Video: The Old 97's - Blame It On Gravity - The Story Behind The Album

A video on the making of the Old 97's latest album, Blame It On Gravity. The album is very good, and it sounds great!


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Old 97's rock the Showbox in Seattle

The Old 97's played a rockin' show Saturday night in Seattle at The Showbox. The bands that opened--Hayes Carll and I Love Math were also Texas bands. I was not such a big fan of either I love math ( the Old 97's drummer is a member) or Hayes Carll's band. Musically they were very good, but neither bands had very good singing chops...especially when you knew what was to follow. But the audience and the ten people I went to the show with all loved them.

This is my 4th Old 97's show (Stubbs in Austin twice, The Gorge at George, Wash., and Seattle), and it is my favorite so far. They played five songs from their new album, Blame It On Gravity, and a lot of songs from previous albums: Lonely Holiday, Question, West Texas Teardrops, Rollerskate Skinny, Up the Devil's Pay, Designs on You, Barrier Reef, Melt Show, Big Brown Eyes, and a bunch more. Rhett Miller was his usual hip swinging, smoldering glancing self, and the girls and women in the front, near the stage treated him like a latter day Tom Jones (although no undergarments were thrown). The band was in fine fettle--great guitar and drumming, outstanding vocals, doing their dance between serious rock and roll and power pop with a tinge of country. It was a 4 1/2 show between all three acts, and then at about 12:40, the band finished up. And then came back for two encores, totalling about eight more songs. We left happy. I love these guys.

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The Making of The Old 97's Satellite Rides (By Rhett Miller)

click to blow up...

If you have stop here often, you probably know that I have become a huge Old 97's fan over the last year. Some of you are saying "what took you so long?" and the rest are saying, huh? All I can say is go out tomorrow and buy Satellite Rides and Too Far To Care for starters.

When the Old 97's created their fifth album, it was their third after signing with Elektra (most famous, probably, as The Doors label). Elektra commissioned a making of piece from the band. Rhett Miller, singer, songwriter, front-man, and heart-throb wrote the following for Elektra:



Hi.

I’m tempted to tell you how good our new record is, but that sort of thing is hard to communicate – like describing a card trick. I will instead tell you WHY it is so good.

In early 2000 it came time to get to work on what would become Satellite Rides. I thought about it and realized that the Old 97’s function best in close proximity. Four interdependent pieces of a larger whole. For example, when we first formed the band three members lived in the same apartment building. When we made our second album (1995’s Wreck Your Life), we slept on the floor of an attic recording studio in Chicago’s Wicker Park.. Our best music is bred by living like a litter of puppies, all over each other.

On the other hand, Fight Songs (our 1999 record, and second Elektra release) was a geographical nightmare. By then, we lived apart – the band in one city and me in another. During the pre-production for that album, I flew to Texas one week a month for two months in order to rehearse with the guys. That’s a sum total of a mere two weeks preparation. And, we’re slow-learners! I’m proud of Fight Songs, but it was a hard record to make.

So for Satellite Rides I came home to Texas. Abandoning LA for the spring. The idea was to be intimate enough with these songs to cut them live if we so fancied. To achieve that level of comfort we spent three months working. Working! Everyday. Like regular working stooges. Granted we took long lunches and left early sometimes, but come on… We started in Ken’s guest bedroom with acoustic guitars and Philip playing drums on a cardboard box.. We wound up at Universal Rehearsal, punching the clock like we had years before in my mom’s garage. I’d already lived most of these songs while writing them, and I needed the guys to love them and believe in them also. It was easy to get excited about the great tunes Murry brought to the table. “Can’t Get A Line” was the highlight of every rehearsal for me – there is no song that is more fun to play (it’s in C if you want to try it at home). Our spring was spent in a fugue-state. Mantra-like repetition of these songs (“Rollerskate Skinny”, “King Of All The World”, “Designs On You”, “Up The Devil’s Pay”, “Nervous Guy”, etc. ad infinitum) until we lived inside of them – we are after all very much a live band.

In August we disappeared into the Texas hill country. Willie Nelson’s studio outside Austin. Unfortunately Willie (whom we all count among our heroes) was out of town for the duration of our stay – probably not a bad thing since the “Oh-my-god-Willie-is-in-the-next-room” factor could have wrecked the whole session. His recording studio suited our needs perfectly, set as it is atop a hill overlooking the studio’s two swimming pools and below, Lake Travis. I was born in Austin, and we’ve all lived there at various times in our lives, so we truly felt at home.

We invited Wally Gagel who’d produced our Elektra debut Too Far To Care and is, like me, a transplanted Angeleno (though he is native to Boston). Also from the LA area we recruited the freakishly-nimble-fingered engineer Robert Carranza. And we started laying tape. Even though I caught myself knocking wood 50 times a day, I had no doubt these sessions would yield the best Old 97’s album yet.

