Beat Farmers – Tales From The New West Plus

The Beat Farmers were already on a major label tour by the time I stumbled into them during the summer of 1986. They were opening for the Smithereens in Morgantown, West Virginia, and I was there with the now ex-wife of one of my best friends, and some doughy childhood friend of hers who had married a young mortician whose lodge meeting conflicted with our last-minute free tickets.

It’s really not that good a story, but like much of the Beat Farmers’ recorded output, it reads like it ought to have been something more than it was. We retired to the bowling alley for a warm beer during the Smithereens’ set, and left early, bored.

But Country Dick Montana was not somebody you forgot easily, once you’d seen him (imagine the moonshine-drunk bear from Lord Buckley’s “God’s Own Drunk” rap playing drums), so back home in Seattle I bought the records and went to the shows. Well, some of the records: the San Diego band’s 1985 debut Tales From The New West eluded me, and after a while the power of their shtick (like that of running-mate Mojo Nixon) seemed to overwhelm every other impulse.

That debut, augmented by the follow-up EP Glad N’ Greasy, four demos, six tracks from the privately released Live At The Spring Valley Inn, and the unreleased “Watching The River”, make up the limited-edition release at hand. It’s less a revelation than a reminder, for like so many great live bands, the Beat Farmers didn’t tame well in the studio.

It’s also an interesting snapshot of the still-early days of west coast punk, of a time before the lines were so clearly drawn that it remained reasonable to cover Springsteen’s “Reason To Believe” alongside Lou Reed’s “There She Goes Again”, to work Neil Young’s “Powderfinger” into a set list that also included Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone”.

Their own material, particularly during these early years, was that same gloriously confused hodgepodge and barrage, but — not surprisingly — generally not that powerful (see the demo of “Gun Sale At The Church”, which comes frustratingly close to being something). But the truth is, if you weren’t there, sticking to the beer on the floor and looking for more, it’s hard to argue that you should care, today, about these songs. You had to be there, and if you weren’t, it’s too late to go back now.