By: Tom Speed
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Alejandro Escovedo has, on the surface, lived the typical life of the critic's darling - doted on by writers, lauded by a small but vocal group of ardent fans, largely ignored by mainstream music audiences. He's damn-near deified in Austin, Texas, cited as a major influence on songwriters everywhere, and even had a litany of A-list stars contribute versions of his songs to a double-disc tribute album (2004's Por Vida). Infamously, the alt-country (whatever that is) bible No Depression even went so far as to name him “Artist of the Decade" two years before the decade was even over.
But there's much more beneath the surface, and its all but typical. To pigeonhole Escovedo as merely a critic's darling or an earnest alt-country troubadour would be to overlook a far more interesting career, one that has taken him from the nascent punk rock scenes of both the West and East coasts to the emerging alt-country movement and the blossoming of his solo career throughout the 1990s. Along the way, he's had flirtations with big time success, squabbles with record labels and a serious near-death encounter with Hepatitis C in 2003 that came to a head when he was rushed to a hospital after vomiting blood during a performance. He got well and addressed the experience in the triumphant 2006 comeback album, The Boxing Mirror.
Now, he's taken all of those experiences and weaved them into a compelling narrative of in his latest CD, the autobiographical Real Animal (arriving June 24 on Back Porch Records). Co-written by Chuck Prophet and produced by Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex), Real Animal tells these stories not only with Escovedo's trademark lyrical and melodic punch but also incorporates all of the aural elements that have fueled his career into one whirling sound that is all his own - punk rock urgency, contemplative and moving ballads, blustery blues and his unique brand of string-laden Americana. Real Animal finds Escovedo engaged and energetic, defiant and sometimes wistful.
The title comes from the song “Real As An Animal," an appropriately balls-to-the-wall blast of Stooges-stirred catharsis that was inspired by Iggy Pop. It reveals Escovedo's love of the spirit that coaxed him into the rock world to begin with. “He represents everything I've ever loved about rock 'n' roll," Escovedo says of Pop. “The total unabashed spirit of abandon, the danger, that whole 'fuck you' attitude."
While Escovedo has encountered plenty of documented danger, Real Animal reads more as a story of a life lived to the fullest, an optimistic and appreciative remembrance.
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Though he comes from a musical family (his father played in mariachi bands, his percussionist brothers Coke and Pete Escovedo both played with Santana, and his niece is Prince protege Sheila E.), and grew up an avid music fan, Alejandro never played music until he was in his mid-twenties. Born in San Antonio to Mexican immigrant parents, Escovedo and his family relocated to Huntington Beach, California when he was seven. “My parents told us we were going on a vacation, and we never went back!" he recalls.
It was in mid-'60s Southern California that Escovedo frequented a music club called The Golden Bear. He cut his teeth on a never-ending cavalcade of rock bands. “Buffalo Springfield played in the little club on the corner. There was a little place right next to Golden Bear called The Salty Cellar. It was where all the garage bands would play. We saw Limey and The Yanks, The East Side Kids, all those really cool bands," Escovedo says.
In the early 1970s, Escovedo moved from Huntington Beach to Hollywood. “At that point, I was already sold on English rock 'n' roll," he says, “bands like Roxy Music and Bowie and Mott and T. Rex." A few years later, he migrated north to San Francisco, “following a girl." Like most pivotal events in his life, it's recalled in song on Real Animal in the beautifully ethereal “Hollywood Hills."
A Four Piece Band
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Escovedo's first foray into the music world was with a group of San Francisco-based punk rock misfits called The Nuns. Even then, the primary reason he assembled the group was to produce a student film he was working on about “the worst band ever." “We had a lot of potential," Escovedo says, “but we didn't really know how to play." Nonetheless, they opened for the Sex Pistols at their very last show at San Francisco's Winterland and performed a memorable gig with Roxy Music. “They thought we were freaks," chuckles Escovedo.
Soon, The Nuns moved to New York, where they set up shop at the Chelsea Hotel and toured the East Coast by Amtrak Train. They played Max's and CBGB's, sharing gigs with kindred spirits like The Ramones. In “Chelsea" from Real Animal, Escovedo describes the yearning of the band to move to New York to “live inside the myth of everything we'd heard." The Chelsea Hotel was also home to Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. “When Sid and Nancy got to the Chelsea I was actually in the lobby that day" he says. “I saw them and we said hello and everything. It must have been a couple of months later that Nancy was killed there."
The rest of The Nuns soon headed back west but Escovedo stuck around, playing with Judy Nylon and others. He later joined up with Chip and Tony Kinman in the seminal cowpunk band Rank and File.
“Chip called up after [his band] The Dils broke up," says Escovedo. “He wanted to come out and we'd reform Rank and File. So, he came out and we formed it with Barry Myers, who was the Clash DJ and Kevin Foley who had played with me in the Judy Nylon band. So that was Rank and File at that time."
