Little Bit Country
Two days of Stagecoach, one day with Gram Parsons’s ghost
By Chris Morris
As I tooled into Indio on Thursday for the second Stagecoach Festival, a jock on Riverside’s contemporary country station K-FROG (“Ribbit!”) croaked from the car radio, “Here’s hot new country from Jewel!” Proving today’s Nashville maxim: You can call just about anything country if its tits are nice enough.
Goldenvoice, the organizers of Stagecoach – which again followed the Coachella rock hoedown by a week – appeared to embrace that maxim in 2008. While high-caliber pop-country guns like Kenny Chesney were rolled out in ’07, the premiere Stagecoach also offered a full platter of top alt-country acts – everyone from Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams, and Emmylou Harris to John Doe and the Drive-By Truckers – on its second stage. Last weekend, with the bill extended from two to three days, the emphasis was on the main-stage draw: The Eagles, John Fogerty, the execrable Rascal Flatts, Dierks Bentley, Tim McGraw, and Carrie Underwood (one of two American Idol grads on board) were the headliners.
The amortization of the resultant mega-guarantees for this shindig entailed the sale of big-ticket reserved seats in front of the main stage (in contrast to the SRO floor plan at Coachella). This didn’t sit well with an intransigent performer like Shelby Lynne. Surveying several acres of empty VIP chairs at 5 p.m. on Friday, the fiery vocalist said, “All you people taking pictures of me, take a picture of me saying FUCK this festival!”
Pissed-off as she was, Lynne still rose to the occasion with a set that ranged from her subdued renditions of Dusty Springfield’s repertoire to stormy rockers from her back catalog like “Jesus on a Greyhound.” But she was the only truly “alt” performer vouchsafed a stand on the big stage all weekend, and there were far fewer of her ilk on the Empire Polo Field this year.
Though the pickin’s were comparatively very slim this year, there were just enough acts eschewing the middle of the country road on board to make Stagecoach ’08 a livable experience for a couple days. (Emphasis here on “just enough” and “a couple.”) Friday afternoon, Waylon’s kid Shooter Jennings kicked up some cowboy-rock dirt (though he was also responsible for the weekend’s first Bon Jovi cover, of “Wanted Dead or Alive”), and punkeroo Mike Ness of Social Distortion, backed by a tuff-enuff band that included the invaluable Chris Lawrence on guitar and pedal steel, roused the young ’uns with a mix of Dylan, Carl Perkins, and Hank Williams covers and originals like “Dope Fiend Blues.”
That night, I caught a snatch of Fogerty’s typically rambunctious set on the way to Glen Campbell’s second-stage show. Despite a track record comprising several mammoth country crossover hits in the late ’60s and early ’70s, Campbell couldn’t seduce more than 400 people into his tent. (Everyone was queueing up for the Eagles across the way.) But the 72-year-old wowed diehard fans with smoothly sung versions of “Wichita Lineman,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” and “Rhinestone Cowboy”; previewing his June return to Capitol Records, he essayed surprising covers of U2 and Tom Petty songs, à la late-period Johnny Cash. The onetime studio session man also played a ton of guitar: His Fender solo on “Galveston” left the pickers in the house gaping.
Much ground was covered to little avail on Saturday. Two Texans made an impression on the second stage. Furry Houston-based Hayes Carll charmed with his wry tunes and self-deprecating patter, while New Braunfels-born Lost Highway label mate Ryan Bingham pounded the house with an epic-sounding set enhanced by the guitar work of his producer, ex-Black Crowes member Marc Ford.
After a looong impasse (Taylor Swift: Pedophile country, anyone?), enlivened only by a sharp set on the small Mustang stage by the virtuosic family bluegrass band Cherryholmes, Dwight Yoakam headlined the second stage. Inspired by the Bakersfield sound and bred during L.A.’s punk era, Yoakam has attained grand-old-man status, and an overflow crowd screamed loudly as he and his hot, bespangled band ranged through a set of Buck Owens covers and his own chart hits. His jeans fit as tight as they used to, he swiveled his hips with the usual abandon, and his flexible baritone is better than ever. (However, even Yoakam’s set wasn’t untouched by the weekend’s prevailing winds: He covered the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling.”) The house was packed with an uncommon mix of old-school honky-tonk fans and newbies drawn to the flame of true primordial country.
But Yoakam’s hardcore brand of country was an anomaly in the frankly dumbed-down mix at Stagecoach this year. Sure, there were pioneering talents in the lineup, but these pathfinders were often relegated to the third stage (as bluegrass banjo titan Earl Scruggs was), usually at an hour when folks were buying their corn dogs and dragging their lawn chairs over to the main stage. Moreover, even the second-stage performers seemed more cautious this year. L.A. locals like David Serby, who opened the festival in ’07, were nowhere to be found. And instead of credible, well-traveled No Depression types Alejandro Escovedo, Raul Malo, and the Old 97’s, who trod the Stagecoach boards last year, attendees were treated to boogie-rockers like the Kentucky Headhunters, whose version of “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line” got me heading for the exit, or Bonnaroo refugees like Cross Canadian Ragweed, whose jam-down action got the cretins hopping but left country-hungry souls like me unfulfilled.
OK, call me a graying, trad-loving pussy if you wanna, but there was very little on display at the big stage that made me want to risk heatstroke and cross the polo field for a look-see. For listeners weaned on a diet of Hank, Merle, and Willie, the mainstream is a pretty unsafe place to be these days. In fact, it has been since Garth Brooks dumped his affectless but tuneful brand of country-smarm at the top of the pop charts during the ’90s. Little has changed since: The new breed may sport the hats and the duds, but they sound like Night Ranger. Commercial country today is little more than musical cross-dressing – except the cross-dressers you see on Santa Monica Boulevard have some balls.
Sunday, I wearily opted out. A friend reported that Country Music Hall of Famer Charlie Louvin drew a total of 70 to his afternoon set; I never heard how many the legendary George Jones pulled opposite Carrie Underwood. I headed for Joshua Tree to commune with the spirit of departed cosmic cowboy Gram Parsons, whose body was burned there. It seemed like the righteous thing to do.
Chris Morris hosts Watusi Rodeo on Indie 103.1 every Sunday at 9 a.m.
Published: 05/07/2008
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