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| Country Gone Beautifully Wrong |
| band: Forbis, Wil |
| Album: Shadey's Juke Box |
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As far as the style, I was fascinated by surrealism.
~ Mark Mothersbaugh
A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive.
~ Luis Buñuel
Wil Forbis writes an inspired, punch-drunk country song infused with J. Geils, Frank Zappa, Waylon Jennings, and Devo. There's a psychedelic touch to this take on Americana sufficient to embarrass Sunday School teachers and inspire cowboys to line dance in the mosh pit. This is outlaw music gone so wrong it could be the theme song for climbing clubs in Kansas. Wil Forbis ain't quite right. He's just a little different, if you know what I mean. These songs are best described as country gone beautifully wrong.
From Wil Forbis: I'm really quite convinced Devo is the most interesting band in rock history. There's a lot of layers and subtexts to what they did, a lot of it very contradictory. It's hard to say exactly what they are up to -- I don't think they even knew.
I should have known from the emails I exchanged with Wil and his elegiac description of Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, he wasn't writing that Sweet-Home-Bakersfield southern rock we've come to know and tolerate. He seems to be hell bent to take country back, or set it back, or knock it off the tracks. His band don't seem to notice, because they play better than the average Bible Belt band and even have a pedal steel to prove their courage. All in all they feel like J. Geils gone Texas two-step to me. But those lyrics will raise eyebrows even among Waylon outlaws in Nashville and all parts Midwest.
Wil Forbis as a monster movie: I'd probably be one these mad scientists who comes up with some harebrained scheme to impress a girl. Something like, "She'll have to pay attention to me once I've harnessed the POWER of the SUN to FLY!" And of course that would fail and I would become hideously disfigured and go around killing prostitutes.
Maestro Forbis has an eclectic bag of musical influences and a band to back it up. By and large, he fits the oversized category of Americana with a few taters of jazz and psychedelic chicken dance blues to overstuff the sack. This is a jukebox after all. There's no one niche to fit all sizes. This is the sort of band that might have made a star out of the defrocked mad preacher in Grapes of Wrath. There's enough fool's wisdom to shatter your intoxicating stupor of certainty if you give it a chance. The variety of musical forms on this album should be no impediment to any adventurous listener. After all, it's a jukebox. That there are ragtime, rock, pop and country songs on this album should be no more shocking than a book of beat poetry that includes a Haiku. If the media is the massages, don't shoot the massageur.
WIL FORBIS ON LIFE: My window on the world? I suppose I'm fundamentally nihilistic --- I think most of morality is essentially man-made notions that evolved because by practicing them you had a greater chance of survival. If you go around killing everyone around you, you'll probably be killed. On the other hand if you go around hugging everyone, you'll also probably be killed. Most successful moral beliefs are somewhere in the middle.
So what's a boy to do? If the doctrine of certainty has flown the coop, the rejection of values and beliefs can be an eye opener. Sure, you may not be inclined to introduce him to your Pentecostal half-sister, but if you want a song with a outsider's ironic honesty he's your man. Without the baggage of a moral compass, clockwork universe theory, or the secret code buried in Rush's Kabalistic classic The New Tom Sawyer, the dust on the mirror of perception is removed. Simply put, Will Forbis sees people -- living people -- with an alien eye. These country songs of his are observations from a stranger in a strange land. He's that unidentified thinking being with the unfettered vision of the nonsense run rampant we've come to accept as a culture. Now and again his country skips a beat and flats a seven converting it to a convincing alternative rock. Wil is the religiously disbelieving Pete Seeger of nothingness in service to humanity. Hooked yet?
Description of Shadey's Jukebox from the site: Shadey's Jukebox is a collection of 10 songs written by Wil Forbis. The material is rooted in country but touches on Dixieland Jazz, Bluegrass, Americana and Soul. It features the exceptional playing of Peter Kavanaugh, Mike Brady, Shaun Mason, Steve Mugalian and many other guests from the Los Angeles alt-country scene. The album is released by Rankoutsider Records, the name you've come to trust in quality independent Americana music. (www.rankoutsiderrecords.com)
Let those words echo in this review. Note that Wil Forbis is a contributor to the exceptional music of Dafni and The Grievous Angels for further study. Add to the mix a personal observation: Wil has a heart beating behind the insight. I find his songs no more disconcerting than any unflinching look at the human condition. Shake well and add his new book, "Acid Logic: A Decade of Humorous Writing on Pop Culture, Trash Cinema and Rebel Music" available at Amazon.com. I believe Wil Forbis has a distinct and infectious voice as a songwriter. If you listen carefully, and get beyond the laughs, he may lay waste to your comfortable world view. But hey! Change is good, right?
