INAUGURAL REDRESS The Hickmen

INAUGURAL REDRESS
The Hickmen’s high-desert honky-tonk helps ward off a Dubya downer at Highland Grounds

~ By DON WALLER ~

rmed with a left-right combination of rollin’ Stonesy bar-band rock and weed-whites ’n’ whine honky-tonk country – and a wide truckload of slashingly sarcastic, sing-your-life songs about suburban sprawl, the Second Amendment, high desert meth labs, and Costco socks – the Hickmen (and their headlining namesake pal, singer-songwriter-guitarist Johnny Hickman of Cracker fame) rode the Santa Ana winds down from San Bernardino County to Highland Grounds last Thursday (January 20) to celebrate the inauguration of Bush Version 2.4 in the only way, aside from building grassroots political organizations, that makes any sense:

You create something from the situation, and you provide the audience for that which has been created by someone else as well. You laugh. You cry. You drink. You think. You look into one another’s eyes. You feel a little less alone. And you live another day. And – if you fall asleep in the arms of someone who loves you – that’s about as good as it gets.

In all fairness, the two sets weren’t all nonstop agit-pop. There was also some history. Three of the four Hickmen (guitarist/vocalists Mike Finn and Mike Jones and drummer Allan Waddington), as well as lonesome Johnny himself, were members of the duster-wearin’, multi-guitar-brandishin’ Unforgiven, who – led by former Posh Boy Records act the Stepmothers’ frontman Steve Jones – were signed to Elektra Records in the Great Roots-Rock Feeding Frenzy of 1985.

All these people, including current Hickmen bassist Tim Allyn, grew up in the Inland Empire cities of Corona, Diamond Bar, and Redlands, which is where Cracker head David Lowery met Johnny – prior to fronting, then exiting, kaleidoscopic college-radio darlings turned Virgin recording artists Camper Van Beethoven for Cracker’s more straightforward (and more successful) rock-country stylings – back in the early ’80s when San Bernardino County still had its steel mills and its Air Force base, and its mom-and-pop businesses had not yet given way to discount-chain-anchored malls and bedroom communities that buried the desert wildflowers under 16 tons o’ freeway-close faux-Spanish stucco.

The Hickmen claim to have adopted their nom de rock in admiration for their pal’s songsmithery, seeing as how they made their debut playing nuthin’ but Johnny’s tunes at the third Gram Parsons festival in Joshua Tree. (Like San Bernardino being the birthplace of the Hell’s Angels, Parsons’s deathplace is another of the Inland Empire’s pop-cultural claims to fame.) They’ve since recorded two albums (2003’s Welcome Home and last year’s California Dreamin’) for indie JustBob Records, which primarily feature their own – and a couple of Johnny’s – compositions.

Starting with the spare atmospherics of “Last Train Tonight,” the Hickmen’s 45-minute set’s highlights stretched from the locomotive “Hills of California” and a raw-boned trio of local-yokel character studies (“I Gotta Gun,” “True Blue Red American,” and “San Bernardino Boy”) to covers of Johnny’s beerjoint ballad “Indebted to You” and his Cracker-era cowrite “Another Song About the Rain” to the band’s own goof-squat epic, “San Bernardino County Blues.” (“It’s endlessly fascinating to those of us who know it well,” said Finn, aridly prefacing that set-closer.)

Hickman, who first appeared playing guitar on the last two songs of his pals’ set, opened his solo segment with the similarly place-specific “Southern Cal” (his contribution to their first disc) and the warm “Friends” before diving into his Cracker catalog for “Wedding Day” and “Hold of Myself.”

He then brought the band back to the stand for several songs from his reportedly forthcoming first solo album, climaxing with more Cracker-provenance portraiture (“Mr. Wrong”), the band’s trenchant critique of big-box economics and multinational globalization “Costco Socks,” and Nick Lowe’s never-more-timeless anthem “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.”

Indeed. It’s not easy to describe what’s happening to a certain part of America, leaven the sociopolitical reportage with humor, and play music that woulda worn the shine offa what coulda been a truckstop’s dance floor while you’re doin’ it. California dreamin’ … .

The Hickmen are a four piece band hailing from sunny California.On first hearing The Hickmen sound like Steve Earle with a pinch of Chris Knight. Fiddles and guitar signal early on, that we are in familiar territory, the songs give a clue to what drives The Hickmen, 'Hills of California', 'Hungry City' 'San Bernardino County Blues' and with a good touch of humour on 'Costco Socks' - where we hsve lyrics such as 'With all the crap that Costco' got, I drove off wearing Costco socks'. Most of the songs have a political leaning, lyrically similar to John Mellancamp (Lonseome Jubilee) and Springsteen (Badlands), but the songwriting falls well short of those peerless records. On slower songs such as 'Last Train Tonight' & 'I Gotta Gun' there appears to be more substance, but musically and lyrically there seems little on offer here. All songs are self-penned, but The Drive By Truckers do this kinda stuff with much more zeal. One track 'True, Blue, Red American sums all this up, wearing their stars and stripes on their sleeves, Born in the USA - most definitely not.

