Wooden Shjips: Dos

Five to ten on a Monday morning: Cup of coffee, Wooden Shjips. I’ve just got home from a driving lesson which might account for the four-four slaps I’m beating out to ‘Motorbike’ on my thigh in between typing.

This might be the record I listen to when I pass my test and take my first drive. God help me if Ripley Johnson hits earth-bending solo mode when I get to a busy roundabout, because I won’t be able to cope. Everything will take on a terrifying shimmer. “I’m not one of these people!” I might shout, before getting out the car and walking home. There isn’t a road straight enough in this whole county for what I want to be doing right now.

A few weeks ago I had a realisation. The majority of my favourite bands are likely considered psychedelic, and most reviews will make reference to one drug state or another. Andy Tenille, writing for HARP, said the last Shjips record was “like Hendrix strung out in a methadone clinic”, (which is unfair, these are some good looking corduroy boys) Aquarius Records loosely implied that as a fan I was a “druggy psychrock dronester”. Water off a ducks beard! But the only “funtime” drugs I partake of are nicotine and caffeine (alongside some good old libation) so what’s going on? Did I never come down? Maybe so. Am I “all the better for it”?

It looked like Castro was doing well until the mid sixties, and he hadn’t done no jungle fighting for many a year. That’s when it always happens.

To keep the plates spinning he started introducing all manner of Soviet gimmicks and slowly, but inexorably, the sky clouded over with the lukewarm steam of pragmatism. The holy rationale of the cornered dog. The objective had been achieved, but the method still reeked of fun. Part of him likely knew that if he took another trip in the jungle it just couldn’t be the same. Che went gallivanting and copped a Bolivian round; greased by the C.I.A and delivered by destiny. For Castro, the deed was done. Time to face the music, time to start rationalising, time to stop people selling ice cream in the streets.

Let’s hope the aftermath of a stoned adolescence isn’t comparable to the sticky mess left in the wake of a successful armed uprising. I don’t want to go back to the jungle, but I don’t want to form a confused and perverted philosophy based on a few abortive attempts to find the Golden City. So for now, let’s keep the ice cream flowing until things clear up, or go away. Nostalgia comes in many forms. In the early seventies Lester Bangs wrote:

“Personally I believe that real rock ‘n’ roll may be on the way out, just like adolescence as a relatively innocent transitional period in on the way out. What we will have instead is a small island of new free music surrounded by some good re-workings of past idioms and a vast Sargasso Sea of absolute garbage.”

Sargasso Sea… Initially it’s very tempting to feel slighted by such a remark, considering I wasn’t born for another 12 years. Then it’s tempting to accept it wholesale; after all it does have that ring. But it needs some editing: Wooden Shjips are a more than a good re-working of a past idiom… they’re a great re-working of a past idiom. That re-working begins with their self titled debut album, stretches back through their killer 17” adolescence and onwards through Krautrock to the Rock 'n Roll pilgrims, who wisely avoided visiting Plymouth on their way back around...  

Isn’t it rather encouraging that rock ‘n’ roll is still on the way out? What a horrible question.

So, Wooden Shjips, bastion and last thoroughbred of the “anyone could play like this” mongrel grind corps. They’ve dropped the treacle trapped Beefheart vibe of songs like ‘Blue Sky Bends’ from their previous full length, likewise the meandering, deserted groove of songs like ‘Lucy’s Ride’. There’s nothing on Dos that quite hits the pre-full length heights of ‘Clouds Over Earthquake’ or ‘Dance California’. ‘Motorbike’, ‘Aquarian Time’ and ‘For So Long’ (that’s all three of the shorter tracks on this LP) are the closest candidates, throwing the same candy from the wagon. They both have a more three dimensional punch than the aforementioned monsters, but still less of the bombast.

‘Down by the Sea’ is the strung-out-on-cat-nip (whoops!) sister of their first single ‘Shrinking Moon For You’, without the immediate and unrelenting onslaught of the grainy guitar and Mescalito’s homecoming sleigh bells that made the old tune such a great massacre; a scalding proclamation frequently submerged by the guitar’s supernova indulgence. I reckon that the band are trying to incorporate the most effective live techniques they have been stumbling upon. Only the saltiest mist for these ghostly dirges; they’re in the wind tunnel streamlining the rocket, they’re in the basement making hydroponic boogie juice. They seem to be paying more attention to the undercarriage now that fate has decided that this isn’t just a one way trip.

They’re mostly revisiting the birthplace of that lysergic dynamic that many felt was lacking lustre on the self titled record, while still continuing the break away from the abrasiveness of old. But I get the impression that Wooden Shjips are still yet to make their best record. And I reckon I can say why.

It used to be that the bass, drums and organ hastily threw together a ramshackle stage upon which Johnson’s guitar could do its thing. With an orator this good, no one can hear the groans of imminent collapse... (ring any bells?) And that was that. It hit loud, it hit good, then the show left town. On ‘Wooden Shjips’ they took an obvious exit from that highway under construction, the one that ends with a bad bump. They kept the simplicity but gave a little more time to the build up; they loosened the throttle and took in the scenery. Rather than spontaneously combust after the eighth beat Ripley Johnson lit a few forest fires in the middle distance; you smelt the smoke, heard the roar, then got a few fleeting glances at the charred remains.

On Dos it’s obvious that Dusty Jermier, Nash Whalen and Omar Ahsanuddin have been working on those bass, organ and drum sounds respectively (and to good yields). What else is there to do when all your songs are based on doing one (great) thing over and over again? A friend and I were listening to this a few days ago and we decided that it would almost be possible for one man and a loop pedal to do this live. It would take about forty five seconds to set up the groove, if you were fast, and then you could just whip out the solos and the echo(per)plexed vocals. But not quite, because there’s always that one change or two… And after all, you’d want to bottle that prick with the loop pedal. These occasional shifts are the bands only lifeline, with which they haul you out of their own quicksand front lawn. To a four-four beat, of course.

So. Now that that the organ on the eleven minute grin that is ‘Fallin’ sounds so spunky, and the bass sounds like a Bryan Blessed Vocoder patch… what are you gonna do Mr Ripley? Because it truly seems like it’s your turn. Time to get off those laurels and do something really wild. Give the people more ice cream!

Have the Wooden Shjips embarked on a cosmic Slinky voyage? Has Ripley, who leant full-tilt into the first descent, got his springs caught on the Horsehead Nebula? If he shifts to the front foot for the next one, and wrenches that guitar loose, we could be hearing something big. It might not sound all that different to Dos (will it be called Trays?) but the studio, or the weather, or a new pair of shades may spark some crystal clear sermon of drone rock ecstasy to come blaring forth. These guys seem capable of it. But so did the horse my friend bet on in the Grand National last month and the last email I got from him ended with: “Hopefully they shot it. It toyed cruelly with my hopes”. Let’s hope he didn’t take justice into his own hands.

Dos, as fine a record as it is, gives off the yeasty odour of something brewing, not quite apple juice and not quite cider. It might be more potent than a couple of new effects pedals. Let’s hope they don’t do a basement castration with a sitar and a flute player.