BESIDES from BUFFALO TOM

ASIDES from BUFFALO TOM

SMITTEN

- Rachael

- Postcard

- Knot In It

- The Bible

- Scottish Windows

- White Paint Morning

- Wiser

- See To Me

- Register Side

- Do You In

- Under Milkwood

- Walking Wounded

Visit http://www.buffalotom.com/news/studio.html to read Bill Janovitz's "Smitten" studio journal.

Unencumbered by tags or trends, Buffalo Tom remain one of the most consistent and inspiring bands this decade. After a three-year break, they re-emerge in 1998 with a new label in the USA, a new keyboard player and an album brimming with their trademark harmonies, timeless songwriting and guitar-fuelled passion.

The three members of the band first met at the University of Massachusetts in 1986. Each were in separate groups, but, "we had the same taste in music and went to the same shows", remembers Bill. After getting together to jam on cover tunes for fun they quickly seized on a natural chemistry, and began working on their own material. They played their first live gig using a drum kit borrowed from Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis, who also produced their debut LP for SST in 1989. Moving to Boston following graduation, Buffalo Tom found themselves in the midst of an exciting scene that was also home to Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, Galaxie 500, Lemonheads, the Pixies, Throwing Muses / Belly, the Blake Babies / Juliana Hatfield, and many others.

The band's second full-length release, Birdbrain (1990), helped to establish the band's sound and a healthy live following that remains to this day, but it was their third album Let Me Come Over (1991) that proved pivotal, with beautiful melodies and acoustic guitars beginning to emerge from beneath the gritty power chords.

This dynamic songwriting style continued to develop on their next two albums Big Red Letter Day (1993) and Sleepy Eyed (1995), the band's sixth album - Smitten - is another step forward. Following a period of time off from one another (during which Bill released the exceptional solo album Lonesome Billy and toured behind it, Chris composed original music for theatre productions of Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" and John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men", and Tom saw the birth of his second child), work on the album began with the traditional Buffalo Tom process of passing demos to one another. But as they pored over those rough songs, one thing became evident :

"We wanted to try some new things," Bill explains. "Keyboards had always been present on our records, but they seemed to be taking even more of an increased role in the band for the first time. This time, a lot of the songs were written with keyboards in mind as opposed to having them pasted on as an afterthought."

The band, together with Tom Gorman (ex-Belly) who tagged along as a temporary keyboardist and second guitarist, organised a ten day writing / recording retreat in the winter of 1996 on the island of Chappaquiddick off of Martha's Vineyard, and it was during this period that Smitten's evolution really began. Gorman's place was later taken by keyboardist Phil Aiken, who entered the fold after Bill stumbled on a classified in the local arts paper. "He listed all the right influences - My Bloody Valentine, Stereolab, Sebadoh, the Stones," says Bill.

The band then checked into the legendary Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York, which contrasted markedly with the spartan Dreamland nearby where Buffalo Tom had recorded Sleepy Eyed. Working in the dead of winter, they managed several weeks before cabin fever led them to decamp to Royaltone studio in Los Angeles to complete recording and mixing.

For a band with such a rigorous quality control process, who go into each album with at least fifty new songs, working with the producer Dave Bianco proved to be an eye-opening experience. "This was probably the first time that someone really worked with us on melodies and songs," says Chris Colbourn. "And you really had to fight for what you wanted to keep or not keep. I mean, we fight with each other over the songs, that's nothing new," he adds, laughing, "But this is the first time we were really challenged on the material by someone outside the band. That was a significant change for us."

"A lot more went into this record than any of our previous records," concludes Bill, and ultimately the results far justify the struggle. The first single, "Wiser," a beautiful ballad with sweeping strings and vivid imagery, looks back to "a time around college...and is definitely one of the more personal songs on the album", according to Bill. "Rachael," which is the first single in the USA, is driven Chris Colbourn's urgent vocals, by stellar harmonies and a call-and-response chorus. The song, Chris wryly adds, is partly inspired by Giulletta Masina in the Fellini film "Nights of Cabiria".

