WhatzUp

Busted Stuff
Dave Matthews Band
by Keith Roman

Attention all fellow drummers: Listen to how Carter Beauford chops, slices, dices and handily spices 12/8 time into an unrecognizable but tasty dish on the track, “You Never Know,” and then, for the fifth time today, let’s bow toward Mecca, errrr, I mean Charlottesville, and recite the confession together: “There is no drummer but Carter Beauford, and Dave Matthews is his prophet . . .”

That bit of musical genuflection aside, the perilous path that has led to the release of Busted Stuff has become the fodder of internet legend. A downtrodden, depressed, often-drunken Matthews and a discouraged band records a set of 12 brooding, introspective tracks with producer Steve Lillywhite. The band and the suits at the label decide the music isn’t going anywhere, and recruit semi-gloss producer Glenn Ballard to attempt to breathe life into the effort. Matthews and Ballard decide to set all of these tracks aside in favor of a hastily-written piece of radio-friendly pablum that became the album Everyday. (Let’s see, where is that disc? I had it here somewhere . . . there it is! . . . under my coffee cup.) Fans are frazzled and befuddled; suits see green. Band continues to play most of those 12 songs in concert. Someone leaks the scratch tracks of the Lillywhite Sessions onto the internet, where it becomes the most-downloaded album in history. Fans somewhat appeased; band befuddled and frazzled they were caught in their figurative and creative underwear with no makeup. The band goes back to the studio, performs CPR and injects some steroids into the lost tracks, scraps a couple tunes, adds a couple new tracks, and . . . Poof! Busted Stuff!

The reaction I had to the news that the Lillywhites were going to see the light of regular-release day was at first the happy dance. Then, I says to myself, “Self, uhh, we’s been listenin’ to d’ese songs for a year already. Da’ bloom is kinda’ offa de’ musical rose, if ya’ knows what I means.” Then myself answers, “Uhh self, ain’t youse ever satisfied? You, and a million fans is gettin’ whatcha’ asked for heres. Now, stop talkin’ to ya’self. And I suggest maybe getting some medication.”

Consider the lowly bovine, from which we can extract either hamburgers or t-bones. Whereas the Lillywhite Sessions were a tempting morsel of ground chuck preemptorily pilfered from the grill while the middle was still quite pink, Busted Stuff is the chef’s choice steak perfectly prepared, with a side of asparagus and hollandaise sauce. Unlike the Lillywhites, these songs are finished. The sometimes basic instrumental lines of the Lillywhites get quite a few counterpoints and harmonies layered over them. The quality of the recording and production is ultra-crisp, and Carter’s drum sound has never sounded so clear and distinguishable, down to the “piff” of every last splash cymbal. The tempos and energy are oh-so-subtly tweaked upward to extract more energy, more jazzy groove, and less brood. Songs that had meandering mumblings of lyrical lines before now have finished lyrics, save for “Kit Kat Jam,” which reverted to being a high-powered instrumental.

An experience that is kind of unique for any impassioned follower of Dave Matthews Band has always been the ability to hear how their songs evolve, often from something like a ditty played solo acoustic by Dave as a soundcheck, and swifty sent into cyberspace by a fan with a tape machine, to full-band jams, to a finished studio recording. One such song has been “Bartender,” which started out as something quite bland and repetitive, to an impassioned prayer on Dave’s solo acoustic appearances, to a much-sought-after song in concert, and has now become, on Busted Stuff, the band’s magnum opus. If there has been a better song written by anyone in the last five years, I don’t know what it is. (Yeah, I know that sounds kinda’ extreme.)

There are only a couple minor disappointments. I wish JTR had survived being voted off the Lillywhite island, and the choice of “Where Are You Going,” essentially a throwaway ballad, as the first single is questionable. The next single, “Grace is Gone,” a my-baby’s-gone-so-gimme-another-drink song, needed to stay slow, depressing, and steroid-free. I would release “Grey Street” as the next single instead, so the listening public remembers what a rockin’ band DMB still is. Boyd’s fiddle jams are starting to get a little repetitive as well. All these nitpicks are more than made up for by one listen to the song “You Never Know,” and an inclusion of an excellent two-song live DVD and an extra 5.1 audio mix of “Bartender,” with the CD.

Pick up Busted Stuff, and you, too will soon be screaming from the minarets, “There is no drummer but Carter . . . ”