Steve Wynn & Dream Syndicate
Dream Syndicate plays the Turf Club, Sunday, Oct. 4 (8pm)
Look Upon What Our Underground Created & Preserves
Back in the late seventies, the canaries in the coal mine of the impending loss of America’s idiosyncratic character, the ones to hear first martial beats of Lewis Powell’s corporate war on our shared values, were the musicians traveling across it. As chain stores began to blanket the country as our entire retail and restaurant culture was nationalized in pursuit of cheap food that tastes the same wherever you get it.
It’s not like Steve Wynn is some revolutionary. We just mention it because Wynn was among that first generation of L.A. post-punk acts which joined arms with their musical colleagues and forged a DIY ethos that sought its sustenance outside the system. That Wynn is still making music with many of his mates of the time is a testament to their success – as well, on some level, of the smaller aperture subsequent acts had to negotiate, but that’s the positive side of the trailblazing-a-new-path approach.
Wynn has played in a prodigious number of acts, with his solo band and completely solo. In college he had a band, The Suspects, with Kendra Smith, who would join Dream Syndicate, and Russ Tolman and Gavin Blair, who’d form True West. He started a band, 15 minutes, under the idea that’s about how long his career would last, and he hoped to record a single, “That’s What You Always Say,” and “Last Chance for You.
But the cauldron of friends around him – the so-called Paisley Underground, including the Long Ryders, Green On Red, The Bangles (originally the Bangs), Salvation Army/The Three O’clock, and the Rain Parade, but also Game Theory and even, Leaving Trains, after their debut, 1984’s Well Down Blue Highway, which had more jangle than punk. (The following album, Kill Tunes, featured “Vicki” dedicated to the Bangles’ Vicki Peterson.) It was less of a stylistic moniker than one that captured the united sense of the endeavor – making music in a scene that could give AF about you.
From the beginning Wynn’s been willing to go against the grain. Dream Syndicate was a distortion-drenched jam band unlike any of their peers. They made a sound they wanted to hear, and when they left the single session that birthed their debut, Days of Wine and Roses, they knew they made something special. Now it’s considered a guitar rock classic. But the band changed quickly as Smith left and formed Opal with Rain Parade’s David Roback. (When she quit mid-tour, Roback recruited his friend Hope Sandoval, and eventually started Mazzy Star with her, rather than continue under the name Opal.)
For their second album Medicine Show, they went in another direction, guided by legendary BOC producer Sandy Pearlman, sounding more like a classic rock act with the addition of keyboards, which after the critical adoration that greeted the debut, was probably somewhat inevitable backlash. Guitarist Karl Precoda left and Paul Cutler (45 Grave ex-Gun Club bassist Rob Graves) stepped in for two albums, Out of the Grey and Ghost Stories. The albums went out-of-print so quickly and completely we never grew as familiar with it as Wynn’s solo work.
Post Dream Syndicate
There was a moment, believe it or not, when Wynn was gonna join Bob Mould in what would become Sugar, but for whatever reason, it never really gelled. Wynn’s solo work was terrific and seemed to be the next step in his evolution as a songwriter. He may never be Ray Davies or Warren Zevon, but there are other ways to write a great song.
Wynn’s songwriting skill seemed to gather like a low-pressure front. His 1990 debut Kerosene Man was quite good, or seemed so at the time. The issue is that his writing got better and better, as he worked a regular expanse of country and roots rock as well as his more biting Velvets & Neil brand.
We really caught notice with 1996’s terrific Melting in the Dark, which returned to his more rugged rock vibe after 1994’s rootsy Flourescent, backed by the sympathetic Boston act, Come (Chris Brokaw and Thalia Zedek). The next year’s Sweetness & Light might have been overselling it, but was a bright somewhat richer follow-up, and his first album with future wife, drummer Linda Pitmon, and Love Tractor bassist Armistead Wellford.
