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| Real human art or AI? Dreadful either way |
I wanted to like this album. I've always wanted to like Tedeschi Trucks. What harm do they do? None. They bring wholesome rock n' roll entertainment to many, many good people - media and IT consultants, mostly, wellness mentors, realtors, barristas, craft beer entrepreneurs, bitcoin traders. A Prius with oat milk lattés in the cooler. The TTB's festival gigs have extended families literally standing up with excitement across the USA, and getting home in time for bed. What am I, the Grinch at Christmas?
Not being able to join in the fun at their gigs, I've dutifully listened to their albums hoping to hear something, like songwriting, to convince me they're worth my time. They perform a lot of covers, which is not only a respectful nod to those great musicians who went before them but also an admission they have trouble coming up with material. Sooner or later - preferably sooner - they had to come up with their own Layla or Dark Star or Ramblin' Man. They just can't. I'm sure their fans can tell the songs apart, but to anyone outside that blessed circle they've made no impact at all.
It's not a question of competence. They have competence out the ass. Trucks is a fine guitarist, if *cough* a little lacking in charisma and on-stage dynamism. To the point that it's hard to see if he's even up there - you're thinking that the potato in Target duds is a guitar tech, tuning up. Tedeschi has a winning voice, and she's sexy in a kind of Walton's Mountain way. Amish schoolmarm sexy. Not too much of a threat to Mom out there keeping an eye on hubby! Neither of them could write a hit at gunpoint. There are, at last count, thirty-seven musicians in the band. Some of them have to stay in the tour bus because there's no room on stage. Excuse me, but Jimi Hendrix was three guys, and one of those couldn't play. The Who? Four, and one of those just swung a mic. They set everything on fire, made the sound of planets colliding ...
Oh dear.
When this album was touted as their song album - heavy on hooks, light on noodling - I pulled on a pair of freshly-laundered pre-aged Levi's (made in China) and my original collector's item Official Revelator Tour Shirt (made in China), swung my TTB ball cap (made in China) backward and settled in for some good old-fashioned rock n' roll. Spoiler - not.
Take a hinge at that cover. It's either AI or a real human artist painting exactly like AI. Whatever. But there's some significance here - the TTB are real humans who sound exactly like AI. The songs have that generic, flat, sterile, faultlessly competent, no-surprises-here sound. They slide on by in an agreeable and entirely unmemorable mid-tempo snooze, never breaking out into the excitement zone. Never making your neck hairs bristle or your palms sweat. Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, a fine, responsible married couple who are also the two most joyless fucks in showbiz.
Let's worry less about machines doing human stuff and worry more about humans doing human stuff. Taking risks, having a laugh, getting angry.
This post written somewhere between resignation and annoyance.
Talk among yerselves. I is disgustipated.
ReplyDeleteWell thanks FT3, that saves me the effort of listening myself - the sleeve designed by a ten year old doesn’t help either - I saw a few tracks on yewtube a while back and was unimpressed.
DeleteI have months of music in my ‘to be listened to’ folder so I’ll dip into that instead. Btw the Bim Sherman you shared a few weeks ago has been playing in Bambi Mansions this week, thanks.
There's something weirdly unsettling about the TTB. The blank expressions (captured perfectly on the cover) and Trucks' zombie-like stance. They're like the Stepford Wives performing for pod person audiences. A virtual world, a near-life experience.
Delete(Thank you - the Bimster is the real thing.)
Not the biggest fan of the TTB, but I don't see or hear anything out of them that separates them from the other yawn inducing jam bands, including Widespread, the Dead (yeah, I said it) or Rush. In all fairness to TTB (and like most of their noodling brethern), they are far better live (still a no from me). Also, a few years ago they released a set of 4 eps of all original music that was based on an old Arabic poem about star crossed lovers. So, they do get an A for originality on that one.
ReplyDeleteWere the Dead ever a "jam band" except retrospectively? I don't remember the term being used in the 60s and 70s. And they had an extensive repertoire of great songs around which to noodle. Which is kind of my point here - there are no instant classic songs on this album, not one that's so good it sticks in your head after one play, and that's what the album is being touted as. They've been going for sixteen years without coming up with anything close to a hit song. None of today's "jam bands" has established a core repertoire of great songs - they all have impressive musical ability, but there's a vacuum at the center.
DeleteWait, what? RUSH?
DeleteWhite Denim are not miles away in style (just a lot better IMO), when I saw them live about ten years ago, despite looking like trainee accountants at the time, I thought that if they just grew a few beards and maybe one of them wore a tasseled suede jacket they could be hugely popular in America. They were excellent live, and not much noodling.
ReplyDeleteThey probably were trainee accountants at the time, I’ve just checked White Denim seem to now have a few beards in the band, maybe I should have been a band manager.
A few of their albums have passed through my EyeChewns. Good stuff, but not quite keepers.
DeleteI want to like "Jam bands", and in principle, given my tastes, should "dig" them. But I find Americana dull, and bluegrass even more so - the redneck associations, perhaps? I realise the jamband scene derives ultimately from the Grateful Dead, and despite many efforts (medicated and not) over the past 45 years, could never get them. There's plenty of good blues bands, and the jazz in jam bands is negligible. I like jazzy jams, so listen to jazz. Umphrey's McGee used to be OK, but don't really go anywhere. I saw the String Cheese Incident live (not many jam bands get to the UK) and lasted 20 minutes, as it was, er, boring. (Not a word I use very often, either.) I like Gong, Cardiacs, Zappa, and fancy-schmancy jazz-fusion bands, so my ears can handle plenty of widdle. Is there a "jam band" I WOULD enjoy?
ReplyDeleteNo.
DeleteI saw The Tedeschi Trucks Band in May 2025. The crowd looked decidedly “Jam Band” and were “Deadhead nice”. Derek Trucks is as fine as a Blues Rock guitarist you’ll hear in this decade. Susan Tedeschi soulful voice was pitch perfect, and she's more than capable guitarist. The backing band was made up of uniformly excellent musicians. And yet the entire show was about as exciting as doing laundry.
ReplyDeleteIf they don't get excited by the music, I won't either. I've never seen anyone less engaged with the audience than Trucks, and Tedeschi has less passion than a soccer mom. There's no fire there, and the worrying thing is their audience likes them that way. It's more important to relate to them as "good people", to have a "nice time", than to get out of their fucking heads on the music, which everybody seems to have forgotten is what rock n' roll (a "cringe" term in itself) does so well. Having seen the Allmans live, I know how a band can build dynamics and create surges of excitement through improvisation built on great songs. The one needs the other. The TTB are so far from the Allmans (in spite of the obvious debts) they might as well be playing down a mine. Maybe their audience doesn't have the real thing to compare it to. It's the new normal.
Deletesaw susie when she was a solo she was great
ReplyDeletesaw tedeschi trucks band also their mad dog show just didnt cut it for me i never care for trucks no matter who he played with
don't listen to them...she should leave him home
woody
He certainly took the fire out of the Allmans, without even trying. "Instrumental Illness" was right.
Delete