The Idle Class Magazine

Ryan Adams

The Music Hall—Kansas City, MO

2/3/12

Ryan Adams is getting older.  Not quite old, but older nonetheless.  This was evident as the former It Kid took the stage at The Music Hall in Kansas City, MO, on Feb. 2. This is Adams’ solo tour to support his new album “Ashes and Fire.” The stage was minimal:  a piano, two guitars, and a chair.  The most notable aspects were his beverages:  a cup of coffee and a bottle of water. For years, Adams brandished his well-earned reputation as a booze-lovin’, speed-ballin’ walking id onstage.  He cussed, pouted, and booted fans out of shows.  Now, pushing 38, he’s mellowed out to say the least.

I feel like I’ve come of age with Adams. As a brash 20 year old, I stumbled upon his seminal album “Gold” in a Barnes & Noble. Suddenly, I felt like I’d found my sensei. His music provided the soundtrack for countless stupid and/or sad nights in my early 20s. I got the haircut, bought the boots, and tuned up the six-string. Nobody told me I couldn’t sing. And to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have listened if they had. It took a while to come to my senses and realize that Ryan I was not.

Though my dreams went to the alt-country honky tonk in the sky, my love for Ryan Adams’ music remained.  Now, when I hear Adams’ new single “Lucky Now,” the verse sticks with me:

“I don’t remember were we wild and young?

All that’s faded into memory.

I feel like somebody I don’t know

Are we really who we used to be?

Am I really who I was?”

Walking past the loud-mouthed booze boys lingering in the lobby by the cash bar, I shook my head, remembering who I used to be. So it was nice to sit down to the mellowed out Ryan 2.0. His set featured just about every song you’d want to hear (except “Oh My Sweet Carolina” unfortunately). He kept the material from the new album to a minimum, playing on a few songs such as the aforementioned single, “Ashes & Fire,” and “Dirty Rain.”

Adams showed his self-deprecating side while cracking jokes about his lyrics. He played an impromptu number mocking his use of rain as a lyrical device, at one point mentioning John Cusack should walk onstage during his songs. After he spilled his lyric sheets accidentally, he said, “If I forget the line, I’ll just say something sad.”

This contrast played well as he poured through some of his older material such as “Sweet Little Gal,” “Everybody Knows,” and “My Winding Wheel.” One of the shows highlights was a new piano arrangement for “New York, New York.” The bulk of the set came from his work with the Cardinals, notably the “Cold Roses” album. He played songs like “Let It Ride,” “If I Am a Stranger,” and “When Will You Come Back Home.”  He touched upon the “Love is Hell” EPs. (My personal favorite of his entire catalogue.)  The highlight from this had to be his classic cover of “Wonderwall.”

Of course, he ended the first set with “Come Pick Me Up.” He returned for a brief encore and closed the show with more “Cold Roses” highlights, ending with “Sweet Illusion.” At one point, he stopped the song to point out just how passive-aggressive the lyrics were. This is the new Ryan Adams—always looking to sneak a punch line instead of a punch.

Adams has a few shows left on this tour and if you get the chance, pick up a ticket. He’s older and wiser, but still has the goods. It’s almost enough to get me to dust off my boots and tune up the six-string. Almost. — Kody Ford

Randall Shreve released his new album “The Jester” recently.  Andrew McClain covered the record’s release for The Idle Class.

“THE LAST KING OF VAUDEVILLE”

Randall Shreve gets darker, dirtier on new album

By Andrew McClain

Staff Writer

Around noon on a Sunday, Idle Class editor Kody Ford and I pull up to Adam Putman and Randall Shreve’s Insomniac Studios in Fayetteville. The studio is seated comfortably in a small complex of industrial spaces, well-suited for a workshop or small warehouse. Shreve is waiting for us out on the loading dock, wearing his black bowler hat, white wife-beater, black jeans and black boots.  Shreve welcomes us inside the studio, which is a large room with a vaulted ceiling, a partitioned-off control room, and a tiny, utilitarian corner bathroom. The rest is used to filled with every imaginable musical instrument, with an especially various collection of smaller keyboard instruments.  

