A Week With The Skygreen Leopards' "Disciples of California": Day 4
19 December 2006
tell your friends...
Words by Tony Conte//Illustration by Richard Clarke
Don’t trust the Skygreen Leopards.
They will tell you that you look good in those frumpy jeans. They will say things like, “I just want you to know that I’ve never done that before.” They will promise never to do it again. That’s the kind of band we are dealing with.
Ever had someone offer you their condolences while laughing? That’s what Disciples of California does over and over again. They tell me to “take good care of my lovers and friends” on the first song, “Disciples of California.” The lyric is sung by a man who sounds as if he’s awoken at the scene of a tragic accident to find his entire family scattered across the road, dead, and himself instantly embittered with life. But you try to believe the words of the song and not his voice. The lyrics are a carrot of hope dangled in front of your miserable existence. The possibility that someone you’ve never even met cares enough about you to give you this fatherly advice allows you to overlook the stark contrast of its delivery…tattered and cracked, worse for the wear. (“Wonderwall” worked so well because we all ached to believe that you would be the one to save me….well, that and a kick-ass, soul-crushing melody). Then the Leopards wrap you in a dream-inducing, poorly disciplined strum-session. They lull you into submission with unintelligible lyrics (which have to exist somewhere on the Internet, right? please?) and slip in the following lyrics only a song or two later: “Take good care of yourself, Sally Orchid, I can’t help you.” Wait, where have you gone my Leopards? Dare you dash my hopes quietly and slip away into the night with a whisper which negates everything I’ve come to believe you stand for?
Oh yes, they are tricky bastards. Take “Sally Orchid” for example. Just one of the many masterful subtleties of a well-made album is what I like to call the multi-layered/repeat-listen quotient. Which almost sounds like an equation for something. But not so fast, put your pencils and pads away you overzealous brown-nosers and know your limits. To level this song down to it’s most base instinct, to get to the coarse cobblestone path on which this song is built, you will have to take a machete through the thickets of multiple guitars. You will have to lift the gossamer leaves of groaning voices hanging limp across your path. You will have to maneuver the mathematics behind the almost unnoticeable shift in time that the song undergoes over its three-minute progression. As the drums steadily pick up the pace, you find that the Leopards are trying to lose you. Like a friend who walks away while you’re telling a story, you get surprised, then you wonder what the hell made them do that, and then rush to catch up. What do you think happens then? That’s right, you guessed it, you listen again to figure it out.
It is worth mentioning that “Sally Orchid” is track No. 3 and that track No. 8 is entitled “I Remember Sally Orchid.” Am I intelligent enough to draw the conclusion between the two songs? Probably not. Am I capable of discerning enough lyrics to hold what might sound like an intelligent conversation about the relationship of the two songs? Well, you can decide for yourself tomorrow.
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