“Put You Down,” the first song on Alejandro Escovedo’s latest album, starts off with the jarring, sharp plink of the avant-garde — actually the sound of someone striking piano strings that have been weighted down with an empty cassette case — then is knocked back on its heels by a guitar riff (one Keith Richards might envy) before being carried off to Morocco on a bed of violins.
For all the musical history packed into the 5 1/2 minutes of “Put You Down,” it never feels cluttered or contrived. Instead, the listener is struck by how seamlessly the disparate elements are integrated, how instantly the song seizes the listener’s attention and then how effortlessly it tightens its grip.
The audacity, maturity and vision of that opening salvo are typical of Escovedo’s third solo album, “With These Hands” (Rykodisc), in many ways the culmination of a late-blooming career as a songwriter and the most persuasive evidence yet on disc of his musical range. Long a legend in Austin as a live performer, Escovedo has delivered an album that works like one of his concerts: a journey that melds a staggering variety of styles and musics into emotionally taut songs.
As Escovedo ambles into a Mexican restaurant in his hometown for a late lunch with a couple of out-of-town acquaintances, he looks a decade younger than his 45 years. This is a man who was in on the ground floor of the California punk scene with the Nuns, ushered in the roots-country movement as a founding member of Rank and File, and then grabbed for the glory in a terrific Stones-Dolls guitar band called the True Believers, whose first album whipped up a stir but whose second album was shelved because of record company politics in the late ’80s.
When first encountered by this writer in 1990, Escovedo looked hardened and wary, suspicious of outsiders and with no real prospects in the music business, even though his gypsy orchestra of moonlighting musicians was blowing audiences away at Austin’s annual South By Southwest Music Conference.
The size of the orchestra — as many as 13 members — made touring virtually an impossibility and recording a logistical nightmare. But by ’92, Escovedo, prodded by producer Steve Bruton, had begun working in a smaller group format, using keyboards or a few strings to flesh out the guitar-bass-drums sound.
“The first night we started working together, Bruton came over to my house and I played him the tapes of the orchestra, and he said, `That’s not where the songs are at.’ And I looked at him like he was this white devil. It ticked a lot of people off in this town, close friends of mine, who weren’t going to be working with me anymore,” Escovedo says. “But after a while I trusted him, I don’t know why, and I realized the choice was a good one. I think his decisions were excellent.”
With “Gravity” (1992) and “13 Years” (1994), released on the Austin-based Watermelon label, the Escovedo-Bruton partnership began developing a vocabulary that took its cues from the intimate emotional richness found in records by Brian Eno and Leonard Cohen. “With These Hands” ups the ante by exploring the ambiguous emotional terrain of “Tugboat,” a stunning spoken-word piece that hovers like a ghost over a faded relationship, and “Pissed Off 2 A.M.,” about a middle-aged rocker who returns home after a triumphant gig to a sleeping household, suddenly alone with his petty needs and consuming loneliness.
“It’s about sitting there in this room by yourself and the sound is still in your head,” Escovedo says. “The modules on the amplifiers are still cranked, people are still clapping, but it’s all in your head. He’s home and no one really cares because they have to work the next morning.”
Escovedo’s solo albums have been notable for how they uncover the beauty and turbulence within everyday life. His big subject, if there is one, is family. It was a lesson learned while studying film at college in the ’70s — “All the great filmmakers try to tell their family story in one way or another” — and, when he began writing songs in earnest at age 30, it would be lesson to which he would return.
“Not to put anybody down, but girlfriends were not a big issue anymore,” he says.
The title track of the new album is a tangible affirmation of Escovedo’s artistic ambitions, because it turned into a serendipitous percussion summit involving his brother Pete Escovedo (formerly of Santana’s band), his niece (and Prince collaborator) Sheila E., and several other relatives. It was more than appropriate that it turned into a family affair, because Escovedo wrote the song for his father, Al Escovedo, now 89.
“He came over from Mexico at age 12 as a migrant worker; both his parents had already died,” Escovedo says. “He sang in mariachi bands, played semi-pro ball, was a prize fighter, picked cotton — whatever it took to make ends meet. He had 12 kids, and 50 or more grandkids. He was the first person I wrote songs about, and I hope to make one of my next albums about his life, this incredible voyage that he has had.”
It’s a voyage Alejandro Escovedo now makes with music. He headlines Friday at Schubas and Saturday at FitzGerald’s, and again July 3 at FitzGerald’s 15th annual American Music Festival.
Prague rocks
It used to be that you could count on rock ‘n’ roll from outside the West to sound like a pathetic imitation of the real, home-grown deal.
But lately, rockers from unlikely locales such as Japan and India have been demonstrating more than just a feel for the music, expanding its vocabulary in exciting ways.
Add the Czech Republic to the list of nations with thriving rock scenes. “Czeching In” (Skoda), an 11-song compilation culled from the Prague underground, presents a stunning variety of bands that do more than just copy their favorites from the West.
Clearly there is some assimilation going on, but what sets the Czech bands apart is how they recombine these Western influences into music that embodies their own experience.
One marvels at the theatrical dementia that oozes from the vocalist in Dunaj, a cross between Pere Ubu’s David Thomas and the Jesus Lizard’s David Yow.
Or the Middle Eastern swirl that hovers over the funky bass lines of Laura a Jeji Tygri, or the sheer pop pleasure of the gigantic melodic hook at the core of Tichadohoda’s guitar-driven “Kotva a Kriz” (“Anchor and Cross”).
Perhaps the most exciting of these bands is Uz Jsme Doma, whose episodic instrumental “Jassica” weaves together a sea chantey worthy of Tom Waits, Pogues-like violins, spastic jazz and mock-operatic flourishes.
The group, which recently collaborated with the like-minded Residents in a performance of the West Coast cult band’s “Freakshow,” recently released its domestic debut album, “Hollywood,” and will perform Saturday at the Empty Bottle.
