Aural Fixations
MICHAEL DEAN DAMRON
A Perfect Day For a Funeral
(In Music We Trust)
Better known as Mike D, Michael Dean Damron is the leader of Portland's angry roots rock politicos I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House. SOB tends toward the loud, violent side of Americana, and while the band can veer into quieter fare on occasion, it's not a truly appropriate outlet for more meditative material. Thus Damron presents A Perfect Day for a Funeral, his first solo album, and one that moves the focus away from SOB's double-headed beast of tune and performance and puts it squarely on the song itself.
Damron responds to the challenge with one of his strongest, if bleakest, set of tunes. With his acoustic strums and ravaged larynx leading the way, he takes the listener on a tour of emotional hell, letting the bluesy country rock melodies and organic arrangements account for any sense of comfort or ease. Damron shows little mercy for the losers and fuckups that populate these tracks, so it's no wonder it's left to the music to lessen the pain. The protagonists of "Blame It On the Whiskey" and "Miss Amphetamine" point fingers at chemicals, but Damron knows they have no one to blame but themselves for their predicaments. The twisted soul of "Girl in a Box" may claim "Goddamn I never hated anyone/More than I hate myself right now," but that doesn't stop him from taking what he wants from the poor girl in the title. The lawless character in "Outlaw Song" cries out "Gotta find something good somewhere inside me," but since his first utterance is "I'm a liar/A walking contradiction," it's kind of difficult to have any sympathy.
Damron saves his most focused anger for a pair of tunes near the beginning of the record. The album's longest track, "Spit" tells the story of racially motivated murder and finds no understanding of the ugly violence at its heart. Damron can only seethe over how such a thing can still happen in a country where freedom and equality supposedly represent its highest ideals. Then there's the title track, which practically revels in its acrimony. A tale of a marriage gone horribly wrong, "A Perfect Day For a Funeral" demonstrates no compassion for either the wayward wife—"Did you leave me for him because he's got the better drugs?" he snarls—or for the wronged husband. "And I'm glad that thing died/That I put inside of you," he growls. "It would have grown up to hate me/Just like I hate you." That kind of scorched emotional earth leaves little room for pity for anybody. The song is as pure an expression of utter rancor as you're likely to hear; it would make death metal bands cringe in terror. But Damron isn't celebrating his protagonist's loathing, merely documenting it as a reminder that human beings don't always live by anyone's golden rule.
Besides, the record isn't completely without hope. Even though the song "New Paint" claims "Ain't no new paint gonna change what's been done," Damron does believe that light can shine through the cracks. "Pot to Piss In" takes a sardonic look at life on the road of a traveling musician. "Montana" celebrates new love, as Damron drops his guard long enough to matter-of-factly ask, "How is it beauty so fast always comes?" He also covers, without irony, "The Cape," Guy Clark's terminally optimistic classic. Frankly, making the record itself is a gesture of hope, as if by documenting the lives of these broken bastards he can exorcise the demons, free himself and all of us of their damaged souls. That's not too much to hope for, is it? Michael Dean Damron doesn't think so. Michael Toland [buy it]
