Why revisit a mine that didn’t yield the brightest gems? Against Me!’s 2003 sophomore release As The Eternal Cowboy was a deflating followup to Reinventing Axl Rose, so why look back on a batch of demos from that time? The answer, simply, is that the tracks on Original Cowboy are far less of an overcooked clusterfuck than anything that made Eternal’s final cut, and they should be heard.
Against Me! has reunited with indie punk label Fat Wreck Chords to put out Original Cowboy, an eight song cash-grab collection of demos that rights many of the wrongs the finished product ended up being. The tracks, scheduled prior to Against Me!’s trip to Memphis’ Ardent Studios where As The Eternal Cowboy was recorded, were laid down at Goldentone Studio in Gainesville, FL with Rob McGregor. They did it all in one day: July 15th, 2003.
Singer/guitarist Tom Gabel explained the decision to record the demos before heading to Ardent: “Having already recorded our first full length album and two previous EPs with Rob at Goldentone, we wanted to do something different for our second full length. We specifically wanted to make an all analog recording with as few overdubs as possible which is what we could do at Ardent. With Rob McGregor coming along to produce, we wanted to make sure he was familiar with the songs, so we made this demo recording.”
Save for the track "Sink, Florida, Sink," all the other songs from As The Eternal Cowboy appear on the demo release. The combined opening track" A Brief Yet Triumphant Introduction / Cliché Guevarra" is sludgier, sloppier, a little more raw and a hell of a lot better than what the split result became – especially Warren Oakes’ pulverizing percussion in the first half of the song. It’s immediately clear where the differences are, and even moreso, exactly what went wrong with Eternal Cowboy. Here, the magic is in the raw, spontaneous feel of it all. It sounds real. It sounds fun, not overdubbed and overproduced.
At Fat Mike’s demand, the adulterous folk-charmer "Cavalier Eternal" from the session actually made As The Eternal Cowboy simply because it was superior to the version made at Ardent. It’s a clear highlight from the sessions, so why fix what’s not broken?
Gabel shares the sentiment: “Recorded and mixed in only a couple of hours, The Original Cowboy was only meant to be a trial run, but, listening to it today, there’s a part of me that feels foolish for ever recording these songs a second time.”
"Slurring The Rhythms" is a delicious punk-drama affair, breathless and bouncy and full of fire, while T.S.R." and the raw combined assault of "You Look Like I Need A Drink / Turn Those Clapping Hands Into Angry Balled Fists" leave little room for argument against the notion that most of these songs should’ve been left the hell alone. The band should’ve called off at Ardent and ran with what they had. But there’s no sense looking back now, so…. oh. Wait.
Against Me! plans to start recording their next LP with Butch Vig soon, which should make for an interesting pairing. In the meantime, Original Cowboy makes for a pleasant look back at what could've been.
CraveOnline's Rating: 7 out of 10
