Last Friday, my cousin Brittney, my sister-in-law Rachel, and my wife Sara went with me to the Rodeo Ruby Love release show for their new CD,
"This Is Why We Don't Have Nice Things."4 local favorites playing = no duds (read: hot and sweaty room not worth it for a boring band)
Sara and I were talking, being reminded of a conversation with our pal Frank, about Zack Melton's songwriting skills. Here is his output (from my memory, probably missing something):
Away With Vega: 2 split vinyls, A Baby Boy Sleeps full length, Get Serious Now! EP, Recovery full length, A Year At Home EP, various demos
Solo: The End of the World EP
Rodeo Ruby Love: You're Love Has Made Everything Beautiful full length, Honest to God EP, What Loneliness Can Do To You EP, Vs. The Great American Cities full length, (now!) This Is Why We Don't Have Nice Things
Like this music or not, this "resume" is legit for a young dude doing it his own way (with the help of Crossroads of America; don't get me started AGAIN on how killer they are).
A personal aside:
For me, Zack Melton has been a friend, sure, but more often, he has been a monumental artistic influence on me. Always, I have had this intense love for (good) art made by people I know. Some of my favorite albums, like Recovery, have been made by my friends. Some of my favorite writing, like
Jeremy Bauer's Good Gravity, have been written by people I know. A big thing I respect about Zack is his ability to keep producing great songs even as his interests, bands, and surroundings change (read: grow up). Take for instance this cd: several of these songs are greatly inspired by books or books on tape that Zack listened to during the writing of these songs. I'm just impressed by how he can write a song like "Repetition, Repetition" for Away With Vega (metaphorical, angsty-ish), then later "No, Seriously" (contemplative, questioning) for Vega, then move to stuff like on "Your Love..." for Rodeo (like every song features the word "love") and now this admittingly-poppy album that still has serious songwriting chops (see: Josephine; man, this song wails).
Clarification: I'm not discounting, in any way whatsoever, the wonderful abilities of Zack's bandmates (and some of my friends as well) in Rodeo Ruby Love and Away With Vega. Like Frank,
who we all know how much I admire. And just watch Dave's stokedness in Rodeo, holding that ukelele like a precious child he wants to make happy.
Really, this post is meant to celebrate this new album as a whole, which I was admittedly unsure about.
Let's do it:
You like pretty packages? Man, this album art is beautiful.
You like words? Check out these lyrics:
"Please don't shower, I want your stench covering my body's every inch"- Josephine
"Let's talk a while about your weaknesses and how the lines begin to blur and how there's something wrong in each of us. Love is gonna take some work"- Black Sunday
"The worst thing you can do is fall in love. Stay indoors with me and read a book. Or maybe if it's nice, we'll go outside and ride our bikes. The worst thing that you can do...I try to resist, but it's no use. Oh, everyday, it's true. I fall in love."- Secrets
You like girls? Annie Cheek's voice glows so hard in this album. Also, there is Josephine, Elizabeth, Kimery popping their girly names up in these songs.
Tired of guitars, drums, and bass fishing? Try ukelele, try xylophone, try keyboard, try Rodeo.
You like to shred? Kyle brings it seriously several times here.
You like to sing along? COME ON, COME ON!
You like to hear these songs live? Go to
a Rodeo show near you!
Seriously, I hope Rodeo makes it through their 3 month tour around AMERICA! so they can come back and sing with me and write songs that are this much fun and make my wife smile and make my dad say, "This is alright." Things are good here.
