Two roads converged: the first began when I was 16, in the summer of 1996, when the Screaming Trees released what would be their final record, Dust. I fell hard for it on first listen. Though nothing on it quite matched the pop blast of "Nearly Lost You," their biggest hit, made massive by inclusion on the multiplatinum soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's movie Singles, this was a killer record front to back, easily outpacing their previous effort, Sweet Oblivion. Dust was a repeat record for me, to be listened to again and again. Certain songs I would play many times in a row, chief among them "Sworn and Broken," with its glorious, swirling Wurlitzer organ solo that strove for and achieved a kind of earnest transcendence now considered acceptable only from Arcade Fire.
The second road began in Tunes, the Hoboken record shop, in 2003, when I bought the Jayhawks' Tomorrow the Green Grass after hearing it playing in-store. They literally pulled the disc out of the player and sold it to me used for seven dollars. Over the next decade it would become one of my favorite records, thanks to its beautiful country harmonies layered over Gary Louris's incredible lead guitar work. No record combined crunch and country as well since the first two Uncle Tupelo albums; the influence is palpable, the palette expanded.
Then, about four years ago, I was wasting time at work doing a little Internet research on the Jayhawks, which is when I discovered that TTGG, and its predecessor, Hollywood Town Hall, had been produced by a man named George Drakoulias, an A&R rep for Rick Rubin's Def American label, who had discovered the band when he phoned Twin Tone Records (then the Jayhawks label) and got an earful of them in the hold music. Drakoulias expanded the band's sound, making the Jayhawks bigger and more epic without sacrificing the folksy intimacy of the harmonies. He even played a few instruments himself. Not bad for a guy who had previously made his name primarily as a hip-hop guy, the man who had discovered LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys.
You can guess where this is going. A couple months ago, when this price-clipped copy of Dust arrived in the mail after a rare eBay purchase (I was tired of never seeing it in stores, and suspected I never would), I pulled out the inner sleeve to discover finally that it was produced by none other than George Drakoulias. A delightful connection, but it made sense. In both cases he managed to bring the band's performance and presence to another level, broadening the arrangements and adding melodic depth without sacrificing essence. And though it's impossible to know what effect Drakoulias had on songwriting, both bands turned in their best sets under his watch.
The Screaming Trees were notorious drunks. Brothers Van and Gary Lee Connor frequently chugged until they came to blows and Mark Lanegan's bottle troubles are well documented in the band's lyrics. Perhaps that internal chaos was the reason it took them so long to finish this record, which came out well after grunge had turned like a rancid fart in the musical wind, surpassed in the mainstream by Seven Mary Three shit-rock, and among college students by indie rock's halcyon efforts. Like the last records by alt-rock holdouts Urge Overkill and Jawbox, which came out in the space of the same eight months, Dust disappeared as quickly as it came, and with it the Screaming Trees. Or I guess you could say almost disappeared, as not two years have gone by in the last sixteen in which I've not come back to this record. On the closet door of my childhood bedroom hangs a poster of this album cover, which I'm constantly thinking of bringing to Brooklyn.
This copy sounds mostly great, and big, as befits the production. "Dying Days" is a classic waiting to be discovered. The last tracks on either side have a touch of distortion thanks to long-album, thin-inner-groove syndrome (the record was definitely compiled with CD length in mind), which frustrates especially on "Make My Mind," but as the first track on side two "Sworn and Broken" tears the roof off. This is a must-have record for me, and when my fortunes improve I would almost certainly spring for a non-price clipped copy. I would wager that I'll go at least another five years without seeing this in a shop. Further bulletins as events warrant.
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