Smog: Red Apple Falls ---Ink Blot Magazine

Smog: Red Apple Falls

at a glance...

Hometown: Chicago, IL
Formed: 1990

Members:
Bill Callahan -vocals, guitar, piano, Hammond organ, synthesizer
With:
Ken Champion -pedal steel
Thymme Jones -drums, piano, trumpet
Donna Maroni -French horn
Jim O'Rourke -bass, piano, Hammond organ, hurdy gurdy, drums
Matt Weston -drums
Robot -drums

Bands In The Family:
Gastr Del Sol, You Fantastic!, Cheer Accident, Tortoise

Notes:
Smog is Bill Callahan, an itinerant singer-song writer who has worked alone and with many other musicians. His early records were filled with murky, blackly humorous odes to an autistic, shut-in lifestyle; more recent albums are full of well recorded documentations of the trials and tribulations of a schizoid way of life. 1997's Red Apple Falls saw Callahan plumbing even bleaker depths. Dongs Of Sevotion is Smog's latest release.

Links:
Smog Interview

Smog
Red Apple Falls
Drag City, Released 1997

Everyone loves a sad song. Bill Callahan (aka Smog) knows that fact, and he knows how to write 'em as sad as they come. But dig into his lyrics and you'll usually find an escape hatch; an image so ridiculously bleak, a symbol so over-ripe and top-heavy, a notion taken so far that it's impossible not to think "is this guy kidding?"

Consider the lyrics to "To Be Of Use," a fragile tune wrapped in weepy pedal steel licks; "Most of my fantasies are of/Making someone else come/Most of my fantasies are of/To be of use/To be of some hard/Simple/Undeniable use."

A hard man, I'm told, is good to find; catch smilin' Bill when he lets his hair down and he'll probably say that it's even better to be found. But is he really as hard as that fantasy suggests, or as pathetic as it implies?

Three things allow Callahan to have it both ways; first, he has impeccable songwriting chops, and second, he never betrays the joke (if it's there) by cracking a grin. Third, Jim O'Rourke's ravishing arrangements and sympathetic production fit Callahan's words like a glove. The ponderous tragedy of "Red Apples" comes decked out in suitably funereal keyboards, while he matches "The Morning Paper's" denial of the oncoming day with the swelling buzz of a medieval hurdy gurdy. Take often, with a shaker full of salt.

If you like Smog, check out:
Smog Dongs Of Sevotion
Nick Drake Bryter Layter
Belle And Sebastian The Boy With The Arab Strap
Neil Young Harvest

-- Bill Meyer

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