Buffalo Tom's wonderful ability to capture elusive feelings and experiences in their songs has always set them apart as songwriters. Bill's gravelly, emotive voice rubs against Chris's sweeter, warmer vocals, and that juxtaposition is one reason for the subtle power of their songs, as the vocal arrangements on "Postcard" and "Wiser" testify. A certain album standout "Scottish Windows," with its melancholy guitar chords, picturesque lyrics, soaring strings, subtle piano, perfect harmonies and passionate chorus, seems to encapsulate all of Buffalo Tom's qualities.

Because Buffalo Tom have been able to evolve as a band without discarding their past, they have matured impressively - the band's current material is as strong lyrically and compositionally as it has ever been. Almost alone amongst their contemporaries, they are still developing their craft and finding soulful new ways to express themselves - truly, Buffalo Tom are a band to treasure

- September 1998

Sleepy Eyed Biography (1995)

Buffalo Tom's classic songs of unrequited obsession, rejection, discomfort and shattered dreams have been a vital expression and outlet for their ever-building fanbase since the release of the band's eponymous debut on SST in 1989. Since then the band has toured the world and released three more albums on Beggars Banquet. Their titles Birdbrain, Let Me Come Over and [big red letter day] are founded on regret, and fuelled with unrealistic expectations, disappointment and alienation. In this respect they are just like any other bunch of kids brought up on Catholicism and an outwardly comfortable lifestyle. It's not what's on the outside, it's what's on the inside that counts. Behind the white picket fences and the clean net curtains of the heartlands of America lie dark secrets and unfulfilled dreams. Don't get me wrong - this isn't some story about finding a severed ear by the side of the road. It's more a story of a guy sat on some steps outside a boarded-up house staring vacantly into space thinking - no, wishing that - he'd said what he meant to say, rather than what he thought he ought to say.

Tom, or Chris or Bill could be this guy. You could. I know I have been. That's what's so important about Buffalo Tom. The name is kind of down to earth, but it also dreams of the great Western spaces and days of yore. Days when things were a bit more simple than they may be today. You may live in the real world, but dreams are what are important (far more important than reality). Unfortunately dreams, like promises made, are made to be broken. And that's the crux of the matter.

It comes as no surprise that Sleepy Eyed was recorded in Dreamland studios, a nineteenth century wooden deconsecrated Catholic church with no soundproofing and no air-conditioning. It's in Woodstock, another fateful and shattered, commercialised and muddy vision/manifestation. In Dreamland, there is nothing to do but dream. There are no pool tables, no famous rock stars or movie makers dropping in for a chat and a glass of still mineral water. There are amps, mics, pews, a mixing desk in place of an altar, some great stained glass windows, and some solid oak doors to keep out the cold.

"The Catholic boy in me asked, 'Is this sacrilegious ?', but it was more like being in someone's house and just playing with friends. We just played it out live. We had thought maybe we could just lay it down tough and raw and see what happened." (Bill)

Tom, Chris and Bill went to Dreamland loaded with their favourite new material. They'd written the songs over the previous years - well, how many lives have you had, how many things have you left undone ? - and were set to record them in the way that would feel most comfortable. And most special. They went north from their Boston homes having developed and honed them. In the previous six weeks, Bill had taped a load of ideas with words, and Chris had done some, too. Just sketches, really. They had jammed them with Tom, who had helped to arranged them. They had combined their raw, classic, acoustic American material with his unique rhythmic feel and had got the idea of what should be electric, where things should go.

"I play drums as a guitarist. I've never learned properly as a drummer, so I just do what comes naturally to me, and that's what makes that sound. I end up using the drums as a kind of guitar rather than as a percussive device." (Tom)

"We could do a quadruple album every year, the amount of songs we write. I sometimes think about the songs that we leave behind on the floor and wonder what would happen if we had kept them, too." (Chris)

Bill used his appreciation of Tom Waits, the Replacements, Husker Du, Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan, and his love of the written word. Chris brought in his punkpop sensibilities, his rubber rat, and his love for a whole range of written music. Tom's drumming was more based on his previous experience as a guitarist. The synergy these elements provided worked for them and producer John Agnello while they recorded their fifth album.

