Country gentleman

Tom Leach doesn't Hee or Haw

by Brett Milano

Listening to the downcast country songs on the Tom Leach debut album (on Slow Rover/Rykodisc), you might assume that the singer got his heart broken and took solace with a stack of Hank Williams albums. You'd be right, but you'd also be understating the case. When Leach discovered country music during a personal down time a few years back, it was the start of a full-fledged obsession. And the surprisingly accomplished songs on his album -- recorded on a four-track at home, and never intended for release -- are among his first.

"I never wrote anything before three years ago," he explains when I catch up with him housesitting at a local apartment. "When I came to Boston, I thought I was going to paint, throw pots. I got married, got divorced, then I started making music and that was a wonderful thing. I became obsessed, but with listening rather than performing -- I'd go to the library, copy pictures of country stars, and start writing poems to them. I bought a CD player so I could start buying those Bear Family boxed sets [exhaustive country compilations on a German reissue label]. It was really inspiring research, and I'd start trying to write songs for Merle Haggard or for Lefty Frizzell. I was in the middle of a heartbreak, so it kind of got me through -- plus I'd hit 30 and was going though that `What am I doing with my life?' kind of thing."

At the time Leach was also shuttling back and forth between Boston and the Athens/Atlanta area (where he'd grown up). During one stay in Athens he recorded a single ("Doris Days," a solo version of which is on the album) with longtime hero Vic Chesnutt. In Boston he played in a country cover band and passed off his own songs as covers. "There's too much of that Hee Haw thing around here, which is pretty depressing. You play a country night and it's usually people making jokes about marrying their cousins. To me country has this great beauty to it."

Like all fine honky-tonk balladeers, Leach holds the line between boozy self-pity and what-the-hell humor. His love for the tradition is evident in his wordplay and punning ("Doris Days" is about living in the suburbs with a housewife named Doris). And there's a touch of old-fashioned, bottom-of-the-bottle balladry in these lyrics from "Confidence": "My confidence is gone, my ego's going dim/I just don't have no confidence, you gave it all to him/My confidence is gone, you took me for a ride/You pushed me from the driver's seat and drove off with my pride." Or this from "She's Coming of Age": "She's coming of age, everyone sees her, that's what they say/I'm coming apart, I'm split in two, straight through my heart."

The latter tune, he says, was written in 15 minutes; the version on the album was completed less than an hour later. The deadpan vocals and cheapo sound add to the ambiance. But one could imagine these songs holding up under the glossier Nashville treatment.

"Most of the songs are pretty autobiographical -- I must have recorded 80 of them in about three months. Some of the songs that didn't make it on the album sound like they're from outer space -- I'd call friends over and say, `Hey, listen to this mess I just made.' But I don't like being so maudlin all the time. I've written some happy ones recently; they're not all whining about someone who done me wrong."

Leach might not have released anything if George Howard, owner of the local and newly Rykodisc-affiliated Slow River label, hadn't heard about him through a mutual friend (Joan Wasser of the Dambuilders). After meeting Leach backstage at a Vic Chesnutt show, Howard had to prod Leach into sending him a tape. "He finally sent me three hundred-minute cassettes full of songs. And I was amazed, because they were all good."

Leach still isn't sure where his music fits in, but he says he hasn't got much interest in the "No Depression" school of alternative country (Wilco, Uncle Tupelo). "People tell me I should listen to those bands, but I don't -- to tell you the truth, the only new albums I've bought this year are Vic Chesnutt and Gillian Welch."

He acknowledges that his next album is likely to have a more conventional country sound -- but "not too conventional. If you listen to my stuff you can hear a lot of mistakes in it. And you can do a lot with a mistake."

In fact his live show, which I caught last Sunday at Charlie's Tap, is nowhere near as somber as his album would have you believe. Backed by a quartet -- George Howard on mandolin, Cherry 2000's Dave Steele on lead guitar, and two members of Vic Firecracker -- he grinned his way through some upbeat numbers that aren't on the album, including the funny and self-explanatory "I Like Booze." Even a downcast number like `She's Coming of Age," played early in the set, took on a lively, poppish sound. You could appreciate the songcraft in it and stomp your feet to it. You could even make jokes about marrying your cousin.

FUZZY RETURN

As some great philosopher once said, when the going gets tough, the tough get a new drummer and write some more songs -- or words to that effect. Local popsters Fuzzy have reason to feel discouraged lately. Their shimmering, melodic Electric Juices (TAG/Atlantic) was one of last year's best local releases, with a dozen songs that would have made the airwaves a better place. But they lost their contract and their drummer (ex-Lemonhead Dave Ryan, who's left the rock world for grad school) at about the same time, and now they're looking for a new label, returning to the clubs, and facing the prospect of starting over. In short, Fuzzy have had the kind of year that's caused many less determined bands to give up.

