Bobby Bare Jr's Young Criminals' Starvation League has released its third full-length recording, The Longest Meow, on Bloodshot Records.
Why The Longest Meow? Perhaps after completing this genre-bending album on March 26th, 2006 at approximately 10:47 pm, Bare and friends, cat-stretching, decided it was simply an appropriate name.
On that special day in Nashville, 11 musicians including producer Brad Jones recorded 11 tracks in one 11 hour sitting—OK, so that is one long meow.
Bobby Bare Jr. has had the fortune of a life blessed with talent and the good company of others. Yes, he grew up with regular house visits from the late Johnny Cash and wife, June Carter, and at the age of five, together with his father, Bobby Bare Sr., was Grammy nominated for the hit "Daddy What If," penned by a good family friend, writer and poet, Shel Silverstein.
This time, all in the name of Meow, Carl Broemel, Patrick Hallahan and Jim James, from the band, My Morning Jacket, joined Bare at Ocean Way Studios, along with many talented others. Bare Sr. even paid a visit to sing along and help munch on a pizza.
Bare Jr. describes the time spent recording the album as "the most fun I have ever had with music in one day."
Just one glance at the album's cover art—a stylized cartoon of a scared-stiff Little Red Riding Hood with her rival the Wolf leaping at her from above—reveals a great deal of this projects personality. In fact, it is not as curious as it may seem, but quite telling. Through it, we imagine Bobby Bare as a fun loving and innocent child as well as a disheartened and fearful adult who, no matter what, cherishes life's romance.
In fact, The Longest Meow might just be the microcosm of Bare Jr. the man, pressed into 11 songs.
Bare's playfulness and ability to create a sort of fairytale rock (don't get me wrong, it really does rock, just listen to "Borrow Your Cape") as well as his knack for dropping hints of life's deeper and darker meaning into the insides of a simple story are well seen in two of the albums' greats, "Demon Valley" and "Stop Crying."
Bare energetically begins his story with a real blues-rocker, "The Heart Bionic," and tells us as if we wouldn't know by listening: "Give me a heart that is bionic, now all my love is supersonic." Later in "Demon Valley" Bobby lays bare his bionic heart for the world to reveal a humbling and compassionate personal truth: "Fill up your sad sacks with empathy, for the whole world is empty."
"Meow's" denouement, "Stop Crying" adds on to what Bare started in "Demon Valley" with a childlike description of the sometimes bad world around us: "We're in the deepest, darkest dungeon in hell where the biggest fish fry, it's the place they cook the souls out of the boys and make pretty girls cry." More than just a friend, Shel Silverstein stood by Bare Jr's side in his early days as a personal critic. Over time, it seems he really has rubbed off.
Those loyal to Bobby Bare Jr. know how he is so often categorized by the critics as belonging to alt-country, belonging to indie rock, or southern rock, or punk, or pop, or Americana.
Yes, don't we always want to categorize a man and his work? But this time let's drop the labels and let Bare's enthusiasm and talent reign as what is most true:
This album is a feast for those who enjoy great music.
In 2004, Spin Magazine ranked Bobby Bare Jr's Young Criminals' Starvation League's, From the End of Your Leash, as one of the ten best albums you didn't hear. Music lovers, please don't let The Longest Meow fall into 2006's ten best albums you didn't hear. It's a guarantee, Bobby Bare Jr. is sure to please.
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