sky green leopards by richard clarke

A Week With The Skygreen Leopards' "Disciples of California": Day 3

17 December 2006
tell your friends... tell your friends...

Words by Tony Conte//Illustration by Richard Clarke
Where do we draw the thin line between an emotionally piercing and an emotionally overwrought delivery? In music, does it even matter? I mean, wasn’t Ethyl Merman once a star…and melodramatic to boot? Pop-tastic acts like Panic! At the Disco have many redeeming qualities, and even they are more than a little Broadway (hell, they’ve got the top-hats and canes to prove it).

I’ve had a day to recover from last listen, and I’m back with fresh ears. A day spent looking over my shoulder attempting to shake those gasping vocals has brought me to my senses. Nevertheless, the album and its musicality continue to grow on me like a thick moss.

One day deeper, and the question is now unavoidable: What makes an album over-the-top? Every failed attempt of a major chord progression to reel in the beaten down, whiskey-pensive vocals further highlights the youth of the performers. They most certainly have not earned the street-cred, at least in my mind, to be able to get away with the kind of cracked, world-weary delivery that kept Johnny Cash in the spotlight til the very end. You can’t just settle for a watered-down impression of Bob Dylan when you are jonesing to hear his distinctive drawl. We believe Billie Holiday’s unfortunate plight when we hear her sing her own eulogy with what’s left of her ailing instrument in “Lady in Satin.” Skygreen Leopards want so badly to sound grizzled, but in some songs they simply come off as kids who once knew someone who lived a hard life, and have managed to mimic what that might sound like.

We can call this album a torpid example of post-emo or we can call it a twisted form of classic country. As emo, its competition is not what you would call “accomplished” (see Cursive). At the other end, Classic country sets it next to the big boys (Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers) where it can only cower and pee itself in fear. I’ll call it “em-untry,” and that won’t catch on, so don’t try to use it with your friends, you’ll just embarrass yourself…trust me. This one may catch on, however. Get ready for it: Freak Folk + Country = FreaCountry. Like Free Country…oh nevermind.

The happy disaster here is that these guys, no matter how much they make you want to laugh at what they’re doing, are actually doing something you probably haven’t heard before. “Unclassifiable” may be a little strong, but it’s close. What keeps dragging this lame horse back from its grave are the lyrics.

“Goodbye, hallelujah/If I don’t cry/Don’t let it fool ya/We’ll meet again, you and me/Down in Shawnapee/Cause I don’t mind losing time.”

or

“Take good care of yourself, sally orchid, i can’t help you.”

or

“Oh my sweet dream, will you survive the night?”

But it’s also the lyrics that provide an open invitation to put that lame horse down:

“When there’s nowhere to get high, beach skies turn bleak.”

or

“My true love has the bleeding heart tattooed on our door.”

Um, okay. But…what again? Have I gone hard of hearing? Some of their efforts are tightly produced yet spaciously packaged. Echo overtakes too much of the production itself so at times, I wonder if the actual recording of this work took place inside a giant tin can in San Francisco. On the corner of Haight-Ashbury. Remember: bad trip, without question.

Too often, no matter how hard I fight it, this album works. It’s not the high-school poetry in the liner notes, or the fact that the vocalists sound like contenders for an experimental asthma drug. Its the confluence of all of those guitars, and the oftentimes stunning lyrics woven into this patchwork quilt of unprepared snare which makes you feel like you’ve seen too many long days on the prarie. Gentlemen, what we have here is an album in the truest sense of the word.

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