The Columbia Gypsy
KERRY GROMBACHER
RIDING FOR THE BRAND
self released 1998
SANDS MOTEL
self-released 2001
We still are waiting for the rain to fall and struggling for the land
We still need the lawmen who are riding for the brand.
Kerry is from Austin and performs what amounts to country and cowboy music, what could be called "Texas Music.". Sometimes he travels out to Oregon, too. His songs may be about Texas or Oregon, or that road up to and through the Rockies through Dalhart and Raton Pass. The earlier album, Riding For the Brand, is pure western and to me the more interesting. The second, Sands Motel, is more diverse and so has a tendency to bog down into more of a country mire, with less story and more mush. But that's subjective; I can count on one finger the number of country albums I can remember I have and there's are reasons for that. One is that I grew up in suburban Birmingham.
A test of tracks without the lyric sheet crutch is to recall which ones you remember. Oddly, the most memorable for me is "Ol' Jake," about an old cowboy who dies and is wrapped up and buried in his bedroll and the singer buys his Bible. The title track of Riding for the Brand is about catching some rustlers here in present day...um...Oregon. The story reminds me of that Stan Rogers song on Northwest Passage called "Night Guard." "Will Cowboy For Food" is about a gent out there with that sign, which reminds me of someone I saw Tuesday out by Albertson's. Maybe some rancher has hired them by now. Kerry loads his songs up with places and stories, and a bit of reflection..."Bell County," with its references to Belton and Killeen and the Brazos sure took me back, not to cowboying, an experience I've missed entirely, but to dusty geology field trips.
There is quite an entourage of back up musicians on these albums. On the earlier one I've met a couple people...Darcy Deaville and Erik Hokkanen, so that makes it seem more real to me as well...on the other hand, it seems to me I have seen those Sands Motel on the outskirts of towns. Both backing casts sound great, sound like Austin, anything from pedal steel to swing to country rock. Kerry's tenor knows what's doing, though a couple of times on Riding For the Brand it gets a little bogged down in to many words for a measure and sometimes he sings country music. But of course his true strength is in how he uses his vocals to convey images.
The first few tracks of Sands Motel seem the most memorable. You can tell right ahead that Sands Motel is different because it starts off with "Muscle And Will." "It's a heavy a load and a mighty steep grade"...as sort of a romantic or maybe just a general metaphor, not to say that truckers aren't as much fun as cowboys and indeed there seems more freedom and diversity if not solidity on Sands Motel. The second song is about fire fighters in eastern Oregon...along the John Day River. Here's the burning dendrology: lodgepoles, ponderosas, white pines and junipers, what a great song for detail. "Territorial Prison" though still on the same western vein; these are the words of a prisoner, but you could almost tango to it. The title track ("Sands Motel") is deceptive...the brightly lit sign is a facade for nostalgia and unusually gentle sleeze...
I like this chorus to "Territorial Prison:"
The river runs clear and fast in the mountains
And then it muddies and it slows
Like your path is so clear when you are young and free
But like a game trail when its cold
Its hard to find when you've grown old.
The Columbia Gypsy