We neglected to mention from 1993-1996, Wynn was also playing in Gutterball, with former Long Ryders guitarist Stephen McCarthy, bassist Bob Rupe (Cracker, Silos), and House of Freaks singer/guitarist Bryan Harvey and drummer Johnny Hott. (Wynn reports they recently wrote some songs and will reunite for a new album for the first time in three decades! Harvey and Rupe have sadly passed, but the others are back.)
1999’s My Midnight felt like a career high-point, but was followed by the even better two-disc set, Here Come the Miracles. Old Green on Red buddy, keyboardist Chris Cavacas joins in and Brokaw returns. It won awards, and rode high on many critic’s lists. He followed with 2003’s Static Transmissions, another near-masterpiece. After spending several weeks in Ljubljana with Chris Eckman (The Walkabouts), he turned out yet another highlight, 2008 Crossing Dragon Bridge, written under the influence of this bucolic visit and another great triumph.
Yet already new horizons had opened up.
The Baseball Project
In 2007 Wynn, bassist Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, Tuatara, REM touring guitarist), REM guitarist Peter Buck, and Pitmon formed a band to do songs about baseball. Wynn’s a huge Yankee fan and all of the other members love the sport as well. It was strictly a vanity project from their standpoint. What a cool idea to do some songs about the national pastime and its rich history of weirdos.
Well, it turned into an entire thing. There’s sort of no explaining it, and yet at the same time it seems so obvious that we’re not sure why a basketball hip-hop version of the idea hasn’t already materialized. (Right?)
Obviously, it may not have struck a chord if they hadn’t written good songs, but these music vets with almost three decades of songwriting under their belt were up to the task. They were playing bigger venues than Wynn had ever played…… in the states. (This is where we insert the note that, like MOST of the Los Angeles post-punk coterie – Gun Club, Long Ryders, Rain Parade, the Cramps – they were *and remain* very popular in Europe, much more so, in general than they are in the states, where they still mostly play clubs and midsize venues. AND WE ARE NOT COMPLAINING.)
The Baseball Project released four albums and an EP (featuring among others the late Todd Snider) between 2008 and 2014 before going on hiatus, but returned with another album 2023, which may be their best of the bunch, produced by Mitch Easter. The Wynn song, “The Yips,” is such a great relatable tune about one of the oddest and yet relatable baseball occurrences which has struck people like Steve Sax, Chuck Knoblauch and Rick Ankiel.
Dream Syndicate Redux
Riding high after the success of the Baseball Project, Wynn recorded an album of solo electric music and toured that. Dream Syndicate had reunited for Festival BAM in Spain in 2012, and played intermittently after that before going into the studio in 2017 for How Do I Find Myself Here? with returning drummer Dennis Duck and bassist Mark Walton, with guitarist Jason Victor (who has played with Wynn’s solo band) and keyboardist Cavacas, in the studio (not on tour).
While very different in sound than the old Dream Syndicate – how could it not be, after 30 some years, but the adventurous spirit and the texture and guitar interplay are all the same. They are playing off each other and after so long it’s an extraordinary journey. They’ve released three albums since reuniting – 2019’s These Times, 2020 The Universe Inside, and 2022’s Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions, each other such sturdy quality and interest that you almost wonder if Wynn gets bored being so good. None of the albums sound alike, but they’re working a similar psychedelic/grimy rock/wiry rumbling interplay nexus, but the grid’s far too-wide to be able to predictably place it without strapping a musical GPS to Wynn, and what fun would that be?
Instead, just sit back, relax and marvel at a guy living the dream – making great music for 50 years in a variety of outfits, receiving critical acclaim whereever he lands, and even being a star – not here, but a star of stature elsewhere, so it’s almost like he’s from Canada, only Europe’s got much better accommodations and sights. This is what it's like to be able to reach to touch greatness (without climbing all those barricades and juking a security guard or wheedling your way backstage).
Honestly, check it out. This is what an underground star looks like, and it’s because of him and his friends like Green on Red, Los Lobos, X, the Blasters, the Bangles, the Go-Gos, REM, etc that this kind of creative infrastructure exists. So honor it if you can.
