By Alex Green, Yahoo!
Music Writer
There are some things
I know. I know what a dangling modifier is, I know
who won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1971, and I know
that there was probably a good
reason why Rosanna Arquette never called me back. But in spite of my knowledge
of certain areas and disciplines, there are, conversely, things I don't know.
For example: I don't know why my favorite bands (Let's just do the R's for now:
The Rave-Ups, The Replacements, Railroad Jerk...) never made millions of dollars;
I don't know the properties of a convex quadrilateral; and I don't know how Jennifer
Lopez has the time to make new movies, record new music, and choreograph new
dances for her all of her new videos. (She's driven, her publicist tells me --
so am I, but on weekends I sit in my underwear eating Oreos and watching "Newhart" in
Spanish.) So when it comes to life, I know a little, and there's a little I don't
know -- no big deal.
Some parents lie to their kids because they want to appear eternally omniscient,
but if I ever have kids, my friends, I will always tell them the truth when
they ask me questions, and if the truth is that I don't know, then I'll look
my daughter in the eye and say, "Honey, daddy doesn't know, because fractions
were very hard for him -- he was just too sensitive to think of things in parts." And
when it comes time for the more difficult questions that kids are wont to ask
when they get to a certain age, I'll be ready. For example, if my son says "Dad
do you think Britney Spears is an oversexualized deity conceived by the media,
or is she just a hot chick?" I'll sit my son down, look him deep in the eye
and say, "Hot chick." But for the really tough stuff, I'll have to use far
more tact, diplomacy and candor. I can just see both of my kids bouncing downstairs
before dinner and cornering me with the question I knew was coming all these
years.
"Dad," my son starts, "we have a question." "Yes," I'll say, hiding my unease
and dread, "anything at all." "Why," my daughter says with a quizzical and
truly concerned look on her face, "didn't Chris Harford sell five million albums?" And
right there, my friends, is where I must be careful -- no sugar coating from
this father.
"Well," I'll say, clearing my throat, "back when your father was a young
man, musicians like Chris Harford, Joe Henry and Tim Easton made some of the
most earnest, poetic and gorgeous albums around." "We know," my son will say
impatiently, "but why didn't they make millions of dollars?" "Because," I'll
say, "there were never enough cars and girls in their videos." "Come on," my
son will say, "don't placate us with your revisionist interpretation of the
past -- give us the straight truth."
"Okay, okay," I'll say, "the fact of the matter is, none of those artists
made a lot of money because sometimes great art can be critically lauded, but
generally ignored by the disc-buying public." "But why, dad," my daughter will
ask through her tears, "why?" "I wish I knew," I'll tell her, knowing they
both can hear only a few of my words over their sobs. "I wish I knew."
Chris Harford may not have ever made a video where he dances on the tops
of cars with models and money and some pretty expensive wine, but this Massachusetts
native who taught himself how to play guitar, has proven throughout his career
that he doesn't need gimmicks to make his music appealing. A self-taught painter
from Princeton, New Jersey, Harford received a degree in performance art from
Massachusetts and in the early eighties fronted Three Colors, a Boston-based
outfit that counted Hub Moore and Morphine's Dana Colley as its members.
Harford ended up cutting two demo collections -- The Saddest Songs Ever and The
Anatomy of Melancholy -- which were recorded over a span of four years
with Adam Lasus at Studio Red in Philadelphia, PA, and Greg Frey at Graphic
Sound Studios in Ringoes, NJ. Although some of the songs from the aforementioned
albums were included on Be Headed, his debut major-label release for
Elektra, the album was partially comprised of new material as well. According
to www.chrisharford.com, Be Headed was "Produced by Marshall Stax
(a.k.a. Chris Harford), with Pat McCarthy (U2, Counting Crows, Waterboys), Be
Headed features the First Rays of the New Rising Sun, a loose consortium
of 35 musicians that included Ween, Kevin Salem, Richard Thompson, Sim Cain
(Rollins Band), Matt Sweeney (Chavez), Toshi Reagon, David Mansfield and
the late, great Howie Wyeth (Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue), Loudon Wainwright
III and the Proclaimers." Be Headed was one of the most critically
acclaimed albums of 1992, and although it would be the only album he recorded
for a major label, it firmly established Chris Harford as one of the most
inventive, prolific and exciting new voices around. Since then, Harford has
released a handful of albums for Black Shepherd Records, including Comet (1995),
the double disc, Band of Changes (1998), and Wake (1999-2000).
In addition, Harford has produced Hub Moore's Slash/London self-titled debut,
toured on bass with Matthew Sweet, and performed shows by himself and with
his band across the country.
