I think I can
trace the exact moment I became an Everclear fan to the first
time I put Sparkle and Fade in my Aiwa stereo. After hearing
Heroin Girl on a local radio station, I had finally bought
the album, literally just prior to Santa Monica's upgrade
to Buzz Clip status. As a twelve year old, I'd never really
gotten much into music before, much less become attached to
a band, but there was something about this music, something,
pardon the expression, that was, to me, extraordinary. There
was a distinct "you and me
vs. the world" quality to Art's lyrics that I think attracted
me, as I'm sure many other then-teenagers, to the band. Eventually,
the album became a staple in my stereo, and, still without
a computer, at a local record store, I found and purchased
a copy of World of Noise, half expecting the worst, half hoping
for the best. At first, only live standards like Loser Makes
Good and Fire Maple Song were intriguing to me, but slowly
but surely, similar to the way other albums, like Radiohead's
OK Computer grew on me, World of Noise quickly became a favorite
of mine. Skip ahead five plus years, numerous concerts, three
more albums, several more modern rock/Top 40
hits, countless import singles, EPs, compilations, soundtrack
appearances, previous band releases, bootlegs, and you may
be beginning to understand my connection to Everclear.
Put it
this way, it's hard to imagine myself ever picking up a guitar
if I hadn't bought Sparkle and Fade in that Long Island area
Tower Records a little over six years ago. Sure, I may be
overdramatizing this, and it's highly likely I have/may be,
but the influence Art has had on my life is truly remarkable.
Nevertheless, after seeing on E-groups that my list, Downtime,
was created over 850 days ago, I began to wax nostalgic in
a way for Everclear, perhaps more specifically Art Alexakis,
and decided to write this little exposé of sorts about,
in my most humble opinion, the best rock band still currently
making music. As overblown as that last statement sounds,
please allow me to back it up. Also keep in mind that I'm
trying to be as objectively nonbiased as possible, though
that's very difficult for me. Further keep in mind that much
of my analysis could very well be a) wrong, b) only applicable
to me, or c) ridiculously ludicrously inappropriately unnecessary.
I'll start in
chronological order, beginning, of course with Colorfinger's
Deep in the Heart of the Beast in the Sun, arguably, with
a heavy emphasis on arguably, Art's best album ever. I received
a burned copy of the album from a friend on White-Lightning
(by this point I'd finally gotten a computer with online capabilities),
about two or three weeks after So Much for the Afterglow's
release in October of 1997. So, to be perfectly fair, in those
pre-Napster days, I'd yet to hear any of the songs outside
of the context of the full recording, and had actually been
exposed to Culver Palms through So Much for the Afterglow
first. The album instantly struck me as ingenious. Take a
look at a song like Kill the Sun, the album's lead track,
which begins with a rabid bassline and continues through an
unconscionably poignant pictorial of drug abuse through the
reflective eyes of the abuser. The only comparison I could
draw would be to the Rolling Stones' Dead Flowers, incidentally
a song that another pre-Everclear Art band, Shakin' Brave
covered, a track which appears on the now-infamous Neverclear
bootleg. Jagger may be writing of an experience on heroin
rather than a drawback to addiction, as evidenced by references
to luxury, (e.g. a "silk upholstered chair," "rich
folks...") The differences are still relatively subtle
between the two songs, however. Whereas, Mick Jagger sang
of being "in [his] basement room, with a needle and a
spoon and another girl to take [his] pain away," perhaps
implying that the worst is over, Art takes a different view,
instead portraying the girl, whatever, if any, euphemism that
may imply, as something he's already lost. "I remember
waking up at 3 PM in a thrashed bedroom/sharp with needles
and knives/I reach for the crutches that keep in motion/vague
memories that keep me alive/like when she used to call me
baby." Once again, where Jagger looks optimistically
on drug abuse, perhaps because he may have still been a user
at the time of the song's writing, Art looks down on addiction,
perhaps as a result of certain now well-documented previous
experiences. As a burgeoning singer/songwriter of sorts myself,
I find a lyric like "Yes, I got sunshine/It's a suicide
song in the back of my mind/Pure white evil wrapped around
