RFI: Over the Rhine

Boring fucking record. It never picks up steam, at all. No hooks. And the words completely avoid specifics -- it's supposed to be "about Ohio," as if Cleveland and Xenia and Columbus and Cincinnatti were all the same place or something. But it might as well be about Idaho.

Prove me wrong. I WANTED to like the dang thing, honest.

Oh yeah, they are kinda "pretty," though. In a very boring way.

Xenia? That's a better citation that Stubenville! Nicely done.

Actually, didn't tornadoes wipe Xenia off the map once upon a time??

Anyway, I'm honestly not trying to be mean (though I know it sounds otherwise.) It's just that I had really high hopes for this record --convinced myself that these are smart people (not to mention NICE people, who it's not good to be mean to), committed to their region like drive by truckers or somebody, and maybe they could do some folk rock that jumps out at me. like, i dunno, quarterflash. or robin lane and the chartbusters, maybe. the CD LOOKS pretty. and as a former resident of both cincinnatti (which i probably can't spell) and west germany, i love their name. but when I played the thing, it was just bleh NPR snooze. i really WANNA know what i'm missing, if anything.

Maybe the Mary Janes or Mollys (or even Cactus Highway, whose album inexplicably blew me away for three days a year or so ago) would be better examples of what I was hoping for than Quarterflash, actually.

I'm right there with ya - I want to like 'em, but I just haven't found a reason to yet. Very ho-hum.

And my apologies to the fine people of Steubenville.

"prove me wrong" doesn't
sound like anyone has a chance!
your mind is made up

but since I'm stupid
I will try briefly then stop
in a prose-ish form:

First off, it's not supposed to be a concept record; the only song on there that has anything really to do with Ohio is the song "Ohio," which, yeah, could be about Idaho. Which, I think, rocks harder.

Their attack here is a little atmospheric, yeah, so "never picks up steam" is probably right, if off-base--I'm not sure why they're supposed to be accelerating, or rocking out (which they do live, actually, thanks to the new guitar player), or whatever. But that's not what they're after, Chuck--they're torch songs, except that some are country-esque and some are art-esque and some are blues-esque.

But hooks, as always, are in the ears of the be-listener, and I never had any trouble hearing them here--it's just that they're mostly contained in (and flowing from) the vocal line rather than anything else. But come on: "Show Me" and "How Long Have You Been Stoned" and "Fool" are very nearly conventional singles, and do the whole obvious hook thing just fine.

Where you hear "boring" I hear "intense." I know that's not 'proof' of any kind. All my other thoughts are all summed up in this overwrought thing right here: http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/o/overtherhine-ohio.shtml

Yeah -- I guess I've never much trusted of music where the deadassed lack of energy supposedly makes it "intense": always a big indie-rock/alt-c&w/etc. fallacy. Or like Frank Kogan said once: If kd lang is "torch," then Taylor Dayne is a conflagration, and Teena Marie is a holocaust. Torch music is supposed to LIGHT THINGS ON FIRE, get it?

okay chuck, I know
when you drop 'teena marie'
the game is over

I'll be over here,
enjoying over the rhine
all by my damn self

How the hell do you people know about Steubenville of all places??

I wanted to like Ohio more than I initially did. That's an understatement, actually, as Over the Rhine are my all-time favorite band (cue some asshole informing me how truly, truly sad that is). I love no record on earth more than their 1996 Good Dog Bad Dog: The Home Recordings--so sparse and ghostly and beautiful, not alt-country at all (that came later, and not that I mean to run down that development in any way).
Sometimes intensity isn't immediately perceptible--as with people. The first time I read Salinger's Nine Stories I didn't see the feeling buried there, either, because I was an illiterate teenager and didn't know what to look for. Anyway, I've taken a trip back through some of the album after my early disillusionment, and I now think the first tracks on both discs are impossibly big-hearted ballads--all Karin Bergquist's beautiful vibrating uvula--and other tracks are beginning to add up too. I still think it's too damn polished, that the new-wavey Elvis-Costello-circa-1979 thing on disc two doesn't work (though its inclusion here testifies to Linford Detweiler's buck-teethed unembarrassed earnestness, one of the things I love about this band) and that the VH-1 "gospel choir" hidden track REALLY doesn't work. But it'll become a part of my life like everything else they've made (OK, excepting that cutting-room floor album and most of Amateur Shortwave Radio).
Now, who wants to fight about the Innocence Mission, my second-favorite band?