     We sit down on a few old couches and begin to talk.  Shreve talks candidly about his development as an artist, which starts at age nine on the drum set. He spent seven years of his youth touring with his older brother, Benjamin Del Shreve. He speaks of his first album, “The Cure For Yesterday,” and how drastically different it is from what he’s currently working on. In fact, it’s not uncommon for artists who have come this far from a debut album to disown their early work.

     “I found my voice in with that album,” Shreve says, admitting that he was very attached to his influences at that point, learning to write by way of emulating them. As someone who was initially very shy about playing in front of others, Shreve admits to to “hiding behind his influences.” He said, “I was comforted to think that if someone didn’t like one of those songs, they just didn’t like Jeff Buckley, or whoever I was imitating. I was safe from being judged.” 

     After that album was released in 2006, Shreve decided to focus on disconnecting himself from his influences. “Letting my ideas breathe was a really vulnerable experience,” Shreve says.  Finding his stage persona was difficult for Shreve. “I’d call my brother and say ‘Where do I look when I’m singing?’ It was uncomfortable not being behind a drum set. So I developed this persona as a protective measure.” 

     Shreve’s new persona introduced itself alongside a new sound — a fiery, burlesque rock. Shreve moved to New York City and recorded a new album called “The Entertainer” at Legacy Studios in Manhattan. His stage presence became bold and dramatic, and his lyrical subject matter shifted in a lurid direction.

     “This persona ended up becoming indistinguishable from my identity and I really dropped my moral compass. Since then, it’s been a struggle to find a balance.”  Shreve feels like he has found his balance, though, and seeks to leave his persona onstage. Shreve seems happy to be back in Northwest Arkansas, though adjusting to the pace of life was strange at first.   

     “I feel so much more productive because one day here seems like three days in New York.”  Shreve is intensely business minded. Upon returning to Arkansas, he sat down with his keyboardist, Tim Grace, and drew up a very detailed business plan with a focus on promotion and hitting all of the major music venues within six hours driving distance of Fayetteville.  Shreve quickly got to work on a new album, which he calls “The Jester.” Once again, he’s trying to significantly shift his style, this time by taking the ideas he developed on “The Entertainer” and making them more interesting.

     “The Entertainer,” Shreve explains, “is kind of like a Hollywood vampire — slick, pretty, seductive and dangerous, whereas ‘The Jester’ would be like a more gruesome, gritty portrayal of a vampire. He’s ugly. He eats people.”  Shreve paces while playing the new album for us over the studio monitors from his iPod. He wanders outside for a brief cigarette, which he says he has mostly quit in the interest of preserving his voice. He wanders back in. He picks up an antique accordion, which is over 100 years old. 

     “My friends in New York really pushed me to start listening to Tom Waits, but it took me a while,” Shreve says.

     Suddenly, Shreve saw something in Tom Waits that he wanted to emulate. He wanted to take the slick, seductive elements of his music and have them trampled by the more terrifying, macabre elements.   

     “Everything’s more exaggerated and clashing with everything else. The rock is more rock. The vaudeville is more vaudeville. I feel like it’s dirtier and more organic.”  Shreve is also coming into his own as a perfectionist, writing the album alone and recording rough demos of all the parts in the studio, then taking them to his band, The Sideshow to record for the album. Shreve speaks highly of his band’s musicianship.

     “One one hand, it’s incredible to be able use them to get sounds out of my head that I’d never be able to play myself,” Shreve says, “but on the other hand, sometimes I wanted really messy keyboard parts, and I had some difficulty getting Tim to play his keyboard parts poorly enough. I’d say ‘You need to play this part like me. You need to play this like you don’t play piano so well.’”

Follow Sherve on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/randallshreve, Twitter:

@randallshreve, or www.randallshreve.com.

Trevor Richardson, author of American Bastards.  