"Well, there's still six months to go [before the year's over]," jokes singer/guitarist Hilken Mancini when I hook up with her and bandmates Chris Toppin (vocals/guitar) and Winston Braman (bass) at Charlie's Tap.

If the band's frustration is evident, so is the sense that they're not down yet. "What keeps us together is that we like to write songs together," says Mancini. "If there was a time when Chris stopped coming in with good songs, then I might get worried. But that hasn't happened yet. I think the hardest part is that we're not getting to put out a record this year. We're not sitting around picking artwork, or deciding who to thank."

The good news is that Fuzzy remain a damn fine pop group, with a stack of new songs that would make a solid follow-up to Electric Juices. (The new tunes have been previewed in recent live shows, and an album's worth has already been recorded at Fort Apache.) Because these songs were written between drummers, they showcase the band's prettier melodic side, revealing a melancholia that's been kept between the lines. In fact, the five-song tape I heard has at least two songs that surpass anything on the two official albums. "Never Be Replaced" is a bittersweet, loud-guitar love song in 3/4 time. My favorite, "Summer," has a wistful late-August feel and a sitar-like guitar lead, making the most of the harmonies of Toppin and Mancini -- the vocal counterpoints during the chorus hook are a thing of beauty. Like all Fuzzy's best songs, "Summer" evokes the spirit, if not necessarily the sound, of late-'60s pop, a fitting framework in this case for a song about trying to hold on to a passing bit of magic.

"We've written a lot of rock songs lately too," Toppin says, "but those didn't seem as exceptional. That's partly because we didn't have a drummer, but there may be something subconscious in there too. When we put Electric Juices out, we got a lot of resistance because everything on the radio had to be loud, it had to be a rock song. So now we're going even more in the other direction."

Still, it's a good bet that they'll be rocking loud again now that they've brought in energetic drummer Nate Darden, who debuted with Fuzzy at the Loud Festival last spring. Some better-known drummers had auditioned for Fuzzy in the interim, but Darden's a relative upstart at 22.

"I'm old enough to be his mother," notes Toppin, exaggerating the case somewhat.

"He's young, but we're corrupting him quickly," Braman adds.

"We tried out a few people," Toppin finishes, "but most of them thought that if they'd join Fuzzy, they'd get the big old tour bus and we're not like that. So they'd find that out, and then they'd join Veruca Salt." (Sure enough, Letters-to-Cleo-turned-Veruca-Salt-drummer Stacy Jones plays on the new demo.)

Last week Fuzzy played their first-ever entirely acoustic show, at the Kendall Café. On July 25 they'll be plugging back in to headline T.T. the Bear's Place -- smart A&R types, take notice.

COMING UP

New York punk-funk legends the Bush Tetras, who sounded great when the reunited band hit town last year, are back to play O'Brien's with the Pretty Flowers tonight (Thursday). The final of this year's Battle of the Blues Bands is at Harpers Ferry tonight; Mistle Thrush, Tugboat Annie, and Kaspar Hauser are all at the Middle East, Slide play at the Attic in Newton, the western-Massachusetts band Rosemary Caine play their last show at T.T. the Bear's Place, it's a country night with the Derailers and Nola Rose & the Thorns at Johnny D's, and the great New Orleans rockers Cowboy Mouth are at the Paradise . . . Tomorrow (Friday) it's Scatterfield and Weeping in Fits & Starts at T.T.'s, Pooka Stew at Bill's Bar, Fountains of Wayne at Mama Kin, Boy Wonder and Cellophane at Bill's, World Party at the Paradise, and an all-surf night featuring the Derangers' farewell at Club Bohemia.

On Saturday there's Orbit at Mama Kin, the Amazing Royal Crowns at the Paradise, Madder Rose and the Scud Mountain Boys at T.T.'s, Barrence Whitfield fronting his new band at the new Tam in Coolidge Corner, Chevy Heston at the Middle East, Asa Brebner and the Doom Buggies at Club Bohemia, and R&B legend King Floyd at the House of Blues . . . On Sunday, Bis are at the Middle East downstairs (Britain's Kenickie, who were set to join them, had to cancel), and Tuscadero and the Velocity Girl spinoff band Starry Eyes are upstairs . . . Acoustic songwriter Deb Pasternak has formed a rock band with the great name of Throws like a Girl -- they're doing a Monday-night residency at the Kendall Café . . . And on Wednesday the Muffs themselves are at the Middle East and, for those who can't get enough of that Abba stuff, Bjorn Again return to the Paradise.