Sceptics ready your sharpened tongue. This Month’s Fat Wreck Chords release is the original ‘practice’ recordings of ‘As the Eternal Cowboy’, Against Me!’s 2003 label debut. From the PR: “Recorded at Goldentone Studio in Gainesville, FL with Rob McGregor on July 15th, 2003, these songs were used as the template for the later recording of the album.” Hmm, template? This following a stop-gap DVD (NOFX) and rarities CD (Strung Out) on the label’s release list this year. Anyone smell a cash cow? [Cut to Fat Mike swimming in Benjamin Franklins]. Okay, cynics roll those tongues back in and consider this: the traditional record label is pretty much screwed. Nobody pays money out for CDs anymore, right? So in times of need, adjustments must be made.
Perhaps the role of the label in today’s market needs to focus more on the bona fide fan than Joe Public the CD buyer. Putting your releases out on vinyl seems to be a good start (retro is ‘in’ after all), and then generating product that the die-hards are going to be interested in spending cash on. That’s where ‘The Original Cowboy’ fits into the grand scheme of things. Without question, this is a release for fans of Against Me!, and very few others.
Catch-up time: for anyone unfamiliar with ‘As the Eternal Cowboy’, it’s a very quick 25 minutes packed with what could be termed that quintessential Against Me! sound. A mix of up tempo punk-rock numbers and near acoustic offerings that showcases an agit philosophy and frontman Tom Gabel’s beautifully rustic and unique vocals. Punktastic’s original review gave the release four and a half stars which is probably about a half star too much but this is almost an essential release. Some might say the premier AM! release.
So how does ‘The Original Cowboy’ compare to ‘As the Eternal Cowboy’? To be completely honest, it sounds very, very similar. Almost identical. Obvious differences would be the omission of “Sink, Florida, Sink” and the reordering of the individual tracks. As on the live circuit “A Brief Yet Triumphant Intermission” has now become “A Brief Yet Triumphant Introduction” and is found here banded into one track with “Cliché Guevara”, whilst “You Look Like…” and “Turn Those Clapping Hands…” have been similarly squeezed together.
Aside from that, not much is different, at least to the untrained ear. Cue Against Me!: “Having already recorded our first full length album and two previous EPs with Rob [McGregor] at Goldentone, we wanted to do something different for our second full length. We specifically wanted to make an all analog recording which we could do at Ardent [studios]. With McGregor coming along to produce, we wanted to make sure he was familiar with the songs, so we made this demo recording.” Thank you, Mr Gabel. So it’s all about how it was recorded.
Basically ‘The Original Cowboy’ really doesn’t offer anything new. It’s an oddity for the shelf of completists (especially the vinyl edition) and that’s about as far as it goes. That’s not to say anybody picking this up ‘blind’ isn’t going to enjoy it. The songs are quality. We know this from the original release and that doesn’t change. But you have to consider with the recorded output of ‘As the Eternal Cowboy’ being so close to this ‘prototype’ couldn’t the band have saved a few bucks and put this out first time round?
Still, if it were just the songs being judged, there really are some beauties here. Four stars for the songs, one star lost for not really bringing anything different to the table.
Alex