Review Retrospective: James Dewees

This is the 22nd review retrospective, and the finale. I am taking a moment to savor that. 

My last posted review was on April 20th, 2020. The frequency had been declining for a while. The distance I felt from where I had been seemed insurmountable. Spending this time filling out the spreadsheet and working on playlists and just remembering, I feel the ability -- and an eagerness -- to try it again.

As it was, that last review was  Reggie and the Full Effect, and that is my favorite band. For all the musicians who have participated, though, that project is James Dewees, and he feels like the appropriate point of reference.

For things that I want to do but can't get to, often it means I am starting wrong. I could not write my first review unless I made it The All-American Rejects. Trying to fight that is why their review appeared almost two months after I saw them. 

I could not make writing the retrospective work until I started it with My Chemical Romance. They were the start of my getting back into music then, even if I was trying to forget that because I am not sure how mad I am at them now. 

(Also, I now feel that I was remiss in not giving the Misfits a song; "Saturday Night" should have been in there.)

James has to be the culmination, because of the role he has played in me reviewing music. I have written more reviews for him than anyone else, with six. The runner up is a tie between Torche and Fall Out Boy, at three each, and there are lots of doubles. In addition to that last one, review 665 (after 654 unique bands and artists), the first time was as my 27th review, and 28th band. 

There was a lot of ground covered in between. I do cringe at some of the early reviews. I am also still proud of them, in a way, but I like to think I've gotten better.

As I was coming alive again after a period of burnout -- and it was about writing but it was through music -- James was a part of that, even though I was not aware of him. I remember an interview where Ray Toro was talking about how My Chemical Romance puts songs together, and he mentioned that their keyboardist knew a lot about music and often had ideas. MCR has influenced a lot of bands, and The Get Up Kids have too, including bands I was listening to then. I think there is better music in the world because of James Dewees, beyond what is credited to him.

Then, once I did know that he existed, and that he had his own music, "Take Me Home Please" struck me like a bolt of lightning. Specifically, it struck in the heart and infatuated me.

I had fallen for musicians many times on the strength of songs and vocal delivery. That wasn't even just as a teenager; as a child that included Shaun Cassidy and Bob McGrath! However, it has been a while. Part of that reviving after feeling so burned out was kind of feeling younger again, like all of that spirit was not irretrievably lost. So, even though it felt embarrassing to have a musician crush at that age, and it was a relief to get past that and just be able to like him as a person, it was also a good thing to have the crush happen.

It was not the first Kickstarter I followed and contributed too, but James did the updates well, and some of his tiers were a bit more creative than usual. It was interesting to observe on that level.

It was even more interesting, though, because those updates meant hearing early recordings of a song, and hearing their development to the finished album. That is not something that I had really gotten to hear before, and that was fascinating. 

As it was, with the initial review, the new album, and then a concert when he toured on the new album, half of the six reviews were written within less than a year of each other. 

In addition to the strong emotional response, I really appreciated the variety. He could do so many different types of music, and change up styles so quickly and keep it working within the same song. 

It would be easy to underestimate him, because the titles were generally so silly and there was so much self-deprecation. The first three album titles were jokey enough to possibly count as a form of self-sabotage.

1999: Greatest Hits 1984 - 1987: The Lord of the Bling -- His debut, titled to appear to be a compilation album from a band you never heard of.

2000: Promotional Copy -- Seeing this title, record store customers expected it to be free.

2003: Under the Tray -- Despite a diagram showing the CD being under the CD tray, many customers bought it, found the case empty, and returned it. I suspect this is why I have never been able to find a physical copy of this one, the only Reggie album I do not own.

Things got more serious after that. Songs Not To Get Married To from 2005, inspired by his divorce, may still have some jokes, but there is a lot of hurt and anger informing it. 

Then you have 2008's Last Stop: Crappy Town about rehab. I'll circle back to that, but the next step for me was really when 41 came out in 2018. The Kickstarted album, 2013's No Country For Old Musicians, was really more like the first three, almost a return to normal before tragedy struck again.

Inspired by losing his mother and mother in law to cancer while his second marriage was ending, 41 has no skits. There is still humor in some of the topics, but it is also very raw. 

