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I See Hawks In L.A.
Grapevine
Self-Release
By Marianne Ebertowski
 I
always thought you would be seeing and hearing eagles in L.A.
rather than hawks. I still think "I See Hawks in L.A."
is a worse name for a band than "Me and You and a Dog Named
Boo" or "I Hear Horses in the Corridor" would
be, but what the hell. I also liked this album for a completely
wrong reason: I misheard my favorite song, "I Stayed Away"
(Too Long), as "I Stayed Way Too Long" and wept myself
through half a dozen of handkerchiefs. This, even though the
lyrics didn't seem to make much sense, apart from the refrain,
until I noticed I got it all wrong. Again, what the hell? It's
still a good song and I still like the album. So, who are "I
See Hawks in L.A." and why is their music not remotely as
silly as their name?
Well for one, singer Mr. Robert Rex Waller, Jr. and guitarist/
vocalist Paul Lacques (also a genius on lap steel and dobro)
and fiddler Mr. Brantley Kearns (who did some very nice work
for Dwight Yoakum, Dave Alvin and Hazel Dickens), would form
an awesome nucleus for any band. Bassist Paul Marshall (Strawberry
Alarm Clock, Hank Thompson, Rose Maddox), steel man John McDuffie
and drummer Shawn Nourse (Dwight Yoakum and James Intveld) have
better credentials than you might need to run the White House.
Secondly, these guys achieve where most Sin City bands have
failed for decades. They melt country and psychedelic rock and
whatever else the wind has blown through the Mojave Desert into
something authentic. Even the lyrics are about something slightly
more dysfunctional than some people may care to know. I Saw
Hawks in L.A. are crossing borders audaciously and that takes
guts.
L.A. has nominated them country band of the year two years
in a row since their self-titled debut album was released in
2001, and Grapevine has given me a reason to understand
why. It delivers a dirty dozen of great country rock songs, even
though the times when you could listen to "Hippie Boy"
and "Sin City," let alone "Hotel California,"
without blushing or tearing your graying hairs out with a rage
seem to be ages ago.
"Cosmic Cowboy Music," the boys seem to call it
themselves. Yeah, whatever. Also, they try to stand in the Californian
country tradition which they most certainly do. After all, there
is the opener "Hope Against Hope," a ballad of the
vanished American Wild West with mournful steel guitar and impeccable
fiddle. This is followed by the bizarre "Humboldt,"
a psychedelic southern arena rocker including autoharp and jaw-harp,
telling the tale of a marijuana grower from North Carolina. Next
comes "Libre Road," a story of a drifter who inherits
the family fortune and lives the high life in Mexico. Then a
brief instrumental intermission entitled "What's Done Is
Done," and another blasting Southern rocker "Texarkanada,"
a tough tale about home that doesn't exist.
The most surprising track on the album is the bluegrassy "The
Salesman," featuring guest banjo player Cody Bryant. This
is followed by my two favorite tracks on the album; "Hitchhiker,"
a Haggard-like truckers song nostalgic enough to blow anybody's
mind who has survived the sixties and remembers enough about
them, and "I Stayed Away," a beautiful, melancholy
lost-love ballad that will break even a Stepford wife's heart.
There is more heartbreak in "Still Want You," a
hung-over honky-tonk love song that gently and clumsily suggests:
"let's do it a little slower cause I'm hung over, oh honey,
I still want you" Then there is the painful violence of
"Wonder Valley Fight Song," a desert rocker of the
Johnny-Cash-meets-the-Gun-Club-variety.
The album closes with "Harvest," not exactly Neil
Young, but an apocalyptic enough folk rock song to scare the
horseshit off your cowboy boots. Finally there is the title song,
"Grapevine," a delicious seventies country pop song
about love gone wrong
Even though I do not second the over-enthusiastic Flying Burrito
Brothers and Byrds comparisons, I do think that the "Hawks"
have claws sharp enough to tear their way through the fog of
alt country boredom and geriatric country rock alike. I will
keep watching the horizon for this lot.
www.iseehawks.com
Contact Marianne Ebertowski at ebertowski-at-rockzilla.net
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