The daily regimen consisted of some music, a lot of swimming, an hour or so of sloppily but heartily played tennis, shooting a BB gun at some cans we hung in a copse of trees, and at least a quarter hour counting falling stars at the end of the night just to wind down. At the risk of mixing metaphors, I must tell you that this litter of puppies was in hog heaven.

When the grueling experience of recording was over, we took the tapes to the Sunset Sound Factory in Los Angeles where Tchad Blake performs his particular brand of magic. He panned left. He tweaked right. He did a little dance in his chair. He mixed the album. Mixed it up good. Somehow made it squishy and warm and at the same time architecturally precise. This man’s genius is his intuition and it was a joy to listen to him assemble our Satellite Rides.

Hooray for the Old 97’s! I’m proud of us. Why is Satellite Rides so good? It’s simple. We took a batch of killer songs and played the hell out of them. What more can you ask of a rock band?
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Question by The Old 97's lip synced by a Half Life 2 character and performed by the Old 97's as an encore

I mainly pasted this video here because I wanted to share the song Question from The Old 97's Satellite Rides album. A fan made this lip sync video using the Half Life 2 Face Poser, and the character model of the G-man. For the mostly non-gamer types who visit here, Half Life 2 is a PC and XBox video game made by a Seattle area company, Valve. Some games also distribute "mod" kits with their games where players can create their own versions of the game, from which this video is most likely derived. Beneath the lyrics below, I also put another video-- a rocky one, in fact--from the encore of an Old 97's show.






Question
by The Old 97's

She woke from a dream
Her head was on fire
Why was he so nervous?

He took her to the park
She crossed her arms
And lowered her eyelids

Some day somebody's gonna ask you
A question that you should say yes to
Once in your life
Maybe tonight I've got a question for you

She'd had no idea
Started to cry
She said in a good way

He took her by the hand
Walked her back home
They took the long way

Some day somebody's gonna ask you
A question that you should say yes to
Once in your life
Maybe tonight I've got a question for you
I've got a question for you
_____________________________

Another video of the Old 97's playing an encore from a show at the Southgate House:



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The Willie Nelson Picnic; July 4, 2007

At the last minute (noon), Keelin and I decided to spend the 4th of July with Willie Nelson and one of my new favorites, the Old 97's. It was 100 degrees in George that afternoon. . .not all that different than the weather would be in Austin. We drive the 2 1/2 hours over the pass into the central Washington desert, headed for the Gorge Amphitheatre, sitting on a hill above the mighty Columbia.

Alas, there was no barbecue from Stubb's or The Salt Lick, but everyone made up for it by drinking lots of beer (no Shiner Bock!). Of course, at the prices they charge, it would cost you about $60 or so to get a buzz going.

It was a happy crowd--a stew of people of my ilk (aka silverbacks) and the tatooed, babies, lots of 20 and 30 somethings, pierced folks, 50 and 60 year old cowfolk, and a sprinking of hippies. Although we mainly went to see the Old 97's and Drive By Truckers, the other bands performed respectably. Including, of course, Willie. I am not a huge Willie Nelson fan--I've been more a fan of his songs than his performances. However, most of the people I talked to were bored with the lineup, and were mainly waiting for Willie to appear. One guy was counting the minutes until the Old 97's finished. Heresy!




We arrived about ten minutes before the show started at 4:00. It was 100 degrees and broiling. There is virtually no shade at the Gorge. The place looked half-filled at first, mainly because people were in the misting tents, and drinking beer on the plaza. The theatre began to fill slowly. Unfortunately most people missed Amos Lee, who played a warm and loose folk/blues to just a few us. He was the only act on the bill I didn't know, and he was a great surprise. I'll be buying some of his music this week!


The Drive By Truckers

I liked the Drive-By Truckers early work, but I wasn less impressed with their performance. They did play some great guitar. They were fine; I was just eager to see the Old 97's.

In Seattle, Old 97's and Son Volt are very popular, but the Gorge audience didn't seem to know them, and the respose was fairly muted. The Willie audience didn't know their work. The Old 97's played a lot of their earlier country stuff (from the Too Far To Care era), but also several of the great tunes from Fight Songs and Satelite Ride. Rhett Miller sounded great (and even danced), the guitarist was, as always, awesome, and the drums were way up front in the mix (something Old 97's have in common with The Posies). It felt like both Son Volt and the Old 97's, as talented as they are, probably come across better in a smaller venue (and without most of the audience being there to see the headliner).


Amos Lee - a charming, moving performer

The Nelson Family event kicked off with a subset of the band--40 Points--featuring Nelson's sons Micah and Lukas on drums and guitar. These Nelson kids are good! Lukas smoked on guitar. However, the six or seven songs they played (sans Willie) were perhaps a bit much.

