Review: Golden Smog reunite for First Avenue’s 52nd birthday
by Zach McCormick and Steven Cohen
April 04, 2022
There’s a common knock bandied around by transplants to our fair state: “Don’t bother trying to make friends with Minnesotans. They’ve already made all of the friends that they’re ever gonna want by the time they graduate high school.”
The transplants are right, sort of. But to view those long-term friendships in a purely pejorative light is to miss out on the effortless rapport and deep knowing that can develop between a group of people determined to resist the natural atrophying effects of time.
Depending on who’s telling the story, Golden Smog began somewhere in the late ‘80s, when members of what would come to be known as the Twin Cities “alternative” scene decided to ironically indulge their mutual love of countryfied rock sounds from the ‘60s and ‘70s. Eventually, a consistent line-up coalesced around Dan Murphy (Soul Asylum), Kraig Johnson (Run Westy Run), Gary Louris (The Jayhawks), and Marc Perlman (The Jayhawks), with characters like Chris Mars and Dave Pirner floating around in the mix as well. Jeff Tweedy joined the band a year or two later, and Golden Smog would release their debut album Down by the Old Mainstream in 1995, the same year as its band members’ other releases A.M., Tomorrow the Green Grass, and Let Your Dim Light Shine. Big Star’s Jody Stephens signed on to bring a bit of that Memphis magic to 1998’s Weird Tales, completing the line-up that reunited for the first time in more than 15 years at First Avenue on Saturday night (about two years after Golden Smog had been scheduled to perform on the club’s 50th birthday).
Kicking things off with a pair of ambling, Tweedy-led charmers and Murphy’s anthemic “To Call My Own,” Golden Smog got things underway with the ease of a group whose friendship has long eclipsed a need for small talk. Indeed, stage banter was mostly nonexistent until Louris jokingly asked, “Whose idea was this song anyways?” before Golden Smog launched into their achingly beautiful cover of Faces’ “Glad and Sorry.” Crooning the chorus in four-part harmony like the Upper Midwest’s answer to CSNY, Louris, Tweedy, Johnson and Murphy squeezed the song for every ounce of its bittersweet tenderness. As the crowd began to sing along, Tweedy, who often maintains a solemn stage presence, beamed like a little kid.
Keeping the momentum, Murphy’s guitar crunched into the triumphant “Red Headed Stepchild” while Tweedy backed him up on the song’s beer-soaked gang vocal hook. Louris, who had yet to sing lead, finally took a turn at the wheel as Smog soared into a majestic version of Bowie’s “Starman,” with the Jayhawks guitarist wisecracking, “I wrote that song too,” after returning to terra firma.
As the set continued, Smog settled into a loose, companionable vibe peppered with half-stammered dad jokes. After Tweedy was finished showing off his baritone on “Walk Where He Walked,” he joked, “I was sitting up in my cabin enjoying my retirement when these young bucks came walking up and said, ‘We need you for one more mission.’”
“Yeah, try not to let us down, Jeff!” came the rejoinder from his bandmates. Later, when an apparently miswritten set list caused Murphy to begin jangling the intro to “I Can’t Keep From Talking” instead of playing Love’s “Signed D.C.” with the rest of the band, Murphy left the stage to go to the “penalty box” for a few minutes, eventually returning and parking his butt on a speaker column with a sandwich in hand. As the band’s self-appointed “secretary,” Louris sheepishly apologized to Murphy for the oversight.
After all these years, the payoffs from Golden Smog’s years of musical intimacy have become abundantly clear. Each of the band’s four vocalists are equally capable of serving as a harmony partner for another, and watching them pair off for new duet combinations every song has all of the soul-warming comfort of watching your favorite sitcom characters chat. But Golden Smog’s unique synergy extends far beyond their vocals and into the way these men influenced one another’s songwriting, for both this band and their “day jobs.” Each of them has their own indelible traits as a songwriter; Murphy writes the fist-pumping rockers, while Kraig Johnson’s songs are a bit more humorous and self-effacing. Tweedy is pure sincerity and open-hearted emotion, while Louris is composed, thoughtful and literate. You can hear traces of Uncle Tupelo’s ragged defiance in Murphy’s songs — and a deep respect for Jayhawks storytelling in Johnson’s. Like best friends often do, the members of Golden Smog have forever altered each others’ lives.
“I missed you guys,” Tweedy told the band as Golden Smog readied themselves to cover Brian Wilson’s “Love and Mercy” near the end of the set. But it was almost time to go home. Closing things down with Murphy’s severely underrated Cheap Trick stomper “Corvette,” Golden Smog whipped themselves into a frenzy while Jody Stephens battered the drums like a man half his age.
Returning for an encore with violinist Jessy Greene, Louris and Tweedy plucked their way into the plaintive “Radio King,” perhaps the greatest Wilco song that was never actually a Wilco song. Indeed, Golden Smog’s entire set was packed with songs that probably could have been hits for each songwriter’s respective band.
The warm, familial vibes of the evening reached a climax when Jeff Tweedy invited his son Sam onto the stage, pointing to the young man and joking “That’s the Jeff Tweedy from poster,” in reference to the ‘90s-era press photo First Avenue had been using to promote the show. Sam’s beautiful, keening voice caused a ripple of chills throughout the room as the band struck up a cover of Neil Young’s “Helpless.” Sounding jaw-droppingly similar to Young while somehow also sounding like his dad, Sam held the audience spellbound. After the song ended, Murphy broke the lingering silence like a wiseass uncle: “Well, that didn’t suck!”
Wrapping up their encore with the jubilant arpeggios of “Until You Came Along,” Golden Smog joined once again in glorious four-part harmony, with support from a sold-out Mainroom crowd. Buoyed by the love for one of their best-known songs from an audience full of their family and dear old friends, this “supergroup” looked for all the world like a bunch of happy Midwestern dads at the end of a successful reunion party: bashful about all the attention, but glowing with quiet pride at the fruits of their friendship.
In keeping with the cozy, familial nature of the evening, Golden Smog's direct support came from their longtime friends and contemporaries in the '90s local scene: Tina & The B-Sides. With rumbling roots-rock guitar and a brassy, soulful voice that could fill a roadhouse without any help from a PA, singer-songwriter Tina Schlieske and her band of longtime collaborators commanded the already-full house at First Avenue with the easy confidence of experienced entertainers. Before Tina & The B-Sides, ascendant Minneapolis soul-rockers Kiss the Tiger opened the evening with a reliably excellent live set.
Golden Smog set list
Looking Forward to Seeing You
Lost Love
To Call My Own
V
Yesterday Cried
Glad and Sorry (Faces cover)
Red Headed Stepchild
Starman (David Bowie cover)
Walk Where He Walked
He’s a Dick
Pecan Pie
Ill Fated
Long Time Ago
Signed D.C. (Love cover)
I Can’t Keep From Talking
Won’t Be Coming Home
You Make it Easy
Love and Mercy (Brian Wilson cover)
If I Only Had a Car
Corvette
Encore:
Radio King
Listen Joe
Helpless (Neil Young cover; Sam Tweedy on vocal)
Until You Came Along
