogans, poems
and short stories" and on this album he starts with a powerful
slogan: "I'm Through." The opening lines, "Forget
everything I ever told you/I'm sure I lied way more than twice,"
would go well with a good old-fashioned honkytonk tune, but
"I'm Through" is a quiet song brimming with contained
anger about a relationship that has become a burden too heavy
to carry. It is followed by another slogan, "Stay Inside,"
which seems directly related to the preceding one. "Well,
I guess I'm through stewing/how about let's roll the rock away?"
the singer suggests only to end up with the uneasy feeling that
"I just wanted to bring folks together/but it seems that
I am the biggest wedge." He decides to stay inside as is
suggested to him during the whole song by a background choir
sounding as if it is uniting Oasis and CSN&Y on one of those
rare days they could actually all get along with each other.
After two slogans, Chesnutt tells his first short story, about
a girl he met as a freshman at marching band camp. The young
lady apparently was great fun to be with until she turned into
something like a "much older sister" much too soon.
"Band Camp" seems to have triggered off more unpleasant
memories related to the "boy-girl-thing." In "Girls
Say," the singer wittily describes the total miscommunication
between the sexes to the sound of quavering guitars and walking
bass.
My favorite song on the album is "2nd Floor," inspired
by a 5th century Chinese poem Vic Chesnutt once heard recited
by a roommate from Shanghai. "If you want to see two circling
swans/you've got to climb to the second floor/short chore great
reward." The song succeeds in welding delicate lyrics,
hard rocking guitars and solid drumming into a striking piece
of alt.country&eastern. "Styrofoam" is a lot less
poetic, with Chesnutt admitting that "the lousy poet in
me can't lie no more/ and the warrior in me/ has gone and died
before." Accompanied by Patrick Warren on Wurlitzer piano,
Chesnutt suddenly sounds like a self- doubting, confused Dylan
for whom the times have been a-changing slightly too fast.
After that the storyteller is back and takes us along on two
journeys to the East. On the first one we meet "Zippy Morocco"
just about to set sail to the Seven Seas after his mother's death.
On the second trip we learn about the wonderful and dangerous
life of a eunuch in a sultan's harem. Chesnutt tells his tale
in a falsetto voice seemingly coming from behind a curtain of
bassoons, oboes, clarinets and a choir of girl singers: "What
we don't know/won't hurt him/ what we know/would never hurt him/but
he would hurt us/if he knew what we know." Bizarre, enigmatic,
intriguing and...time for a poem. With "Wren's Nest"
Chesnutt proves his love for the poetry of the likes of Emily
Dickinson and Walt Whitman, a taste he acquired after a car accident
restricted him to a wheelchair at the age of eighteen. The musical
main roles are here for Doug Pettibone on tremelo Gretsch guitar
and Patrick Warren on Chamberlin string. After that, poem time's
over and there's room for one more story and the final slogan.
For the "Fa-La-La"-story, Chesnutt borrows the Cure's
intro to "Boys Don't Cry." The boy doesn't cry in
this story, though he lies badly injured in hospital, because
there's a girl who cheers him up and makes him want to stay even
though he has become well enough to leave. A very moving song
with a great 12-string Rickenbacker.
The last lines of the album are as memorable as the first.
"In My Way, Yes" is a gentle, totally life-embracing
song with a simple strong message. However trivial or small
things in life may seem, they do make a difference. "I say
yes, in my life yes," Chesnutt keeps repeating as an answer
to the persistently inquiring gospel voices. "I never ever
thought/I'd ever have a life like this/ I'd never dreamed/I'd
be alive," Chesnutt explains. And, yes, he deserves it,
he concludes convinced and convincingly. Silver Lake,
in spite of its sad and painful moments, is as good-natured,
good-humored and hopeful as a Vic Chesnutt album can get. It's
an album worthwhile "to climb to the second floor"
for to understand its beauty and meaning. As the Chinese say:
"short chore great reward."
www.newwestrecords.com
Contact Marianne Ebertowski at ebertowski-at-rockzilla.net
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