Restless Record
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That restlessness has informed Callahan’s work at least since 1990’s “Puritan Work Ethic,” from Smog’s Drag City debut, Sewn to the Sky. And the sinister “I Was a Stranger,” from the 1997 album Red Apple Falls, explicitly addresses some of the reasons a body might keep moving: “In the last town / You should have seen what I was / If I was a stranger / I was worse than a stranger / I was well known.” Now the seven-month itch is the theme of an entire album, Knock Knock, released a few weeks ago.
Though he respectfully declined to discuss them, Callahan’s left behind a few women in his wanderings, including Marshall, former Smog collaborator Cynthia Dall, and Rollerderby editrix Lisa “Suckdog” Carver. The ten tunes on Knock Knock combine to tell the tale of a man who falls in love, moves to the boonies with his sweetheart, watches the dream disintegrate, and flees. On the album’s opener, “Let’s Move to the Country,” the guy’s ready and eager to settle down, declaring, “My travels are over.” But “No Dancing” introduces “a poacher on the land,” and in “Teenage Spaceship” and “Cold Blooded Old Times” (the latter a chilling tale of domestic violence set to a disturbingly upbeat melody) the emergence of baggage from the past signals an inability to cope with the present double claustrophobia of small town life and a serious relationship. Tracks eight and nine find solace in rootlessness; the last one wishes the old girlfriend well.
Last Friday the Tribune and Sun-Times both practically anointed folk-rocker Diane Izzo Chicago’s next big thing–even the Reader’s own Monica Kendrick gave her a hard-won thumbs-up. Izzo’s new debut album, One, was produced by Brad Wood and released on the local Sugar Free label. But while the recording, as well as what I saw of her record-release party at Metro last week, shows vast improvement from a performance I suffered through just about a year ago, I’m still not convinced.
