'What is this shit'? So began Greil Marcus's
famous 1970 Rolling Stone review of Bob Dylan's 'Self Portrait' album. I kind of
know how he felt. Sometimes all attempts at objective criticism or fair and
balanced assessment seem obsolete - worthless even - in the face of what you've
been presented with to write about.
At least Marcus's bafflement had a context
- 'Self Portrait' always was a curate's egg of an album made up of cover versions of
old standards, live recordings, instrumentals and random cover versions. Coming
directly after the mighty 'John Wesley Harding' and 'Nashville Skyline', it must
have seemed like Dylan had taken one left turn too many and run straight up his
own arse. For my own part I've got no context at all with this, I've never heard
of Don Juans (no 'The') before and I've no idea where or how 'Songs' sits in
their canon. And yet after sitting through it I'm left with the same base
response that Marcus felt - 'What is this
shit'?
Where to start? Well, let's start with the sleeve,
because that's what caught my eye in the first place. On the front we have line
portraits that (and taking my cue from the name of the act) aim for a Hall and
Oates level of swish but instead offer up the two faces of the seventies
incarnations of David Van Day of Dollar and Bobby Knutt, set above a tramp stamp
flash straight off the wall of a backstreet tattooists and sat on background
that any honest colour chart would surely call 'shit brown'. Turn it over and,
as well as the tracklist, there's a short poem of hope that runs "So all you
soldiers everywhere, put down your arms and have some care. Instead of bullets,
tanks and bombs, give the world some happy songs".
Ignoring the pedantry that it's not a soldier's
remit to sing happy songs to the world, the feelgood message of that doggerel is
somewhat short circuited by a song selection listed above it, made up as it is
of death ballads ('Johnny Remember Me', 'Green Green Grass of Home') and songs
of wallowing self pity ('You've Lost That Loving Feeling', 'It's Only Make
Believe', I Just Can't Help Believing') that serve up a severe mismatch between
aspiration and method; these are not by any stretch a set of songs that will
stop you feeling blue. Adding to the weirdness, side two, track seven is listed
as an 'Elvis Medley' yet is sandwiched in between a run of songs that were made
famous by Elvis Presley, and a keen set of eyes will see that among the random
capitalisation of the song list, 'Jezebel' and 'Johnny Remember Me' aren't even
spelled properly.
Yes, this was definitely something in need
of further investigation and, having investigated, I'm going to start my piece
with a broad brush conclusion: to these ears, Don Juans are the Ed Wood of
popular music and 'Songs' is their 'Plan 9 From Outer Space', a work that
dazzles in its ineptitude yet comes shot through with the tempering pity of
knowing it's actually the output of people working in good faith and to the
limits of their talent and ability.
To break it down - Don Juans have two lead
singers (who I'm assuming are the pair on the cover) and both sing flat and in
different keys that harmonise as well as water and electricity in a bathtub. One
of the pair audibly 'fancies himself' and takes the lead on the more difficult
numbers, yet even though he's staring at the stars, he never breaks clear of the
gutter, which is no surprise given that most of these songs are suicide karaoke
material and not easy money for anyone to interpret. His vocal falls into a
vague Vegas era Elvis impersonation where a vague Elvis impersonation is
required and a generic American one where it's not (I've since discovered Don
Juans are from Newcastle), and at all times it's drenched in a wash of booming
echo that adds nothing to the quality but probably hides a multitude of sins of
pitch and tone. Add to this a backing band of musicians who manage to
consistently play in different keys to different arrangements, female backing
vocals who sing in neither tune, time nor harmony and a production job that
makes it sound like it was recorded underwater then the end result is, perhaps
unsurprisingly, an absolute mess.
'Songs' is the sound of keen amateurs having
a first bash run through to get everyone warmed up that inadvertently got
released as the final version. To describe it as 'ramshackle' would be
charitable, because that suggests a certain amateur charm; make no mistake,
there's no charm about any of this, no 'so bad it's good' get out of jail free
card angle ( so prevalent in Ed Wood's films) that lets you rubberneck at it's
awfulness with a voyeuristic smirk. The only element that's vaguely tolerable is
that 'Elvis Medley', a Stars On 45 type sequence of Presley's more well known
Fifties rock & roll hits ('Hound Dog', 'All Shook Up' etc) played with the
enthusiasm of a small child splashing in a puddle but with the same level of
artistic integrity.
When the needle reached the run-out groove at the
end of side two I was left to ponder what on earth the people involved were
trying to achieve and what they thought they had achieved when they
packaged this up and sent it out into the world with the expectation that the
public would part with money to hear it. Family and friends maybe? I honestly
don't know. Which means I've not really answered my 'What is this shit?'
question have I? Unless the answer is, simply, 'it's shit'. I need a
lie down after this one.
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