Pull your chairs on up to the campfire for a sec, I'm gonna tell y'all a little story about Beachwood Sparks. Nice fellers, the Sparks... and every last one of 'em thin as a rail. Every time I see a 32-length, 28-waist pair of cordoroy pants at a thrift store, I think about having the staff set 'em aside for the Sparks' Chris Gunst. Anyway, my story dates back to the first time I saw the Sparks, and that was opening up for Lou Barlow back in 1997. Only, see, there were six of 'em back then-- guitarist/vocalist Gunst, bassist Brent Rademaker, keyboardist/lap steel virtuoso "Farmer Dave" Scher, drummer Tom Sanford, a guy who didn't do much that we called "the tambourine guy," and a fella by the name of Josh Schwartz. Schwartz, also razor-thin with a shaggy mane of fair hair, traded guitar and vocal duties with Gunst and wrote many of their best songs. Hell, before the Los Angeles New Times profiled the band, I used to think they were twins.
And they were outstanding, like the missing link between Sonic Youth and Teenage Fanclub, with a chaser of Buffalo Springfield and your friend buying a bottle of Big Star to boot. The Beachwoods' brand of country-fried space rock had a rare immediacy that commanded attention-- no one seemed to speak at their gigs, even when 'songs' became ten-minute sideways jams and bled into one another, setlists becoming insane, dazed-and-confused medleys of the best songs you'd never heard. I roped a couple of friends into catching their next gig, a free show at Spaceland, and they were so enthralled we caught them every Monday for a month straight while the Sparks honed their chops in a brief residence there. It was at these shows that we began to recognize individual songs in the band's oeuvre-- Gunst's majestic anthem "Desert Skies," and Schwartz's tripped-out "Make It Together" and British Invasion-flavored "Midsummer Daydream." It wasn't for many months that we were even able to hear the recorded versions of these songs, on Bomp! Records' "Desert Skies" seven-inch-- and the results were a little disappointing. The bombastic riff of "Desert Skies" and herky-jerky stomps of "Make It Together" were reasonably well-documented, but the vinyl was poorly pressed and the vocals-- Gunst's in particular-- sounded annoyingly twee compared to the echo-drenched Thurston-isms of the Beachwoods' live gigs.
So you can imagine our shock when, after many months without a Beachwoods fix, we caught the Sparks opening for the Lilys at the Whisky A Go-Go and, uh-oh-- they emerged wearing matching white outfits and cowboy hats, sans-Schwartz and with various Lilys sitting in for Pete Kinne and Tom Sanford. The fringe-happy five-piece raced through a frantic, countrified version of "Desert Skies" and the rest of what would become 2000's debut album, Beachwood Sparks. I was willing to cut the guys a little slack, Flying Burrito Brothers outfits and all, but I've gotta admit the shine was taken off once the debut was released and I'd seen a few more of the foursome's lackluster shows. Beachwood Sparks were now the Chris Gunst show, and while the band still had many great things going for it-- strong songwriting, able musicianship, and a fond affinity for Gram Parsons-- the Sparks lacked the presence and energy they'd enjoyed with Schwartz, the very qualities that had generated all the hype in the first place.
So, after last year's well-recorded but ultimately chilly Once We Were Trees (a project which finally paired the shameless Dinosaur Jr. worshippers of Further with their hero, J Mascis), Beachwood Sparks have returned with a six-cut EP featuring yet another change in personnel. Former Strictly Ballroom compadres Jimmy Hey and Jimmy Tamborello join the fray (as new drummer and guest collaborator, respectively), but for the most part, Make the Cowboy Robots Cry treads the same sleepy-lazy formula that made both of the Beachwoods' full-lengths such disappointments. Gunst's thin, wavery vocals barely cut through the treble-drenched swamp of harmonica and carnival-ride organ on seven-minute opener "Drinkswater." The equally poky "Ponce de Leon Blues" ambles along on a ghost of a riff, propped up by thick vocal harmonies and little else before collapsing into a barely-there deconstruction of the melody with acoustic guitar and bass and Gunst's soulless vocals.
The Sparks also use the old 'between albums EP' cliche to indulge in a little experimentation at their fans' expense, with little to show for the effort. "Hibernation" conjures a spooky vibe, with its samples of dusty vinyl and distant thunderstorms courtesy of Dntel's Tamborello, before devolving into a chorus of, "Will I see you again? Good, good friend," so impossibly high-pitched it could only have been recorded above a natural helium deposit. "Sing Your Thoughts" employs a suitably intricate bass part to move Gunst's trite musical meanderings along ("Do you hear the sound of my sadness?"), but is ultimately lost in a soup of stuttery syntho strings and an elusive melody. "Galapagos" suffers from a similar fate, with a rubbery bass and siren-like synth cutting abrasively through an otherwise pleasant texture of banjo and guitar.
The only redeeming quality of this record is its good intentions, and with results like this, even those are questionable. At least Beachwood Sparks and Once We Were Trees had the fortune of massing more than a dozen songs on each release, spacing gems like "You Take the Gold" out with incidental noodling and mindless pop songs. If anything, Beachwood Sparks' albums are like listening to a hit-and-miss radio station-- if you don't like the song that's playing now, at least you might like the next. Make the Cowboy Robots Cry exaggerates the band's weaknesses by extending their most tepid work to date into mini-jams, accenting the 60s space-rock vibe with the worst of 90s pretensia, and continuing to pass off vocals so slight they wouldn't pass muster with Kindercore. Beachwood Sparks' best days are certainly behind them, but it's disappointing so see the band stray so far in the wrong direction with each subsequent release.
