Published on May 21, 1997
Let’s talk about missed opportunities today. I remember I was
given the chance to interview a San Diego-based band, the Beat
Farmers, when I worked in college radio. This was too good of an
assignment to pass up – I had just been turned onto the band due to
their then-latest release,
Loud And Plowed And… Live!! and was eager to meet the band
– especially Country Dick Montana. However, at the last minute I
gave the interview to a friend of mine who seemed even more eager
to meet them.
Not only did I never get a chance to meet the band, but with the
on-stage death of Montana in 1995, I never got a chance to see this
band in action. Rats – if this album was any evidence of their
power onstage, it is a great portrait of a powerful but struggling
band. It also is damning evidence against radio stations and
promotional departments for not giving this band the attention they
deserved.
Recorded on New Year’s Eve in San Diego, this album paints two
different portraits of the Beat Farmers. One is a portrait of a
band who have learned the skill of writing catchy rock numbers, and
learned it well. The three “serious” members of the band –
guitarists Jerry Raney & Joey Harris and bassist Rolle Love –
had their riffs down well and knew how to spin them. Songs like
“God Is Here Tonight,” “Riverside” and “Hollywood Hills” all serve
as evidence of a band that did not deserve to be forever relegated
to bar-band status.
But on the other hand, you had the looming presence of
drummer-cum-vocalist Montana, whose deep bass vocals became
somewhat of a novelty for the band. Who else could have pulled off
performing songs like “Lucille” or a bleeped-obscenity version of
Neil Young’s “Roll Another Number (For The Road)” and make them so
damn funny? One not to be missed is a rendition of, aaah, the
classic number “Happy Boy,” a song which is both funny and sick –
also check out the opening number “California Kid.”
And in one sense, it may have been this duality of the group
that hindered them from all-out popularity. Relegated to a
then-tiny label (since thrust into the spotlight courtesy of Leann
Rimes) and not neatly fitting into any type of musical genre, I
doubt that the good people at Curb Records knew what to do with
these guys after they signed the deal. (Yes, I know they originally
recorded on Rhino.)
Ah, there’s the rub. If their own record label isn’t sure what
to do with the act, radio sure as hell wouldn’t. This, kids, is a
good reason why you don’t hear the Beat Farmers mentioned in the
same breath as, oh, say, the Rembrandts. (Special attention should
be given to WRCX-FM’s Lou Brutus, who does occasionally grace the
airwaves with the odd Beat Farmers track, though it would be
interesting to hear what he would do to “Happy Boy.”)
(Editor’s note: Talk about dated… Brutus is no longer a
Chicago DJ, and WRCX-FM is long gone.)
There are only two weaknesses I can find with
Loud And Plowed And… Live!! First, for the typical person
who stumbles on this one (or when it’s thrown at you by the
station’s music director with the directive to listen to it), it
may be a little much to process. So many new songs by a new band to
your ears, this is an album you may want to divide up into several
listens. I find breaking the album into portions helps intensify
the power of some tracks.
Second, I know that Mojo Nixon was a friend of the band and he
co-authored the track “King Of Sleaze”… but does he really have
to get up on stage and perform it with them? I’ve never been a big
Mojo Nixon fan (though a professor friend of mine in college was a
drooling fan), and I find this to be a distraction to an otherwise
great album.
I made the mistake of not meeting Montana and crew when I had
the chance, but at least I still have this album to serve as a
memory of what could have been. If you see this one laying in the
used record store bins, don’t make the same mistake I did – grab it
while you can.