DBT Albums - Week 2 - A Blessing and A Curse

[Kudzu Guillotine]

This was filmed during the second Tres Tangled Truckers show at the Pour House in Raleigh in 2005. Like the first one, this one included Caitlin Cary (Tres Chicas), Kevin Kinney (Sun Tangled Angel Revival) and of course, Jason. Hate I missed the first one but I'm glad I made it to this one. This was the first time I'd ever heard "Daylight" as well as "When the Well Runs Dry". Rick Cornell, who hosts Dirty Laundry on WCOM in Carrboro and who has also contributed to No Depression and the Oxford American (among other publications), penned this article about the show for Durham's Independent Weekly way back when.

[brett27295]

Patterson's obviously on a roll tonight...

I co-produced Jason's 1st solo album, but it didn't come out until a couple of years later due to record company bullshit.
Dress Blues was a later addition to that album, but I wasn't involved in that part of the recording, as Jason was moving in other directions and we weren't exactly getting along right then.

Well that makes sense. It seems most of the songs that Jason had written and performed solo & with the Jason Isbell Trio were already recorded for his solo record before A Blessing and A Curse.

[Flood18]

[quote="Kudzu Guillotine"]This was filmed during the second Tres Tangled Truckers show at the Pour House in Raleigh in 2005. Like the first one, this one included Caitlin Cary (Tres Chicas), Kevin Kinney (Sun Tangled Angel Revival) and of course, Jason. Hate I missed the first one but I'm glad I made it to this one. This was the first time I'd ever heard "Daylight" as well as "When the Well Runs Dry". Rick Cornell, who hosts Dirty Laundry on WCOM in Carrboro and who has also contributed to No Depression and the Oxford American (among other publications), penned this article about the show for Durham's Independent Weekly way back when.

Anyone have recordings of these shows or a link? First time ive heard of these and am really interested.

[Clams]

It's tough when your own thoughts and reflections have to follow Patterson's, but I'll give it a try...

When I used to listen to this record, I thought half the songs were great and the other half were pretty weak. But the more I listened and became comfortable and familiar with the record, the songs grew on me. The songs are obviously pretty dark but they give the record as a whole a unified, cohesive feel. So while I still think a couple of the individual tracks are on the weak side, I rarely skip anything on ABAAC and have come to like the record as a whole very much. I also think that watching A Secret to a Happy Ending has only added to my appreciation of the record.

One of the things I love most about the record is that it pretty much catches the band in the glorious heyday of the three-guitar Isbell era. The guitars on Goodbye, Wednesday, Feb 14, and the title track just fucking sizzle and ooze and bleed all over the damn place and I love it. As good as the Neff era was, that rawness pretty much vanished after this record (though it happily resurfaced on The Fine Print).

I'd also note the song Goodbye is incredible both lyrically and musically and just might be the most underrated and under-played song in the entire DBT catalogue.

[Tequila Cowboy]

I'd also note the song Goodbye is incredible both lyrically and musically and just might be the most underrated and under-played song in the entire DBT catalogue.

This.

[beantownbubba]

I wish 9B was still around so I could do a little "fact checking," but the way I remember it is that ABAAC was the first DBT album to be released after I had become a fan. I had been to 9B but either hadn't posted or hadn't posted a lot. I bought the album when it first came out and liked it a lot and when i went to 9B i was surprised at the number & depth of negative reactions. I think some of the criticism was well founded and some of it wasn't, but it all served to color my reaction to the album and it took a long time to just be able to listen to it for what it is.

It's not the band's best album, it's not a great album, it's not the album I would use to try to turn somebody on to the band. But damn, it's still awfully good and you really can't blame the band just because their previous 3 releases were the holy trinity.

Gotta disagree w/ LL and agree w/ pretty much everybody else that "Gravity's Gone" is first rate Cooley. Check my sig line if you have any doubts "Little Bonnie" is so good it literally hurts me to listen to it and I'll usually skip it for that reason, which is kinda bizarre but quite the back handed compliment to the writer/singer. "Space City" is, well, Space fuckin' City. If you have to have that one explained to ya, you probably shouldn't really be wasting time on this board. "Aftermath USA" is a great rock n roll song. "Wednesday" and "Feb 14" easily fit in the company of these other songs. That's almost any other band's career right there.

"World of Hurt" is fine on the album but really shines in concert and gets extra points for that. "Goodbye" and "A Blessing and a Curse" are good songs but only ok in the context of the album and the band's career. That leaves Jason's songs. They're not his best songs, they don't hold up that well against the better songs on this album, as has been said they don't really fit on the album and he, the band and we would have been better served if they had been replaced by, say "TVA" and "When the Well Runs Dry." That's enough less than stellar material to make this album something less than an "A" or a member of a possible holy quartet. But to me this album's reception is a classic case of too high expectations, not a failed effort. A very good album from a great band, sort of like where The Rising stands in Springsteen's catalog.