THE SONGS:
1. LET'S GET HIGH ON JESUS is a fast talking country romp nevertheless reminiscent in style of J. Geils' "Angel Was a Centerfold." These auctioneer fast vocals are a little buried in an overstuffed bed of country most of the song, but the sense of humor is obvious from the get go. That Wil Forbis is a crafty songwriter full of twists and turns in an adoptive two-step country. "Let's get high on Jesus. Let's get high on life." Course, there's a pill in the song takes it into a ecstatic territory. This may be a sexy, swimmy-headed, drug induced hymn, truth be told. Imagine Zappa's "Freak Out" retooled for airplay on "Hee Haw!" The kick line here comes when a sweet thing bar fly clarifies her request. "That's when she told me Jesus was a little red pill." Accept no substitutes.
2. HOPE KILLS is a dizzy dream of a waltz to the bad fries and good times at Shadey's Bar & Grill. I have to wonder if the Cinema Bar on Sepulveda might be an inspiration here. There's a swagger in this song worthy of tight fitting leather pants, extolling the virtue of "putting the past to rest." If J. Geils hit the cynical nail on the head with "Love Stinks," Wil Forbis slams the hammer on his thumb with his anthem "Hope Kills." The music will inspire you, and the lyrics might compel you to buy another beer. "Just me and boys swillin' down beer." Guess it's no fun to hope into your beer.
3. WHERE THERE'S A WIL THERE'S A WAY brings out the flappers for a raggy Redbone inspired 20s steel belted retread. The lyric here might fit in the mouths of Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks. It's a short form bragging song in a tradition as old as Davy Crocket. That "Wil" in the title is no misspelling. This is a short song with Dixieland horns and not a cow patty worth of country. Hotcha!
4. BACK TO NORMAL is a barstool country blues with an excess of arrangement bent on category bending. There are swaths of progressive jazz, inebriated mandolin, heart throbbing pedal steel, and an occasional backing vocal of "bops" in doowap. This is the all styles welcome bar song of choice for the sad and woozy. There's more intentionally disjunctive twists in this song than most of Zappa's hyper arrangements of teenage angst. Wil must have been listening to that eclectic radio with a snoot full of Jägermeister to write this song. "I'm supposed to know my place as if I never saw your face. It looks to me that things they be back to normal around here." Check your self-esteem at the door.
5. FIN FANG FOOM has enough brake-neck rancho style guitar to impress the speed metal crowd. I've heard this style before played by Merle Jagger on "Hillbilly No. 9." Yep, that's psychedelic rancho you ask me. Careful which punch you drink. The electric Kool Aid is the one with the wild eyed Merry Prankster picking and a grinning under that brand new cowboy hat. This is an mind bender of an instrumental country stomp.
6. LAURELAY (TAKE THE LONG ROAD) has a take on bluegrass that might surprise and delight Bill Monroe. The instruments are recorded way out front, but the harmony is barbershop tight with Blue Grass Boys intervals. "Take the long road in life when you can dear and never stop on the East bound train." Don't look for shortcuts in life. That's the message. "It's too late for me, but I hope you will see, take the long road in life when you can." Amen.
7. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FEEL takes it down a notch for a ballad to inspire the crowd. The melody of this song is very close to John Hiatt's Take It Down with a similar bitter sweet feeling. If you are PC, you will fake an empathetic emotion on cue at the tragedy of a friend. That dishonesty is polite and a damn good idea. I applaud Wil for exposing the truth here. At first, even a personal tragedy may not trigger feelings as quickly as we may be compelled to show them. I had a writing teacher at CalArts who once said, "When you hear your father has diied, you first cry because you don't feel anything. You feel guilty that all you really want to do is hurry off to class." You shouldn't force a feeling. Unfortunately, I had a chance to test this observation, and found it true. The real pain and loss and grieving come soon enough, but not at once. You can't force a feeling. This is a beautiful, honest, sweet ballad. It shares a few chords with a favorite tune from Hiatt. I think you could hear those two tunes back to back without feeling the urge to cry foul. Wil hadn't heard the Hiatt tune. 'Nuff said. The band sounds like The Rolling Stones doing a country rock ballad on this one, and that's something even The Stones haven't accomplished in a decade. A song this good stands out. Good on you, Wil.
8. THE BETTER MAN WON is an up tempo R&B or soul shout chorus of a song. There's something in the rhythm of the language here approximating J. Geils, with something like Booker T. and the MGs playing a killer arrangement on the horns. Wil's lyrics annihilate any serious comparison to the postage stamp lyrics of brother Geils. This song must get far more than it's share of play on Shadey's legendary jukebox. Add to that description, this song takes an abrupt turn into an acoustic blues gospel break sounds for all the world like a short psychedelic take on The Allman Bros. "Mountain Jam" from their all time record breaking live album. Try to resist this song! You will lose.
9. ALIEN CONSPIRACY has an opening riff no less infectious than that figure you can't forget from Fleetwood Mac's "Well Well Well," and that's just the momentary intro. Enter the banjos for a spirited haunting alienated alien conspiracy song, and you got a hit on your hands. The music is so damn much fun! Keep an essential nonconformity alive! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!
10. OLD BEFORE MY TIME enter that borderline Leon Redbone singing easy Bohemian blues band at the end for an unexpected nightcap. Whistle along if you can. Anyone can whistle, right? Why oh why can't you? See you next week. Try the veal. It's delicious.
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