You’re probably never heard of Charlie Pickett before, but, according to the press material bundled with his new career retrospective, that’s part of what makes him so great. As the title implies, Bar Band Americanus– which gathers tracks spanning Pickett’s almost decade-long career in the 1980s– is a relic from an average guy who got to where he was the hard way, by touring without cease and playing seedy dive after seedy dive, bringing his good-times rock to bars and clubs every night with the hopes of one day making it big. He never did, of course, which is why the sheer existence of this best-of album is so remarkable; perhaps his famous fan Peter Buck, who produced and played on some of these songs, has much to do with it. It’s a great concept– collecting the best material from an unremarkable and little-known local boy and presenting it in all its wild, careening abandon, but it works better as an idea than as an album, mostly because these songs are, well, pretty unremarkable. One can imagine them being rather winning if they were played with the appropriate level of sloppy abandon and ceaseless momentum, but, as they stand, most of these songs are actually fairly tame, alternating between galloping rockers and mid-tempo cowpunk, with little to set them apart, even when Pickett injects a hint of twang here, a Stonesy riff there, a would-be Flannery O’Connor allusion there. These are simply decent, average rock songs without much character to them, despite some appealingly dark and biting lyrics from Pickett and some good taste in cover material, with a production that doesn’t sound any messier or grittier than, say, R.E.M.’s Life’s Rich Pageant, from the same era. That means that the collection, at nineteen tracks, is simply too long and tiresome, not to mention uninteresting, which makes it feel a bit too much like the museum piece that its title suggests and not enough like a lively and lived-in slice of rock and roll.

Wow, what a blast from the past. Charlie Pickett. There wasn't much happening in the South Florida music scene back in the late 80's, but he was writing some really good stuff. I was technically label mates on Safety Net Records with him in 1987-88, before I got churchified and dropped everything.

I havent listened to his stuff in nearly 20 years, so I wouldnt be surprised if it sounds maybe a tad unremarkable now. But context is vital. This music came out of the same place as the Miami Sound Machine. I mean, there was NO scene down here at the time. There was nothing but third rate metal bands, middle aged cover groups and a smattering of very wretched punk bands. I dont care what the rest of the country perceived via the gauzy lens of Miami Vice, South Florida was the least hip big city in America. And along come the Psycho Daisies, Charlie Pickett, The Chant and a little collective of snobby suburban teens trying to rewrite the early REM catalog by way of Sesame Street, called Minimum Wage. The kitchen for this wonderfully subversive casserole of american garage music was the dingy L7 studios in Deerfield Beach and the wonderful production of Mr. Bob Wlos. Bob was a great producer stuck in a vast, cultural Hades. He was also the only decent pedal steel player for about 500 miles. There was definitely some good stuff being cooked up there-- something clearly unique at the time.

I have the career retrospective album that Josh reviewed, and I gave it a spin. Although I didn't pay enough attention to have real opinions, I remember being vaguely impressed. I'm usually a sucker for Replacements-like sloppy swagger, and I was this time as well. It's cool that coltrane knows Charlie. Too bad he didn't know Peter Buck. :-)

Josh, sorry the CD dissappointed you. Mail it to me c/o Casey Ciklin et al., 515 N. Flagler Dr. Suite 1900, West Palm Beach, FL 33401, and I will send your money back to you.

Charlie Pickett

Or he can just mail it to me! Charlie, I went and scoured MySpace last week and found you on there as well as a bunch of the old South FL cohorts. The journey down memory lane definitely brought a smile to my face and had me hankering for some of those old recordings. I believe your music stands on it's on own today, but with the whole 80's South FL music scene backstory, it's all that more impressive. You're a real soldier. Major props!

I tried contacting Bill Ashton via myspace last week as well out of sheer nostalgia. Havent heard back, but he along with you and several others really tried to get lift-off with the scene at the time. I'm glad to see you're still out there fighting!

Thanks "Coltrane." When someone says that they don't like our musical creations because they don't like the lyrics, the underlying assumptions, the effort, the tones, or the genre, etc., I don't feel bad about it. But to say that it is drab cuts on me hard, because that is the reaction I have to most popular music.

Bill Ashton's email is bill.ashton@turner.com

Cheers,

Charlie

I know it's happened before on the film forum, where a filmmaker dropped in on a thread critiquing their work, mid-discussion. I think this is the first time such a collision has occurred on the music forum and it's perhaps a slightly awkward moment for all. Josh is a music writer/critic (there are quite a few here at A&F) and he also moderates this forum. He does an excellent job and I respect his opinions and views tremendously.

Having said that, I'm not quite sure of the value of opening a new thread on a struggling indie artist, that begins with a somewhat negative dig. As someone who's an artist and not a critic, I hear what you're saying Charlie... Maybe this dialogue will drive some of the members here, who are unfamiliar with your music, to actually go have a listen for themselves. i really hope they do. I've stated pretty emphatically the impact this music had on my world in the mid to late 80's-- it was maybe the only music that mattered from that era , echoing out of the black hole of Dade/Broward-- and folks would do well to investigate the blend of Americana and countrified garage rock that was making waves before Uncle Tupelo and their offspring started selling tshirts.

Thanks for Bill's email. Hope you stick around...

Greg

Certainly, Charlie, I hope you will take my comments in a spirit of honesty, not of mean-spiritedness. In general, I say that my more negative reviews are meant to be taken as constructive criticism-- as a way of exhorting all of us to excellence-- but this is, admittedly, a different sort of situation, as I don't think you're making music any more, at least not professionally. So if nothing else, I hope my criticisms will be taken as one opinion among many, and, by the looks of things, a minority opinion, at that.

