Who is Mark Baston and what has he done with the Dave Matthews Band?
Somewhere around 1994 I heard the Dave Matthews Band for the first time. It was college, a room full -- but not too full -- of people and though I can't recall, I would imagine I had a libation in hand as the conversations swirled.
Whatever was in the CD player had repeated several times, and someone visiting on a road-trip suggested a new CD that was stashed in his backpack. After just a few seconds of "Best of What's Around", I asked, "Who is this? This is good stuff." Suddenly I wasn't so interested in the discussion of the merits of the new pledge class.
"Dude," came the reply, "it's the Dave Matthews Band, haven't you heard them before? And dude, if you think this is good, you should hear them live, dude."
Hopefully, live play will enhance the tracks on the new release from Dave and the Boys, entitled Stand Up, because dude, this studio album is not what we have come to expect -- or want -- from DMB.
The thing that has always made DMB attractive is it's fusion of jazz, folk, rock, and alternative all into one sound, and, the ability to make it sound natural. Indeed, when I first heard Boyd Tinsley's fiddle in conjunction with LeRoi Moore's saxophone, I wondered why no one had ever tried it before. So natural.
But on Stand Up, Carter Beauford's robust percussion is often replaced with a drum machine. On Before These Crowded Streets, full-song tracks were interspersed with mini-tracks of tight little jams. Instead, on Stand Up, we get a mini-track with machine-gun fire.
People with a great deal of creativity, like Dave Matthews, are often also people of great emotion, and brimming emotion often leads to great highs and great lows. And so when Dave found himself in a bit of a depression in 2001 while the band was recording what became to be known by DMB-philes as the "Lillywhite Sessions" (which was later released as Busted Stuff), the band's record label RCA took notice to the dark turn the songs were taking and suggested a new direction.
Dave, sans the Band, was subsequently flown out to La-la Land where a meeting with industry uber-producer Glen Ballard. It was there that Dave was told that the long jams and unfiltered sound that had taken DMB to the top wasn't very good after all. It was suggested that the "Lillywhite Sessions" should be scraped and Matthews and Ballard would embark on a new kind of effort. More poppy, with shorter, tighter songs.
The effort resulted in Everyday, and album that flopped with traditional DMB fans. Sure, it sold quite well, but that was more a symptom of the band's loyal fan base than the quality of the effort. DMB and RCA realized this and for Busted Stuff, returned to the band's roots. Most of Busted Stuff's material was just regurgitated from the Lillywhite Sessions, but that was good enough as fans loved the return to what made Dave and the Boys special. Fans sighed in relief, "we have our band back."
And now this.
For Stand Up, the band turned to Mark Baston, a producer with a background as a jazz pianist and credits that include Sting (good) Eminem (not good), Beyoncé (worse), and 50 Cent (even worse). The result is another deviation from what sets the Dave Matthews Band apart from other musicians and groups. The album is actually more like Everyday than Everyday was, if that makes any sense. In other words, much more overproduced.
Judged on its own, Stand Up is actually a good album. The trouble is, it's not a good Dave Matthews Band album. And that is what many want. If fans wanted Stand Up, they could turn on any one of Clear Channel's stations and listen to any number of "artists" do their thing.
But that isn't why one buys a Dave Matthews Band CD. You buy one because you want something different. Fortunately, we still have Blue Merle, John Mayer, and Jason Mraz (all of which are undoubtedly DMB-influenced) who all sound more like DMB than DMB does.
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More on Stand Up...
...Minutiae's "'Stand Up' Against Bad Music"
..."They're Back to See Their Friends, Warily" in the New York Times
...An interview with Mark Baston at Nancies.org.
..."So-so Effort, but DMB Live is Better" in the Hartford Courant