my eyes" to be indescribably brilliant. I'd die happy
if I could write a song so meaningful and direct, yet not
cornily so, as Art can/frequently has about such PSA-worthy
issues as drug addiction, AIDS and suicide (more on those
later.) The rest of the album cruises along from there, careening
through topics from a "country girl" turned sex
victim (Eleanor Young) to a whore (Carolea) to a mother's
nervous breakdown (Culver Palms) and how a family copes with
a brother/son/role model's drug overdose (13 Years.) Art's
lyrical penchant for storytelling is in top form throughout
DITHOTBITS, perhaps more so than on any Everclear album. The
album is also perhaps Art's most metaphorical to date, with
enough figurative language to make a high school English teacher
go nuts with glee. Art's musical influences, which I'll inevitably
explore when I get to Learning How to Smile, are in full effect
on Separation, with both a Led Zeppelin reference and an X
reference each getting thrown into the mix, all in a seemingly
unrelated plea from Art to a girlfriend for a breakup. Later
on, in the far from subtlety titled Kill Jerry Garcia, Art
namechecks some more musical giants, including Jefferson Airplane's
Marty Balin and, quite obviously, the Grateful Dead's Jerry
Garcia. But back to the album's middle portion, with songs
like The Color Pit and Chucklehead's Laments, Art once again
explores previously, at least to me, unexplored elements of
drug addiction, frequently using romance as a metaphor for
perhaps a greater evil. Come to think of it, The Color Pit
may be a letter of sorts to drug addiction in general, a personification
to end all personifications, or I could just be getting off
on another extensive tangent, the latter of which is most
likely. Chucklehead's is perhaps Art's most visually sexual
song, comparable to some extent to My Sexual Life simply for
its explicit use of non-innuendo. Art sings of a violent love,
a violent sex, "a crippled man inside your mind,"
"broken body and a misshaped head," "the unclean
smell of bitter sweat" and perhaps most blatantly, "I'm
just the man who holds your glance in violence..." It's
also perhaps a country rock version of The Police's "Every
Breath You Take;" equally sinister and equally sardonic
in its chronicle of a guy who seems obsessed with a girl.
Sting, pre-Puff Daddy's rendition, in one of the creepiest
Top Ten hits of all time, sings "Every breath you take,
Every move you make...I'll be watching you..." Analyze
that for a second; that's pretty freakin' creepy; almost like
a stalker's journal entries, a promise from the obsessed to
the "obsessee" to continue interest for as long
as it takes, whatever it may be. In Chucklehead's Laments,
Art sings, "Wherever you go/You'll know my name...know
who I am/ I'm the one you don't want to know/I'm the man inside
every man/I'm waiting patiently and watching." Static
is the perfect example of a song that's so out there in its
brilliance, I'm at a loss of words to describe it, certainly
one of Art's most underrated songs of storytelling. Genius,
just pure genius. Then, never one to rest completely on his
past drug addiction laurels in songwriting, Art ends the album
with two tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek tracks, ?(The Gay
Bar Song) and Kill Jerry Garcia. As big a stretch as this
is, the first time I heard ?The Gay Bar Song, I was instantly
reminded of Reel Big Fish's She Has A Girlfriend Now. And
what to say about Kill Jerry Garcia, a song that in some aspects
could have even been written by Weird Al Yankovic, of all
the names I thought I could incorporate in this treatise.
Each is a great song, but perhaps their humor detracts from
their lyrical genius. The Gay Bar Song, lyrically, feels like
it could've been written by Ben Folds, to me, yet another
example of Art's extreme versatility in songwriting. Who else
could sing a line like "Baby, wasn't that you last night
at the gay bar?" as a chorus to a song whose verses include
a line like "Tell me is it true that heroin illuminates
the dark?" This wicked sense of humor of Art's doesn't
make a real showing on an Everclear record until Good Time
for a Bad Attitude, a testament in some respect, to Art's
universal appeal. The level of extremes just demonstrated
is remarkable, and is another reason why I think Art works
on so many levels, the same reason somebody who's never been
addicted to drugs can relate to Strawberry, and the same way
someone who's parents get along great and live together like
The Brady Bunch can identify with Father of Mine, as corny
as that last sentence sounded.
