:: Track Listing

1. Weeks Go By Like Days
2. What Will I Do?
3. M. White Rabbit
4. Downtown
5. I Just Wanted To Be Your Friend
6. Time Never Gets
7. They Ran
8. Evelyn is Not Real (Be-mixed)
9. Isobella w/ the White Umbrella
10. Josta Dreams and Bitter Hands
11. Old Sept. Blues (GA-ed out)
12. When Will They Come?
13. Somebody Cares About the Maestro
14. Rocket Man

:: Record Review

My Morning Jacket

Ch. 1: The Sandworm Cometh (Early Recordings)
(Darla; 2004)

Rating: 73%
Combined Rating: 75%


early recordings, b-sides, comp tracks, etceterumenda…rec. between 97-99

So begins the liner notes to My Morning Jacket’s double release---the first two chapters of a relatively short recording career—scrawled lazily by songwriter and hirsute hero Jim James along the inside of the collection’s booklets. Frankly, James is more dangerous than would be expected from his effortlessly satin voice; his liner notes are filled with esoteric, unexplained nostalgia, altered song titles, and some kind of unadulterated boyishness. This I’ll take as “etceterumenda,” the ephemeral filler between the supposed permanence of these early recordings and the front man that can go back to the beginning and shape his band’s origins. He knows he’s having his cake and eating it too. Gobbling up that shit, in fact.***

I’ll take them both, but I have to question the “forever” of MMJ’s recordings, so artfully proven to be as malleable as one man’s shorthand.

Covers can be dangerous! look out! but oh-so much fun!

The most obvious difference between Chapters is this disc’s relatively small amount of covers and alternate versions/demos of parts of the Jacket canon. “Rocket Man” is a straightforward interpretation of the Elton John tribute to alienation and “M. White Rabbit” (The “M.” stands for...?) is too grainy to much compare to Grace Slick’s cathartic sprawl. Meanwhile, “They Ran,” an acoustic take on one of The Tennessee Fire’s most beautiful tracks, reaffirms James’s commanding solo presence, and “Evelyn is Not Real (Be-mixed),” another cut from Fire, works as a steady and satisfying residue of repetitive New York pop. That is, until the lame guitar solo.

We attempt “Sleepwalk” by Santo and Johnny here—did we succeed?
“Old Sept. Blues,” the “GA-ed out” version, does succeed, even though I have absolutely no clue what “GA-ed out” means. The solemn electric guitar and shambling bass of “Sleepwalk” crawl into a half-asleep pace for “Blues,” quietly ripping Fire’s recording from the fan-boy hole of your mind and replacing it with this dusky champ.

As far as unreleased songs go, Ch. 1 is stuffed with ‘em. “Somebody Cares About the Maestro” and “Time Never Gets,” shaking with damaged vocal harmonies and achingly sweet layers of drone, fits most comfortably, albeit strangely, in MMJ lore, all besmirched with coal and honey. “What Will I Do?” is a séance for the still-breathing Brian Wilson, and like the recently Grammy-nominated “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow,” “What Will I Do?” is one extended climax, as cacophonous as it is irresistibly melodic. Most immediately delicious, “I Just Wanted To Be Your Friend” is shit-battered Appalachian pop, a great breather before “Time’s” lucid dream.

“Isobella w/ the White Umbrella,” recorded on Todd Kaisers “holy grail” Tascam porta 03, and “Josta Dreams and Bitter Hands,” A tribute to the greatest soft drink ever produced—and the gangsta’s who stole hundreds of Them, don’t offer much else from the other unreleased tracks except fodder for the legend of Jim James, Holmes Hall mastermind at U of Kentucky. Really, these two songs are easily forgettable, let alone dull, and I can’t help but find myself a bit angry at the added “bonus” of shabby recording quality.

…recorded in my parents unfinished basement basement in prospect. They moved now. I have trouble with cars.

The anthemic folk of “When Will They Come?” prides itself on jolliness, developing a simple melody into sing-a-long perfection. Opening track “Weeks Go By Like Days” howls, “Forever, that’s how long you can take / Forever, not as long as a day.” Undoubtedly the best song in the collection, “Days’s” sentiment is not lost on the continuity of these two chapters. Because, as it is, the ordering of these songs doesn’t really matter.

This is why James is so dangerous. In attempting to craft a solid beginning for the glory of My Morning Jacket today, James---unwittingly, possibly---lapses into an amorphous timeline. And that is why it might be preferable to begin with Learning, a more viscerally pleasing collection than Sandworm’s hit-or-miss barrage of B-sides. When chronology is skewed so fully, “Early Recordings” becomes a devious euphemism for “non-album,” and although this throws a new light on My Morning Jacket’s evolution, the collection itself becomes relegated behind the figure of James as Songwriter and Artist. For those of us that already stick behind the man, these albums have to be a bit disappointing. Even so, he’s kept us coming back for good times, funny writing, and a disclosed peek behind the hair.

***Check CMG's review of Ch. 2 to keep the party rolling!

Dom Sinacola :: 8 December 2004 |