PHOTO courtesy of Trevor Richardson

“A Real Bastard: Trevor Richardson on writing, music, and the DIY movement”

By Kody Ford

Editor

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of seeing Trevor Richardson give a reading from his debut novel American Bastards. Besides being a helluva nice guy, Trevor is pretty gifted wordsmith, who can wield a simile like it’s nobody’s business. His prose is neo-Kerouac and he possesses the ability to draw you into his twisted world through his rapid fire delivery and charismatic stage presence. Ergo, I knew he’d be perfect to interview for the debut issue of The Idle Class.  Here’s what he had to say:

On Writing:

Trevor: “I often tell people that I feel like one of the least literary (or is it literate?) writers ever. I love books, but don’t like most things people choose to write. I think it was George Bernard Shaw that said he felt like an ordinary man who just felt compelled to write. I don’t know what book that’s from but I know I relate to it. I’m just a dude that isn’t happy unless he’s juggling words. That said, I don’t have very many influences; I don’t believe in most of the collegiate philosophies on writing; I’ve never finished a creative writing course in my life; and I think Jonathan Franzen kind of sucks. 

“I get more ideas for books from listening to Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, or Willie Nelson than I ever got from Melville or Steinbeck. Stylistically, too, the choice of how to use words or what not to say comes more often from lyrics than literary influence. I feel like a rock star at heart, but I lack the technical skill to make good music, so instead I write and find excuses to get on stage. Also, a little side note, the first chapter I ever wrote for American Bastards was inspired by “Back of a Truck” by Regina Spektor. Say what you want about her being too cute or too trendy or too commercial these days, but when I first heard that weird song I said, ‘I want to write something like this.’ The end result is this book.”

On Getting Published:

Trevor:  “My book got published because I was unemployed and looking for work on Craigslist.  Weird, right?  I know.  I found my publisher through a job posting.  They wanted someone to help them with marketing, social media, and order management.  I went in, completely under qualified, but somehow got an interview.  I made an impression, but not in the way I intended.  As a writer, rather than an employee.  They hired somebody that actually went to school for this stuff, go figure.  But they told me they wanted to publish American Bastards.  And there you have it.  I wound up getting a job at a 60 year-old Portland party store working with costumes and balloons and noisemakers and still got a published novel out of the deal which is, after all, the only reason I applied for the job.”

On Being a Writer:

Trevor:  “It’s weird.  There’s always one more hurdle in front of you that keeps you from feeling legitimate.  Like, ‘It’ll feel real once the book is in my hands, printed.’ You get that and it still doesn’t hit, so then it’s, ‘When I get my first royalty check.’ No, still not feeling it. ‘Maybe my first radio interview?’ I’ve done all this stuff.  Interviews with magazines, on the radio, I just finished my first book tour, I did a big reading in New York City, I have my book in stores…I still just feel like a normal guy, a young, aspiring writer that is baffled by the change in how people treat me.  That’s the biggest thing.  

“When you’re trying to publish your first book nobody cares, you aren’t special, you’re just another guy with another manuscript that looks and sounds like a million others.  Everybody has a book, you know?  A lot of them are probably better than mine but go unpublished.  But then, through some twist of fate, you get your book out there and suddenly, simply because it’s on a few shelves in a place other than your house, you become an expert.  Now you’re a professional.  Now these same people want to know about your process, your opinion, you get invited to do readings, to do talks at schools, all kinds of weird stuff.  To a cynical country boy like me, it feels kind of hypocritical.  Like, ‘Yesterday you sent me a form rejection letter and now you want me to do what?’

“Incidentally, I think I will feel like a real writer when my next book comes out.”

On Literature Going Digital:

Trevor:  “Literature has gone digital.  It’s not hypothetical anymore.  The vast majority of publishers are using digital methods…In my opinion, anything to get people reading again is a good thing.  If we have to sacrifice the feel of the pages in your hand in order to keep America literate, then I’m all for it.  That said, books aren’t going anywhere…[T]here will always be people that want their bookshelves full so they look impressive to houseguests.  What did I say earlier, I am more influenced by music than literature?  Well, here’s a music analogy for you.  How many times have people said vinyl is dead?  And yet how many bands can you list right now that just put out a vinyl record, an actual LP?  I could name a dozen easy.