L’inizio di questo California Dreamin’ ha la stessa energia e vitalità di una delle migliori rock’n’roots band americane degli anni ottanta (e veri precursori del movimento alt-country), i Long Ryders. Energia in dosi massicce ma anche cura delle melodie tutta californiana sulle onde di country e rock’n’roll uniti a filo doppio fanno di questo quartetto che prende il nome da Johnny Hickman dei Cracker (qui presente alla chitarra in tre brani) una delle più piacevoli sorprese di questo 2005.

Tim Allyn (voce e basso), Michael Finn (voce, chitarra acustica e mandolino), Michael Jones (voce, chitarre acustiche ed elettriche, lap steel, banjo e tastiere) e Alan Waddington (voce e batteria) danno vita ad un lavoro in cui testi taglienti e mai banali vanno a braccetto con sonorità convincenti e godibilissime. Oltre alla già citata apertura di Hills Of California che può giustamente essere considerata uno dei manifesti sonori della band, sono da citare assolutamente San Bernardino County Blues, una ballata asciutta e brillante che è uno dei capolavori dell’album, Hungry City dal testo particolarmente critico verso certi aspetti dell’american way of life, l’evocativa In A Fever, le politicizzate I Gotta Gun e True, Blue, Red American, le frecciate verso lo strapotere economico dei mall di Costco Socks e Last Train Tonight e Father Winter, più interiori e intensamente personali.

The Hickmen con questo loro disco danno lustro ad una scena roots come quella californiana, già ricca e tradizionalmente importante, grazie al loro approccio intelligente e pregevole che merita di essere conosciuto.

ALT COUNTRY NL

THE HICKMEN

The Hickmen noemen zich naar vriend Johnny Hickman, voorman van het tamelijk geweldige rootsrockcombo Cracker. Hickman voelt zich vereerd, want hij speelt sologitaar op drie liedjes van California Dreaming (JustBobs Records), zoals de tweede cd van dit countryrockstel uit Californië heet. Op hun beurt eren The Hickmen Hickman weer door diens Father Winter puik te coveren. California Dreaming kun je bestempelen als een countryrock-protestplaat tegen de zogenaamde vooruitgang. Hoor The Hickmen maar eens op Costco Socks te keer gaan tegen het verdwijnen van de kleine winkels die worden opgeslokt door grote warenhuizen, ofwel malls. Op San Bernardiono Country Blues trekken ze fel van leer tegen de drugshandel en verloedering, een thema dat ze ook bezingen op Hills Of California. En I Gotta Gun is pure satire, gericht tegen de bezitters van schietijzers. Tekstueel kan deze plaat me beter bekoren dan muzikaal. Het mindere zit hem vooral in de zang. De band ontbeert een echte leadzanger, die de boodschappen met souplesse en overtuiging kan vertolken. Mooiste liedje van de cd komt pas tegen het eind voorbij; Envy is een uptempo yihaah-folkliedje met zuidelijk temperament waarop de vier muzikanten hun klaagzangen relativeren. Ook al is het leven niet fair, zingen The Hickmen letterlijk, probeer er toch maar het beste van te maken: You´re going out the world same as you came in, take it easy - and learn to fit in..... (Bart Ebisch)

De uit de zuidelijke helft van California afkomstige countryrockers van The Hickmen zijn grote fans van Cracker-gitarist Johnny Hickman, met wie ze ooit het genoegen hadden de planken te delen. Dat verklaart meteen hun wat eigenzinnige naamkeuze. Hickman voelde zich op zijn beurt trouwens ook niet te beroerd om zoveel devotie met een stel leadgitaarpartijen op “California Dreamin’”, de jongste CD van de band te beantwoorden. Eén van de songs op die plaat (“Father Winter”) is bovendien ook van zijn hand. “California Dreamin’” mag je zien als een met de tong behoorlijk diep in de wang geplante uiteenzetting over de haat-liefde-verhouding van de heren Hickmen met hun thuisstaat. Stevig rockend kaarten ze thema’s aan als de loomheid eigen aan de plaatselijke steden, het uniformiseren van deze laatste, drug labs en het recht op wapenbezit. Het resultaat van zoveel ijver is een bijzonder energiek en vitaal schijfje. Waarvan akte.