I Will Lay in the Grass All Day

On the Internet Archive, Phosphorescent, & Richard Swift

The Internet Archive came back online this week, after a debilitating attack by hackers knocked it, the Wayback Machine, Archive-It, and the Internet Archive Blog off the web. The ordeal follows months of legal battles with major book publishers, resulting in a lost appeal in an ongoing copyright battle. Along with this year’s earlier wipeouts of the MTV News and Comedy Central archives, the Internet Archives' recent struggles underscore the tenuous nature of "history" on the web.

To illustrate the value of the preservationist project that is the Wayback Machine, I am re-publishing one of my first ever pieces of music journalism, published February 22, 2006, by Bandoppler Magazine, a publication and site that is no longer accessible, that is, unless you have that handy Wayback Machine link.

In my early writing days, I believed that I was contributing to what would one day be some sort of digital library of Alexandria, a collection of all of humanity’s ideas, writing, criticism, culture, and sure, favorite distractions. The Internet was “forever,” at least in my head. This feeling continued even as I got into work with the Phoenix New Times alt-weekly, where I was tasked with maintaining a hyperactive music blog alongside the print copy each week. I felt that just like the vast store of archived print issues that took up major real estate in the paper’s HQ, the web would serve as a more or less permanent storehouse.

But we all know that version of the Internet was little more than a daydream. As more and more online space collapses and disappears, I can’t help but think about all that lost history, and how, if we are to rely on those hyperlinks for future research, documentation, and cultural care, we’re going to need so much more of the preservationist activism Internet Archive does. I hope you’ll join me in donating to their cause today.

Oh, and that review! It’s of Phosphorescent’s 2006 album, Aw Come, Aw Wry. I recently taped a talk with songwriter Matthew Houck for the final episode of this season of Transmissions, which brought it this piece back to the forefront of my mind. Thanks to my valiant editor Chris Estey, it reads pretty OK. It’s a review, but I folded in some interview elements too, questions I asked shortly after seeing Houck perform at the Phoenix venue Modified Arts. Of course, there’s some extremely earnest wording at work (ah, to be so young) but I’ll try not to editorialize too much more and let 2006 me take it from here:

Phosphorescent: Aw Come Aw Wry (2006, Bandoppler Magazine)

Originating from the tradition of mysterious wanderers and ashen troubadours, Matthew Houck has created a not-all-the-time record. In fact, with its long echo choruses, creaky bedroom acoustics, and an eighteen-minute field recording of a rainstorm, it's probably not a most-of-the-time record. The album reads like a wayward letter home, and moans in ways so Southern it can't be faked. Images of dusty roads are conjured, and the worn lonely drawl of Houck's voice feels and sounds genuine.

Hearing Houck's assured delivery, it's not surprising to note that before launching Phosphorescent four years ago, Houck, fresh from a stint at college, spent time living out of his pickup, banging around the nation. "It probably has influenced me in a bunch of ways," Houck states, "but I'm not in a position to see that kind of cause and effect. It just is what it is and not what it's not, you know?"

It's this hard earned authenticity that earns Houck a unique place among his peers. From the album opener, "Not a Heel," where the song's protagonist offers the sage warning, "I am not a monster, but I will eat your heart," with cracked Will Oldham-like intensity, to "Endless Part One," which contains the last lyrics on the album—"Is it long, my love until we rest, endless..." Aw Come Aw Wry draws detailed sketches in the dust of a journey haunted by the ghosts of past loves and regrets. A journey that bashfully finds solace and hope in the act of living.

The theme of "aw come aw wry" presents itself several times throughout the album, somehow managing to encapsulate all the images the lyrics create. Popping up at different times during the record, it manages to sounds hesitant (the Calexico-like intro to "Not a Heel"), jubilant (the Casio beat on title track #6), and mournful (title track #3). It finally culminates in "Endless Part Two," where a choir of voices echoes out as a piano plinks out the theme one last time, calling out like gospel until it breaks and gives way to the sound of a soft Southern rain storm.

"The 'aw come aw wry' theme presented itself about halfway through the recording of the album," Houck recalls. "It was something that felt true right away and then even truer as more attention was paid to it. It does, I think, make the thread that joins these songs together a little more explicitly."

In the end, it's not the drunken Stax horns of "I'm a Full Grown Man (I Will Lay in the Grass All Day)," or the charming lyrics about living on watermelon and beer, or the slow burn intensity that colors songs like "Dead Heart" and "Lost Name," or any of the other subtle and effective flourishes that decorate the album—it's not these things that make Aw Come Aw Wry so noteworthy. It's the simple beauty of the album's theme, both lyrically and musically, that creates such a lasting impression.

I understand that a record this thick and consuming is not perfect at all times. And I'm sure a few eyes would roll at Houck's Gordon Gano-meets-Jim James, shaky, tattered voice. But it's my firm belief that the next time someone spends the entire night trying to figure out what they believe or who they love or they're feeling the pangs of homesickness, it's right then, that's when they're going to need Aw Come Aw Wry.

Another Goodie from the Wayback Machine:

I was psyched to see this banner ad for the Velvet Blue edition of Richard Swift’s The Novelist/Walking Without Effort still in place on that Bandoppler page archive. On November 1st, Secretly Canadian releases 4 Hits & A Miss: The Essential Richard Swift, a perfect primer and introduction to one of my favorite departed songwriters/producers. I’ve got some Swift writing in the archives too, so maybe I’ll dig some of that out soon to share here. What’s your favorite Richard Swift song? Leave a note in the comments, I’d love to hear from you all.