Album Review: DMB's "Big Whiskey"

For the Fallen
In one of the more highly anticipated albums of the summer (a solid four years since DMB's last release, the ho-hum Stand Up), the Dave Matthews Band crafted another classic-in-the-making: Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King; albeit, this effort was completed without the band's sax player and founding member, the fallen Leroi Moore, an untimely victim of an ATV accident last August.

The term "Groogrux King" was a moniker the band created for the taciturn Moore, a man who often diverted interviews and public attention at every turn. Once called "DMB's soul" by one-time producer Mark Batson, Moore's jazzy influence was often the impetus for the band's signature in-concert jams, a man the band replaced with Jeff Coffin (of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones fame) at the time of his death for the remainder of the '08 summer tour and the remaining Big Whiskey sessions. Despite the switch, Moore appears to be all over the album, including its opening track Grux, an instrumental featuring Moore's sax and drummer Carter Beauford's rolling-thunder drums. The 1:41 minue-long clip is but one of countless highlights pouring through DMB's latest return-to-form, the 13-track bombshell that serves as a fitting tribute to the band's fallen comrade.

5. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Tim Reynolds

Perhaps best known for his supplementary work on Live at Luther College, Tim Reynolds has proven to be formidable with the axe, both acoustic and electric. With great ease and prowess, Reynolds, through countless acoustic shows with Matthews, helps fill the space left void by the band (after all, Matthews and Reynolds live is strictly a two-man show) with his innovative plucking, solos, and multi-layered effects, including pedal-work and use of the slide. He is now the band's "unofficial" seventh member (along with Matthews, Beauford, Coffin, violinist Boyd Tinsley, bassist Steffan Lessard, and trumpet player Rashawn Ross), as he is featured on a number of Big Whiskey tracks and is currently on-tour with the band, who recently played before a packed house at the Saratoga Performing Arts Centre in Saratoga Springs, NY. Simply put, his work on the electric guitar is mind-blowing enough to warrant (let's hope) a permanent stay with the band, who have featured his talents in one way or another for the past 17 years (since the band's inception in

Charlottesville, VA in 1992).

4. How about those vocals?

Most noteworthy amongst Big Whiskey's highlights is the vocal renderings of Dave Matthews, whose voice appears to be healthy yet again (for a time, the band had to abandon "Satellite" in its live sets because several ailments, including cigarette smoking and vocal chord strain, wouldn't allow him to reach the chorus' falsetto range). He's heard scatting, growling, crooning raspily (in a raw tribute to Moore, "Baby Blue"), wailing, and smoothly laying down some great vocals not heard from him in quite some time. Producer Rob Cavallo (of My Chemical Romance and Green Day fame, circa American Idiot) has beautifully captured Matthews's vocals that have become the driving force of the band's live sets, whether he's heard bellowing the "I'm on bended knee" lyric on "Bartender" or heard scatting on "Too Much" and "So Much to Say," two lively tracks from 1996's Crash. Simply put: very few effects are needed to refurbish Matthews's voice, an instrument that, even at Matthews's 42 years, remains as powerful as it ever has.

3. Whispers of "Big Three" status

When you think of Dave Matthews Band, there are three albums that come to mind: Under the Table and Dreaming, Crash, and Before These Crowded Streets, a trio of musical works that featured the band at its peak from 1994 to 1998. As a result of a grass-roots following, DMB rose from the frat house to the stadium, selling out show after show from one summer to the next...even playing as much as three consecutive sets at the likes of Giants Stadium and Fenway Park. While Big Whiskey will need to grow in order to reach "Big Three" status, its tracks have translated extremely well to the live setting, as first heard at the Beacon Theater, a show telecast on the Hulu Network earlier this month, the first of its kind. The band has truly returned to its roots with Big Whiskey, abandoning synthesizers and drum tracks in order to blend with the unique sound of horns and strings that made them the band they are today.

2. Carter Beaford on the drums!

For those of us who listened to Stand Up for the first time (DMB's last studio album, circa 2005), you may have noticed one glaring omission: the signature percussion/rhythm section that was the band's heartbeat. Beauford's feral drumming was oddly replaced by hip-hop drum beats that left the band sounding flat (quite fitting, when you consider the producer at the time was Batson, who had worked previously with hip-hop artist Nas). Thankfully, the mastery of the band's eldest member returns with some much-needed fury. Listen to "Shake Me Like a Monkey" if you don't believe me (a track that runs amok with horn-work by Coffin and Ross, as well).

