Photo by Mark Cherek
Bicentennial Drug Lord
Bicentennial Drug Lord
It may not seem like it, but it was decades ago that John Daniels, Rick Donner and Alan Weatherhead played Milwaukee’s East Side clubs separately and together in bands like Soda, Maki, Punchdrunk, Wobble Test and The Lost Toothbrushes.
As Bicentennial Drug Lord, the group’s new album You Are Never Alone is the product of determination and restless creativity; three songwriters who happen to be multi-instrumentalists, who know their way around a modern recording studio and are savvy (and geeky) enough to realize sometimes old technology works best--and maybe most importantly, have remarkably low senses of ego.
Bicentennial Drug Lord play and in-studio performance Tuesday, July 8, on WMSE’s Local Live
The songs (all listed as co-writes) on You Are Never Alone range from pedal steel country weepers to dream jangle pop songs. The final track “The Gates of Headley Grange” begins as a stately ballad that builds into a sonic cathedral and fades off into psychedelic entropy.
The trio is joined by drummer Kevin Lumley and vocalist-fiddler Libby Rodenbough.
Reconnection
Weatherhead says the group connected early during covid, “There were some things we had written and recorded in Richmond (Virgina) in the early 2000s that we never finished so we mixed and released those as an EP. After that, we made very loose plans to possibly make another record.”
Technology came into play as they all made rough phone demos with Daniels and Donner convening with Weatherhead in Asheville for a weekend to play through everything and tighten up the things that needed it. The ongoing back and forth gave Lumley tracks to work with for his drum parts.
Donner and Daniels also recorded locally at Wire & Vice in Wauwatosa. According to Weatherhead, the project began with 16 songs that were demoed and eventually pared own to the ten that worked together.
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The songs
It’s not a stretch to view Daniels, Donner and Weatherhead as coming of age in the era where The Replacements served as misfit roles models, which lead to deep appreciation of the reissues of Big Star’s slim discography and naturally, the looming presence of The Beatles—all refracted through each of their own personal experiences. For instance, the shorthand for “Awake Awake” is The Beatles’ “Dear Prudence” by way of Chris Bell (Big Star) via BDL—after years of life experience.
With the shared credits, unless you know these folks, it’s a crapshoot to read anything into lyrical meanings. References abound: dogs, drugs, sobriety, Pabst Blue Ribbon, tequila, mariachi bands, Iggy Pop, Thin Lizzy, rodeo clowns, one-inch recording tape and echoplexes. The lesson? There is light at the end of the tunnel, but it made be a hard-fought victory requiring effort.
Leadoff cut “This Pabst Blue Ribbon” is an earnest folk-country tune. It grabs a familiar image and weaves it into familiarity itself; Zen and the art of a tallboy. It’s twin, “Rock Bottom,” could be picking up the story years later, wishing for a hopeful chapter. “Caught Wishing” is a slice of breezy melancholy and hard luck reality, tucked neatly into a song that would be on radio playlists in a perfect world.
The album ends with “The Gates of Headley Grange.”
At first glance the title refences the historic poorhouse where Led Zeppelin famously recorded. But like an onion, it is multi-layered and more than a song.
“I don’t necessarily romanticize the early ‘90s but I think about the people who were around then quite a bit,” Weatherhead says. “That includes my friends from high school and college as well as bands that were around at the time. It’s also when BDL formed so all of those things spill over.”
He notes a friend from high school passed away last year and was thinking of him as well as “some recently departed MKE heavyweights. There was a brief period when Peder Hedman lived in Richmond—post-Tweaker (Hedman’s band)—and his next project was going be called Headley Grange. My buddy’s nickname was also Grange. So it was comforting to think of all these people--Dan Franke, Travis Nelsen, Geo Kiesow—at a big party together.”
“Speaking for myself, “Donner says, “it did feel very natural and right to remember our friends that way. It felt good for them to be a part of it. We used one of Peder’s old distortion pedals on the outro of “Headley Grange.”
How does an artist recognize musical comrades and friends for their contributions, perhaps as the glue that was an overlooked aspect of the music scene?
“The ‘glue’ idea you mention really hit me hard at Franke’s memorial, Donner says. “How we are all connected by place, shared experience, love of music, time together. He certainly connected a lot of different people and impacted a lot of lives and was essential in creating the scene I experienced. That idea of connection really permeates the entire record. How we all grow into a community together, perhaps unwittingly.”
