Toying with notoriety

With the release of his new CD, McMurtry might attain that long-predicted prestige

By Joe Gross
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, April 12, 2008

Did anyone actually think James McMurtry would leave politics behind after his 2004 recession-anticipating, anti-war, pro-Americans breakthrough "We Can't Make It Here"?

No, they didn't.

No, he hasn't.

Here are just a few talking points from the McMurtry doctrine as outlined over breakfast at El Sol y La Luna, a chat set up ostensibly to discuss his new (and admittedly political) album "Just Us Kids," which arrives in stores Tuesday:

On the absence of a vigorous anti-war movement: "The lack of a draft is why we don't have the protests against this war that we should. It's sort of a hidden war. We're aware of it but it's not touching very many of us."

On stop-loss: "They're using the same people over and over again. They're mostly poor, mostly rural poor who are the last people to gripe about what the government does."

And then there's "Cheney's Toy," the first single from "Just Us Kids." Over a simple, gnarly guitar groove, McMurtry casts the president as the First Puppet: "You're no longer daddy's boy/ You're the man/ That they're all afraid of/ But you're only Cheney's toy."

Seems fairly straightforward, a little ham-fisted, in fact, but McMurtry says the song has already been misinterpreted. "Because I have this image of the unknown soldier through there, a lot of people think that I'm saying the soldier is Cheney's toy. I'm not. I'm saying Bush is. I thought I left enough clues in there."

As we suck down endlessly refilled cups of coffee, McMurtry talks through (famously) clenched teeth. His affect is bone-dry, which speaks to the sort of cynicism that can come only from having one of the stranger careers of any Austin musician who was never confined to a mental hospital. At the age of 46, McMurtry has never been more visible, his music never more relevant.

'Just you wait'

James McMurtry is, of course, known for his famous father, writer and über-Texan Larry McMurtry. But James spent his formative years in Virginia.

"My folks were divorced before we left Texas, but we all wound up in Virginia," McMurtry says. His mother, Josephine, taught literature at the University of Richmond; Larry taught at George Mason and American University before opening his bookstore.

"I think Larry left teaching then because he couldn't teach anybody," McMurtry says. "They didn't want to be taught, they were just there to get out of the war. He didn't blame 'em for dodging the draft, but he didn't want to teach 'em either."

James' education was upper class, opening doors which he says he chose to close again. "I did one year of high school at Maret, the private high school you go to in D.C. if you couldn't get into Sidwell Friends or St. Albans," James says wryly. He says everything wryly. "It was a very cool place, one of the least cliquish atmospheres I'd ever seen. They gave me every chance in the world and I didn't take it. Sometimes I wonder ... " He trails off, looks out the window.

Between Richmond and D.C., McMurtry developed a well-rounded music education. His mother and stepfather took him to see his first concert, Johnny Cash at the Richmond Coliseum. "I remember he did 'A Boy Named Sue' and said, 'If I have a son I'll name him John Carter,' because John (Cash's son) had just been born." Larry favored Bob Dylan and country, while James got into Little Feat, the Grateful Dead and Kris Kristofferson.

"Kristofferson was the first guy ever identified to me as a songwriter," McMurtry says. "I saw him with Stephen Bruton, who looked about 14."

McMurtry ended up in college in Arizona, where he spent time hunting and futzing around with songcraft. "People would ask me, 'Are you still playing your guitar?' I thought it was such an odd question. Why would anybody quit? What they really mean is 'Have you grown out of that yet?' We teach our kids to paint but we don't want our kids to do it when they grow up."

In 1989, McMurtry released his first album, "Too Long in the Wasteland," on Columbia. Rumor had it he was destined for great things. As critic Robert Christgau said at the time, "He's gonna be a prestige item, just you wait." Wait is right — it's really only now that McMurty's career is catching up with the early hype.

By '97, he was off Columbia and on Sugar Hill, where he made three decent (and, let's face it, somewhat forgettable) albums in five years. It wasn't until he signed to Compadre and released "Live in Aught-Three" that a corner was turned. McMurtry, who avoided political songs because "they're usually terrible," began to be a little freaked out by George W. Bush.

"There's a rant about Bush and the word 'nu-cu-ler' on the live record," McMurtry says. "My cousins can get away with saying that way, but my folks are academics – I can't. Can you imagine young George pronouncing it that way in front of Barbara? There would have been a nanny on a plane back to Honduras."

But it wasn't until the quick-fire recording and free-download release of "We Can't Make It Here" that McMurtry found his new voice, a blend of new-found political rage and the every loser tales he already specialized in. Recorded prior to the '04 election, the mumble of rage and resignation caught the imaginations of fans and detractors.

"I did the acoustic version, bleeped it, and gave it to Kevin Conner (when the ME-TV producer was still at KGSR)," McMurtry says. "He played it in morning drive time and there were nasty e-mails before I got home."

The download got around the world, fast. "I wasn't aware of the power of the Internet at all," McMurtry says. "By the time we got around to making the rest of the record we already had a little momentum."

The album, "Childish Things" (Compadre, 2005), was a breakthrough. Critics loved it, Stephen King gave it a ringing endorsement in his influential back-page column in "Entertainment Weekly" and suddenly McMurtry had an audience for his roots-rock rants. Highlights included the title track, "We Can't Make It Here" and "See The Elephant," a title whose multiple meanings dovetailed nicely with McMurtry's concerns.

"I got it from the back page of 'Guns and Ammo,' from a column by Col. Jeff Cooper, the last of the really literate gun writers," McMurtry says. "Before World War II and the country was more rural, if the circus came to town, a lot of things would come with it — prostitutes, liquor. 'See the elephant' was a euphemism for, um, a young man getting some experience." But that wasn't the only meaning. "My mother heard the song and said, 'I didn't know you knew that much about the Civil War.' In the army of Northern Virginia, 'see the elephant' was a euphemism for your first taste of battle."

Sometimes you just get lucky.

Learning curve

Sonically, "Just Us Kids" isn't too far afield from "Childish Things'" electric roots rock with McMurtry's Lou Reedish deadpan. (I mention this comparison to McMurtry and his eyes get wide — well, wider. "When we were recording 'Wasteland,' I and the band heard that Lou Reed song 'Busload of Faith' over some movie credits. We were like, 'Gee, he's doing something awfully close to what we're trying to do.'")

Self-produced, the album features the Faces' Ian McLagan's piano and Timbuk3's pat mAcdonald's harmonica. C.C. Adcock adds hard-swinging lead to "Bayou Tortous." Bassist Darren Hess and drummer Ronnie Johnson, a.k.a. McMurtry's longtime band the Heartless Bastards, keep time.

And some songs don't scan as political. The title track is a shout-out to his aging demographic, "Fireline Road" is dramatic, rural noir, "Hurricane Party" a moving look at a lonely life. "Ruby and Carlos" a tale of love mangled over time.

But for every "Ruby," there's "God Bless America (pat mAcdonald Must Die)," a stomping look at oil and war, or "Cheney's Toy."

McMurtry's guitar playing is better than he gets credit for. He's become a formidable axeman, working within the power trio's friendly confines as well as anyone in Texas who isn't named Gibbons. A fat tone and deft rhythmic strum drive the songs; his blocky improvisational chops speak to, well, a guy who used to love the Dead.

"I started out a pretty good acoustic player, but I really had to go out and suck in front of God and everybody for awhile on electric." Anybody who has seen him at his weekly Continental Club shows knows there's little danger of that now.

So if he can avoid getting sent to Gitmo, McMurtry's rebooted career should continue going much better than the first version.