If you haven't heard Chris Harford, now would be a good time to start because
suddenly he's everywhere: He made a recent appearance at Bob Dylan's birthday
bash at Wetlands; he's collaborated with Daniel Johnston on a song called "Hyperjinx
Tricycle"; he has been touring with Amfibian, which features Tom Marshall of
Phish, playing guitar, bass, and singing both Amfibian originals and the occasional
Harford song; he's recently finished producing the new disc by The Saras called Siamese
Connection; a previously unreleased song by Harford and Ween's Michael
Melchiondo called "Does It Turn You On?" is now available to be downloaded
from www.chrisharford.com; and Harford's "Be My Eyes" is on Rusted Roses,
a tribute album to Jeff Buckley.
Harford is a gifted singer and songwriter with a finesse that is r
arely seen
anymore His songs are whimsical yet studied glimpses of love and relationships
and his voice is a wobbly and gorgeous narrator that will make you miss something
you've forgotten.
 Comet: Although the cover of this one
is a computer-enhanced shot of a 1910 photograph of Halley's Comet, Chris
Harford's Comet is a quiet
and unassuming album that compiles demos Harford recorded between 1989-1994. "Comet," he
says, "was the first disc post-Elektra 1995. It embodies about eight years
of recording, pre- and post-Elektra demos, etc." Spare and intimate, Comet finds
Harford at perhaps his most reflective and contemplative. The drowsy "Dying
To Be Free" is a wistful ballad that reconstructs a love affair in slow motion,
featuring a speaker who reminds himself that when "the bill arrives for the
phone, you'll have proof you weren't alone..." Although at first glance it
seems harmless enough -- tracing the time line of a busted romance -- he also
appears to be searching the rubble to make sure the perpetrator of the failed
affair wasn't in fact himself. Elsewhere the lilting "Arthur" is a devastating
look at a child genius, and "Far Off Mother Earth" is a breezy rumination of
space travel, and effortlessly captures the loneliness of rockets and leaving
the planet . Comet very well may be an album of odds and ends, but it
possesses the kind of grace and humanity that some songwriters can only dream
of.
 Band of Changes: A double disc, Band of Changes features
not only some amazing Harford originals, but covers of tracks by Richard Thompson,
Ween and Hub Moore, as well as songs co-authored with Mark Mulcahy and Kevin
Salem. The first disc is a largely acoustic affair, and features songs like
winning "Who Did You Do It To Please?," the irresistible carnival-powered "One
Fell Swoop," and the gentle "Caroline." Disc two, however, is more of a rockin'
affair -- from the straightforward pop of "For The Last Time," to the infectious,
bass-fueled "Let's Move Like This Together," disc two demonstrates that Harford
knows how to let loose. "Band of Changes," he says, "is similar (to Comet),
in that it spans about an eight-year period, from 1989 to 1997. It was a mental
'cleaning of the closets' as it were, which enabled me to free myself up for
the writing and the recording of Wake." Other standouts include the
spirited "Kiss Me Like You Kissed Me In The Van," and "If I Can't Turn To You."
 Wake: A gentle and beautiful album which came out in December
1999, Wake is a swirling and gorgeous compendium of wistful and moody
pop. Of his newer work compared to his older material, Harford told me: "There
really isn't much difference in my mind, hopefully a maturation of the song-writing
process, something I've been trying to hone throughout the years. Sonically
I think I've been influenced by Andrew Weiss whom I lived with for a few years
(he produced most of the Ween records) and working with Adam Lasus has been
wonderful in that he loves to experiment in the studio and has encouraged me
to do so. From the bizarre but winning lullaby "Joe Strummer's Midnight Dream," which
is perhaps the only song to ever mention both The Clash's Paul Simonon and
Noxema, to the acoustic stomp of "Dragonfly," Wake is an affecting collection
of 12 tracks that feature Harford at his finest. Other standouts on Wake are
the banjo-tinged "True To Me, True To You," the underwater vibe of "Show Me
The Way That You Love," and "Leaf Of Fall," an epic 10-minute and 10-second
album closer featuring some brilliant guitar work. One of the wondrous things
about Harford is that he can take a lyric like "...smoked a bone listening
to 'Enter Sandman...'" and make it sound like the saddest thing in the world.
Of Wake's two covers, Harford transforms the Buzzcocks' "Love Is Lies" into
a melancholy ballad, and offers a country-tinged reading of Lemonheads' "Ride
With Me." Brilliant.
Be Headed: Originally released by Elektra in 1992, under the
name of Chris Harford and the First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, Be Headed is
one of those albums that has it all. Whether its irresistible pop ("Unsaid
Things") or ballads you'll make a mix tape around ("You Know Me The Best"), Be
Headed is a fully-realized album of dreamy pop gems that may have caught
the attention of the critics when it first hit the shelves, but just missed
the mainstream. A few months after its release, Counting Crows hit it big,
but tracks like "Take Me (For All I'm Worth)" really prefigured the return
of finely crafted rock and roll songs to the charts. If you are one of the
ones who missed it the first time around, life is full of second chances --
the ruralize even features a reworking of Prince's "Pop Life."
Contact Alex Green: alex670@earthlink.net
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