| March 6, 2018 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Lyrics: I know what you meant to say last night
One thing, you never want to be is distracted. So long, static. So long, strange. Watch your back when you walk away.
So long, static. So long, strange. California. Can’t. Can’t afford ya. So long, static. So long, strange. So long, so long, Lorraine. Get It: Thankfully, So Long Someday is still in print, but you might want to grab yours before they become extinct. Dances with Bass YouTube Channel:
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When I started this blog in 2015, my initial charge was to feature little-known artists and deep cuts from known artists, and for a time, I stuck to that plan. I should also point out that I only had three readers, and one of them was me. So, after a few months of prattling on about this unheard of artist and that guy you simply must hear, I started blending in more known-quantity artists and covers of widely known tracks. I picked up a few more readers. My dog seemed to like me more anyway. In the past few months, I’d redoubled my efforts to feature a wide variety of music, covering multiple genres and featuring both known and unknown artists. I’ve also improved the functionality of the site immeasurably and started tinkering with search engine optimization and using social media to promote my posts. I’ve also committed myself to posting every day instead of once or twice a week like I did in the beginning. And best yet, longtime friend (as in he knows where the bodies are) and fellow music maniac, Mike Muckenhirn, started adding a couple of posts each week, which both adds a new musical dimension to my offerings and takes some heat off me. Each one of these posts takes at least an hour to produce and sometimes, much more. Having Mike in my foxhole has helped immeasurably. All of the aforementioned efforts have resulted in a still small, but dedicated readership that I sincerely appreciate it. Dances with Bass is even followed by a handful of excellent musicians on Twitter (including a dude claiming to be Bob Dylan, though we remain dubious to his claim). However, I think I’ve strayed a bit too far away from what drove me to create this blog in the first place: pointing my friends to music they might not hear otherwise. I’ve even tried to commit myself having at least one-third of my posts dedicated to new and/or mostly unknown artists. Enter today’s featured artist: Firecracker. About 10 years ago, I heard today’s featured track, So Long, Lorraine, while listening to Pandora (my Counting Crows station, if you’re curious) and I simply could not believe I didn’t know about these guys. With a healthy dose of alacrity, I trotted over to Amazon (my computer, really) and tried to order a copy of So Long Someday. No dice, man. At that time, Amazon didn’t offer as many indie artists as it does today, so I went to my plan B, CDBaby, where I was able to purchase my copy. CDBaby specializes in indie artists, and over the years, they’ve made some healthy coin from your wayward blogger. This album has remained in my frequent rotation ever since. In particular, So Long Lorraine, Hey Amy, Box of Hearts, and Cast Aside are frequent flyers in multiple Dances with Bass playlists. And if you can find it, Firecrackers debut EP, Certain Things Last, is fantastic, too. It contains several early versions of tracks found on So Long Someday, and while different, those versions are every bit as good as those that appear on today’s featured album. If you are a fan of alt-country acts, such as Wilco, Old 97s, and Ryan Adams, I think you will find this record to be right up your proverbial alley. Like all good records, heartbreak and loss are recurring themes. As one reviewer puts it, vocalist and songwriter Scout Shannon seems to have had his heart broken a number of times, and it is with a mixture of sadness and glee that I say the world is better for his suffering. If you can listen to So Long, Lorraine without feeling the utter desolation deep down in the area of your pancreas, then I think you might not have a soul. And that’s not to say that the music is sad; rather, it has soul. Lots of it. I wish I could tell you more about the band or the individual artists, but beyond what appears in the liner notes of the record, I know precious little. A few years ago, I did manage to contact the band’s now-defunct website and I asked if Firecracker was going to be releasing additional records. The one-line email response was, “Firecracker is done.” I have no idea when or why they split or whether any of the members are doing anything else right now…but by god, I hope they are because they are simply incredible. I have burned up the web in hopes of finding more information, and I have continually—and regretably—come up empty. The good news is that you can still find the record at CDBaby and at Amazon (see the link below the song lyrics). Trust me friends, if you like music that defies classification—meaning it’s equal parts rock, country, and folk—I feel relatively certain you will enjoy this record. It’s extremely well-produced, heavily layered with multiple instruments, and performed flawlessly. How these guys didn’t become superstars overnight is beyond me (except that the radio sucks and it hates you). After much research, I have learned that vocalist Scout Shannon has become a filmmaker and devotes most of his time to that. For a short time after Firecracker disbanded, he headed another Austin, Texas-based band, Secretariat. (And in case you wondering, the album art really is skewed a bit to the left. I wasn’t drinking when I wrote this post. Much.) Video: No video was made for So Long, Lorraine (or any other Firecracker song, so far as I can tell) but I do have an audio track for your consideration: If you want to hear the entire album, go to this YouTube link.
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