Ten Albums: Number 8 - August and Everything After by Counting Crows

What starts silence and ends with change, change, change  with some king of the rain, blue buildings that may or may not be perfect in Omaha, some dreaming musician named Jones and a ghost train in between?

It was Friday November 5^th, 1993 and I was on a Red Line CTA train with five other DePaul University freshman, headed to the Metro, a two stop ride from our Lincoln Park dorm. We were there to see Cracker, who had just released Kerosene Hat. Maybe you remember me talking about that one. We got there early so we could be right up front. I also liked seeing the opening acts. Sometimes what they played stuck. And that night it stuck.

Counting Crows was the opening act and I had never heard of them before that night. . But from the first note of the first song, I was hooked.

$13.50 for a ticket!

The single guitar line, a very mellow three notes over and over, the lead singer with these messy dreadlocks, a brown jacket with tassels, such emotion in his voice, in the lyrics. Just a beautiful song. Another mellow song. Then one that stuck in my head, as much for the way the singer danced and sway and swung his dreadlocks while singing.  Ah, the first time I heard Mr. Jones.

 

They were the opening act so they only had about forty minutes, but they played nine songs, and ended with A Murder of One, a great way to close. (The joys of setlist.fm made it so I could find the setlist from that show. It opened with the first song on August and Everything After and closed with the last song on August and Everything after. Whoa!)

 

The next night I saw them again, with a different set of five freshman. They played a slightly different setlist but I still loved it. The next day I hiked the five blocks east to Tower Records at Webster and Clark and bought the Album – August and Everything after.  It was the perfect album for winter in Chicago. Some mellow songs, some upbeat songs to get you moving and get you warm again. Right after that show, my roommate, Paul, apartment sat for his boss. His boss lived in an older brick high rise on Lake Shore Drive and encouraged Paul to have people over. So we all went there on a Friday night in late November, dark early, cold, looking out over Lake Shore Drive. I brought August and Everything After and it was the perfect album for that type of night, just a group of us hanging out in a fancy apartment we didn't really belong in. 

It starts with twelve seconds of silence before the echoey guitar riff starts the song, three notes over and over.

Step out the front door like a ghost

Into the fog where no one notices

The contrast of white on white

 

Omaha, get right to the heart of matters

Ah, Mr. Jones. A song about chasing success

When I look at the television, I want to see me staring right back at me.

 

Oh boy, was Adam Duritz right because a few months later he was on TV everywhere. He got so popular he date Rachel and Monica!

Anna Begins: There was a girl in my freshman creative writing class named Anna. I thought of her every time I listen to this song. 

Time and Time Again, the Rain King. The superbly sad and mellow Sullivan Street covered frequently by the best known DePaul house party cover band, Azure Blue (ah, costume shop parties). Ghost Train and Raining in Baltimore, keeping things mellow until the final song.

A Murder of One.

Boom, you’re back up on your feet. The Crows have been lulling you into a state of mellowness and now they are bringing you back up.

All your life is such s a shame,

All your love is just a dream

You don’t want to waste your life.

 

You’ve been mellow, you’re sitting in that couched knocked down, tired, and now the Crows are urging you to get up and go to something about. Go ask out that girl Anne from your creative writing class you thought was cute (I never did). Go chase those dreams of music stardom (still doing that in the suburban dad band way that I can.).

By January I’d listed to this album as much as Cracker’s Kerosene Hat. I learned how to play most of the album on guitar and would whip out Mr. Jones  or Round Here to impress the ladies (it didn’t work, well, except once).  I’m pretty sure my roommates were tired of both albums, but August and Everything After became my album to fall asleep to.  It still is regularly in the rotation (like last night for instance).

You know its my CD because of the MS on the UPC

It would be nine years before I saw Counting Crows again, at the UIC pavilion in 2002. I haven’t seen them live since, although I do have everything they’ve ever released. WXRT still has Mr. Jones in the rotation, but my favorite Counting Crows song isn’t even on that album (It’s Angels of the Silences if you were wondering.

 

Every time I listen to this album, I’m taken back to that Counting Crows show at The Metro, to my freshman year at DePaul, room 305 of Seton Hall, all the things that happen that first year, new friends, new things, new music.  Everything in the future. All the things ahead. 

You don’t want to waste your life.

Thanks for reading

Bonus Feature: The Setlist from that show back in November of 1993

Round Here

Another Horsedreamer's Blues

Mr. Jones

Anna Begins

Rain King

Time and Time Again

Open All Night

A Murder of One

 

Ten Albums: Number 7- Kerosene Hat by Cracker

Tom Petty’s ‘Free Falling’ was the first song I learned to play on guitar. It’s a simple two chords song, with a pinkie note added to one of the chords. That’s pretty much it.

