#46: "All My Friends" - Souled American

OK, the April Fool's joke is over. And no, this is not the LCD Soundsystem song. This is the polar opposite. A remarkable band that all people need to hear ASAP even if you don't end up loving them.

I’ve never heard a song quite like “All my Friends” by Souled American. That goes for the whole record Notes Campfire. It’s become a part of my soul. I also can’t help but wonder if the vocalist recorded songs while drunk, depressed, stoned or while floating in the sky on the way towards the cosmos. Back when this record came out, if you would’ve told me that a genre called “country slowcore” existed, I might’ve just laughed and scuffled. But alas, this is a band that feels like The Geraldine Fibbers on Codeine, fronted by a treble-heavy, teary-eyed romantic that’s stuck in a rut with no place to turn. The music sounds sleepy, contemplative and lost. We’ve all had nights like these.

I struggled a lot with which song to pick from this mostly unknown band. They make me cry a lot. I’m not even sure why. It just comes out. I know I will come across the same struggle with bands like Smog or Silver Jews or an artist like Daniel Johnston. It’s hard to write about feelings that seemingly come out of nowhere but that’s what happened when I first heard this song. It’s a feeling of “what on earth” combined with “I have not only been inside of a wound like this but the wound still exists.” This is no country for broken-hearted men but let’s sing our way out anyway.

In the vast and diverse realm of American music, certain bands stand out not only for their unique sound but also for their ability to capture the essence of a particular time and place. The band is Souled American, a group whose music defies easy categorization and whose influence trickles through a specific scene. In another time and place, maybe Low would’ve gone alt-country, they certainly dabbled in it especially when they recorded with producer Jeff Tweedy for The Invisible Way. A song from that record will come up in another time and place here. But Souled American may have cornered the market on valium-infused campfire strums.

Driven by guitarist Chris Grigoroff's plaintive guitar strumming and Joe Adducci's skillful but idiosyncratic bass playing (consistently described as sounding "underwater") — not to mention the duo's nearly identical voices — Notes Campfire and its companion Frozen are atmospheric, languid and strange evocations of country living. It's a wonder that these songs work at all. The music is slow and loose with little regard for a consistent beat; the lyrics are poetic and frequently profound, but often cryptic and stunted. What ties it all together is the sound: Guitars twinkle and Adducci's bass slides and glides in and out of chord progressions in support of drawling, yearning and ultimately shockingly powerful voices. The eight-minute "Flat" burbles and gurgles along, always moving forward but going nowhere, evoking the landscape and feeling of their home in southern Illinois. Album highlight "Born(free)" spends most of the song repeating one line: "There's no love at all." - Sarah Hennies

Formed in the late 1980s in Chicago, Souled American emerged at a time when the city's music scene was flourishing with experimentation and innovation. Composed of Chris Grigoroff, Joe Adducci, and Jamey Barnard, the band embarked on an unexpected musical journey that would push the boundaries of traditional genres and challenge listeners' concepts of what a country song could be. I also noticed the name Scott Lucas playing drums on “All my Friends” which makes me assume it’s the same Scott Lucas that fronted Chicago’s very own Local H. 

At the heart of Souled American's sound lies a Neil Young-esque fusion of folk, jazz, and experimental rock. Drawing inspiration from a wide array of influences, including country, “ambient Americana” and psychedelia, the band crafted a distinctive sonic landscape that is haunting and hypnotic. It shakes me to the bone what this vocalist achieves because let’s face it, much like Greg Dulli or Daniel Johnston, he’s not always on key. But who cares? The emotion is what sticks and stays put. The overall result is characterized by sparse instrumentation, intricate arrangements, and introspective lyrics that speak to the complexities of human frailty and longing.

“All my Friends” was written by Vicki Adducci, a name I’m not familiar with nor did I find out anything about her. (Likely a wife or relative to Joe). The lyrics were unavailable to me but I listened intently over and over. “Well all my friends can’t figure out why I still love you.” Oh lord, I’ve been there. This song immediately takes back to a time when I was working in a video store and had a crush on someone that my bandmates/friends said, “you’re only hurting yourself by holding on.” She did come back. I can’t. The story may end there. As the song slumps along, it’s clear that the storyteller here is mourning the loss of love as a result of his infidelity. “I’ll promise you with my heart, I’ll never be untrue,” but I don’t think we really believe him. He’s wasted. He’s desperate. He’ll say anything to win her back.