1. Their Best Record in over a Decade

The mellow stylings of the band returns with the wonderful tracks like "Lying in the Hands of God," "Time Bomb," "Baby Blue," and "You and Me,"a sound combined with toe-tapping gems in "Why I Am," "Alligator Pie," and "Seven," all of which speak to the carpe-diem/universal love themes that have allowed the band to grow as chart-topping monsters and summer-concert heroes for the college coed and top-40 listener alike. Without question, Big Whiskey bests the likes of Everyday and Stand Up by a long shot, two albums that were considered clunkers by many loyal fans of the band. No doubt, DMB is back...and here to stay, thanks to the in-your-face return-to-form of the perfect summer album, Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King.

The Best "Summer" Songs

And with the arrival of June 21st (I know, I'm about two weeks late), we had our Summer Solstice, the ringing in of a season of tanktops, random road trips, beach excursions, ice cream stops, barbeques, and fun-loving music to capture our hearts for the next three months. Presented to you here are five memorable songs associated with the season.


5. Sublime's "Summertime"
Bradley Nowell's genius came and gone in a tenure with Sublime that delivered a collection of amazing albums, including 40 oz. to Freedom and the self-titled Sublime records. Pairing up with the hip-hop group Pharcyde, Sublime crafted Summertime, a song featured in various Tony Hawk video games and the opening screen to 2K Sports' MLB 2K7. There are two versions of the song that exist, one with Pharcyde, one without. In the sans-Pharcyde edition, Bradley Nowell shines with tight lyricism juxtaposed with a lulling, head-bobbing beat that consumes you. Nowell, much like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain before him (who, ironically, all died at the age of 27), succumbed to drug addiction, a fate looming over British songster Amy Winehouse.







4. Don Henley's "Boys of Summer"
Much like the success of Paul McCartney with Wings, Sting's break from the Police, and Peter Gabriel's cleaving from the supergroup Genesis, Don Henley tasted glory after his on-again/off-again stint with the Eagles. Lesser bands, including the likes of the Ataris (who, in their own right, are not half-bad), have attempted to cover Henley's greatest 80's triumph, "The Boys of Summer," an electronic, synth-infused track with a hook that centers around listless summer love that one has hopes of continuing long 'after the boys of summer have gone.' The image of a hottie's 'brown skin shining in the sun' still resides in the hearts of those who appreciate Henley's indelible stamp on the music scene. Shame on the Ataris for exchanging 'Black Flag' for 'Dead-Head' in the lyric 'out on the road today / I saw a Dead-Head sticker on a Cadillac.' If there is anything bands of today can learn, it's that you do not, under any circumstance, adulterate classic lyrics with obscure punk rock references (especially if you are the Ataris, who are hardly the punk outfit that the Sex Pistols, Ramones, and the Clash were).






3. Bryan Adam's "Summer of '69"
As a point of reiteration, bands of today need to stay away from impressionable classic rock. A number of groups have desecrated Bryan Adams's summer anthem about starting up a band with your 'first real six-string,' a deeply-affecting tune that pines for good times lost; namingly, the strain time has on adolescent friendships and relationships. What always bothered me about this timeless track was the fact that Adams bellows about the unforgettable year that was 1969 when, looking at things logistically (Mr. Adams was born on November 5, 1959), he was living this so-called racy life at THE AGE OF NINE. I guess 'Summer of '76' doesn't have the same ring to it that Adams's original title does, so he gets a pass there.






2. Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind"
Michael Buble, a talented crooner? My apologies, Buble lovers, but there is no Buble following without the influence of the Chairman of the Board, Ol' Blue Eyes, Mr. Frank Sinatra (or, if you believe in events depicted in Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Johnny Fontaine, who won a part in a Hollywood picture through the severing of a horse head). Sinatra's lends his velvety voice to "Summer Wind," one of some 1600+ tracks he recorded, none of which he wrote. Regardless of not putting pen to paper, Sinatra was legendary, as his voice defined America's Golden Age of the 1950's and 60's. "Summer Wind" tells the story of summer romance come and gone like the passing of a summer breeze, an all-too-familiar theme of both the good and bad the summer can fleetingly offer to those who get fully engulfed by the season's passing fancies. Sing on, Frank!







1. Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime"
When I think Mungo Jerry, I immediately ponder their delicious tune "In the Summertime," a song heavy on the piano tickling, the use of mouths as percussive devices, and the development of a downright playful melody, complete with mutton chops and 'sound philosophy.' "In the Summertime" epitomizes the very notion of a 'feel-good song,' one heightened by harmony and playful folk lyrics. Mungo Jerry had the 'top-down, cruising down-the-boulevard' kind of feel in its grasp when they recorded this track, one that stands the test of time (and one that has opened the door for a new generation of listeners with its inclusion in the Wedding Crashers soundtrack). One hit wonder or not, Mungo Jerry penned the perfect song that captures the summer vibe from beginning to end.