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You may or may not have heard of the movie School of Rock, starring the so-called “Jack Black,” scare quotes very much intended for the name is as obviously spurious as Costanza’s legendary porno moniker, “Buck Naked.” In S/O/R, the main character, played by Mr. Black, sketches out what purports to be the entire history of rock and roll on a blackboard, for the edification of schoolchildren. Implausible as it sounds, his history is fair, intelligent, and mostly complete, but there’s at least one noteworthy genre that fails to get its chalky due, and that is the one variously referred to as Cosmic American, Space Country, and Psycountry (for Psychedelic Country) and whose most perfect exemplar is probably David Crosby’s 1971 “If I Could Only Remember My Name.” It’s a niche with strong Austin roots, from the 13th Floor Elevators through the Cosmic Cowboys of the ’70s to current AustinSound.net (or, at least, B.D. Fischer) faves Lomita. Space country (my favored term) relies on the surprising sonic similarity between the slide guitar of traditional country and the various effects and distortions of traditional psychedelia � if that term makes sense, talking now about progenitors like the Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, and Ziggy Stardust all the way through My Bloody Valentine, the various incarnations of Dean Wareham, The Verve, Halley, Explosions in the Sky, etc. etc. That similarity itself reflects a mutual thematic focus on isolation and loneliness, from the outlaw Cosmic Cowboys fighting one-man wars against the Nashville machine to Major Tom drifting into space by himself, sending his best wishes back to his wife.
This, of course, is right where The Lonesome Heroes’ debut EP Don’t Play to Lose fits in, with echo-chamber vocals and plenty of sliding steel and spacey distortion. Track one, the title track, opens in spiritual lockstep with “Happy Trails,” a guitar like a lazy-walking horse laid over what sounds like synthesized laser blasts ala Han Solo distended over several measures. The subject matter is likewise a perfect blend of indie space rock and classic country, the abstract neurotic and the concrete pathetic: “And those thoughts inside your mind / they’re all leading you astray / your hands they shake / just like a wet dog / that’s been left out in the rain.” Soon after that one Miss Landry “Slydry” McMeans (she’s just one of the band members with a name so a propos that is difficult to believe it is not invented; the other is Sarah Millenary on the fiddle) joins frontman Rich Russell on the vocals, and she (and this is a good thing) sounds a lot like Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval (Russell sounds a little like a more urbane Woody Guthrie), and the space country mélange—instrumental, thematic, vocal—is complete.
The formula works with continued success on the remaining four tracks. The country instrumentals and space rock production are a classic case of opposites attracting. The lyrics delightfully blend the conventions of both genres, as again on track four, “Halos Above Our Heads”: “The rain, it gathers in the mountains / and the rivers flow down into the valley / � / as the sun shines high / in this harsh urban sky / while we wait for a message / from up above / so shine you high / Mister Sun-in-the-Sky / let those clouds form halos above our heads.” It is hard to imagine the Space Country sound through description alone, for you certainly don’t hear it on the radio or even very often on the indie scene. But when you do, and it’s done as perfectly as it is on this EP, it registers to the bone. It would be hard to find a more perfect exemplar of this crazy coupling that turns out not to be so crazy than this band.
The Lonesome Heroes play regularly at Headhunters, having started the weekly “alt. country” showcase on Wednesday nights. The five tracks on Don’t Play to Lose come in at 16:53.
Mp3 from Don’t Play to Lose:
Don’t Play to Lose
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