Sleepy Eyed was recorded live. For fourteen hours a day with one day off a week for three weeks, Tom, Chris and Bill recorded their songs. Sleepy Eyed was recorded with all the members of the band all in the same place, all playing at the same time. That's the way Tom, Chris and Bill like to play (they do a lot of gigs, that's what they do when they travel the world). They can listen to one another and use the feeling from that to make great, enduring, special music. There was no reason for them to do anything else. No reason for them to change their style. No reason for them to sell out for another dream. They got on with John, and they got on with recording their songs. Sleepy Eyed was done before they knew what happened. And they were real happy with what they got. Real happy.

"It was a kind of reaction to the last record, where we were all really careful with the layers, the individual guitar parts, the elements that built up the eventual sound. We didn't worry about the bleeds from mic to mic, we used live vocal takes." (Bill)

"We feel more natural playing live. We just want to make records we want to hear. It's all too self-conscious to do something different for the sake of it. That's like someone telling a mystery writer to write non-fiction." (Chris)

The end result is the stunning new album from Buffalo Tom. It opens with three Pure Now Pop songs : "Tangerine", new single "Summer", and "Kitchen Door". The unique Buffalo Tom sound is there. Picture them in the church - in their heads they're on stage, playing their favourite way. In concert the band has been awarded accolades since they first went out to play. They have brought this feel lock, stock and barrel onto Sleepy-Eyed. The words are inspired by slices of Bill and Chris's lives. By what their friends have said and done. By what they wish they'd said and never did. By their emotions, both uplifted and disappointed. Day to day hopes and fears are what fuel this band, as they fuel their audience.

"Your expectations sometimes exceed the reality of the situation when you're an adolescent. I guess I try to focus on life when I'm writing. There's a lot disappointment in life - it's universal ... what is a normal person ? Everyone I know is so messed up in their own way." (Bill)

It's the greatest gig. Seven songs under three minutes, and some awesome Buffalo Tom epics ("Sunday Night", "Sparklers", "Crueller"). The raw sound of the band's earlier recordings (with J Mascis) combines with the songwriting skills they have developed as a band over their career to date. Perfectly paced, with enduring and endearing ballads ("Clobbered", "20 Points" - just listen to that bit where the drums drop right down), and more mid-Western pop songs ("Sundress", "Souvenir"), Sleepy Eyed is no disappointment.

"During the last couple of years we've stopped watching MTV and maybe realised our place in the world." (Chris)

"I can't help but be really cynical about success. It seems that the people who get really big really fast flicker out really fast. We're allowed much more artistic freedom than so many new bands. We can record whatever with whoever and each record sells more than the one before." (Bill)

"Maybe we could be like Sonic Youth, or The Fall, or Tom Waits - with an established audience that's constantly building. I think it's unfashionable to admit that you want to be around for a while. We just want respect, and we want to stand out as songwriters." (Bill)

"The more records we make, the more isolated we feel from the politics of the music industry). We look at it and laugh." (Bill)

Sleepy Eyed is proof that you can have the best of both worlds. This may come as a pleasant surprise to Tom, Chris and Bill. Buffalo Tom. A band out on their own.

WISER

SINGLE

- Wiser

- Cupid Come

- Hawaiian Baby

SLEEPY EYED

- Tangerine

- Summer

- Kitchen Door

- Rules

- It's You

- When You Discover

- Sunday Night

- Your Stripes

- Sparklers

- Clobbered

- Sundress

- Twenty

- Points

- Souvenir

- Crueler

- Sodajerk

- I'm Allowed

- Tree House

- Would Not Be Denied

- Latest Monkey

- My Responsibility

- Dry Land

- Torch Singer

- Late at Night

- Suppose

- Anything that Way

 

- Staples

- Taillights Fade

- Mountains of Your Head

- Mineral

- Darl

- Larry

- Velvet Roof

- I'm Not There

- Stymied

- Porchlight

- Frozen Lake

- Saving Grace

- Crutch

- Birdbrain

- Skeleton Key

- Caress

- Guy Who is Me

- Enemy

- Crawl

- Fortune Teller

- Baby

- Directive

- Bleeding Heart

- Heaven

- Reason Why (Acoustic)

