Max Stalling
One of the Ways
Blind Nello
by William Michael Smith

It's not often one finds a French lyric on a Texas singer/songwriter album, but there it is in the third track of Max Stalling's excellent new CD, One of the Ways.

Then there it is in his head again, that old Beatles song
It's fuzzy now but he remembers how
They played it at his senior prom
Sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble
That old Beatles song, he just hums along

"The Beatles and the Thunder" is an emotionally lush piece filled with the aching ennui of middle age uncertainty and the nagging disappointment associated with comparing the what might have been with the what is. As is often the case with Stalling, the problem lies in a vague, troubling aversion to commitment and its corresponding peace-depriving tension. Like the best fiction, things don't always work out in Stalling's Hank-Williams-meets-Albert-Camus songs. Loose ends aren't always neatly tied up at the end of the story, closure is a rarity. Stalling's appeal lies in slice of life scenes and situations that ring with the same realism of our best minimalist school fiction writers. His ability to take the mundane and everyday and turn it into something captivating and true is almost unparalleled on the Texas scene today. A prime example is the character study in "Ain't Fallin' in Love with You Tonight," as an on-again, off-again couple comes face to face with the cold reality of the choices they've made in the small town they never left. All they have is each other, yet they are forced to rationalize the fact that while they aren't married they don't seem to have anything or anyone else to turn to for sustenance or affirmation. It's like they've taken the old Bob Seger line ("I used her, she used me, we neither one cared") too far to turn back but full commitment is not possible, so they are stranded in an emotional no-man's land.

This old town's been all we've known
Everybody else has all moved on
Let's be honest now, convenience has had its price
I ain't falling in love with you tonight

Let's face it, we ain't kids no more
Old Father Time's been keeping score
Me and you, we've had ourselves some times
I ain't falling in love with you tonight

Unlike his first two albums which had their share of songs about cowboys and were littered with South Texicana references, on One of the Ways Stalling has purposely moved even further away from the hell-raising, beer-drinking sing-along side of the Texas music revolution into that serious, thoughtful niche occupied by the likes of Bruce Robison, who produced the album. Stalling has even gone so far as to record a pop song, "Something To See." While it's not exactly another silly little love song, Stalling manages a brightness that has rarely been found in his repertoire.

Although Stalling may have avoided the clichés of honky tonk and the musical code words of the alt.Texas cult, he doesn't entirely avoid his usual South Texas references. "The Pila Song" (pila is the Spanish term for the concrete water tanks that dot the cattle country all across the Southwest) is a chilling Joe Ely-ish border-flavored folk song about a cowboy distracted by an argument with "Carmella and her heart of black." While riding fence on a hot South Texas day, he decides to take a swim in the pila to cool off. It takes all afternoon, but he dies in the tank when he discovers the walls are too high and moss-slick to climb. The song, which took six years to finish, is classic Stalling, a mixture of Old West ideals and the fatalism that permeated Hank Williams' songs.

I always figured lightning strike
Or rattlesnake or barroom fight
Would do me in, not some Mexican rose
The fact is I was hot and dumb
Struck stupid by the sun and love
So on the one hand I guess she'd played her part
Through all that time I cussed her lots
But I cussed myself the most because
I had not looked before I leapt
Now overhead an eagle soars
And I smell rain coming from the north
I wonder if she'll even shed one tear
Just one tear over me

Those who've been around Stalling's live shows know he is a stickler for getting the proper sound and mix. There used to be a club in Corsicana that wasn't exactly known for its high quality soundmen or equipment. While "Probably Corsicana" is a cleverly written song about the universal frustrations and boredom and disappointment of road life and the day-to-day struggle that bands go through, it also takes a shot at a bad memory.

One of these days I swear to God it's going to happen
Right in the middle of a deal somebody's gonna snap
Lay down their stuff and walk off into the night mumbling, stumbling
Mumbling something like
"Screw this noise boys I'm bound for Tulsa
Got a woman over yonder just fills me with wonder
I'm gonna go and see her
And I'll meet you guys at Skinny's outside of Abilene on Saturday
Probably Corsicana

If there is a barroom favorite here it is the title track. As in so many Stalling songs, we find a narrator who is alone and not entirely sure why or where the fault may lie or what wrong choice or character flaw is responsible, although there is a broad uneasy suspicion that the fault certainly lies within.

Across the bar there sits a woman
We've watched each other all night
Behind that woman hangs a mirror
It's like I see me through her eyes
I see a man that I don't recognize
I see a man who just might

Stalling and Robison have shrewdly ended the album with a mystical reminiscence that compares favorably with other Stalling songs like "Look in My Past" or "These Things That I Don't Dare" that have often been overlooked not in spite of but because of their depth and lyrical ambition. With a single acoustic guitar and Stalling's distinctive voice, the folky "Girl By The Lake" is poetic, wistful, shrewdly observant, and not always what it at first seems. Like many of Stalling's songs, the theme of missed opportunities and the regret of failing to take the chance are never far below the surface.

The picture I have is you standing in front of a lake
There's sun on your face and you're smiling a way
That really gives nothing away
Just judging by the shadows, it's noon or maybe one or two
You've got the rest of the day and your whole life to play
And the world is waiting on you

Like label-mate and songwriting compadre Mark David Manders, Stalling has cultivated two audiences, part thoughtful, mature listeners who come to the shows for the depth of content, part good timing college kids and 20-somethings who come as part of the current Texas Music Revolution craze (it's the cool place to be). In these post-9/11 times when musicians are finding it harder to make ends meet and to keep careers viable, by shifting to ever more subtle and quiet material Stalling may be taking a chance with an audience he's spent the past seven years cultivating. One of the Ways is purely listening music, not party fare, and there is certainly some risk involved in taking the volume down and the lyrical and emotional content up when the primary live audience is barroom regulars, many of whom are card carrying members of the Texas Ball Cap Nation. But flip that over and it could be that Stalling has decided that raising the bar is something the Ball Cap Nation is ready for (and needs), that the younger, rowdier part of his audience is maturing and has reached a point where they are can appreciate quiet, emotionally rich tunes like "Sparks" as much as Stalling anthems like "I-35," "Running Buddy," or "Bass Run." Whatever his strategy (assuming there is one), Stalling has created a reflective, literate singer-songwriter album that should add new credibility to the alt.Texas scene. Stalling has never given himself over to the shallow good-time lyrics and antics of some on the alt.Texas scene, but this time he's definitely made a conscious choice to eschew all the trappings of honky tonk rowdiness and pandering lyrics to reach for depth and artistic integrity. With Bruce Robison's steady, sure-handed help as producer, Stalling has succeeded in raising the artistic bar and in elevating his standing as one of Texas' savviest young songwriters.

*One of the ways to purchase One of the Ways is to ride old Cyberpaint over to www.maxstalling.com and go the general store.

 
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