I was 20 years old, an official, card carrying (pre-internet) DeadHead, and in the same year, 1970, the Grateful Dead released Workingman's Dead and American Beauty. I was stunned, I was hurt, I was so fucking mad I wanted to kill somebody. The Dead had become a "Cuntry" band. I hated everything about cuntry music. I hated the way it sounded, I hated the stupid morons who listened to it, and I especially hated the flag waving redneck (Vietnam era remember)musicians who played it. I'd bought Workingman's Dead, before I knew better, and I bought American Beauty, praying the Dead had gotten back on track, and put all the cuntry nonsense behind them.
All of my less judgmental friends were listening to both albums, and enjoying the shit out of them. They wondered how I could decide, for the Dead, what they should be playing. I stuck to my guns though, for about a year, all the while hearing snippets of both records. One day, without consciously knowing what I was doing (I spent a lot of time back then, being unconscious), I found myself tapping my foot and bobbing my head to Workingman's Dead. I had succumbed. My will had been broken. I was a defeated, but much happier man. Those albums, to this day, are 2 of my favorites.
I've been listening to El Camino for about a month. It took me 5 or 6 listens to get into the flow. Gradually, I started picking out a few songs I really liked, and after more and more listens, the number of songs I liked, grew. I drove back from NYC today, and listened to it 3 times, back to back to back, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Are there songs I like more than others, of course, but there isn't one song on the album that doesn't have something I like(like great guitar sounds). One of the songs, it might be called Little Black Submarines(I don't have an "official" track listing), is certainly one of my favorite TBK songs of all time. I can't say the album is a natural progression, because, like with Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, who the fuck am I. But, what I can say, is that now when I listen to it, it sounds like The Black Keys. Period, end of story.
Expectations will fuck you every time.
McRib
