Ryan Schreiber (RS): It just seems like a bit of a stretch is all I'm sayin'. This metaphor is paper-thin! People aren't gonna know what the hell you're talking about.
Andrew Bryant (AB): But that's the point. It's so dumb that people will have to let loose at least a chuckle.
AB: Alright. You have your plain chicken, which is boring and no one under the age of 40 really enjoys. So what do you do with it? [pause] You stuff all of the chicken inside of a duck. Now you have your ducken. But that's still pretty boring, because ducks don't have any character, even with the addition of excess poultry. Therefore, you take that ducken, and stuff it all inside of a turkey to get your full turducken, which is getting close to, but just shy of, an interesting meal.
AB: Right. Next, the band comes along and declares that what would make the meal even better is to take all of those fowl elements and further stuff them into a Jayhawk, thus producing the final product, the jayhawkturducken! The meal is a symbol of how the group envelops the different elements of music available to them-- from folk, to rock, to Gram Parsons-influenced pop-- in such a way that is alternately enjoyable and excessively off-putting. This culminates in The Jayhawks' latest release, Rainy Day Music, which serves as a prime example of the trend. And as an added bonus, the jayhawkturducken is composed completely of fictional and non-fictional "Byrds."
RS: Interesting, but somehow lacking. Maybe if you worked on the substance over style, you would have something a bit more pleasing and less... well... less bad.
One can coast only so far on the semblance of a good idea, and even the best of people suffer from the albatross of their reputation. That said, Rainy Day Music is nothing if not a pleasant album. Steering away from the immediate gratification of their highly Beach Boys-inspired 2000 release Smile, the band comes full circle with a return to their alt-country roots in the tradition of Neil Young or The Flying Burrito Brothers. This is no more apparent than on "Stumbling Through the Dark", a Gary Louris and Matthew Sweet co-write, which starts the album off on an incredibly strong foot. Short and to the point, the song begins with a hint of 90s alt-rock before sliding into a breezy, banjo-driven chorus that's instantly accessible and hummable, apparent even in the bonus acoustic version tacked on to the end of the album.
"All the Right Reasons" slows down the tempo a bit allowing the band to flex their harmonic power over the course of the affirming ballad before steering towards "Save It for a Rainy Day", a song that wouldn't be out of place on an Alex Chilton solo album. The following track, "Eyes of Sarahjane", gives a leash to the organ, which explores as best it can the areas not completely dominated by pointless guitar soloing and Louris' twangy tenor. "One Man's Problem" rounds out the satisfying first half of the album with its wavering bassline and breezy chorus where the guys drop benign rock lyric nuggets like, "I don't expect you to see/ But she's important to me, babe/ I guess it's just one man's problem."
It's during the latter portion of the album that the music begins to suffer from what sounds like a mix of neglect and overcompensation. The Tim O'Reagan song "Don't Let the World Get in Your Way" sounds more like my little cousin-- hairbrush in hand-- singing along to David Bowie's "Major Tom". Other Louris written tracks such as "Come to the River", "Madman", and "You Look So Young" simply sound forced, pushing the combination of what constitutes alt-country and folk-rock to its limit of self-parody, and at times irreversibly crossing that line.
A modicum of respect is salvaged with the bonus disc of material that accompanies the original release of the album. The mini-album, entitled More Rain, gives a more intimate glimpse at the band with the exclusive track "Fools on Parade" (originally released for Spanish magazine Rock Sound), and acoustic/demo versions of album cuts such as "Reasons" and "Tampa to Tulsa" that shed light on how great a songwriter Louris truly is. The inclusion of a live version of the beloved "Waiting for the Sun", off of the exemplary Hollywood Town Hall, is both a delight and a disappointment in that while it's undoubtedly one of the band's greatest songs it poignantly displays how circular the group's recordings have become. Rainy Day Music is ultimately the sound of a dog (or more appropriately a bird) chasing its own tail, content with plugging away at the same formula as long as there's still precedence for satisfying their musical niche.
