Hadacol
All In Your Head
Slewfoot Records 805

by William Michael Smith

Hadacol's new record is so good it's hard to know where to start a review. I'm tempted to just say, "Wow, one of the year's best indie roots records, buy it." But that doesn't feed the bulldog. So...

2001 has been an outstanding year for roots rock and Americana in Missouri, and now comes All In Your Head. A polished album with a bouncy, twanging bar band sound that comes straight from the line of great Missouri bar bands that traces its heritage to The Skeletons, it is hard to believe this follow up to 1999's Better Than This is only Hadacol's second album.

As good as Hadacol's playing is and as good as the singing and harmonies are, the songs are what separate Hadacol from other roots rock outfits. Where they set themselves apart is in their ability to draw images and situations that are rural based but that fully resonate in the modern mindset. The songs project images of practical people who've had their shovels in the dirt, who have weeded a garden or plowed a field, who've seen the family farm and the rural lifestyle slowly eaten away but have held onto it -- if only in their innermost being. Hadacol's writing isn't airy and falsely elaborate or intellectually snobbish. Instead their songs are filled with dirt-between-your-toes, ache-in-your-back images that ring absolutely true and have the intangible element that speaks to our residual farm-based Americanism.

See the black smoke fill the sky
Another hot day in July
All the people come from town
Out in the country
She must have burned like a neon sign
Sellin' RC Colas for a dime
They're spreading blankets on the ground
Out in the country

Hadacol, with bassist Richard Burgess, drummer Brian Baker, and brothers Fred and Greg Wickham doing the songwriting and playing an array of lead instruments, is the successor to Big Iron. Named after the alcohol-laced patent medicine that sponsored Hank Williams, Hadacol is primarily a twin guitar band, but Fred also plays mandolin, harmonica and steel while Greg doubles on keyboards. With veteran Missouri roots rocker Lou Whitney (The Skeletons, The Morrels) producing, the band sticks to a simple, tight presentation loaded with plenty of twangy, energized rock and country funk. Lead singer Fred Wickham has a strong, Steve Earle-ish voice that combines a bit of the Ozarks with the Midwestern diction of a plains farmer.

True to the rural realism imbedded in their lyrics, the Wickham brothers' songs reflect the dual (and intellectually conflicting) realities of rural life past and present. On one side in songs like "Down Again" or "I'm Already Broken," there is the so-this-is-all-there-is stoicism prominent in those who live on and with the land.

Ain't got the money, ain't got the time
Ain't got the sense to leave it behind
But it's OK, don't matter anyway
You can't break me, I'm already broken

An inch of water don't seem like a lot
Until you're drownin' an inch from the top
And you see the sunshine above the water line
You can't break me, I'm already broken

But the Wickham brothers also see the Norman Rockwell vision of bucolic rural life filled with innate optimism, blind faith, common sense, uncommon decency, and a belief in simple family values. Fred's plunky love song "Be With You" and his Buddy Holly-ish rocker "Airplane Song" can only be described as wholesome, but it is Greg's lilting, lazy, instantly memorable reminiscence on "Another Day" that serves as a perfect example of their Rockwellian view.

Grandma sleeps on the divan
With the remote in her hand
While the Cardinals play every Sunday afternoon
We all love it come Sunday night
Grandma sits at the old upright
And sings her favorite hymns a little out of tune

Mom stands at the stove
Fryin' chicken while the window fan blows
Set the table for six in the dining room
Dad plays whiffle ball
The neighbor kids come one, come all
The game always ends in time for the news

Pasture's green
And we all sleep fairly well
It's almost
Another day

Greg Wickham has a good enough voice to front most bands and he takes the lead on another instantly memorable tune, his resigned, woe-is-me, workingman's anthem filled with sly internal rhymes, "Dump Truck." (I found myself singing this one while busting a couple of knuckles changing the plugs in my wife's urban assault vehicle last weekend).

There's no reservations
For conversations
With myself but it seems
Like you're always listenin' in

Is it real or fiction
Can you get a conviction
On all these wicked thoughts
Better left unsaid

Goodbye, good luck
I feel like a dump truck
Ain't no use in tryin'
'Cause a dead man never wins

Don't get the idea that the Hadacol boys have led a sheltered life or have never done anything but drive the tractor, bail hay, and shuck corn. The title track is a jangly roots rocker with a snarly, dangerous edge about a man who has the usual modern doubts and paranoid worries, whether it's his mate's fidelity or his government's motives.

I might be wrong
But what if I'm right?
They keep me up all night
Watch what you say
Watch what you do
They got them satellites
Tuned in on you
And she said,
It's all in your head

Where would farm boys (and any record Lou Whitney has anything to do with) be without at least one corny, left-handed ditty or a blasting rocker? Set to a loping, plainly ironic musical background, Fred Wickham's dazed-and-humorous "Gerald Ford" wickedly couples our most awkward, naturally humorous President with a country boy's wild weekend drinking binge ("We were drinkin' in St. Louie/I woke up in Tennessee/If you think you know what happened/Would you mind tellin' me/What am I, what am I doin' here"). Hadacol unleashes the beast on a remake of the Doc Watson traditional favorite, "Little Sadie." The Wickham brothers' twin guitar jousting reminds us of the Beat Farmers when Jerry Raney and Joey Harris were in high gear. The track allows Burgess and Baker to find and hold that hard, fast groove in the rhythm section that is the essence of rock.

Independent-minded, ears-open Slewfoot Records continues to set an example for the industry by finding, cultivating and recording local talent like Hadacol, The Domino Kings, and Kristie Stremel that is ready for the wider world. The small but highly focused Missouri label has had an outstanding year in 2001. With the release of Hadacol's earthy It's All In Your Head, they continue to signal that they intend to carve out a significant niche in Americana.

*Get your healing dose of Hadacol at www.slewfootrecords.com No prescription nequired. Increase dosage as mood indicates. Repeat when necessary. If symptoms persist more than 24 hours, increase volume significantly.





Contact William Michael Smith at: wms-at-rockzilla.net

 
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