Kevin Russell's Junker
Buttermilk and Rifles
Sugar Hill Records
by William Michael Smith

What makes Kevin Russell's Buttermilk and Rifles so much fun is his stream-of-consciousness, shoot from the hip with the first thing that enters your mind lyrics and his drunken sailor on a lark vocal stylings. One gets the idea that Russell isn't much given to stage fright or the fear of messing it up, nor does he mind if things get a bit over the top. On the surface Russell may work in what has become a fairly standard alt.country Americana roots hybrid musical mixture, but lyrically he's pushed well beyond the conventional limits, much as Ramsay Midwood has on his latest effort. Many of Russell's lyrics are full of wry humor or blatant absurdity, but there's always an underlying hint of biting commentary, as on the singalong-ish "(Somebody Bring Me A Flower) I'm A Robot" where Russell takes a couple of subtle swipes at some sacred cows within the framework of an infectious, put-a-smile-on-your-face hook. (I've sung "I'm A Robot" in the car and shower for weeks now and I'm still not absolutely certain what it's all about, although I am sure it no longer matters; it's just an incredibly catchy tune). With all the deadly serious stuff we are being bombarded with today, we desperately need childlike songs like these.

Jesus Christ he told the robots to play some music
The robots played their music with a stick
Robot sang about how Jesus was gone so long
And all the other robots loved that song

I'm a robot, I'm not a power ranger
I'm a robot, feel like a coat hanger
I'm a robot, I'm not a country singer
I'm a robot!

Russell often achieves a John Hiatt vibe, particularly on his sneaky-snaky blues-tinged rockers like "Virgin of the Cobra," where he sings in that I've-seen-shrinks-before-and-I-might-be-seeing-them-again loosey-goosey style Hiatt often affects. This is late night Austin back-alley funkadelic Americana of the highest order. The lyric is pure stream-of-consciousness shenanigans and any meaning one gathers is entirely one's own.

Put the boat on the water
With the buttermilk and rifles
Actifed and coffee
Feel like a broken motorcycle
And I'm high as a cow
In a heat seekin' jacket
Cumulous rising
Like a Louisiana casket

I like yer vine, it smells like soda
On the powerline
Look like the virgin of the cobra

Just about the time Russell convinces his audience that his thought processes are not just unusual but completely unhinged, he produces an absolutely touching, poignant, sensitive and visually vivid folky ballad that is at once beautiful and grippingly dramatic. Russell couldn't use a cliché or an obvious sentiment if his songwriting neck was under a guillotine, and the achingly beautiful "Twilight of Song" is proof enough. A seemingly simple song about watching a woman demonstrating the faith of the farmer by planting grass, Russell takes the age-old metaphor one step further with his bridge and closing verse, which further demonstrates his exceptional lyric inventiveness and unusual poetic vision. I can't think of another artist who could convincingly sing these lines, especially in the homey cornpone diction Russell applies to the lyric.

There ain't no remedy
For a song come to an end
There's nothing and nobody
That can soothe her wounded hymn

Close of the day, mosquito spray
I watched a bird blue and brown
Warbling and wavering
She put the grass in her mouth

Another of Russell's amazing creative traits is that he can take a couple of throwaway lines and transform them into what seems like the deepest of songs. I listened to "Ashes In My Beard" maybe 20 times before I realized it ain't about anything, it just is. Russell works the song so hard, engages in so many vocal variations of the line that the listener is convinced he's listening to a lost track from The Band's Big Pink or Hiatt's next hit, but nothing could be further from the truth lyrically.

The titles alone give us a clue that we are dealing with an extraoridnarily playful and lighthearted artist here: "Church on Fire" ("Standing on The Promise/I can't tie my shoe/Eating my crow with a silver spoon/I am just a preacher looking for a choir/But baby my church is on fire"), "Sam Morgan" (Ol' Sam Morgan came out of the wilderness/Down in Loozyann/Smokin' that grass and burnin' them cotton fields/Down in Loozyann/Stone in his mouth he slept in a burnin' bush/Down in Loozyann/He once killed a man with a Chevy Stegosaurus/Down in Loozyann"), a bouncy traditional sounding instrumental called "Shoetie Rag," and the unforgettable and mystically poetic "Imbibing My Prescriptions."

I been imbibing my prescriptions
Like the lover of the coward and the peacock and the crow
I been singing with discretion
To the black snakes and the baby and the only woman I know
I been swearing my successions
That to labor is the honest and to failure it may lead
I been dressing my depression
Like in all good men there's weakness and a language and a need
Can't you hear me when I tell you
Although my heart is grievous I make rhyme

As hard as it is to believe that rhyme could be topped, Russell blows it away with his derivation on the old standard "Wayfaring Stranger" that he has retitled "Way Fallen Stranger." He delivers this song with all the seriousness and soulful torment of a prodigal son returning home with leprosy and an incurable sex rash. With Steve James playing some nasty slide resophonic guitar in his sparse Delta style, the track finds a rural gospel/blues groove and through nine verses never lets up as Russell infuses the song with a staggering measure of tragedy with the force of his performance. It all sounds as serious as life and death, but it is in fact a stream-of-consciousness "Odyssey" and "Iliad" epic about a poor boy "just going down to Beaumont/I'm just going down to home."

I know I have not accomplished
Any true task put before me yet
Still night shall loose my bandana
And make a soft yarn of it
I'm going there to meet my brother
To translate my father's tome
I'm just going down to Beaumont
I am just going down to home

Not only does Kevin Russell have a broad, rootsy musical menu, he is one of our cleverest and most imaginative lyricists, a soulful, sophisticated singer, and one helluva musician. As good as the latest Gourds record is, the tracks on Russell's Buttermilk and Rifles could be sprinkled in and I doubt most folks would notice much unless they finally caught on that the songs don't fit the Gourds' theme. Backed here by the Gourds as well as Mark Rubin, Jon Dee Graham, and The Tinys sporadically, Mr. Russell has created one of the sleeper giant records of 2002, at least for my bring-me-something-different musical tastes. It may strike Gourds' fans as a toss-off or a collection of outtakes and songs that couldn't make the cut for the latest Gourds release, but my take on this is that Kevin Russell is just an extremely creative, energetic songwriter and performer who needs a bigger outlet than just the yearly album with the Gourds. Based on Buttermilk and Rifles, I'll certainly be looking forward to the next Kevin Russell solo experiment.

* www.sugarhillrecords.com

 
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