Photo credit: Lisa Mac
Drivin N Cryin
Live the Love Beautiful, Drivin N Cryin’s 17th album, is among the best recordings in a journey that began with their 1985 release Scarred but Smarter. There isn’t a weak link among the 11 tracks displaying the distinctive songwriting and the observant storytelling of vocalist-guitarist Kevn Kinney.
Although formed in Atlanta, Drivin N Cryin has a deep Milwaukee root. As part of the city’s original punk rock scene in the late 1970s, Kinney released a 45 with his band The Prosecutors before splitting for the far horizon. Punk is in his DNA but Live the Love Beautiful draws from a broader palette of colors. “What’s Wrong With Being Happy” is psychedelic in tone. “Spies” is like a classic Rolling Stones’ number if the Stones had recorded the theme for a James Bond movie. There’s a bit of Greenwich Village folkie in the mix (Kinney has enjoyed a solo career alongside his band) and on “Step by Step,” ‘70s Southern rock is an audible influence.
Most of all, Live the Love the Beautiful flows like a classic rock album. It’s fully coherent as opposed to a menu of disjointed downloads, and it benefits from tight rhythms by drummer Dave V. Johnson, bassist Tim Nielsen and powerful guitar playing by Laur Joamets.
“I think vinyl just sounds richer,” Kinney explains, although the album is also available as a CD. “I’ve gone back to playing albums and I really love remembering the feeling of turning the record over. I remember when I bought Darkness on the Edge of Town. I just played side one for a couple days and then finally played side two. We are encouraging people to listen to this one [Live the Love] on a phonograph record player. And hint, hint—you might want to buy an 8-track for our next one!”
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Although Kinney disclaims any thematic intentions behind Live the Love Beautiful, many of the lyrics reflect on memories. There is prickly nostalgia in “I Used to Live Around Here,” while “What’s Wrong With Being Happy” is nostalgic for a vision of a more benign society. Kinney is nostalgic for his own past on “Over and Over” as he recounts the memory, “so simple and young,” stirred when playing a track “about a girl” from his first album. However, the enigmatic “Spies” is a call to think through the false consciousness of nowadays (“I know you get all your thoughts from the radio”) and the album’s title song worries about “the world expanding” and “dignity collapsing.”
“It’s kind of like that magic 3-D magic eye puzzle in the paper. I think after it’s sequenced and I stare at it awhile, it’s easier to answer that question,” Kinney says, referring to Live the Love’s patterns of meaning.
The album was produced by “indie folk” singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan, who accompanied Kinney on guitar during his New York sojourn. “A good producer is like a good film director. He gets the best out of his actors, interprets the screenwriting, selects the angles of the film, the black and white or the color, the focus,” Kinney says. “It’s a lot of mental psychic work. It’s overwhelming to me and I rarely do it. I think he did a fantastic job.”
Drivin N Cryin were once on Geffen and Island but have long since returned to their DIY, self-released roots. “I am proud of what we’ve done,” Kinney says. “Sometimes I wonder how many albums and tours bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers or U2 would have released if they’d been dropped by their record label 25 years ago.”
Drivin N Cryin performs 8 p.m. on Tuesday, July 23 at Shank Hall, 1434 N. Farwell Ave.
