Review of Cavedweller – The Best Version of Gloria Ever There Was
I spent a few hours driving today so flipped through Apple music trying to find something to listen to. (Don’t bother with the new Ringo Starr album). I was happy to discover Cavedweller finally landed on a streaming site that I have a paid subscription to. I was very excited. I can’t remember the last time I listened to this album from start to finish, but I was happy to know that I still knew the words to every song. The only albums I know every word to are Cavedweller – Gloria, Tom Waits – Small Change, Beck – The Information, Pavement – Crooked Rain, Bob Marley – Legend and a few others. All good company.
Dirk Michener (AKA Cavedwellwer) released Gloria during the summer of 2006 and like many of my favorite records it holds a personal spectrum of reflection that is now, romantically golden. I was transitioning from a rental house on the east side of Austin into purchasing my first home deeper into the east. Job hopping downtown in a 1975 Plymouth Fury with 50k original miles on it wasn’t easy, but she was money green with money green interior. It floated down the road like a cloud on roller-skates because she needed new shocks.
Like memorable albums should, listening to this album today took me back to the time when I first began enjoying these songs. I can still smell the trailer house where I used to listen to Randy Travis’ – Storms of Life cassette. I remember it clearly every time I hear “Diggin’ up Bones”. It’s the same with Gloria. I remember the house on Hamilton onto Bundyhill and this album is part of the fabric for the end of that decade. These 35 minutes of music weave through a time when my music ambitions would stop (2008) into when I would get married (2010) because like all of my favorite albums I just kept listening to it. I didn’t know it then, but Cavedweller wouldn’t release another full album for quite some time. This album was a staple not only in my listening rotation, but those who I was hanging around. Cavedweller was also performing these songs live at the time. Next year this album will be 20 years old. I feel strange that I’m finally sitting down to think about what it means to me.
Today, my son was in the truck with me while I was listening to this Cavedweller album and he was reading an Iron Man comic book when the song, “Black Black Magic” came on. I was in my own world driving up I14 singing along when he piped up, “This is a good song!” he said. “Damn right it is,” I replied. And it is. It’s one of my favorites. I always liked to believe this song was the retort to The Lovin’ Spoonfull song “Do You Believe in Magic?”. I doubt it is, but I can believe what I want.
Anyhow, we played Black Black Magic again and my son sang along with the chorus, it’s so catchy, but there’s a ton of great songs on this album. Augusta, GA builds so beautifully, Eyez is a wonderful 60’s throw back love song and hell, Forget About Heaven should be on my list of songs to play at my funeral. There’s even a song that one of my old friends wrote called, “Space City” that Dirk covered. It has one of my all time favorite lines that goes, “smells like George Burns learned, we all take turns”. It’s a simple line that is funny and meaningful and hell, I don’t think anyone ever thought George would die, but he did in 1996 at the age of 100. I can’t remember when the song Space City was written (certainly before 2006) but someone told me the guy who wrote it started a dance club called Space City in Hawaii. I hope he has a picture of George Burns hanging up in the hallway.
I was going to do a long paragraph about how the album flows in a fractured up and down manner with a sort of intermission at song 8, but this sentence will do.
There was some fanfare when this album came out. Our friend at The Austin Chronicle, Audra Schroeder reviewed it. Our friend Danna Williams (RIP) did as well, but the official press release for this album was:
Folk-this psyche-that, beard-freak whatsis or indie-hack whosit. “Folk rock is a drag”- Frank Zappa. Texas is where Cavedweller is. Blacklights are the lights Cavedweller reads by. Soaking with narrative anthems Cavedweller’s sophomore release “The Best Version of ‘Gloria’ Ever There Was” tells the stories of horse enthusiasts, black magicians, motion-sickness and sleeping in ditches. Stripped down ramshackle smooth two-minute classical guitar, floor-tom, penny-whistle epics , Cavedweller delivers the hooks in true Robert Pollard form with Lou Barlow and Syd Barrett breathing wind into the sail.
Formed in 1995 wallowing in the rock-scene obscurity hotbed that is Denton, Texas. 20 self-made cassette tapes later lands Dirk Michener in Austin coming to musical fruition with new band mates and a new blue headband.
I’m not sure how many album reviews I’ve written in my life, but I never liked the must have of band comparisons that my editors would always demand, “But who do they sound like?”
There are sounds that you know exactly who the band is in the first 15 seconds of the song. Play anyone the first part of a ZZ Top song. It’s the same with Cavedweller. There’s a flight of attitude and emotions that are ever present. The love of lo-fi insecure non-sequiturs singing the narratives of one man’s treasures made beautiful on a sun burnt bed spread. It’s all glorious and it’s all good. You don’t have to believe me and I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything.
I just felt like sitting down after a long day of chasing off coyotes, driving all over central Texas, holding epoxy bottles in front of a wood burning stove and watching the Die Antwoord documentary to remember something. I remembered this album today. It had been a long time since I listened to it. I’m thankful that Cavedweller finally put it somewhere that I can access it anytime I need it.