BILL MORRISSEY
25 October 2001
Civic Auditiorium, The Dalles, OR

"Warren, you do look tired. Maybe you should go up to bed. I'll take care of the wood tonite."

Ten years ago I needed an excuse to go to Houston so I decided to go and write a review of Bill Morrissey performing at McGonigels. I had only heard of Bill by name, but I *needed* to get to Houston, so I bought North to learn the songs. The review is buried in the archives of Dirty Linen, but Bill and his songs have travelled in my mind ever since.

Morrissey is a real favorite. As contemporary folk is normally not my favorite genre, I will analyze this anomaly. Bill I suspect was born on the cusp of Scorpio, which has lead to a juxtaposition of depressing outlook and wild humor. I like the stories he tells, which if I am lucky take me North, and the way we both use the adjective "perky." I like the way he writes those crisp words and his rampant literary use of alcohol as metaphorical for intentional drunken mindlessness in the face of overpowering incipient doom. I interviewed Bill several years ago at the University of Texas We were in a storeroom filled with computer cards , he with a beer in one hand and a shot of whiskey in the other and me with Gary Varner's excellent Sony stereo recorder and the blind innocence of a compulsive social drinker.

Bill had just performed Wednesday night at the Timberline Lodge on Mt Hood, where there was snow, and he could now tell it was winter. (It's a sure bet it will always be winter somewhere on Mt. Hood.) This concert, 60 miles North, was a sellout in spite of The Dalles small size. Most of what he performed (Bill sings and plays guitar) I'd heard from earlier albums...he'd brought a stack in of the new ones to sell, but they were gone by the time I got to the table.

Morrissey started off with "Inside" and I'll just give the tracklist
Traveling By Cab
The Man From Out Of Town
Letter From Heaven
Handsome Molly
Shake That Thing?
John Haber
Married For Money
Barstow
Teletubbies
Waltz..This Moonlight...?
Robert Johnson
Up On the CP Line
Off White Gown
Maid From the North Country
Ice Fishing
Birches
Louis Collins

I thought about what had changed. Bill, like many of us, has gotten consistently older, but this time he looked older and more weary. Once I'd seen him with a band, Johnny Cunningham on fiddle, and he had just then written "Off White Gown." This time he talked about dating a postal worker, the postmistress where he lives up North in New Hampshire, and about first marriages as "a temp job." He made jokes about AARP (wait till he gets the magazine!) and about his nail clippers being decommissioned in the security line at the airport. A particularly devastating song about age and drinking is "Traveling By Cab,. From that last unheard album, it is about being in a bar where everyone is much younger and they're playing rock music that is "not rock 'n roll." Predictably this led to a series of jokes about going back and trashing the hotel room by leaving the TV unplugged. I was in the audience thinking I was relating well, and then Bill began trashing metal. I felt separated from the rest of the audience by about 50 feet!

Bill, as I said, perked up towards the end....he became funnier and magic, calmly animated, eyes like a doe on the shoulder of FS44. He told about how he had driven a sled team of huskies in the woods outside of Anchorage, pretending he was in Call Of the Wild, about how he'd gone ice fishing and had started casting when he got 10 feet from the hole and how bait fishers slept with their sisters. Backstabbing, he argued that Texas was the only state where you should need a passport to get in or out. Best of all he sang the blues song about teletubbies in New York

"What does he mean by 'acid'?" asked Ian.
"LSD," I answered.

My kids loved this song, and uncharacteristically listened attentively to most of the performance instead of reading. They liked the sing along on the encore ("Louis Collins") as well. They were the only kids in the audience, not surprising with no discount. (We'd actually WON 2 free tickets by calling a radio show!)

During the latter part of the performance I asked myself if he performed the songs any differently then he had in the early 90s. He sounded about the same back them, I answered.

You can read the interview, too.

write: gennett at gorge dot net

The Columbia Gypsy