[Clams]

I have often wondered if "When the Well Runs Dry" was left off the record as a jab at Jason since band relations weren't exactly at a high point during the recording of A Blessing And A Curse.

Careful. I asked this question once and it got me banned and all of my posts deleted.

Used To Be A Moderator

[Kudzu Guillotine]

This was filmed during the second Tres Tangled Truckers show at the Pour House in Raleigh in 2005. Like the first one, this one included Caitlin Cary (Tres Chicas), Kevin Kinney (Sun Tangled Angel Revival) and of course, Jason. Hate I missed the first one but I'm glad I made it to this one. This was the first time I'd ever heard "Daylight" as well as "When the Well Runs Dry". Rick Cornell, who hosts Dirty Laundry on WCOM in Carrboro and who has also contributed to No Depression and the Oxford American (among other publications), penned this article about the show for Durham's Independent Weekly way back when.

Anyone have recordings of these shows or a link? First time ive heard of these and am really interested.

I don't have any recordings of either of them but both of them were definitely recorded. The second show can be found here. I'm sure the first concert is out there somewhere as well. I'm going to suggest contacting Smitty.

[Beaverdam]

I'm sure that there's a Song of the Week somewhere on Aftermath, but reading these posts made me think about this song specifically and how good it is. One of my favorite "Aftermath" memories is the morning, when I woke up after the final night of All Good (a great outdoor, camp-out music festival) and one of my good friends played this song really, really loud! Somehow between the scattered bottles and morning haze, the song really resonated with me, and it is forever associated with this memory in my mind.

As I was writing this, I pulled out my phone, put out my earbuds (at work), and played it. I'm now listening to "Goodbye", which is not a "favorite" song but is still really, really good. A "Blessing and a Curse" is not my favorite DBT album, but this still doesn't diminish the fact that it is a great album. I remember reading once on here that picking one's favorite DBT song or album was like picking a favorite child, and I agree!!!!!!!!!

[Iowan]

Not only is "Gravity's Gone" first-rate Cooley, it also sounds Southern as hell to my ears.

[Tequila Cowboy]

Gotta disagree w/ LL and agree w/ pretty much everybody else that "Gravity's Gone" is first rate Cooley.

Well you better sit down Beantown, cuz you ain't disagreeing with me on this one

Gravity's Gone is one of my all time favorite Cooley songs and Space City is simply gorgeous. Simply. Gorgeous.

[beantownbubba]

Well you better sit down Beantown, cuz you ain't disagreeing with me on this one

Well, we'll always have Zoloft. Or Country Honk. Or...

[Zip City]

Careful. I asked this question once and it got me banned and all of my posts deleted.

Used To Be A Moderator

I, too, am amused that this once verboten topic is now fine to talk about.

Yeah, amused

[Kudzu Guillotine]

This is what he had to say about it in that Homegrown Music Network interview:

HGMN "When the Well Runs Dry," an unreleased track from the A Blessing and A Curse sessions (which also appears on the limited edition bonus disc) didn't make the finished album. Is there any story behind that?

PH I love that song. I probably like it better than some of the songs on the album. It was more of a sequencing thing. We were trying to keep the album a little shorter because our other ones ran so long. A lot had to do with the speed and pacing of a song, we wanted to keep the songs a little faster and there always seems to be a couple too many of the mid-tempo songs.

[dime in the gutter]

needs more cooley.

time and context record for sure. has really grown on me over the years. chuck jason's tunes and you've got a great short record.

love the accident that became aftermath.....great knob twisting by barbe. the recent live carnation of that tune did not work, imo.

and the rest of the record is solid gold. some great picking too.

all the string bending and torquing on world of hurt is masterful.

i think blessing and curse the tune would have fit right in on sro. (perhaps the betamax guillotine original manager or maybe a bar owner that betamax played at or quite possibly the brother of the betamax bass player?)

[brett27295]

I got into DBT right around the release of BTCD and I got it along with Dirty South and Decoration Day. I got into the band listening to those albums and live shows from the archive. I eventually picked up the rest of the albums and got A Blessing and A Curse last. I'd read poor reviews and just put off getting it. Watching A Secret to a Happy Ending led to me finally picking it up. I was less then impressed the first several times I listened to it. Surprisingly it eventually grew on me. It just took some time to really dig into the music and lyrics. The one knock against it in my mind is it doesn't "sound" like a DBT album whatever that means lol. I can't really explain, but it makes sense to me!

It's hard for me to dislike an album when some of my favorite songs are on it, Space City, World of Hurt, & Gravity's Gone. I think it's a solid album, perhaps not up to par with my favorite DBT albums but solid nonetheless. Daylight sounds like a Jason Isbell solo song and would have fit on any of his solo albums much better than it does here. In my opinion the album would have really benefited if it were replaced with When The Well Runs Dry.

[Beaverdam]

A "Blessing and a Curse" is not my favorite DBT album, but this still doesn't diminish the fact that it is a great album. I remember reading once on here that picking one's favorite DBT song or album was like picking a favorite child, and I agree!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe I didn't know the "picking a favorite child" source; it was PATTERSON HOOD!!! I saw that when reading back through here.