“Teen Angst” by Cracker was the second song I learned to play on guitar. It is all of three chords, with a slight change in chord order from verse to chorus. The Iron Potatoes, my first band, played that song nearly a million times when I was in high school.

I stole my brother’s copy of Cracker’s first album, aptly named “Cracker” and played it so much that I had to buy him a replacement copy because I scratched it so badly it would get stuck. Songs from that album made in on dozens of mix tapes I made for myself and my friends, creatively labeled “Recorded at Mikesmo Studios.”

I loved that album. And everyone around me knew that I loved it because I made them listen to it so much. In my car, on the bus going to cross country meets (not as much as Rush – Roll The bones) and, well everywhere. So, when my friend Brian V, who worked at a record store, told me he could get me a promo copy of Cracker’s new album Kerosene Hat in the summer of 1993, I was stoked. I delivered him a blank cassette tape (I was partial to Maxell XLII-90s) and a few days later, I had the album, a full month before it was officially released until August 24^th. By then I knew every word of every song.

The album starts out with Cracker’s most well-known song “Low,” the Johnny Hickman sticky intro guitar riff repeated throughout the song, and David Lowry’s smokey voice. It’s just four chords, over and over, but the video, featuring Sandra Bernhard boxing Lowry, got heavy airplay on MTV. Cracker was become big time.

Track two, ‘Movie Star,’ another blazing riff by Hickman, Lowry’s witty lyrics, a blazing solo. Movie Star became a staple of my college cover band, Phat. To this day, when I hear the last chord of Low fade out, I hear the into to movie star in my head.

Track three, ‘Get off This’ just one of many Lowry kiss-off songs. Another catchy riff, another song of just a few chords over and over.

Boom, Boom, Boom, three hits right in a row. Guitar riffs everywhere. But Cracker likes to mix things up, slip in some slow songs, some ballads.  Track four, Kerosene Hat, the title track. A sweet sad acoustic song. Years ago, David Lowry started a blog called 300 songs where he tells of origins of his songs, including Kerosene Hat.

Lots of words so far and I’m on track four. But there’s more.

“Nostalgia,” a song about Stonewall Jackson’s arm. It’s buried on some farm. “Sweet Potato,” the Johnny Hickman penned “Lonesome Johnny Blues.”  And finally, a cover of the Grateful Dead’s ‘Loser’, which was the Grateful Dead song I’d ever heard that I liked. And that was it. Twelve great songs, just like on my bootleg cassette tape.

I knew it was mine cause it had my initials

But, wait, there was more. “Hi Desert Biker Meth Lab,” a forty-one second mix of bits from the recording of the album. And that was, wait…the CD is still playing.

Kerosene Hat was the first CD I’d bought that had hidden tracks. Tracks 16-18 were each three seconds of silence. Then, track 69 (because, why not) was “Euro-Trash Girl” the epic eight minute song from the hard to find “Tucson” EP. Tracks 70-87, again 3 seconds of silence each, then track 88, “I Ride My Bike” tracks 89-98m, more silence the track 99, an outtake of Kerosene Hat.  Cracker had snuck their previous EP on this disc. Sneaky.

You could never leave this CD in your multidisc player on random, because you were very likely to hear lots of three second silent tracks.

After a month of listening to my bootleg tape, then a few weeks of the CD before headed to start my Freshman year at DePaul, I was all Crackered up. I listened to that album every day. My roommates must have hated it. Cracker played two shows at the Metro in October of 1993 and I bought 6 tickets to both shows, bringing a new crew of people with me each night. One night, the band almost got into a fight with Metro security when a bouncer accidentally tackled Johnny Hickman on stage while trying to keep stage divers off the stage. Cracker played "Don't Fuck Me Up (With Peace and Love)" then took a quick break to regroup before continuing the show. There was also this opening band that really stuck in my head (more on that later in the top 10).

I’ve seen Cracker dozens of times. For a while, I think they recognized me when I was standing at the rail for every show in Chicago. I’ve got everything they have ever released. It’s been a long time since I have seen them live and when the world stops sucking in 2021, I’ll go see them again.

Oh, and I could totally be in a Cracker cover band. I know every note of the first two albums and lots of others beyond that. Maybe, someday, when they are touring, Dave and Johnny will call me up on stage to play Kerosene Hat with them and I will nail it so well, they will add me to the band. You know, if they need a third guitar player.

Thanks for reading.