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Between his hometown of Austin, Texas and his musical muse’s residence of Charlottesville, Virginia, between his disarmingly green eyes or perhaps between the part of his brain that commands "Music!" and the parts of his body that respond, Danny Schmidt seems to keep a place where the competing forces of Song and Logic meet and reevaluate his lyrics.
| To listen to some of Danny Schmidt’s music, visit his MySpace page. |
Song pulls Schmidt to one side, romancing him with instinctive images and aural pleasure, a siren; Logic cautions Schmidt and tugs him back, tempering his fantastic words with something more realistic. "Hold my hand, the leaves are burning," Schmidt sings like a protective force in the opening track to his fifth album, Little Grey Sheep. Then, like an understandably timid child: "The leaves are burning, now hold my hand." The impulsive Song commands Schmidt to be a visionary, and the wise Logic reminds him that he is bound to fallible visions.
 New records and old friends: Danny Schmidt reunites with his musical brethren and brings his lyrical A-game for his fifth album, Little Grey Sheep. |
Little Grey Sheep is filled with these moments of steps forward and back, a cautious waltz and reeling stomp rendered perfect in its extremes through years of touring (Schmidt has performed many of these songs, including "Leaves are Burning" and the flawless "Company of Friends," at gigs during the past few years) and his studio band, a collection of locals that seems to be peaking in unison. Try as he might, Schmidt built his sound in Charlottesville, and so he returns to Charlottesville to build his sound again. The competing forces at work in Danny Schmidt would appreciate that.
"Leaves are Burning" opens the record with a crisp acoustic guitar that fades and bucks between extremes, masterfully recorded by Schmidt and local songwriter Paul Curreri, who taped and produced the record together (Curreri also acted as engineer). Moments of interrupted industrial noise call to mind the production and mixing on Curreri’s latest record (the excellent Velvet Rut), and give way nicely two tracks later to the steel guitar of Colin Brooks, a Texas-based gun for hire that follows Schmidt’s themes of rise and fall on "Go Ugly Early," the title stemming from advice from a father to a son about picking a wife that is dissected for truth.
Elsewhere, Schmidt shows the knowledge he has gleaned since leaving Charlottesville to return to Austin—namely, on "Adios to Tejasito," that the rest of Texas is something the man just doesn’t need. Though Jeff Romano (who mastered the record) peppers Schmidt’s tunes with a few memorable harmonica lines, he gets whimsical to match Schmidt’s kiss-off to the unsavory parts of his gal Texas: "There’s snakes out in the desert, there’s fireants in dirt," sings Schmidt. "There’s oilmen in Lubbock and there’s bankers in Fort Worth."
In some songs, Song wins out over Logic to enjoyable ends, particularly on "Tales of Sweet Odysseus" (a retelling of the myth with inverted genders and Matty Metcalfe’s sifting accordion riffs taking off on treks of their own) and "California’s on Fire," where Schmidt’s heavy strumming pairs with percussion swells from Spencer Lathrop and Curreri again to mourn the flame-licked state like a lover.
When the end comes—of the record, or of some bigger picture—what else can a man ask for but that Logic and Song be paired into some document or life that says "I measured one against the other and found balance." While "Trouble Comes Calling" closes out Schmidt’s excellent new album, the big finale comes in the penultimate track, "Company of Friends," in which Schmidt asks for remembrance through his beliefs and his beloveds in two verses, then lets loose with a six-verse manifesto, capping each with "In the end I do believe." Singing with him on each are the friends that he has gifted with his Logic and helped to celebrate with his Song, already commemorating a man that sings like he has surpassed both.
Danny Schmidt performs as part of the King of My Living Room concert at Gravity Lounge on November 30, then performs solo at Gravity on December 6 and at Rapunzel’s Coffee on December 8. See dannyschmidt.com for a full tour schedule.
