The Chris Stamey Experience - A Question of Temperature

Genre pop Publisher Yep Roc External Links Chris Stamey Yep Roc

With covers of Cream's "Politician," Gene McDaniels's "Compared to What" and the Yardbirds's "Shapes of Things," and a mark-your-ballot PSA, this seems to have been an attempt to get out the indie-rock vote. As such, I'd have to say it didn't work. For all I know, George W. Bush sits up at night and listens to Television's Marquee Moon (Stamey and company cover that album's "Venus" here) and Cream's Wheels of Fire, musing about the line in "Venus" about dressing up like cops and the profundity of Pete Brown's lyrics, Clapton vs. Hendrix, Verlaine vs. Lloyd. But I don't think so. John Kerry is probably grooving to Norah Jones and Sting--maybe Bill Clinton gave him a Tift Merritt album.

Chris Stamey has done fine work in the past; with the dB's he, along with Peter Holsapple, perfected a brand of tensed-up power-pop that blended classic melodies with mildly dissonant textures, all driven by the great drumming of Will Rigby, who has since released a fine solo album and played in Steve Earle's band. Stamey's previous solo works have been rather spotty. 1987's It's Alright was excessively polite after two uneven, eccentric solo albums, although I love the stately title track. Fireworks was an out-and-out dud. His folkish collaboration with Peter Holsapple, 1991's Mavericks, had its moments but was scarcely a revelation.

This could have been another Pin Ups or Faithful (the 1976 Todd Rundgren album featuring one side of '60s covers and another of originals). And you'd think this would be better than it is, given the fact that Yo La Tengo backs him up and that Stamey, along with his great exemplar Alex Chilton, has been responsible for some of the finest post-mod, post-power-pop records ever made. But A Question of Temperature is lukewarm at best. Their takes on songs by Television and the Yardbirds add nothing to the originals. "Venus" gets a nice gentle treatment and just lacks the intensity of the original; for whatever reason, Stamey and company chose to underplay the great guitar riff that powers the Television recording. "Compared to What" fits in well with the "political" theme of this record, but Stamey is so genteel he can't even come out with a good "goddammit" here, as on the 1969 original by Les McCann and Eddie Harris. "Shapes of Things" is hard to screw up; still, the basic strategy here seems to be to adorn rather basic tracks with some guitar noise, and I for one have never much liked Yo La Tengo when they do this.

The originals aren't much either; only the ten-minute "McCauley Street (Let's Go Downtown)," which references Salinger, Lou Reed, The New Yorker, gutter guards and Joan Baez, and which recalls the great dB's song "Happenstance," really works as folk-rock-as-soundscape. "Come On" is a pointless instrumental. "The Summer Sun" is a decent reworking of a song Stamey recorded with Alex Chilton in 1977--what, no "Where the Fun Is"? "Desperate Man" boasts some ridiculous lyrics ("made his mark at the house of the rising sun"?), and is best described as a basic Chuck Berry blues filtered through Richard Lloyd. I'm tempted to dismiss this as an example of what one might call the liberal mindset that let Bush be re-elected, but of course it had nothing to do with it. Desperate it ain't.

Chris Stamey is a talented guy; his best songs with the dB's were truly insidious and experimental, and they worked beautifully against Holsapple's more straightforward tunes about rock chicks who don't steal amplifiers. That the dB's weren't bigger is a shame, but they were a bit too distanced--not that I don't like a bit of distance myself. They had passion but it was expressed in the perfectionism of their records. And Stamey is a fine producer. A Question is simply lacking in passion; I can't resist the observation that, for a record that seems to be at least partially motivated by one of the most contentious political climates in recent memory, it seems rather complacent. Interested seekers should buy the first two dB's albums, conveniently available on one superb CD. Or the Rhino compilation Shake It Up! American Power Pop II (1978-80), which contains Stamey's marvelous take on Richard Lloyd's "(I Thought) You Wanted to Know." Or Stamey's more recent Travels in the South. And yeah, next time, get out and vote.