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Escovedo recounts the spirit of these times in “Chip N' Tony." The tune's chorus provides a direct explanation of the impetus for rock 'n' roll aspirations everywhere: “All I ever wanted was a four-piece band!"
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Rank and File embarked on an ambitious seven-week tour that included only seven dates but spanned the North American continent. “One of them was Austin and one of them was Portland," says Escovedo. “Chip and Tony and I, we decided to come back to Austin." Rank and File released the album Sundown in 1982. Escovedo left the group after moving to Austin, though they went on to release two more albums without him.
In Austin, Escovedo began writing songs for the first time. He formed the roots-rock band True Believers with his brother Javier and Jon Dee Graham. The fate of that band was that of the “almost famous" variety. They signed a major label deal, only to have the label (EMI) cut them from their roster just before the release of their second album. His sporadic and short-lived glam punk outfit Buick McKane (named for a T. Rex song) recorded a sole album, The Pawn Shop Years, that was finally released by Ryko in 1997.
After True Believers, Escovedo got out of the music scene for a while, taking a job at Austin's Waterloo Records. But it wasn't long until his songwriting skills were honed enough that he embarked on his soon to be heralded solo career. He quickly garnered critical acclaim (if not substantial sales) with his first two records on the independent Watermelon Records, Gravity (1992) and Thirteen Days (1994). Rykodisc released the well-received With These Hands in 1996. A trio of albums on Bloodshot followed, including A Man Under The Influence (2001). By The Hands of The Father (2002), a dramatic narrative of the Mexican American experience that was originally performed as a play, followed. It was during a performance of that material that Escovedo hit the wall, was rushed to the hospital and forced to reckon with his illness. As a who's who of songwriters lined up to help defray his medical expenses with Por Vida: A Tribute To the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo, Escovedo focused on his health, not playing music for three years until his Boxing Mirror comeback.
Nobody Left Unscarred
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All of these trials, tribulations and titillations are represented on Real Animal, which like The Boxing Mirror, was released on Back Porch (ironically, an imprint of EMI). In many ways, the sound of Real Animal is the culmination of the sound Escovedo has been cultivating his whole career.
An over-riding theme of Real Animal is that of remembering not only the triumphs of a life in the world of rock 'n' roll but also the people who succumb to the rigors of the road. Escovedo speaks almost nostalgically about The Nuns, Rank and File and all of the bands he played with in the past. But, the album's closing tune, “Slow Down," provides an atmospheric, gorgeous sway that ends with the line, “You can't live in the moment while you're tangled in the past." That benediction seems to mark a process of remembering as a way to turn to a new chapter. Whereas The Boxing Mirror celebrated (albeit mournfully) surviving his illness, Real Animal focuses on celebrating the fortune of living the life he has lived, and he celebrates with a decidedly up-beat jubilance.
“I think as a result of having gone through three years without being able to play," Escovedo says, “I really started thinking about everything that I had done before. Because at that time it seemed like I wouldn't ever play again. So, these memories were pretty important to me. They were of a healthier time, a more joyful time of my life. In making this record, I wasn't as attached to these memories. I was just looking at them the way you would look at a home movie. There's a lot more joy in looking at these memories rather than being so attached to them."
Appropriately, the songs serve as snapshots of the events, times and people who inhabited his world. The tender saxophone-buoyed ballad “Sensitive Boys" addresses the notion of artists on the road.
“These are very sensitive people, pretty fragile people, who are trying to live this hardcore lifestyle," says Escovedo. “They see their Johnny Thunders or Keith or whoever [and] they suddenly find themselves tied into something that's not easy. You can't just take it off like a coat or a jacket or a new pair of pants. You find yourself deeply immersed in this hellacious kind of lifestyle sometimes. A lot of them fall by the wayside. I know so many people who become caricatures of themselves as a result of romanticizing this life. A lot of us really buy into this stuff, almost to the point of religion. It's pretty hard on people."
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He explores similar territory on the soulful mid-tempo rocker “Sister Lost Soul" and the riff-heavy “Smoke," where he recalls long-lost cohorts from the all-night parties of years past.
Escovedo invokes the name of the music club of his youth on “Golden Bear," but seems to still be questioning his illness, lamenting “why me?" while describing the “creature in my blood." It's an earnest ache of a song. “It's the kind of questions that a lot of us ask ourselves when we are faced with this kind of thing," he says.
Following his illness, Escovedo quit drinking alcohol, and everything else that comes along with the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. He sings of “rolling in the mud and the clay" in the haunting, sweeping “Swallows Of San Juan." The scene recalls youthful trips to San Juan Capistrano and serves as a metaphor for returning to his youth when music was all that mattered, unencumbered by the trappings of the rock 'n' roll way of life.
