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The
Beat Farmers by Matthew Stern |
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It’s hard to tell exactly where to place The Beat Farmers in the scheme of early ’80s punk rock. This is because they were more than a little bit country, playing a sentimental style of gritty roots rock that sometimes sounded more suited to dive bars full of hard drinkin’, Marlboro Man-looking dudes than frenzied LA punk shows. But as drummer/singer/guitarist Country Dick Montana’s associations with bands like X and the ever-seditious Mojo Nixon would imply, The Beat Farmers were not a country band in the line-dancing, top 40 radio sense. Tales Of The New West, originally released in ’85, showcases a band that could jump from sentimental to satirical at the drop of a 10-gallon hat. Rhino Records’ re-release also contains the Glad ‘N’ Greasy EP and Live At The Spring Valley Inn (1983) two additions that show the band at their most sincere and smarmiest. “Bigger Stones” kicks off the disc with a tear-in-your-beer anthem in the same spirit as classic country-tinged soul ballads like Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away.” Such a sweaty, nostalgic testament to the past, one that laments a day when “It seems like we rolled bigger stones…,” might seem a bit too countrified, but one can’t deny the early rock ‘n’ roll passion in the delivery that continues into a cover of none other than The Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again.” Making a VU song sound like it should have been delivered with a Southwestern sentiment from the start is a pretty tall order, but The Beat Farmers pull it off. Writ large, that was what the Beat Farmers did—they were roots rock revivalists with a not-immediately-visible, but nonetheless omnipresent, association with punk rock. Look no further than “Where Do They Go,” a song that bewails “gettin’ old” no differently than something you’d expect to catch on classic-rock radio. Lyrically, though, the track speaks to the tragedy of watching a life of hatred of the MTV mindset, of “leather and spikes” becoming focused on “getting married and start[ing] a new life.” These aren’t the kind of words one would expect out of Skynyrd. Heartfelt
rockabilly assaults alongside subversive parodies like “Gun
Sale At The Church” dominate the live tracks, with hilarious
spoken-word bits from Montana making for some quotably satirical
shots at stereotypically southwestern Americana. Even in these days
where alt-country is a household genre, stuff so tinged with musical
traditionalism might make your inner punk rocker shudder, but the
Cash-meets-Elvis sensibility makes for a foray into straightforward
roots rock that needn’t feel like a guilty pleasure. —Matthew
Stern
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