“In the same way, book collectors will always want books, if anything, the dividing line will get thicker, you’ll have a book that is purely digital or only available in an ornate hardbound copy.  In the end, it doesn’t affect writers much at all, we’ll still write and sell and earn royalties and get our stuff out there.  Furthermore, digital makes distribution faster and easier, so we might be worrying for no reason, it’s possible there’s a brighter future in Kindles and the like than we give credit for.  It’s all up to the readers, it’s always been up to the readers.  You should interview one of them.”

On Being Published by  Small Press:

Trevor:   “A small Press is a double-edged sword, pardon the cliche.  You have a lot more creative freedom, you know your publisher and editors personally, it’s a friendly more communal environment, and they’re typically more committed to quality than the bigger publishers.  The big publishers have a lot of extra pressures that result in them making fiscal decisions over artistic ones.  However, the small presses also don’t have a lot of money so their ability to reach a large audience is limited. 

I say for a writer in the position to choose you just have to ask yourself which is more important, knowing your book is going to be printed in the way that you wrote it, or possibly getting it sold to a ton of people over night.  The thing is, you can still succeed even without the resources offered by a big conglomerate, you just have to be willing to work hard, collaborate and be inventive.  Moreover, it’s extremely rare that a big publishing company is going to do much more for your first novel than a small press will.  It just isn’t a good cost-risk ratio or whatever they call it.  In the end, I’d say write the book you love, expect it not to be a bestseller overnight, just work on making something really good and work hard to reach your audience, and save the dreams of quitting your day job and financial success and accolades or whatever reasons you have for doing this for the next book.  But this is key, make something good, that you love, not just something you think will sell.

Advice for Writers & Other Musings:

Trevor:  “Don’t wait around for someone to find you.  If you’re getting rejected, start your own publishing company and publish yourself.  If you don’t know how to do that then find a friend that loves books and figure it out.  This talk about going digital means one thing: hard times for the longstanding publishing giants, and possibilities, innumerable possibilities, for the crafty, self-reliant and driven author…The truth is, there will never be a time when you “get discovered” and suddenly you are magically on talk shows or radios or magazine covers.  All of it takes work, phone calls, emails, and nagging.  You have to plug away at every small success…I wasted years waiting and hoping and mailing letters, if someone had told me what I just said things would have been really different.  There are so many resources out there just on the Internet alone use them, find them, and just do it for yourself.  It doesn’t make you a fake writer or a failure because you didn’t find some suit in New York to sell for you.  It makes you a daring, DIY creative type who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“The future of art, in my opinion, is not in looking for bigger companies with bigger funds to do it for you.  It’s in doing it yourself.  Moreover, it’s in working together, not alone.  If you’re a writer, don’t just seek out other writers, find musicians, painters, actors, poets, dancers, and bring them all together.  There’s no reason to be so divided and compartmentalized that is a way of thinking devised and propagated by the same people that are rejecting your work right now.  The only thing that matters is finding people in the same boat you are in, trying to make it, trying to find an audience, and trying to make something good.  Remember that and pursue it.  See where it takes you. 

“And if you get something together, invite me, I want to know about it.  I’m serious, I’m just a dude, I want to know you.  Email me at trevor@americanbastards.com.  That’s my real email; this is not a joke.  We are going to change the art world by relying on each other, not by relying on bigger business powers to grant us success with the wave of a wand or a finger or a laser pointer.  That is all.”

We’ve been on a bit of a hiatus for a while.  I put together our first issue last fall, but shelved it to launch a website.  Well, that’s taking longer than I anticipated so I’m just going to start posting some of the stories and works from the first issue.  Please submit if you have fiction, poetry, art, or photography.  If you’re in a band, shoot me some links to check out your stuff.  Thanks.