“I haven't drank since that major thing happened," he explains. “So, that's been five years. I don't do anything anymore. When I got sick I wasn't sure if it was the result of my throwing myself into this rock 'n' roll life that had made me sick. I kind of blamed it for a while. Later, I found that that wasn't the case, but, I think in the end it's just about the music now - for the first time really, other than when I was a kid listening to it."
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Always A Friend
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With Real Animal, Escovedo, for the first time, created an album comprised entirely of collaborations. Old friend Chuck Prophet co-wrote the entire album, and plays guitar and sings on the record. The two have known each other since the mid-1980s when True Believers shared bills with Prophet's Green On Red.
“Initially, it was my idea to tell this story about my musical life, my musical journey. But a lot of that had to do with bands I was in such as the True Believers and Rank and File, and Chuck was always part of that scene in a way. So, not only do I consider him in the highest order in terms of a songwriter and a guitar player, but he's a great guy and a good friend of mine, so I thought it might be a good time to seek him out to collaborate," says Escovedo.
The two of them concocted a technique to craft the songs into a compelling storyline. They'd just hang out and roll tape as Escovedo recounted all the stories of his early bands. Then they'd go back and listen to the tapes and pull certain lines and ideas from them to craft the songs. The approach produced a powerful song cycle, with the final sound of the album heavily influenced by producer Tony Visconti, who produced legendary records by David Bowie and T. Rex that were essential listening for Escovedo. “All of those records that Tony produced [were] like a lifeline," says Escovedo. “I remember him asking me when we were going to mix the record, he said, 'Bring some of the records you like the sound of.' I said, 'I don't have to bring them. You are all the records that I love.'"
The album is bathed in the glam-punk ethos of those old albums. “Golden Bear" even contains an overt reference, in the form of a very recognizable keyboard effect, to Bowie's “Ashes To Ashes." “I wanted all of those things from the records he had made," says Escovedo, “the background vocals, the instrumentation and those weird little sounds. I definitely wanted that."
The album also carries Escovedo's traditional utilization of string sections. “[Tony] pays a lot of attention to arrangements and a lot of attention to the string section," says Escovedo. Throughout his solo career, Escovedo has employed the use of strings - violins and cellos in particular - in his music. On occasion, he's even doubled the instruments two violins, two cellos in his String Quintet. That group put out the self-released album Roomful of Songs in 2005.
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“In the beginning it was just that the strings really lent themselves to the words I was singing and the moods of the songs," he says. “We finally realized that that album Street Hustle by Lou Reed, that was the direction we wanted to go in with strings. At that point, it became more aggressive and more upfront with the electric guitars. I don't think it's been until this record that we've really nailed it. I give Tony a lot of credit for that."
That realization is no more apparent than on the more punk-edged selections like “Nun's Song," where the angular strings provide an aggressive push to the song's anthemic abandon, or when the strings decorate the chugging guitar grind of “Chelsea." Elsewhere, the string parts exhibit more traditional orchestral beauty on “Sensitive Boys" and “Swallows of San Juan," but they are always a part of the tapestry. “It's always been great to have strings. I just love 'em," says Escovedo. “The players - Susan Voelz on violin and Brian Standefer on cello - are the best as far as I'm concerned. So, I think there will never be a time when I don't have strings."
So Much To Live For, It's Not Too Late
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This summer will find Escovedo touring heavily, performing the new material before enormous crowds. He has already played the New Orleans Jazz Fest, Wakarusa and he did a number of monster shows supporting the Dave Matthews Band.
“I think it changes [your approach] because you amplify everything in a way," Escovedo says of playing to such large crowds. “It has to be broader, larger. You have to address more people. It's funny how it happens naturally in a way. Because we've been playing in clubs for so long, we're quite comfortable in a club, but given the opportunity, when we finally get a chance to reach out to a lot of people, it's a real kind of turn-on."
Escovedo recently sat in with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at a show in Houston, performing Real Animal's gleefully exuberant leadoff track, “Always A Friend." “I got a taste of that response from that many people," he says. “It was pretty amazing. I could see where someone could get addicted to it."
He'll bring the strings out on most of the big summer shows, and on television appearances including Late Night with Conan O'Brien on June 20 and The Late Show with David Letterman on August 7. However, the club shows will feature the stripped down band of Alejandro on guitar and vocals, Josh Gravelin on bass, Hector Munoz on drums and David Pulkingham on guitar - just the kind of “four piece band" he's always wanted.
Alejandro Escovedo tour dates available here.
Behind the scenes of Real Animal with Alejandro Escovedo:
Bruce Springsteen with Alejandro Escovedo - Houston 2008:
