So there was Rosanne Cash, chatting about a few of her favorite things on “Four on the Floor” –VH1’s now-defunct pop-crit version of “The McLaughlin Group” — when, suddenly, she rose out of her seat and simultaneously began shaking the seven year ache out of her body and singing a portion of “Comanche”, a song off Cake’s gloriously understated 1994 debut, Motorcade of Generosity.
Maybe it wasn’t quite the Cash payoff Cake was hoping for (an endorsement from Johnny would be better), but it still proved a point: Songwriters’ songwriters can make festive music, too. Indeed, while Cake leader John McCrea’s economical, off-kilter musings on basic human dynamics have caught the attention of Cash, Jonathan Richman, Captain Beefheart and Adam Duritz, among others, the band’s festive, genre-bastardizing groove is really what has attracted an ever-growing legion of fans. It’s got a funky beat, and you can dance to it — McCrea’s abundant cynicism and pessimism be damned.
On Fashion Nugget, Cake’s self-produced second album, McCrea sings 13 sad songs and one country waltz (a cover of Willie Nelson’s middle-finger-to-the-music-industry, Sad Songs and Waltzes) that are predominantly about dysfunctional relationships and, even in their most superficially positive moments, largely devoid of any hint of actual optimism. Instead of sounding like an uplifting declaration of self-empowerment, for instance, a cover of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” is a statement of resignation, with McCrea slurring, in that deadpan Lou Reed style of his, “I’ve got all my life to live/I’ve got all my love to give/I will survive”, as if it’s some sort of curse, with Vince Di Fiore adding some appropriately mournful closing trumpet lines as a bitter postscript. Still, the song is irresistible — not because it’s an odd, ironic cover choice for a band that seems to be a few thousand genres removed from disco, but because Victor Damiani’s busily melodic bass helps it retain a least a portion of its original ass-shaking vibe.
All rhythmic, melodic and stylistic variance, Fashion Nugget plays like the diary of a band of musical gypsies just back from a groove-hunting expedition. The opening “Frank Sinatra” alone features distorted vocals, oddball organ sounds, dueling mariachi trumpets, muffled acoustic rhythm guitar and fat electric-rock guitar riffs. The honky-tonk get-up “Stickshifts and Safetybelts” pits a bass line Marshall Grant would surely appreciate against Greg (Not The Singer-Songwriter) Brown’s explosive guitar runs. “She’ll Come Back to Me” stars a pedal steel guitar. “The Distance” is a thumping quasi-rap, complete with eerie Dr. Dre-style keyboard lines. The pretty harmonies and guitar arpeggios of “It’s Coming Down” recall Rubber Soul-era Beatles.
In the closing cover of “Sad Songs and Waltzes”, McCrea sings that “Sad songs and waltzes aren’t selling this year.” What he isn’t telling you is that they can sell; just add groove.