Kody Ford

Editor

One of my favorite films of the year has been “Take Shelter” by Little Rock native Jeff Nichols. Here’s my review of the film.  If you haven’t seen it yet, find a theatre that’s playing it and go today.  Hell, clock out early catch a 4 o’clock show.  It’s worth it.—Kody Ford

REVIEW: “Take Shelter”

(2011)

Written & Directed by Jeff Nichols

Starring: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain

Throughout history, men have prophesied about impended doom.  The famous ones like Noah made the history books.  Everyone else was forgotten.  So how many people were right and how many were crazy?  Considering we can’t go back through history to see if the myths handed down held some truth or were whitewashed by hindsight, it makes it difficult to pin down that answer.  “Take Shelter” addresses that question while leaving the audience guessing until the last minute.

The film has put writer/director Jeff Nichols, a Little Rock native, on the map.  It received awards from the International Federation of Film Critics, the Cannes Film Festival, and the Deauville American Film Festival.  The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and screened at festivals around the world.  That’s a lot of accolades so the question remains:  Does it live up to the hype?

No.  It exceeds it. 

Having fairly enjoyed Nichols’ debut “Shotgun Stories” (2007), I approached the film with an open mind.  Sure I knew about the hype, but I’d heard similar things about “Shotgun Stories,” which is a solid film, but the pacing drags at times.  Both films star Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Boardwalk Empire) as a stoic, paternal figure who tries to hold everything together as it all falls apart.

In “Take Shelter,” Shannon portrays Curtis LaFourche, a blue-collar father who begins having visions of an apocalyptic weather event. Throughout the film, his visions become more lucid and violent.  At first glance, his dreams of raging neighbors and distant tornadoes could be viewed as a means of dealing with the stress and perceived helplessness of being a father to a hearing-impaired daughter (Tova Stewart).  He begins to worry that he is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia like his mother. His wife, Samantha (Jessica Chastain), grows concerned as the lines blur between nightmare and reality.  When Curtis takes out a loan to expand his storm shelter, his life begins to unravel.

 Given its themes of helplessness and emasculation, “Take Shelter” has much in common with Don DeLillo’s classic novel “White Noise.” Nichols has written a densely layered story that can be viewed as everything from an allegory of the declining economic security of the working class in American society to a full-blown warning about climate change. 

 Like his Biblical forebearer, Curtis is viewed as a madman, and perhaps he is, but you won’t know for certain until the final scene.  Nichols does a phenomenal job at keeping the viewer in suspense of what direction the film will take.  Shannon’s performance is his finest since “Revolutionary Road” and Chastian proves that she can move beyond her ethereal presence in “Tree of Life” and play a small town mother without being disingenuous.

 If you haven’t seen “Take Shelter,” I highly recommend you catch it either at a theatre (if you can find it in limited release) or snag it on Netflix once its released.  You won’t be disappointed.  In fact, you may find yourself jotting down notes for your plan of action when disaster strikes.

Photo by Jillian Bogy

By Kody Ford

The Pinstripes fought the Argyles on a Thursday night.

The blows were vicious and the crowd grew rowdy.

Some placed bets; others just drank.

I was one of the others.

We took our places against the dead, brick walls.

No one saying a word. Everybody knowing their place.

I tried not to make a scene. Just blend in with those

Intoxicated by their own cynicism.

“What kind of facial hair will be fashionable this season?”

We asked.

Music laid the backdrop.  Some sort of country-rock hybrid

Filled with fiddles and crying. Some sort of nonsense that was

So last year.

Acrylic and oil covered the walls. We looked upon them in awe,

Blind to what beauty can be. Blood splattered upon my face as

Bones crunched beneath bones.

The Pinstripes fought the Argyles on a Thursday night

And I bore witness to it all.  Quiet, lonely. 

Waiting for the next move.

I’m so sick of irony.

(Originally published in The Libertine, 2005)

“Tilt-a-whirl” by Jillian Bogy