BUFFALO TOM

 

- Sunflower Suit

- The Plank

- Impossible

- 500,000 Warnings

- The Bus

- Blue

- Racine

- In the Attic

- Fushing Stars

- Walk Away

- Reason Why

- Deep In the Ground

BUFFALO TOM... CHRIS COLBOURN / BILL JANOVITZ / TOM MAGINNIS

Fans of America's most soulful guitar trio have been eagerly anticipating this moment, the release of Buffalo Tom's fourth album, Big Red Letter Day. Not just because they crave more of this music, but because they sense that the time is prime for the band to receive the kind of attention and worldwide acclaim that they have long deserved.

Think of the way REM blossomed around the time of Life's Rich Pageant. On it's fourth album a group will often venture beyond the point where it defined itself and enter a more relaxed, exploratory mode. Whipping the light out from behind the bushel and using it to start a funeral pyre for its influences. This is the moment when Buffalo Tom answer to nothing but themselves.

You can sense the time is right for several reasons. Firstly, in England, there's at least one popular new band who make a point of sounding as much like the Tom as they can. Imitation being a form of flattery and all that. Proof if you need it that Buffalo Tom is a highly distinctive band. Secondly, anyone trying to drum up comparisons after hearing Big Red Letter Day is going to find them ringing hollow. No one else sounds quite the same as this: Buffalo Tom at the height of their powers.

Dedicated fans have come to admire Buffalo Tom's simplicity, candour and togetherness on the journey to this peak. The band's calm ascent has not been based around the charms of a single persona. Other Boston bands, such as Dinosaur Jr and the Lemonheads found fame when the eccentricities of a lone creative force were emphasised. Buffalo Tom's appeal is subtler and built on a solid triangular foundation.

It's their songs, songs they write together, that have won them admirers. Those heart snagging chord shifts, those questioning lyrics, and that feeling you get from them of a person stranded within himself trying to make sense of the terrain. Songs not so much about the soul of America as the America of the soul. The wide open spaces inside. The geography of three young men from Massachusetts.

You get the impression that, in 1986, as many people carried a guitar at the University of Massachusetts as carried a pencil.

Chris Colbourn was in a group with a mildly obscene name. He was introduced to this quiet guy with a guitar named Tom Maginnis. Tom filled in on bass when the band opened for a nascent Dinosaur Jr at a house party. J Mascis sat in on drums with them once or twice to return the favour. The youngest of the group, Bill Janovitz, turned up a year later with some songs he wanted to try. To play them, Tom went behind the drums, Chris picked up the bass and Bill opted to sing. More house parties, "Hey these guys are pretty good", etc.

So you get the picture small college clique. Nothing too unusual about that except that two exceptional groups would grow from it.

A very important role in this story was played by a guy named Bob Hamilton who kind of introduced everyone. Arty and prone to doodling, it was Bob who came up with a cartoon character named Buffalo Tom. When Bill, Chris and Tom started playing together, another friend encouraged them to adopt it as a band name. (Other stories have done the rounds. Apparently there's a well known college philosophy textbook that compares and contrasts the lives of an Idaho Tom and a Buffalo Tom, but the band were unaware of that.) Bob has since been responsible for all the band's artwork on record sleeves, T-shirts and videos.

Somewhere around the fourth of July 1987 Buffalo Tom cut it's first demo. The first song recorded was "Deep In The Ground" (you can hear this recording on the CD reissue of their debut album). Chris scoured his record collection for addresses and came up with Megadisc - a Dutch label that released records by the Gun Club - and sent the demo to them. Two months later they got a reply. Ric Urmel at Megadisc was very impressed with their tape and agreed to fund further studio time. The album Buffalo Tom and a single "Sunflower Suit" had been ready for about a year before they were released in 1989.

The album quickly caused a stir. The British music press seized on it as a classic debut. Melody Maker voted it into its Top 20 albums of the year. Grant Hart of Husker Du named it as a favourite album of the decade. In America it was released through SST, but was somewhat overshadowed by the growing cult fame of their friend and label mate J Mascis (who appeared halfway through the recording to help out with the production) and his Dinosaur Jr. You know how people are, they assume that what they heard first was born first, even though Buffalo Tom were simply a different aspect of a mutual Boston sound.

