Home
sign up| features / music interview |
 content by: editor |
 smog interview
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Everybody loves you when you’re down. Bill Callahan likes his eggs sunny side down. As Smog, he’s crafted 11 albums of literate, stark blues that have been variously described as “the latest from everyone’s favourite misanthrope” and “the soundtrack for throwing in the towel”. His newest, A River Ain’t Too Much To Love, is a typically austere collection. Sample lyric: “Why is everybody looking at me/Like there’s something fundamentally wrong.”Deciding to record at Willie Nelson’s Pedernales studio saw Callahan relocating from Chicago to Austin, Texas. “I feel a hundred times more comfortable in Texas. Chicago is a place for people to go when they want to die. At any age.” He’s similarly upbeat about the results: “I think this record is real different from anything I’ve done. Every record is something brand new, but I think this is the best thing I’ve done.”  From his early recordings on a crackly no-fi four-track, Smog’s sound has revolved almost exclusively around Callahan’s nylon-string guitar and extraordinary baritone: solemn, dolorous and almost confrontationally intimate, like a mugger’s whisper. His songwriting is as narrative and image-laden as the performance is stark and ascetic, with the latest loosely themed around a mythic river: “Water is a really flexible image.” Elsewhere, he engages with politics in a typically restrained manner on I Feel Like The Mother Of The World. “I came up with the title. I wasn’t even sure what it meant. It turned into the gentlest anti-war song, because anti-war songs can be so overbearing. I wanted to write something that made it everyday, commonplace.” Callahan refuses to be painted as the elder statesmen of alt-whatever. “I’m not aware of being an influence or, rather, sometimes I’m aware of being a really bad influence on people who shouldn’t be musicians, who shouldn’t be making music.” That said, his formidable reputation belies a dry humour that’s as rare as it is hilarious. Some advice for the fans? “Shut up and hold still.”
James Cowdery
Smog - A River Ain't Too Much To Love, out now on Domino.
 conversations
Read members' comments.
|
 |
related info
 useful linksdomino: smog
note: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
see also
 (smog)album review  dead man's shoesost review recent sessions  yetisession  tom veksession  m. wardsession  the killssession  willy masonsession  kt tunstallsession  roots manuvasession  joanna newsomsession
related member reviews
also on bbc.co.uk
music  music archive Watch music sessions and interviews from 2002 to 2008. books  books and comics archive Author interviews and reviews from 2002 to 2008. |
send to a friend
access 1000s of articles