Bloodshot Records was launched roughly two decades ago in response to the creeping commercialization of roots music, particularly Country & Western. They’ve issued many albums since, and to celebrate this feat of endurance comes a 2CD/3LP set offering a diverse batch of artists covering tunes from an extensive catalog. While No One Was Looking: Toasting 20 Years of Bloodshot Records is designed to simultaneously please longtime fans and entice more than few newbies to investigate their discography, a dual utility indicating the likelihood of continued worthiness.
2014 has brought us a pair of independent label anniversaries, with Merge’s 25th and Bloodshot’s 20th pointing to diligence, creative focus and healthy operating practices (plus good taste, natch) as crucial ingredients in overcoming so much music business tumult. And they didn’t just persevere, they actually prospered.
Bringing Merge into the discussion is appropriate not just because their milestones arrive in the same calendar year or that both began as alternatives destined to eventually impact the mainstream; simply, While No One Was Looking includes a clever appearance by Merge’s flagship band, Superchunk revamping North Carolinian colleague Ryan Adams’ “Come Pick Me Up” as brawny anthemic power-pop, the significance deepened by the song title serving as the name of the ‘chunk’s 1999 LP (it’s also a key lyrical aspect of that disc’s “Hello Hawk”).
It’s a gesture helping to reinforce this collection as considerably more than a mere victory lap; Bloodshot could’ve easily assembled a standard greatest-hits styled affair for curious parties and/or rounded up a bunch of unreleased cuts for the long converted. And yet that would’ve been a rather predictable and potentially uninspired marking of a birthday very few anticipated in 1994.
While No One Was Looking’s sheer range joins with engaging performances to insure a substantial plateau of success. But on the other hand, this whopper is 38 tracks totaling over two hours; it’s basically a cinch a handful of lesser moments will arise. However, the quantity of selections means a limited amount of listeners will be familiar with the entirety of the source material and even more so the choice of acts, with only a couple having previously recorded for Bloodshot.
The stable was and remains varied enough to avoid any encroaching stylistically incestuous vibes had the decision been made to keep things in-house, but the even broader variety gracing these six sides makes abundantly clear that the influence of Bloodshot, an endeavor sometimes portrayed as a niche operation, has been widespread.
In terms of veterans, there’s Green on Red’s Chuck Prophet nudging up the volume on his essentially straight-ahead reading of Andre Williams’ “Dirt” as the ‘60s-ish bouillabaisse of ex-Screaming Tree Mark Pickerel’s “Cherokee Grove” proves a swell fit for the college rock supergroup Minus 5; unsurprisingly their version is a dab more jangle-poppy in orientation. Later in the sequence, Mike Watt & the Missingmen seize upon Jon Langford and His Sadies’ ’77-ish “Up to My Neck in This” and furnish it with a typically strong power trio throttling.
Discerning punk scientist Ted Leo’s cover of “Digging My Own Tombstone” is not unusual given the Waco Brothers counting Langford and his fellow Mekon Steve Goulding in their lineup; Leo lends the composition a decidedly neo-Beatles twist. Elsewhere Split Single, a group composed of Chicago veteran Jason Narducy in tandem with Spoon’s Britt Daniel and Superchunk’s Jon Wurster, turns the appealingly trad femme-voxed Americana of Nora O’Connor’s “My Backyard” into a slice of vaguely Flying Nun-like guitar-pop.
And maybe it’s just the timbre of Brett Sparks’ voice, but to these ears The Handsome Family grasps the bedrock alt-country of The Bottle Rockets’ “1000 Dollar Car” and shapes it into something an Americana-inclined Bob Mould might’ve cut directly after the breakup of Hüsker Dü. This cozies-up well to The Great Crusades’ rocking live run-through of The Blacks’ “Fake Out Jesus,” the track nicely recalling the harder end of the Paisley Underground spectrum. And Ben Kweller grapples the High Lonesome potency of The Meat Purveyors’ “2:00 A.M.” into a dynamic hunk of mid-tempo country-rock.
Amongst fresher talent, Samantha Crain slows down the pace and raises the intensity of Ha Ha Tonka’s “Cold Forgiver,” while “Where I Fell” finds Hiss Golden Messenger bringing an edgier rural air to Robbie Fulks’ country-folkish original. Dave Davison of the math-rockin’ Maps & Atlases tackles Bobby Bare Jr.’s “Things I Didn’t Say” pretty faithfully, though his singing is a tad reminiscent of Pere Ubu’s David Thomas. And speaking of unique vocal approaches, Daniel Romano’s serrated-edge tones lift “Strange Birds,” another spiffy number from Langford and the Sadies, to the level of sublime.
Carolyn Mark’s take on Alejandro Escovedo’s “Last to Know” is stripped-down and slightly more immediate than its source; the gist reminds me of Glass Eye’s Kathy McCarty. Andrew Bird & Nora O’Connor’s “I’ll Trade You Money for Wine” retains Fulks’ powerful aura, with Bird’s fiddle playing stronger in the mix as the rich harmonies and layers of electric guitar add distinctive flavor. And Charlie Parr imbues Devil in a Woodpile’s “Manifold” with spectacular fingerpicking/rough-hewn string band ambiance.
Ryan Adams receives the honor of four covers here, and Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers piano-led excursion into the contemplativeness of his “Oh My Sweet Carolina” is quite effective, the leader’s singing suggesting gal-belting from the ‘70s Cali scene, the accents of brass in the instrumentation only intensifying the geographical similarity.
It contrasts very fruitfully with the gentle picking and harmony of Jerry David DeCicca’s “Broken Bottle” (the second entry from Escovedo’s live album More Miles than Money) and the afterhours City of Lost Angels’ nightclub feel (a la early Waits) that Black Diamond Heavy James Leg transfuses into the Motor Inn-lounge rockabilly of the Dex Romweber Duo’s “Is that You in the Blue?”
If the Gore Gore Girls’ “All Grown Up” kinda presents them as dream dates for those sadly departed Ramones, Warm Soda inject the tune with beaucoup mid-‘70s Sunset Strip swagger; one can almost smell the breath of Kim Fowley wafting from the speakers. What an odor. And the Waco Brothers’ “Dry Land” is sped up and fitted with a Buzzcocks-esque pleasure harness by Diarrhea Planet.
The North Carolina Music Love Army (featuring Caitlin Cary of Whiskeytown, Chris Robinson of the Backsliders, and Kenny Roby of 6 String Drag) dig into the nearly six minutes of Graham Parker’s “Stick to the Plan,” the hefty duration of their boogie oozing the atmosphere of a party, a description ultimately extending to While No One Was Looking’s whole.
As said, this soiree is perhaps just a mite too ample, but unlike those occasional overzealous wang-dang doodles that unfortunately turn anarchic or formidable, with somebody’s underage cousin puking in the fish tank (for a figurative example), these celebratory activities never register as having spun out of Bloodshot’s control.
Missing is the skeevy dude in the corner that nobody knows; if wide-ranging, all the participants belong here and nothing in the running-time connects as a throwaway, not even Interpol drummer Samuel Fogarino’s leftfield electro journey into “Liked it a Lot,” a song gleaned from the 2008 compilation devoted to Miami legend Charlie Pickett.
Bluntly, I’d lost track of Bar Band Americanus, and getting a reminder of the label’s service to the well-deserving Pickett is one of the many points in While No One Was Looking’s favor. Based on the evidence here it’s safe to prognosticate another quality decade for Bloodshot Records.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
