Blog Dave Matthews doesn't deserve all the hate

by Steve Heisler July 15, 2009

Article Tools

- Twitter
- Facebook
- Digg
- StumbleUpon
- Reddit
Email This
[ x ]
Print This

More Blog

I'm always ashamed to admit that for part of my life, circa late high school, I was a huge Dave Matthews Band fan. (I was on vacation when 1999's Listener Supported came out, so I demanded the Borders where I worked part-time put aside a copy under my name, despite the countless boxes and reassurances from co-workers that there were plenty of copies.) And though my former fondness for the band means I'll never truly purge the khaki-rock completely from my system, that time is now over because the band's music—and the solo work of Dave Matthews—doesn't appeal to me anymore. I definitely have little interest in seeing the band's shows on July 18 or 19 at Alpine Valley, which are in support of the group's new, stupidly titled Big Whiskey & The GrooGrux King.

But the source of my shame is that DMB is reviled among music aficionados, and their reasons are numerous: Frat parties and cornhole-fueled cookouts pump "Ants Marching" and "Satellite" almost nonstop; the band allows fans to record live shows and trade them around, which means 150 zillion identical versions of "Jimi Thing" are floating around to annoy road-trip passengers; and any newbie guitar player looking to get laid will likely break out the first few wussy-sounding notes of "Crash Into Me" in a public setting. And I haven't even gotten to the fact that in 2004, DMB's tour-bus driver dumped gallons of urine and feces onto the porous Kinzie Street bridge—just as an architecture tour boat was rumbling by underneath.

So, it's understandable why some people have a visceral reaction when the South African musician is merely mentioned, but it's still somewhat of a mystery why people unfamiliar with his music claim to hate everything he and his band have done. Before using DMB as a qualifier for how lame you think something is, here are a few defensible moments in Dave Matthews' career.

Before These Crowded Streets, 1998
The group's third studio album was also the last one with producer Steve Lillywhite, who contributed an airiness even to the most potentially stuffy tracks; "Don't Drink The Water," which ends with Matthews growling the final verse, benefits from scaling back the drone-like bass and higher vocal notes. But the real accomplishment here is that the album shows off a surprising range, from the manic "Rapunzel" to the understated "The Dreaming Tree." The highlight comes with "Crush," a smooth, eight-minute love song that ends with a biting, violin-fueled instrumental (sadly absent in the radio edit, as seen here).

The Lillywhite Sessions, 2001
After Before These Crowded Streets, the band rejoined Lillywhite in the studio to record its next album—done, like the others, with Matthews primarily on acoustic guitar. At the time, he was a heavy drinker and told Rolling Stone that the music was shaking out to be "sad bastard songs." The album got scrapped, and in its place came 2001's Everyday, recorded with Glen Ballard, the producer behind Alanis Morissette and Aerosmith. But a month later, the tracks from The Lillywhite Sessions (as they're now known) made it onto the Internet. And though many of those songs were repurposed for 2002's Busted Stuff, those early recordings contained more of the slapdash charm Ballard later polished out. As it so happens, Sessions is perhaps DMB's most cohesive work to date—everything from catchy riffs on "Grey Street" to sweet, ballad-style melodies on "Grace Is Gone." Here's the Lillywhite version of "Bartender," which enjoys a much more natural build than its Busted Stuff counterpart.

Live At Luther College, 1999
As far as guitar work, Dave Matthews is fine and all, but his contribution is usually no more than a few chords. Guitarist Tim Reynolds, however, is a freakin' wizard with an axe. Thus, even though the songs on this acoustic album were dated upon release—this acoustic show was originally recorded in 1996—they're anything but tired. Reynolds bangs out scatterbrained, high-intensity solos on DMB standbys like "Typical Situation" and a slowed-down "What Would You Say," but his work rarely overshadows Matthews. Thus dark songs like "Minarets" cut right to their ominous tone thanks to the pitch-perfect emphasis at Reynolds' hands. Take a listen:

"Gravedigger," 2003
Matthews' lament on death first appeared on his 2003 solo album, Some Devil, though he'd been peddling it live for a while beforehand. It's not terribly complicated, lyrically or musically: Short stories about people, underscored by the years they were alive like you'd see on a tombstone, are recited atop repeating chords that vary slightly for the chorus. But the song, later covered by Willie Nelson, contains perhaps the most inspired line of Matthews' career: "Gravedigger / when you dig my grave / could you make it shallow / so that I can feel the rain." Makes up for all the khaki.