J Mascis knew the score, though, and again helped the band out by producing their tempestuous follow up, Birdbrain, in 1990. A Buffalo Tom style was quickly taking shape. There were wall to wall guitars and feverish tempos, but also on occasions, Bill's voice took on an almost country-ish twang. Across the albums you can hear that tone becoming richer, maturer, more confident. People began to wonder what drove this redheaded guy with the red blooded voice. Bill wasn't giving much away, just keeping his red head down and making his guitar sound like there were three of him whenever they played live.

It was last year's astonishing Let Me Come Over that really turned heads. The trio of stunning singles, "Velvet Roof", "Tailights Fade" and "Mineral" showed them to be equally at home with wayward, choppy riffs, blizzards of electric guitar or crepuscular acoustic calm. Their trade mark "boulder down a mountain" rhythms had as much momentum as ever, but the chilly introspection of songs like "Frozen Lake" and "Crutch" was new. Bill's work was reaching further and digging deeper. Chris' featured songs, "Darl" and "I'm Not There" became stage favourites during their extensive world tour.

Meanwhile, the British press were foaming again. Both Let Me Come Over and "Tailights Fade" ranked high in critics and readers year end polls. Acclaim began to build in Europe and Australia and "Mineral" started to feature Heavily on American rock radio.

Which brings us up to Big Red Letter Day.

Entering rehearsals with almost five dozen songs between them, the band realised that the next record was going to be something special. They knew that they wanted t o co-produce but they were also aware that someone damned good and on their wavelength was needed to help them sift through all the ideas. After months of deliberation they chose the Robb Brothers.

The Robbs are another extraordinary trio. Dee, Bruce, and Joe have been in the music business for about thirty years, playing in bands together, engineering and producing records with Tom Dowd and Jerry Wexler, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Neil Diamond, Steely Dan, Motley Crue, er Nelson and, gulp, The Bay City Rollers.

Their LA based Cherokee Studios has also become a favourite place for rap artists to record. Ice Cube Freestyle Fellowship and Kid Frost have all been there recently. So have Rick James, Lita Ford and David Lynch. It's a cosmopolitan placeto work.

The Robbs had more or less given up producing as computers increasingly dominated the recording process and their organic analog way of making records fell out of favour. But, in the last couple of years there has been an inevitable drift back in their direction. Bands from a punk tradition have sought simply to capture the sound of people playing together in a room. After a long break from the desk, the Robbs were asked to make the Lemonheads warm and warmly received It's A Shame About Ray last year.

Buffalo Tom were attracted to the Robbs working methods, fascinated by their past history and intrigued at the thought of working in an atmosphere totally antithetical to the public perception of the grungy Boston vibe.

The results will surprise and delight long term fans and new listeners alike. The disparate strands of Let Me Come Over are more sharply focused. There's a new open-plan feel to the arrangements, often overseen by drummer Tom. Bill doesn't hide behind those sheets of guitar so much. His voice is up-front and full of character. Chris' vocal performances are his strongest yet. It's a well rounded, accessible album with all the things that Buffalo Tom fans adore still firmly in place, plus unusual elements like the background singing on "Treehouse" courtesy of the Waters sisters, prominent voices on recordings by everyone from the Rolling Stones to Luther Vandross.

Most of all, there is Buffalo Tom's electrifying emotional strength. Never shy of exposing raw nerve in their songs, they have often drawn criticism from people who mistrust the expression of emotion. People who think hearts worn on the sleeve are an uncool fashion tip at any time. Buffalo Tom will continue to irritate those people. Nor will they please people who think a choke in the voice is somehow melodramatic. Nor people who get uncomfortable when a song replicates their own experience, when a chord shift speaks volumes. Some people like their music oblique,impersonal and indirect. These people should steer clear of Buffalo Tom. Unless they want to hear the opposite kind of music being perfectly realised.

Link to the approved BuffaloTom Site.