An Undeniable Masterpiece
By Yale Kaul
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Fuckin, fuckin, John Oblio is Brian Wilson! He's J Mascis, he's Tom Waits, and he's Curt Kirkwood! He's Burt Bacharach! He's Bob Pollard without the nagging drinking problem! He's fuckin' Acuff/Rose! He's Ray Davies but with better diction! He's what Steven Malkmus thinks he should be but doesn't know it yet!
Gotterdammerung, I got this CD in the mail and was damn near moved to tears within 30 seconds of the first track. Sure, it's easy for someone like myself who's personally acquainted with the band (that's right!) to sit here and blow sunshine up their saggy asses, but I'll be a pig's dick in a horse's ass if they didn't churn out an undeniable masterpiece here, a pièce de résistance, or whatever that word is. And I guess I shouldn't be heaping all the praise on John Oblio, on account of this is quite obviously the product of the miracle of collaborative effort, but Johnny's (Johnny = Johnny Joe = John Oblio = John Brownell) the visionary, the mouthpiece behind it all, and the genius songsmith.
I could be wrong, but I do believe that the core of the Oblio Joes, that being John, other guitar man Stu Simonson, and drummer Dan "Felix" (do people still call him that?) Strachan met in the dorms at the University of Montana. John Oblio, from Detroit, where his dad reportedly invented some sort of seatbelt (and who looks exactly like Orville Redenbacher); Dan and Stu from podunk Conrad, MT.
I first saw them play at a host of house parties in the 1993-94 epoch and was usually too drunk to pay 'em any mind. But I distinctly recall a house party at a Mr. John Richter's house where they had a strobe light going, and I don't know if that was what caused it, but I remember being suddenly and very noticeably entranced by the Oblios' output. They were kind of going for that soft/loud juxtaposition at the time, where Johnny would sing lilting melodies, then he and Stu (who was a diehard shoe gazer at the time) would simultaneously take a step forward and stomp on their fuzz pedals, and Johnny would belt out a scream that pert' near made your eyelashes fall out. And the thing was, to talk to him, you'd never ever guess he could scream like that, because he's such a soft-spoken fellow and sings so purty, too.
Then I saw them play at this disgusting house where this disgusting drunk named Ivan lived. They'd gotten a bass player named Tor Dahl, a music major at UM from podunk Condon, MT (I think), and you could tell he pretty much knew what he was doing on that bass. And if there's one person in the band who should not suck, who should at least have a rudimentary grip on his instrument, it's the bass player. Tor totally fleshed out their sound, and the Oblios were getting known around Missoula as a band who could blow down doors in a live setting. I also started to notice that when the Oblios played, girls started showing up to rock shows! Whereas our stupid punk rock band had a legion of about five fans (sympathizers, really), the Oblios seemed to make girls coo and scream and wet their pants like they were on the Ed Sullivan show or something.
And they all (except Tor) lived in this pink house on Missoula's west side, where there was a wall, taller than me and probably 10 feet long, made entirely of empty Pabst cases, that effectively formed a partition between the kitchen and the living room. The house smelled worse than a biker bar and there were ashtrays teeming with cigarette butts and more butts on the floor. They had a little makeshift recording studio in the basement where our stupid band made our very first recording. Ah, the glory days. I'm gonna have to stop the self-important reminiscing ("...and we go dancing in the dark, walking in the park and reminiscing...". Enjoy having that song stuck in your head all day, bro!) here and review the actual album.
Oh, I should add that a couple years ago they got a keyboard player named Ian, and I don't really know much about him at all, but he plays some extremely cool shit on this album. In fact, I don't know that it would be nearly as much a masterpiece without him. That keyboard sound he rides with gives the album a kind of precocious, almost child-like quality that works well. And the most astounding thing about this new keyboard player is that he looks exactly like the other Oblios! Exactly! There is not another person on this earth that fits in with the general Oblio aesthetic, sartorial or otherwise, than this Ian cat.
I've also come to realize that at some point in the Oblios' almost 10-year (shit, can that be right?) existence, John Oblio developed quite a penchant for writing waltz and 3/4 time songs. He has this other thing going too, and I doubt there's an English word for it, but it's where the lyrics form a long sentence but they span across two lines, you know? It's hard to explain, but when you get this album, you'll know what I mean. You know, the clauses of his sentences just break at unlikely places is essentially what I'm getting at. And he sings in minor keys a lot, or so it would seem. Stu has long had a knack for delivering loud, mellifluous guitar solos, and Dan is never afraid to try out new drum shit. Dan also may be tied with Fireball of Freedom Sammy James Adams for the Drumming On The Precipice Of Blackout award. I've seen Dan so drunk he could barely even make his way to the stage, and yet still play passably. Not anything that could be objectively described as "rockin'" or "rocking," but passably nonetheless. I respect that in a drummer. Maybe because my own drumming suffers exponentially more with every beer after the tenth one. Beers 1 to 10, I'm fine, though. Ask me about the time I fell off the drum stool into a briar patch at our bass player's wedding!
Let us also blow some sunshine on Hank and Jimmy at Bevel Studio. These two friends of mine started their studio in Jimmy's house about two years ago and have quickly established themselves as the cheap and no-bullshit alternative to recording in Missoula. Used to be, to get any sort of recording done in Missoula, you had to either A) know someone with a decent four- or eight-track and try and con him into recording your band, or B) go to one of the professional studios in Missoula run by washed-up never-was local hacks who treat you like you're wasting their time by not playing Bob Marley or Steely Dan covers. Guys who roll their eyes when you start playing and feel you're disgracing your instrument and the entire music world if you don't know a Mixolydian from a Dorian scale, or C) travel to some other faraway cosmopolis to have a real recording engineer like Conrad Eno twiddle the knobs on your product.
So I think Hank and Jimmy tapped into a much-needed niche in Missoula. There's tons of bands, none of whom are typically well-endowed with dispensable income for their recording budget. And though Bevel is econo, by no means is it lame. Both those guys really know what they're doing, and they're real cool guys anyway, and they don't look down their noses at your band, no matter how much of a hellbound scabbard she be.
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