String Driven Thing
Moments Of Truth (Soundseed / The Merchant City Label)
String Driven Thing arrive fresh to me but with a lot of history behind them. Having formed before I was even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes, they released three critically acclaimed albums before splitting in 1974 (before I was out of short trousers). Despite providing the Bay City Rollers with a hit (‘It’s A Game’) and sporadic gigs in the 90s, String Driven Thing have largely languished in relative obscurity for the best part of a quarter of a century. Unlike Vashti Bunyan’s return from a similarly lengthy sabbatical, there doesn’t seem to have been the same groundswell of a growing cult following for String Driven Thing – no ‘celebrity’ endorsements or collaborations. So is the world ready for the return of Glasgow’s String Driven Thing?
In all honesty I wasn’t looking forward to playing this album let alone reviewing it but oh how wrong I was. When presented with a list of items for review I said to our esteemed editor, oh just send me anything, surprise me. What I didn’t expect to land on my doormat was an album by what appeared to be an album by a bunch of ageing hippies, lost to the mists of time for what, a younger part of me would surmise, were probably very good reasons. Then again, as I said, how wrong I was. Moments Of Truth is a genuinely moving, incredibly beautiful record. Its songs have a way of sneaking up on you, of drawing you intimately into their world. Chris Adams’ rich, raw vocals and winning way with a lyric, combine with some subtle, beautifully understated but rich and evocative musicianship to create an effect that is beguiling and addictive. Moments Of Truth isn’t the sound of an older generation desperately trying to recapture their long-lost youth but of coming to terms with it, with becoming older, more experienced. We often still see rock ‘n’ roll as a youthful event, all live fast, die young, and leave a pretty (lucrative) corpse and exploitable back catalogue, with bands like the Rolling Stones as a bizarre anomaly, old men still strutting around trying to pretend they are still 21 in front of audiences who wish they could remember being 21. It’s never a particularly edifying sight, but, as rock ‘n’ roll passes the fifty mark moving towards its pensionable years, as it grows up, it becomes apparent that a number of artists have grown with it (along with audiences) making vital music at a period in their lives when we would have previously relegated them to rest homes only allowing them out for the occasional tour on the nostalgia circuit.
Moments Of Truth develops recollections of youth with meditations on growing older, reconciling the two with wisdom, wit and experience. Opening song ‘Hey Jack’ is a tribute to the beat writer Jack Kerouac and the effect reading On The Road had, not only on a teenager, but on Adams’ life:
“Hey Jack
I just read your book again
For the first time in a quarter of a century
You changed my direction
On the road
The road through life.”
The song is a gorgeous, reflective meditation on the power of art to change lives, to withstand the vagaries of life, a theme that recurs through the album on songs such as the redemptive ‘Guernica’ and ‘Sunflowers’. Adams doesn’t portray On The Road as being a bible but a foundation stone on the way to leading a creative, enquiring life. Unlike Kerouac and other ‘rebels’, Adams doesn’t see the move from radical youth to conservative middle-age as being inevitable but as a pitfall to be avoided, telling us ‘I always preferred the fictions to the fact’.
Although the album has an elegant, often gentle feel to it, there are moments when musically it startles and surprises you. ‘Casino’ has a dark undercurrent and edgy menace to it, as does the atmospheric, expansive “Into The Fire’ with its echoes of Dylan in its musical ebbs and flows. All twelve songs flow into one another. They have a simple, uncluttered feel with gorgeous arrangements revealing little surprises and moments of sheer joy. The interplay between instruments is often just amazing.
It’s difficult to pick favourites here, I change my mind every time I put Moments Of Truth on. The title song is fantastic. It reminds me of the work Daniel Lanois did on Emmylou Harris’s wonderful Wrecking Ball, especially the way the ‘effects guitar’ is used to gorgeous effect in the instrumental passages, giving the song an additional feeling of emotional gravitas while the lyric reflects on art as more than just a commodity to be measured in purely monetary terms: ‘They think they’ll own us til the day we die / But there are some things money can’t buy’ may look slightly trite in cold, hard print, but fits beautifully into the context of the song. ‘Rolling Stone’ and ‘Con Man’ reflect on the passing of time. They portray time as an unreliable friend, lover and muse, something you seem to have so much of when you are young – ‘He’s at his cutest when you’re sixteen years of age’ but finally ‘Time will run out in the end’ leaving you wondering where it went to. ‘Con Man’ sounds very lush despite only being built up on guitar and vocal. Adams vocal is at its most Dylanesque when he sings ‘Life is just a con man giving time away / Promises us tomorrow when we only got today’.
‘Afraid Of The Dark’ and ‘Creatures Of Fate’ offer dreamy melodies and an upbeat feel to darker lyrics. ‘I Can’t Lose’ has a great sense of bravado. It’s a witty take on the question of whether a broken heart makes for better art with lines like ‘I can’t lose in this game of love… the harder it hurts the better I sing the blues’.
‘Sunflower’ is a stunning evocation of the creative process, drawing together the problems facing the artist in capturing a moment in time with lasting effect. The song begins gently, evoking a sense of the everyday before highlighting the ways in which beauty can be found in the most mundane of settings. The song gains a dizzy sense of euphoria as it builds towards its climax as Adams sings:
“The doubts and the fears of the wasted years
They were all gone in a rush of intensity
As you felt it burst from inside of you
This wonderful feeling of simply being alive
Was there before you on the canvas.”
The song ends on a gentle note of caution, in the end, many people see the artists vision realised as a private commodity, not a public pleasure.
The final song ‘So Hard’ is thoroughly joyful and uplifting, from the defiant opening verse of
“Maybe I’m a dreamer
Maybe I’m a fool
But I’ve always tried to live by
A simple golden rule
Don’t let nobody own you
Keep your fate under control
And no matter the temptation
Don’t sell your soul.”
The song moves between the reflective verses seamlessly into a buoyant chorus full of lovely harmonies. The moral of the story is that it’s easy to begin life being idealistic and full of good intentions, and easier still to lose your way. Words of wisdom from someone who chose to walk away from the mainstream and plough their own furrow.
Moments Of Truth is the culmination of such choices and it’s a beautiful testimony to following ones own heart. The end result here is an album full of beauty and awe, a lifetime of experiences, warmly shared. Hopefully String Driven Thing will no longer be Glasgow’s best kept secret.
Andy Wood
