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Dollar Store
Dollar Store
Bloodshot BS 098
By Marianne Ebertowski
 In
the early/mid nineties, a certain Dean "Deano" Schlabowski
fronted a noise band called Wreck in Chicago's thriving underground
music scene. Producer Steve Albini (Big Black) had been doing
a good job with the band, but Schlabowski, who held down a day
job at industrial label Wax Trax, was a secret admirer of British
punk band, the Mekons. When he approached the Mekon's singer
and songwriter Jon Langford in order to produce the next Wreck
album, fate struck: the Waco Brothers were conceived and the
duo Langford/Schlabowski has been responsible for many classic
Waco songs ever since.
The Waco Brothers, as we all know, have been living happily
ever after, but Schlabowski got a bit bored with the rather low
profile the band was keeping during the last years. He wanted
a fresh challenge and found it with his new project, Dollar Store.
Accompanied by the Waco Brothers' rhythm section, Joe Camarillo
(drums) and Alan Doughty (bass), Schlabowske set out to explore
the "wide open spaces" between very loud garage punk
and noise music in the best Windy City tradition and old-fashioned
country and rockabilly. To give the latter an extra boost, he
invited Bloodshot's very own pedal steel hero Jon Rauhouse, Blaster
Dave Alvin on guitar and multi-instrumentalist Celine (Sally
Timms) to play along with the trio. German rockabilly guitarist
Tex Schmidt (the Roughnecks), a guest player on the album, has
in the meantime joined Dollar Store as a second guitar player.
The result is a throbbing, twangy, rootsy, energetic blend
of old-fashioned "insurgent country" with an urban
blue-collar feel to it. And, Schlabowski wouldn't be a Waco Brother,
if his songs didn't show some political and/or social undertones,
though in his Dollar Store persona, he prefers a more personal
touch to the often relentless agitp(r)op which is Langford's
specialty. Schlabowski's observational lyrics are populated by
disappointed losers of a dog-eat-dog-world where the mean triumph
over the meek.
The album kicks off with "New Country," a dark,
ominous rock song with jangling guitars that has nothing to do
with hat acts or pierced navels, but everything with the "new
America" of recent years that does not find mercy in Schlabowski's
eyes. After this rather heavy opener, it is almost shocking to
hear a fiddle introduce the next song "Around the Bend"
that successfully marries a bluegrass-based melody to harsh,
grungy guitar sounds. Bill probably wouldn't have done it this
way, but, then again, Chicago, Illinois is not exactly Rosine,
Kentucky.
Dollar Store's careful maneuvering between rock and roots,
leads to some intriguing results. My personal favorite is the
wistful "Beyond Our Means," a fragile melody and story,
kept together by Rauhouse's breathtakingly beautiful steel guitar
work. The heat starts building up in the middle piece of the
album. There is some more old-fashioned romping roots-rock with
"North Central Plain," some insane Cramps-like psychobilly
with "Button Up" featuring Tex "Roughneck"
Schmitt on lead guitar, followed by an angry protest against
the stranglehold of the big business music industry with Rauhouse
and Schmitt battling it out on steel and electric guitar.
.
More anger surfaces in "Enemy," a raucous punkabilly
tune, this time with Rauhouse hammering away on Hawaiian guitar
and Schlabowski displaying old-fashioned punk attitude ("I
need an enemy to put me in the right") to the pogo-ing masses,
before hitting the road in "Exit #9" and the roof out
of deeply bitter blue-collar frustration in "Working Line."
Unfortunately, the album dies down like a candle in the wind
due to a couple of less-spirited songs. First, there is "Amazing
Disgrace," which sounds just as pompous and boring as the
song its title is based on often does, followed by "Little
Autocrat," a "metallish" song on which Schlabowski
sounds like Iggy Pop on Rophy.
Still, Dollar Store is a great album for every fan
of "Insurgent Country," whatever that may mean to the
individual listener. It's like a breath of fresh air in a tepid
environment and, what is even better, Mr Schlabowski is already
warming up for the next Dollar Store album which he wants to
sound like "Crazy Horse playing Hank Williams produced by
Lee `Scratch' Perry." Can't wait to hear it!
Oh, and I almost forgot the hidden track. In Dollar Store's
case, it's not hidden somewhere after the last chord has rung.
It is among all those mostly very fine Schlabowski tunes that
the surprised listener suddenly comes across one song that sounds
particular familiar and it is. Every average adult person
in the Western Hemisphere must have heard it a thousand times
or more. It is indeed - Cher's disco hit "Believe,"
which Schlabowski considers a "country song in disco clothing."
That may well be so, but actually, I prefer the original and
not only because Cher simply looks so much better than Deano.
Maybe, for the next album, Deano should invite Cher to do a Hank
Williams song with him. Now that would be a challenge!
www.dollarstoreworld.com
www.bloodshotrecords.com
Contact Marianne Ebertowski at ebertowski-at-rockzilla.net
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