Bill Fox
(Scat)
He would surely deny it, but Bill Fox is a freakin' genius. Among the thousands of albums on my shelves, I have likely returned to Bill Fox's recordings in the past 10 years more frequently, more thoroughly, and more consistently than almost any album I own. I try to avoid trafficking in hyperbole, but I will stand by the statement that Bill Fox is one of the most important songwriters of the past 20 years.
Back in the mid-1980s, Bill Fox fronted Cleveland power-punk trio The Mice. Few outside Ohio ever heard of The Mice, but they most certainly caught the attention of one of Dayton's more successful residents: Robert Pollard. The Mice were very much an influence on early Guided by Voices. GbV's four-track aesthetic was not lost on Fox, either, when in 1997 and 1998, he released two of the most astonishing albums that only a handful of people have ever heard - and those who have treasure them. Scat's reissue of Shelter From the Smoke is an important step toward helping listeners rediscover a man whose music has so profoundly affected the lives of those who've found it.
Fox's two solo albums are such intensely personal works that it is nearly impossible to write about outside of one's own experience with them - so I won't even try. I first stumbled upon Shelter at Vintage Vinyl on a weekend trip to St. Louis. The bin card proclaimed: "If you like Guided by Voices, Bob Dylan, Badfinger, and Harry Smith, you must buy this album." How could I refuse? On first listen, the album just seemed like a wonderful lo-fi mix of pop, folk, and traditional with a DIY sensibility. But as with any thoughtful work, the more you listen, the more it reveals. First is that voice, which careless listeners might be tempted to dismiss as Anglophiliac posturing (but of course all great singing is about "finding a voice"); Fox's timbre is both instantly recognizable, inviting, intriguing, and ultimately fitting to the context of his songs.
The opening jangle of "Over and Away She Goes" is immediately infectious before Fox even sings a note, and once he begins "spilling grooves" and reminding the listener that "It's not her hair I'm tangled in / It's just another sense of wonder," you're hooked. "Up and down, a chill returns." Indeed. Only the tune's deceptive optimism is soon to be followed up with "spilling tears of rum" over lost love in "Appalachian Death Song." Some songs on Shelter feel almost voyeuristic, as we listen in on an intimate whisper between Fox and his cassette recorder, while others let loose with an early Who-like abandon, such as on the anthemic pop medley of "Let's Be Buried Together"/"Love Ain't No Feeling."
Fox's capitalist critique is not a stretch to read. "Every day's a Freedom Bash," Fox sings, "Mama, if you got the cash" in the Dylan nod "I'm Not Over Loving You." With "Sara Page," Fox warns, "You ain't nothin' on account of your finery," punctuating with a prostitution metaphor. "A buck a dance for Sara Page / Every evening it's the same ol' stage / And every night she'll be going down again for a ten" can speak either specifically to the feelings musicians can have when they introduce something as personal as their songs to the cold and calculating machinations of commerce, or more broadly to what anyone who works to earn a wage or a salary faces when they trade their labor on the market, only to continually feed a self-serving cycle of unfulfillment. The turned trick, as Fox mournfully describes it--whether literal or metaphorical--decries the act of sacrificing to the market in the service of employers (and/or for the desire of johns) that which should be intimate and personal.
For those commodity fetishists who love a heartfelt critique of capital, and yet still find packaging to be important, this issue of Shelter comes in a lovely cardboard gatefold LP-style sleeve (little touches like these make a tangible difference). This issue will also be available for the first time on vinyl, and both versions include bonus tracks of Fox's single releases. They are a joy to hear. Last year, I picked up a comp entitled I Stayed Up All Night Listening to Records solely for a Fox track I didn't have ("Eclectrocution" - not included here). The moment of popping open the CD and hearing that song was pure bliss. Listening to the extras on this issue has had the same effect. For the past ten years, the two Fox solo albums are all we've had from sessions that presumably yielded over 100 songs. The only reason this reissue of Shelter doesn't get a 10 is so as to give Scat that much more incentive to follow through with their planned 2010 reissue of Fox's other stellar solo release, Transit Byzantium. And if they can manage to release the lost Bill Fox third album from these same sessions, I will give it an 11 before I even crack the shrinkwrap--without hesitation. That's a promise (I can't speak for what my editor will do).
Standout Tracks: "Sara Page" "Let's Be Buried Together" "Over and Away She Goes" EDWARD BURCH