As someone who was being really crushed by care giving, even for only one person, and having to think about the eventual parental loss and just trying to be so much stronger and capable than I really felt, this album read and soothed my heart. I needed it, more than I have ever needed any album. 

I reviewed the album just a month before seeing him in concert again. Normally I might have waited -- I think I found out about the tour late (caregiver!) -- but I was processing different things, and there being two reviews is fine. He was helping me with burnout again.

If that was all I ever got from him, it would be more than enough, but then he released Crappy Town. 

That had initially been my least favorite, on initial reaction. I had started to appreciate it more, slowly, but then hearing the tracks that had been cut, and having experienced more life and music too, realistically, I was able to appreciate it at a whole new level. It is a brilliant album, and aching, and angry.

The jokes could make it easy to underestimate, but also it would make it easy to overlook the emotion. It's easy to do that with people who seem like they are coping okay, but it's a mistake. The pain is there, and sometimes he can get at things better by using a pun or something absurd for distance.

And now, even after all of that, I still keep finding songs that even though I have heard them before, I keep hearing new things in them, and appreciating them more. It might eventually happen with every song. (Except the spoken part on Good Times, Good Buds, Good Tunes.)

So for now, even though there is only this one post (though technically this whole blogging week was leading up to yesterday and today, maybe not obviously), Reggie and the Full Effect gets 14 songs.

Plus, with yesterday's post, and even with the response to the Noisy slam, he might be part of me realizing that I am a crusader, though I am not sure what I am going to do with that.

For now, 14 songs. Then I have almost 100 lines of notes from these 22 posts, of songs that didn't fit into the 161 daily songs, or bands that had new releases, and new band reviews should come. I'm ready now.

Daily songs:

“Take Me Home Please” -- Here's where it all started. Also, one of my favorite videos of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtRkpk67wG4

“Kanji Tatoos... Still In Style?” -- This song off of the Kickstarter album had the strongest initial impact on me. It still feels like hop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgjtf4GgGKw

 “E” -- This was the first song off of Crappy Town that made me realize I had not heard it right. There was more to come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKcqf7ZY4fk

“Congratulations Matt and Christine” -- This was the first of his songs that I hadn't thought made an impression, but passages of music came back to haunt me later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4kQk5rKM7I

“Get Well Soon” -- I did like this song right away, but it was only much later that I was able to see the video. About divorce, it has a devastated Loch Ness monster after losing the lake in his divorce. It would be unbearable with a human, and so gives a stronger impression with the puppet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGW1ceFeNfE

“Happy V-Day” -- This was a pretty popular song, and I didn't have anything against it, but I remember really learning to love it watching it performed at Revolution Hall. It's a great song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wt97q1ArBo

“Broke Down” -- This was the song that immediately spoke to me off of 41.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smp-vNyoGTw

“The Horrible Year” -- I wish I could believe that his horrible year had ended. Speaking of being able to do more by cloaking the seriousness, that scream at the end is incredibly real and brave to me. It's compounded by the promise that the scream interrupts, letting you know that it wasn't kept.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VucpUeJUV00

“New Year's Day” -- This is the song that hit me most as a care giver, with all of the worries and exhaustion that came with that. It felt like it was predicting my future, though that has taken some detours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJqypGoDK_w

“Fought And Won One” -- This is another one that started coming back to me later, possibly (definitely) at a time when I was just getting tired of fighting it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHuv3MRWWWU

“R” -- It is kind of miraculous that I am using three songs from Crappy Town. This one stands out because it is the one that is the most energetic without incorporating any hardcore. Instead of the anger, it is the attempt to rally and make it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7PriFwWpJ8

“Smith and 9th” -- The tempo and texture work well with the theme of the inertia and the train journey, but what stays with me is the line, "Hold on to hope, and hope it lets you breathe." Sometimes it doesn't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwhnM_J80Z0

“What's Wrong” -- I also have two songs from Greatest Hits, which does not have much in the way of official releases, but it's some good stuff, so I had to put it out there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq2wGMnP24s

“Another Runaway Song” -- One reason I totally get the Kickstarter is that this earliest album has the worst sound quality, and budget matters for that. Still, listen to the complexity on this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sXEYmLe3MY

James Dewees is a genius. I don't think he would ever say it, but that doesn't have to stop me.