December 25, 2002

LITTERBOX

Home alone
By John O'Neill

THE RAIN JUST doesn't want to stop. The little garden I had been leisurely cultivating is no longer under control. The herbs are holding their own, but my beloved lion plant, a tough but palsied heliconia, looks to be headed for the great greenhouse in the sky. Meanwhile, the housebound cat is completely off her gourd and targeting the Christmas tree to get attention. And trying to keep the house comfortable is a part-time gig in itself – it's hot, it's cold, I'm sweating, I'm freezing. Doing much more than hitting the sofa with my fave blanket is pretty much out of the question. So of course there's much too much time to sit and think.

The soundtrack to all this melancholia is a nifty little number by the Crybabies called How the Other Half Lives (Dino). It's a straight-up love letter to mid-'60s folk and soul music full of chiming guitars and blue-eyed white-boy lament. The album isn't some studied piece of revivalist slop, à la the Detroit Cobras, and it isn't designed to cash in on the favorable wind that's blowing around "new rock." The Crybabies, as the name suggests, are too fastidious to ever consider toughening up their sound for a few moments of sunshine; they're musicians who do what they do because they just like the sound they come up with. When things are rolling, they might play out twice a month; conversely, they might not get a gig for an entire season – people tend not to pay much attention to a bunch of middle-aged guys who are all hung up on sincere, mid-tempo, three-minute love songs. The reason I know this is that the Crybabies, whose debut album easily ranks on my year-end top 10, happen to be from my old hometown. Which, of course, got me to thinking.

It's funny how people relate to their local music scene. Even the people who should know better, like me. Artie Sneiderman isn't some smooth, roll-in-the-aisle-type singer, but he is awfully reminiscent of someone like Arthur Alexander, a guy who made you believe his heart was being shit-hammered on every song. But if I were living back east and this album came out, would I call him one of the great undiscovered soul voices? Or would I admit that the guitar playing or the songwriting is as good, if not better, than most of what I've heard in ages? Would the album even be on my top 10 if I weren't three thousand miles and a couple of years removed from home?

I suspect not. There's a funny bias based on the idea that music can't be world-class good if it's from your hometown scene. Maybe it's the repeated exposure, or maybe it's impossible to see someone you have beers with as anything but a buddy. And, of course, there's the belief that a band couldn't possibly be good, because "this scene sucks." I saw a lot of that when I first got here. It was stunning to discover that the bands I had built up in my head from the other side of the country were much bigger and far more appreciated outside the Bay Area. And that attitude hasn't changed much.

As for me, I'm hoping I won't make the same mistake twice.