Golden Smog - Another Fine Day

Some men find their solace on the golf course; others cluster pint in hand around the big screen and argue with unspoken camaraderie over sporting fixtures. If you play in a reasonably well-known Americana band it seems escapism from the day job doldrums can be found by forming a Super Group with all your rock star chums from other reasonably well-known Americana bands. And thus Golden Smog was birthed almost a decade and a half ago, a gorgeous melodic collective of accomplished musicians drawn from the likes of The Replacements, The Jayhawks and Soul Asylum. They put out a couple of lush guitar laden records in the early 90s. Then the guy from The Replacements got replaced by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco fame, and the permanent Golden Smog line up, if such a thing ever existed, was set on 1998s sublime, Weird Tales. Gary Louris and Marc Perlman from The Jayhawks, Dan Murphy from Soul Asylum, occasional drums from Big Stars Jody Stephens, Kraig Johnston of Run Westy Run and the insatiable Mr. Tweedy lending a wistful vocal here and there. If you are like me, and your heart beats fast for country voices and twanging guitars, then Golden Smog is all your Super Group fantasies rolled into one. If that doesn’t float your boat maybe you should look into Velvet Revolver or The Wu Tang Clan instead. Truth be told, I fell hook line and harmonious sinker, bought all the records and then Golden Smog disappeared back to their real jobs.

Leap forward eight years and Another Fine Day appears like a stomping nod to the mid-nineties. A lot has happened in that eight year interim. I am no longer religiously devoted to the wearing of plaid shirts, Alt Country is not the exciting wunderkind it once was, The Jayhawks are no more, Wilco have gone global and Tweedy is merrily following Jim O’Rourke down the staticky path to country rock experimentalism. Against such a backdrop this record blazes like a snapshot of more innocent times. The whole album hinges on the wistful early Wilco hum of “Long Time Ago,” where Jeff Tweedy sweetly laments days gone by. There are definite nods here to a golden age of young Americana, and this joyful remembrance sounds so good, so full and accomplished you just hope they are right when they communally bellow “the dream is never over” with evangelistic enthusiasm.

Another Fine Day is a great American record. It picks up exactly where Weird Tales left off, swaggering with dreadful maturity through fifteen strong tracks, almost each one a potential single. Various voices take turns behind the mic with Gary Louris in the driving seat. Tweedy is sadly not as omnipresent as I might have liked, having missed the recording sessions in Spain. He later lent voice, drums, lyrics, bass, keyboards and evil genius to many of the record’s stand out tracks. Tweedy and Louris share vocal duties on the folksy “Strangers”, their voices blending, soaring and dancing in perfect compliment. The recording and song itself would not fall out of place on one of the Mermaid Avenue albums. It is a sheer joy to listen to two such accomplished musicians at the peak of their game. There are some great memorable rock songs here. The perfect pop sensibility of the title track drifting into the bubblegum harmonies of “5-22-02”, youll be humming these tunes long after you turn the stereo off. “Frying Pan Eyes” swaggers like a more polished Paul Westerberg, rocking substantially along well-worn lines. “Beautiful Mind” comes in like a recent Oasis song and ironically is glorious with it. Only “Corvette”, commissioned by Guy Ritchie for a car commercial, overleaps the bar a little and cloys somewhere between frat boy anthem and a Robert Palmer power rock number. You get the impression that both Tweedy and Louris have outgrown this kind of obvious air punching testosterone rush.

The songwriting duties are divided up and shared equally between the boys. Each brings a little bit of their past to the recording room. So, gone is pure Jayhawks, Hollywood Town Hall era. “Hurricane”, with Dan Murphy on lead, sounds more like later Soul Asylum than Soul Asylum themselves ever did. I can only surmise that the Kraig Johnston fronted track, “I Can”, sounds ominously like Run Westy Run but I have no idea who on earth they are. “Long Time Ago”, however, sits smugly on the acoustic outtakes from AM and the whole album quivers with Alt Country sensibility. This is not a bad thing. In the past the youthful Golden Smoggers paid homage to their heroes. The first albums emulated The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Eagles and others with reverent enthusiasm. In the last decade these accomplished musicians and songwriters have grown so large in their particular field they now find themselves looking to their own lead for influence. Golden Smog is a super group unconsciously or otherwise, locked in a humble glorification of its individual parts. Honestly I can only imagine that were it possible to place Wilco, Big Star, The Replacements, The Jayhawks, Uncle Tupelo, Soul Asylum and Run Westy Run(?) in a band sized blender and hit the buzz button, Golden Smog would be the inevitable and extremely delicious outcome.

I looked forward to Another Fine Day for a long time, busing down to buy my copy the first week it came out. I was a little taken aback at first; the record lacked the melancholy hum of Weird Tales. It was definitely more heavy on the Golden than the Smog side of things. There are tiny hints of the separate paths these men have tread in the Wilco-esque experimentalism of the jangly percussion intros but this is mostly an album about the road not taken. It’s about a group of middle-aged men getting together to indulge a love of hindsight. It’s about Jeff Tweedy holding new wave Sonic Youth-influenced Wilco loosely in one hand and wholeheartedly loving this clear and present band whilst also whoring his love on Uncle Tupelo, Woody Guthrie, old school Wilco and everything that has gone before. It’s about Gary Louris hanging up his Jayhawks guitar and telling the world loudly he’s still passionately in love with their music. And it is the reason why Soul Asylum have just put out their first new record in a very long time, safe in the knowledge that there are still people out there who want to hear their sound. Golden Smog is not very different from any other group of thirty-somethings meeting up to rehash the good old days. The only distinction comes in the fact that these guys are so terribly brilliant, I will pay good money to listen to their recorded musings.