When Nelson finally took the stage wearing his black vest, jeans, and cowboy hat, the audience absolutely erupted with the yells and applause they had been so stingy about giving the other acts. Willie played down home country, as he always does. He played many of his great tunes: like "Whiskey River," and "Whiskey for My Men, Beer for My Horses," and "Still Is Still Moving to Me" before slowing down for "Funny How Time Slips Away," and maybe his greatest tune (that Patsy Cline made famous) "Crazy." Willie is a consummate performer and knows how to work a crowd of 30,000. The band, and Willie himself, sounded great.


The Old 97's, my current favorite alt-country band (mainly
because they jumped the fence into power-pop land)


Willie's sister Bobbie plays excellent honky-tonk piano, and they even gave her a one song solot slot. stepping into the limelight for one perfect solo song. Let me also mention that she has hair that must be four feet long. The harp player, Mickey Raphael (with Nelson for 30 years now) sounded great, and it's always nice to hear harmonica in country music; for some reason, CW has always seemed to eschew harp playing.



Son Volt

Willie performed a honky-tonk version of Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee," a Stevie Ray Vaughn cover, and his classic "On the Road Again." They also played a Hank Williams medley, and of course, Willie crooned "Georgia on My Mind." Danny Goodfellow, a longtime Willie pal, came on stage to fiddle on the bluegrass song"Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms."

Previous links to Old 97's posts and videos on All This Is That:

The Old 97s in Austin
The Old 97's show at Stubb's BBQ was a rainout . . .but the Small Stars were great!
Designs On You
Video and Lyrics to Old 97's "Lonely Holiday"
Video and lyrics: Old 97's Designs On You
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Old 97's downloads

click to enlarge the Old 97's

If you've been a visitor here recently, you know I have been on a serious Old 97's jag for a while now. I am still contemplating going over to the Gorge at George to see them at the Willy Nelson Picnic show on July 4th. . .which happens about two days after I return from a vacation in Central Washington next week. One of the buggest disappointments of the last few months was the night in Austin a couple of months ago, when I went to see them at Stubb's. The show was rained out.

If you're not familiar with the Old 97's canon, or if you're too cheap to actually buy CDs, the Old 97's have at least two tracks from all six of their albums free for downloading here. If you're an alt-country fan, or a power pop fan, I think you'll like these guys. I'm a little embarrassed it took me so long to get a clue about these guys, because they have rapidly become tops of the pops for me. . .
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Video and lyrics: Old 97's Designs On You

The Old 97's perform Designs On You at La Zona Rosa in Austin, Texas. Watching this video reminds me I haven't been to Austin for three months. In the last couple of years, Austin has become one of my main sites for seeing live music, althought I have still not been able to see the Old 97's there (due to schedules, and one rainout at Stubb's).



Standin' on the corner of 6th and how to forget
Tryin' to do right by you all night, Annette.
You can go ahead and get married
And this'll be our secret thing.
I won't tell a soul except the people in the nightclub where I sing.
I don't wanna get you all worked up,
Except secretly I do.

I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't have designs on you.
I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't have designs on you.

Standin' on the corner of 6th and where do I go
The parade shut down now the rain is runnin' the show.
Where did all these people come from
And how soon can they leave?
Normally I'd be headin' to it
But I need to get some sleep
Though I do wish you'd come over but I'm warning you if you do

I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't have designs on you.
I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't have designs on you.

Standin on the corner of 6th and where do I get
Tryin' to do right by you all night, Annette.
This would only be an experiment
In things that could have been
And you can go ahead and get married
And it'll probably never happen again
I don't mean to make you excited except secretly I do.

I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't have designs on you.
I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't have designs on you.
I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't have designs on you.
I'd be lyin' if I said I didn't have designs on you
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Video and Lyrics to Old 97's "Lonely Holiday"

This video clip of an Old 97's tune is from a Rhett Miller solo performance at The Black Cat. . .




It was a lonely holiday
I was alone -- you were away
In Fayetteville or in another state
There's so many towns I hate

When you leave me, it breaks me like a bone
But it's never as bad as when you come home
Thought so much about suicide
Parts of me have already died

CHORUS:
Lonely -- baby I'm not lonely
Baby I'm not -- I've got my imaginary friends
Happy -- baby I'm so happy
Baby I'm so -- I've got my imaginary friends
And if you don't love me, would you please pretend?

It was a lonely holiday
I was alone -- I was afraid
The bedroom walls were closing in
It must be closing time again

When you leave me, it breaks me like the note
That you said got stuck in your throat
Thought so much about suicide
Parts of me have already died

CHORUS
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Old 97's Designs On You

This is a video clip from The Office (I think) set to one of my rapidly growing list of favorite Old 97's songs. I put it up here mainly so you'd listen to this great Rhett Miller song.



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