On "We're on the Road", the song/skit that introduces his first live album, Revenge!, Robbie Fulks puts forth an outdated and ungenerous view of the long-running tension between artists and record labels. He stages a fictional cellphone call with Yep Roc prez Glenn Dicker, who informs Fulks that the label needs a new product from which to wring dirty filthy record-label lucre. It's a joke, of course-- and who knows? Dicker may even be in on it-- but not a very good one. Yep Roc in particular has never seemed in it for the money-- the label is home to seasoned cult artists like Robyn Hitchcock, John Doe, and Paul Weller as well as to future cult artists like Rock Plaza Central. Yep Roc even gave Fulks a home, and he's not exactly generating Arcade Fire-sized buzz anymore.
The label=bad, artist=good worldview, besides being a little too pat, peaked at approximately the same time as Fulks' brand of smart-ass, backwards-looking alt-country-- somewhere around 1998. Now, in 2007, there's a throwback quality to his throwback music: he was looking back to what he perceived as a better country-music era, and on Revenge! he's looking back to when that sort of nostalgia had more cultural weight and commercial potential than it does now. You'd almost expect to see swing dancing at his shows.
Equitably representing each of Fulks' albums and peppered with new songs and a few covers, the 2xCD Revenge! features an electric set on disc 1 and an acoustic set on disc 2. Electric is his more natural setting, not just because his backing band is better, but because the tone of that show compensates for his weak vocals. At its best, the first disc reveals the breadth and strength of Fulks' songwriting: "You Shouldn't Have" and "Fixin' to Fall" hew closely and sometimes cleverly to knee-slappin' country wordplay (example: "Thanks a lot for wreckin' my heart... You shouldn't have"), and "Mad at a Girl" is unabashed power pop in the Rhett Miller vein. On the other hand, songs like "Rock Bottom, Pop. 1" and "The Buck Starts Here" seem too clever by half, riding a concept for a couple verses too long.
Fulks comes across as a needy performer. Entering the stage to audience chants of "Robbie! Robbie!", he actually joins in with them, then later asks, "Was that good enough?", with just enough irony that it's not too transparent. Throughout the set, he shouts and cajoles his audience like he's Sam Kinison: "Smoke 'em if ya got 'em, motherfucker!" he screams by way of introducing "Cigarette State". His demeanor quickly becomes off-putting and creates a strange mood in the set, but all's forgotten when he strikes the first chords of the chugging "Let's Kill Saturday Night", the title track from his ill-fated 1998 major-label debut. More so than its studio counterpart, this live version sounds rocket-powered, as Fulks vents small-town, working-class disappointments that barely disguise his own career frustrations. For once the stakes sound dire.
The acoustic set replaces that needy persona with a slyer, more self-impressed version of "Robbie Fulks," one prone to in-joke exchanges with his band as well as tongue-in-cheek musical passages. It's as much a stand-up routine as a concert, which might be entertaining and personable with the right performer (see Tom Waits' Nighthawks at the Diner), but it severely leaches songs like "In Bristol Town One Bright Day", "Bluebirds Are Singing for Me", and an otherwise adequate cover of the Carter Family's "Away Out on the Old Saint Sabbath" of any gravity. It doesn't help that Fulks performs a silly, vocoder-assisted cover of Cher's "Believe" that's just a waste of time. Ironic covers of pop songs... how novel!
Without the energy of the electric set, the acoustic set can only highlight Fulks' weaknesses as a performer. He may be a talented songwriter capable of witty wordplay and studied mimicry, but his pencil-thin voice sounds sarcastic and self-aware even when he's serious, to the extent that he almost always seems to be satirizing the old country music he professes to love. Revenge! suggests that he loves the applause and attention too much to surrender the stage or even rethink his approach. Maybe that's his own way of keeping it real, but is anyone asking him to sell out anymore?