This isn’t a band that has a whole lot written about them, but they definitely have a local cult following. In 2006, The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle penned an essay about how Souled American's record Flubber changed his life. At the same time, I could easily find the majority of readers here clicking on the song link, listening for a bit and going, “uh, no thanks” because this is the definition of acquired taste especially when it comes to the vocals. But I am absolutely in love with everything about this sound, especially when subtle harmonies creep in halfway in and the chord structure unexpectedly changes.

“All Good Things'' led off the [Souled American] album, and as things progressed, Flubber stretched out its legs a little. By the end, it was all huge droning suspended upright bass notes and keening monosyllables, decorated by heavily reverbed twanging guitars. If the New Riders of the Purple Sage had gotten so depressed one day that they didn't know how to talk about it, they might have made this record. My two favorite songs on it contrasted heavily with one another; "Drop in the Basket '' was a nervous romp in an odd time signature that seemed to be telling a story about a church burning down, and its melody was like a caffeine-induced trance. "Over the Hill," on the other hand, was a mandolin-drenched abstraction with a lonesome harmonica and an increasingly mournful chorus ("If you've got the love, baby, I've got the time"). It faded long and slow and carried me off with it every time; its arrival point was in the middle of nowhere. I still don't know of any other feeling like it in music - John Darnielle

photo credit: infromaton.com

Souled American explores themes of love, loss, and drunken redemption with a poetic sensibility that is both profound and introspective. Songs like "Before Tonight" (another favorite) and "Born(free)" veer into unexpected directions. “Born(free)” is really something else when you hear his scratchy throat hold notes that come across like a melancholic mix of Craig Wedren and Joe Walsh waking up with a hangover on Sunday morning. Also, that chorus-heavy bass, what on earth is it even doing? Throughout their discography, I am always baffled, in a good way, by what the bass player decides to do throughout. He is not playing root notes or even matching the chords necessarily. He’s off doing something that is hard to define or explain.

Jeez, I should make this post a double bill of “All my Friends” and “Born(free)” honestly. Oh hell, why not the entire record Notes Campfire? Just listen to it all and prepare to cringe or cry or simply end up confused. “Deal” almost sounds more like ambient jazz than anything else. It’ll fuck up your dreams like the majority of their records. They’re on Bandcamp, you know what to do.

“While the two singers' voices are often indistinguishable (Grigoroff rasps more), their material also emerges from complementary gothic environs, real Cormac McCarthy territory. Where Adducci contributes two songs about hangmen, Grigoroff chimes in with ‘Drop in the Basket’, in which a church goes up in flames during collection. In ‘Mar'boro Man’, a woman learns "just how the other half of her feels"; and with the album's closer, ‘Why, Are You’, the two contradict Heraclitus and themselves, singin' 'bout how "it's the same old river, nothin' 'bout this ol' river has changed." For all its obscurity, SoulAm dives headlong into the unspoken existential eddies of the workingman's blues, providing bait for the thinking cowpoke's mental honky-tonk” - Richard Gehr

Despite critical acclaim and a fan base, Souled American never achieved mainstream success outside the musicians who were lucky enough to come across their records. Notes Campfire over time, became a favorite record of mine only because it’s singular, mysterious, unpredictable and at times, creepy. This is perhaps due in part to the band's refusal to conform to commercial expectations, preferring instead to stay true to an instinctive artistic vision. While this may have limited their reach in some respects, it also allowed them to maintain their integrity as wholly original while continuing to push the boundaries of their craft. They were never meant to become Wilco, but in many ways, they were more daring. I know Jeff Tweedy recently cited the opening track on Notes Campfire as a song he wishes he had written.

Souled American is a band that defies categorization (an amalgam of genres is the best I can come up) but whose music transcends traditional folk country boundaries. I hear a little Clem Snide in the vocal delivery but there’s less emphasis on snap crackle pop here. It feels fearless in letting the song organically evolve into whatever its meant to be, even if the tempo changes. It’s more about the opiate of loneliness being so comforting, warm and sincere. With achingly sleepy melodies, experimental sensibility, and sparse poetic lyricism, this band and this song have left an indelible mark on me. I can’t lie, this band is an enigma. Maybe that’s why I find it so refreshing, exciting and… scary. Sometimes listening to music is precisely like falling in love.

Whether exploring the depths of human emotion or pushing the boundaries of musical experimentation, Souled American remains a testament to the enduring power of personal vision. If you want to cry while falling asleep, perhaps while in an altered state, look no further than the highly beautiful and unusual record Notes Campfire with the apex being “All my Friends,” a song I’m grateful to have discovered and embraced with open arms over time. John Darnielle, I completely get where you’re coming from.

Do not sleep on this band. Fall asleep with them. Perhaps near a campfire.