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Live records suck. It’s a rule. Not
my rule. They just do. Heard the one with (soon-to-be)
Governor Kinky Friedman and the right reverend Billy Joe Shaver, live from
Down Under? That’s where it sounds like it’s coming from, and it
don’t much matter how good you are at fiddling with the damned equalizer.
Or anything else, for that matter. How ‘bout that Joe Ely record
they made at Antone’s? Great songs, but they might as well’ve named
it “Lost in Translation” and beat Bill Murray to the grim-faced punch.
And don’t get me started on that tired old Frampton thing. Live
records suck. They just suck.
Good soundmen, on the other hand, are priceless in a way Mastercard isn’t
likely to figure out before Jesus comes back. Happily for us, Max
Stalling and the guys at Dan’s Silver Leaf just up the road in Denton,
Texas, already got a handle on that one. So when Max and his band
showed up for a gig at Dan’s in July of ’05, well, somebody punched
“record.” (maybe there was a tad more forethought involved, but get off my
fantasy and play along). As a result, one of those infamously muggy
and hot North Texas nights wound up with a soundtrack that’s both a
retrospective/greatest hits take on Stalling’s solid career and a bonafide
it-feels-like-you’re-there-in-the-beer-tub-line-sweating-your-nuts-off-and-singing-along
memory. If you weren’t there, pop this in, and realize where Wells
went wrong with all his time machine plans. Maybe time capsule’s a
better metaphor, but you get where I’m going - - right?
All you Stalling fans out there will know all the songs by heart, and if
you feel about that the way I do about David Allan Coe records that have
twelve standards and one damn song I never heard before, well, go on and
reach for the wallet anyhow. This disc is a gem, a little sliver of
lasered plastic that’ll open a portal to every show you ever (never?) saw
in Denton or Austin or Luckenbach or by the river down in Gruene.
That feeling you get down in your gut when Dale Watson’s vocal cords are
impersonating God on a Sunday afternoon at Ginny’s? Or that lump in
your throat when Brian Burns rounds into his Texas history set? That
man-I’m-glad-I-live-under-the-Lone-Star aura that settles in soft and slow
when the band’s just right and the company’s better? That’s all
here. It’s as close to live as you’re going to get. A danged
sight more live than anything on that cubicle prairie where you work, for
sure. And I don’t have to tell you what that’s worth. When there’s
salvation in the song, all’s right with the world. And when Max
Stalling and his band are competing to see who’s the smoothest, cripes,
one begins to wonder if salvation’s just a front for something truly
satisfying.
What the band has captured here is bigger than guitars and crowd noise.
It’s the sparks of imagination and hope that flit about on a summer’s eve,
and all of the possibilities that the night and the neon can bring.
The ball cap nation can smell the perfume, while the married set can feel
the comfort in soft but weathered hands. It’s a convergence of all
that’s good, wherever you are in your life. All it needs now is a
little trip to your CD player, and the chance to lift your spirit while it
soothes your soul.
Available online at www.lonestarmusic.com or in person over at Bill’s
Records and Tapes in Dallas. Editor's Note: Bill's Records
website for those
out-of-towners who want in on this one.
Written by Dave
Pilot, April, 2006
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