Got Some Fine Wine in the Freezer

Steve Wynn played the Horseshoe last night, the first night of a new tour leg. Whenever I see him play or check out one of his recent records, I always feel like I should be following his post-Dream Syndicate career more closely than I do. Solid songs pour out of him, riding simple but effective riffs & melodies, generally classic-rock-feeling with a slight Velvets or punk edge. Even though he’s an LA and NYC kind of guy, his stuff seems to me to have a real heartland feel – it’s not impossible to imagine, say, John Mellencamp singing “Bruises” or “There Will Come a Day.” But thankfully he’ll do the odd weirder tune, too, and he likes his pulsing mood pieces.

Last night’s show, featuring Wynn’s for-a-while-now backing band, The Miracle 3, was just solid fun, fun, fun. Four people playing rock & roll, playing hard, and enjoying each other. (Especially grin-happy drummer Linda Pitmon.) As ever, Wynn seemed comfortable enough with his Dream Syndicate legacy, throwing in a few Days of Wine and Roses songs including “When You Smile,” “Halloween,” “That’s What You Always Say,” and the title track.

I was kind of hoping he’d do “John Coltrane Stereo Blues,” from the Dream Syndicate’s second album, but he did not. Recently I came across a solo Wynn version from the mid-1990s that, I must say, kicks the ass of the original. It’s twitchier & more insistent, and longer, too – it collapses into tiny fragments in the middle and then slowly rebuilds itself. And the guitars just sting all the way through.

• Steve Wynn, “John Coltrane Stereo Blues” (from The Suitcase Sessions – buy here)

This song was obviously conceived mainly as a jam, and although the lyrics may seem like throwaways, I think they’re actually kind of brilliant. On the one hand you have these courtship moves that sound like typical Your Carlsberg Years bullshit:

I got some John Coltrane on the stereo, baby, make you feel alright
I got some fine wine in the freezer, mama, I know what you like

But the real message keeps slipping through:

Keep your hands off the shades, baby, no one gonna care....

Don’t tell me any more about the civilized world – it’s just you and me
What do I gotta do to show you the way that it’s gonna be....

I said that a man works hard all day and he can do what he wants to at night....

It’s terrifying, all the more so because these are ostensibly just vague innuendoes. But the menace is still clear, and because they’re ostensibly just vague innuendoes, they actually sound like how a dangerous creep might choose to express himself.

Compare that with a song that came out around the same time, by Hüsker Dü’s Grant Hart. Hart’s “Diane” is narrated by a sex murderer, and this is what he has to say:

We could cruise down Robert Street all night long
But I think I'll just rape you and kill you instead

Come on – this is the equivalent of a comic-book villain saying, “As an evil mastermind, I will have my terrible revenge on that crime-fighter.”

Ah, well. It’s on Metal Circus (buy here), which was before Hüsker Dü got really good anyway.

• Hüsker Dü, “Diane”