And actually I must re-refer to the "favorite child" argument. Since this topic was initiated on 3DD, I've listened to the album straight through. I've heard it many times, but it's been a long time since I've listened to the album in its entirety. I listened to Space City and had to e-mail my wife; what an amazing song! Good, bad, better, and worse are all qualitative descriptors. There's no way to quantifiably "measure" a DBT album or any other album (other than record sales), and in many ways although ABAAC may not have the sense of place that SRO or DS has, it is an extremely personal album....and it is really frickin' good. I can feel so much emotion when I listen. Not a criticism, rather an observation....a couple of the songs from ABAC almost sound like they might have fit in with the group of songs on Heat Lightening.

Thanks for causing me to rethink and re-listen!

[Fool No Where]

I, too, am amused that this once verboten topic is now fine to talk about.

Yeah, amused

IIRC, one of your first posts after being reinstated was "Don't piss off the boys from Alabama."

[Smitty]

ABAAC was released in the lowest point of my life. I literally was taking extra precautions not to die/get arrested until after the record was out. I had separated from my first wife (although we weren't divorced) and hadn't met Ladonna yet, and during that time I was for all intents and purposes "homeless" (although that seems unfair to say since I had places to go, but was too ashamed of my condition to allow me to go there). I was bouncing from place to place, and the weekend before it came out, I ended up at this chick's apartment in the projects in Anniston, AL. Her husband was out of town but that Monday morning, her Mother-in-law surprisingly brought their kids home earlier than planned and I was forced to sequester myself in her bedroom. After an hour or so, I realized that her MIL wasn't going to be leaving anytime soon, as I went out the window (without telling the chick what I was doing). I guess it was about noon and here I was a strung-out white boy meandering through an area that wasn't the most welcoming of someone in my position. I had managed to get out without bodily harm (and scored a dub of some pretty good mid) but I wasn't two minutes down the railroad tracks towards town when the gray sky let loose a torrent of golf-ball sized hail. I ran through a kudzu patch back towards a little street when I happened to see an old couch someone had thrown out and I flipped it over and took shelter under it. I sat there, soaking wet & cold, contemplating what the fuck I had done with my life until the storm passed and I hit the tracks again.
It was probably around 4 or 5 when I finally got to the record store/headshop to get some skins and although I had anticipated having to wait till the next day to get ABAAC, that day I realized that the owner put all new releases on the shelf a day early.

I walked to another girl's house, threw it in her CD player and rolled a joint. I immediately fell in love with the record, especially 'Gravity's Gone' (I went stumbling through the fog trying to find a reason for the things I told her rang especially true that day) and 'World of Hurt', which I'm quite certain brought me to tears and deserves more than a little credit in motivating me to turn my life around. That was seven years ago today.

[Jonicont]

Glad you made it Smitty

[beantownbubba]

I'm guessing you made a certain band very happy today, smitty. Can't ask for more than that from one's art. I'm glad you found what you needed!

[ramonz]

Damn Smitty, got me smiling and tearing at the same time. Glad you made it too.

[LastLawson]

Don't get me wrong, I love the lyrics to Gravity's Gone. It's just that the music gets a little bit repetitive for me faster than most DBT songs. I have the same complaint with TVA.

[Rocky]

Albums (and I would contend songs) ARE like children to the songwriter / band member.
"A Blessing and a Curse may never grow up to be a doctor" cracked me up.

[Iowan]

Smitty, when are you going to cut the shit and write a book? Your story is a pretty incredible one (at least the pieces I've picked up here and there).

[beantownbubba]

Smitty, when are you going to cut the shit and write a book? Your story is a pretty incredible one (at least the pieces I've picked up here and there).

He's got the rags part down, but i believe he's still working on the riches.

[LBRod]

The riches are right here, Bubba.

[Smitty]

Smitty, when are you going to cut the shit and write a book? Your story is a pretty incredible one (at least the pieces I've picked up here and there).

He's got the rags part down, but i believe he's still working on the riches.

Gettin' closer every day.

The riches are right here, Bubba.

Thanks, LBRod.

[Cole Younger]

The riches are right here, Bubba.

Yes sir. You're a rich man.

I spent an interesting two weeks in Anniston once.

[lotusamerica]

Smitty, good story, glad you stuck it out and yeah, those are the best riches right there.

I wasn't that low but was not good and seemingly coasting toward the end of a long marriage, and world of hurt made me throw myself back in wholeheartedly. It didn't work out in the end, but there's not working out because nobody's putting in the effort anymore and not working out because it's not meant to, and while both ways end with a breakup, walking away knowing you gave it your all makes it a thing you can let go of and keep the fond memories instead of a thing you're stuck carrying around a long time and resenting. That may not make for a good fairy tale movie ending, but in real life it means a hell of a lot to be able to get on with things and not sit around wasting years in bitterness.