Coltrane: Glad to hear that Hurst is a legit fellow. Given that info, I will explain. We have little interest in stretching the music we make sideways. By "sideways" I can only offer an example -- Bob Dylan transported country/rural blues and folk traditions into many new and brilliant lyrical "places" that had never existed before, so he took it "sideways." With some exceptions, we only wanted to "deepen" the electric blues-rock that we loved so well. So we tried to drill as deep as we could. Instead of creating something new by expanding it sideways, we wanted to create something good (but NOT static and trad) by deep-drilling the center. Thus, we care little that we use common chord progressions (I-IV-V and I-flat VII-IV etc.) over and over. It is teh internal workings of the rythem (sp?) within the 4/4 beat, the tones of the instruments, the character of the vocal, and some legit slice of life in the lyrics, that we care about and plumb. Frankly, I wish I had more talent lyrically, but I never apologize for our understanding of the beat, the swing, the lead guitar, the guitar and instrumental interplay, and the overall aura of what we created. Someone looking for a new breeze may not enjoy us, but I genuinely don't understand how anyone who likes blues-rock would not like In the Wilderness. Each to their own. I'm not mad at all and I've been disappointed in so many CDs that I still offer Brother Hurst his money back. Had to bother him. PS: I will never change. I love this music so much.

This discussion prompted me to pull out Bar Band Americanus again and give it a good listen. I agree with Josh that it's somewhat uneven. But the high points are really, really great, and remind me that there are so many deserving bands and solo artists out there who, for want of that lucky break, are undeservedly languishing in obscurity. "Get Off Your Porch" is loud, sloppy, and great, and sounds like a long lost track from Sticky Fingers or Exile on Main Street. The Stones are an obvious touchstone, but I hear a lot of the rowdy country rock that simply fell between the cracks in the mid-eighties. The first wave of stoner cowboys (Eagles, Poco, etc.) had faded from public view, and the new alt-country studs (Uncle Tupelo, Steve Earle, The Jayhawks, etc.) were still five or six years away from really taking off. The kids stuck in between -- Charlie, Jason Ringenberg (of Jason and the Scorchers), Rank and File -- just came along at the wrong time. But I, for one, am really glad to discover Charlie's music. I wasn't familiar with it before this career retrospective. I'm glad I listened again. And oh yeah, Charlie is a serious guitar slinger.

Charlie, I agree with Coltrane that Josh knows his stuff, and is a very good guy. I just happen to disagree with him this time.

Charlie-- checked out your show schedule and saw that you'll be back at Little Haiti's finest pub in December. I'll see you then and hope to share a drink or two.

josh, i had a look around your website, and some of your posts on this messageboard. and i can honestly say that if you had liked bar band americanus, i would have considered the compilation a failure.

you stick with icky thump, i'll take bar band americanus (and there is a definite link there, but you won't find it on jack white's wikipedia). you stick with the new nick cave record, i'll take the birthday party...

Bar Band Americanus has garnered rave reviews from all over the US, Canada, England, and Austrailia, and is available all over the place.

jeff @ Trashfever.com

ps--corrections--i dig rem, but the only thing peter buck had to do with BBA is the cover blurb. as for the comparison of the production of BBA to rem's life's rich pageant, two tracks on BBA were sourced from a 27-year-old 7" single!!

It's really nice to meet the Official Arbiter of Popular Music Taste. For what it's worth, Jeff, if you decide to stick around, you might find yourself better served if your next post is something other than an insult.

oh how i wish i was the official arbiter of popular taste in music, the world would truly be a better place...or something.

andy, you gotta either stick up for your boy, or disagree with him, you can't do both on one review. and there's a difference between an insult and a rebuttal---if it was my intention to insult josh i'd have been permanently banned from this board by now. if josh is truthful and believes in every word he wrote, as i am, then he won't mind a dissenting opinion. mine. and peter buck's, and ira kaplan from yo la tengo (who joined charlie onstage in NYC in october), and rob miller from bloodshot records, and a vocal (and growing) minority of people who are participating in the current reappraisal of Charlie's work. including YOU, andy.

josh has every right to his opinion, and i mine. it's clear from researching his work that he likes things that are a little less abrasive, noisy and occasionally atonal than pickett, and i like things a little bit MORE abrasive. that's what i was pointing out, along with a couple of inaccuracies in his review. i'll bet $100 that rem spent more on the songwriting, rehearsals and demos for life's rich pageant than charlie spent on his entire recorded output...

and i disagree with his assessment of charlie's songwriting. i'll match his original songs from 1983 to 1987 against any other rock songwriter from that period, and like my chances. the replacements were great, but inconsistent. black flag, the minutemen, the police, u2, george thorogood, dream syndicate, red hot chili peppers, same, uneven. MAYBE rem and husker du were better during that period, maybe. but not much...

andy, i quite like your review. we're on the same page. i disagree strongly with josh's review, but my rebuttal was no worse to josh than he was to BBA...

Who would have guessed that this would be my most controversial review?

Point of fact, Jeff-- according to my liner notes (i.e., the liner notes), Peter Buck produced a handful of tracks on the album.

that's because peter buck produced charlie's last studio album, The Wilderness, in 1988. three tracks from that album are featured on Bar Band Americanus. so technically, peter buck did something else besides the cover blurb, albeit he did it 20 years ago...

but you implied that p. buck had something to do with Bar Band Americanus being released, and that's not really true. it would've been released without his kind words on the cover, it's been "in the works" for years, with no involvement from p. buck.

Ahem. He didn't "imply." He speculated.