The undying passions of an old man; oh! beloved and beautiful noise!

"Hey mister, what the fuck is an old dude like you listening to these days?" It was a squeaky voiced question from some zit-faced kid standing behind me in line at the local record boutique. Without a moments notice I dropped the discs I was holding and wheeled off with a vicious overhand right that blurred his cocky-turned-shocked face into a mess of nosebleed crimson.

"Uhh, nothing really," I replied, suppressing the savage fantasy I’d just envisioned. I probably should have clubbed the kid though, just to set him straight.

"Probably old guy stuff, huh?" he pressed his luck.

"Yeah, real "old guy" shit. Nothing you’d probably like, or even understand for that matter son."

"Who’d want to understand that kind of boring stuff. You’re just old and pissed off."

"Yeah, you’re right kid. You got the world by the balls now; you’ve figured it all out. Don’t ever let that go." I winked at the little slug.

"Fuckin’ eh I do. I ain’t ever gonna end up all fucking out of touch like you pops."

Pops! This little bastard called me pops!

"You’re right, you really don’t want to wind up in my shoes. It’s a real bitch getting old. Things get real fucking confusing. You start to realize you’re not gonna live forever. You start looking for real meaning in things; looking for something more tangible, something real in the music you listen to, in the films you watch, the books you read. Oh, I forgot, you kids don’t read books anymore do you?" He started to seem irritated. "You get old and you start to realize that you oughta respect people maybe a little more than you used too. You start to want to figure out what’s important in life, about how to live and love, about how to share that with others while keeping sane yourself. It’s a real bitch, this getting old game. And if you’re lucky enough to figure a few little things out," (the kid looked pale now), "if you gain even a slight amount of appreciation for the things that make life, and dealing with it, and growing all the way through it, worthwhile, well then, you will have become an "old dude" like me and you’ll find out what "old dudes" listen to." For a second I thought the little runt was going to cry, and I was pretty damn proud about that.

"Yeah, you’re like really old. Man, and you do me a favor and tell me what the fuck ever happened to you? Cuz, I sure as hell don’t want to wind up like you."

My lecture didn’t work, and it didn’t make me feel nearly as good as socking the kid would have, but hey, he was right, I’m an old dude. I bought the few discs I had and wound up sitting in my car wondering what the hell that encounter was just all about.  

It’s a wonder why Mark Mulcahy really gives a fuck anymore. Not that he’s some sort of churlish, angered depressive of any sort. It just seems that he probably shouldn’t give a fuck. God knows he doesn’t have the rockroll hero’s need to - but he has been craftily toiling away as one of the more refreshing and hidden talents of a post punk generation that’s left its shadow stain on two decades of what the popular nomenclature terms "underground" music.

In his former band, Miracle Legion, Mulcahy established himself as a composed, quiet voice seeking to escape the swirling racket of American indie rock’s heyday initially by weaving his irregular brilliance on more than a handfull of records. Ultimately Miracle Legion succumbed but not only after foreshadowing Mulcahy’s solo work on an impressive record titled Me & Mr. Ray, a sparse and aching gem which produced "Gigantic Transatlantic Trunk Call" - one of the finest, most emotionally draining songs of a lifetime and the very signature of Mulcahy’s craft. Now, working solo, Mulcahy continues to whisper exhausted truisms in the face of an American culture that now dwells in what Henry James (in 1886) predicted would become a "reign of mediocrity". But James was nothing more than a hopeless, albeit eloquent, romantic who never saw below the surface. While the mainstreaming cash culture did become the curdled cream that rose to the very mediocre top there were always, and there always will be, a world fraught with the bright and the visionary, hopeless dreamers and helpless romantics, the weary and the wondrous. Art doesn’t succumb to the misery of crass commercialism; it feeds on it and runs in crosscurrents that usually go undetected. It’s hardly a reason to bemoan the state of things; rather it is an invitation to work how you want to work, on what you want to work on – orthodoxy be damned. Mulcahy happens to be a musician; he does music. On SmileSunset - his latest - he sounds as though he’s doing it for eternity’s sake.

"I’m not saying that my record is a reaction to music today," Mulcahy says, "it’s more that this record is as it is because of the music of today." Reactionary isn’t a word that ever comes to mind when hearing SmileSunset, probably because anyone who’d be interested in taking the time to hear what Mulcahy has to say is most likely running a distant parallel to the aggravated and overbearing squeal of current popular music. But it makes perfect sense when Mulcahy says it. "It’s not like I’m "rebelling" against the current music scene, it’s just that there is only a very small hole that exists for anything other than the current sounds to squeeze through."

SmileSunset is a beautifully square peg trying to fit through that tiny hole Mulcahy refers to. It is an astonishing and assuring retreat to a time and place when songs and records struck a chord - on all sorts of levels - with their audience. It is mostly quiet record ("Which wasn’t necessarily the intent," Mulcahy explains, "these song could easily be revved-up into something more.") that places a fascinating emphasis on the Mulcahy’s vocals as well as working to set a tone - a mood - for each moment and each song. The effort pays off in a way that weaves the record into a whole. It’s an old vinyl "LP" approach that assimilates itself as well today on Mulcahy’s record as it ever has in the past.

Sitting in my car outside of the record shop I stare into the cover of SmileSunset and listen to Mulcahy’s "Resolution #1": "Do you still want to have a baby? / would you still want me around? / I know I must be driving you crazy / but I get uncomfortable in your crowd / and this is all there is / and I know all I want to know / and I am fortunate that I have nowhere else to go". This is what an old dude listens to, kid; this is the sort of thing that matters - to an old dude!   I sit and I stare. The cover art for SmileSunset itself is a glorious nod to rock and roll’s mythic largess. A bearded, sunglassed face of Mulcahy is framed in long, dark, curly hair. The brilliant oranges and yellows of a burning sun are all melted lava flowing and leaving a sunset glow on Mulcahy’s face. Beneath his shades his vision seems faded into a sort of resigned contemplation. It’s a singular and sincerely rockroll image that presents to its admirer a different paragon, one not addressed in the current culture; the implied promise of a never-ending pursuit of ideals. It’s a fast-fading promise that rock and roll, or whatever you prefer to call it, once claimed as worthy, and on SmileSunset’s cover Mulcahy seems as though he’s watching the very death of such a possibility.

Mulcahy possesses a voice as evocative and telling as any instrument. "I enjoy singing the most," he plainly states. His phrasing and pull-in/push-away handling of every utterance on SmileSunset brings forth a set of frugal tunes that evoke a certain fragility and melancholy. "I guess that’s an accurate word," Mulcahy says tentatively, "seeing how everyone seems to say that. But I guess I don’t see myself that way, at least not in everyday life." Then again, what sort of mature, slightly gentle music (gentle, in reality, hardly applies to the stark subject matter Mulcahy prefers to wander in his work) wouldn’t seem downright sober in the face of what we hear at every turn on the radio dial nowadays? Certainly not "Micon the Icon" - an oddly titled ode that opens SmileSunset and introduces a thematic "protagonist" (merely the idea of a hero?) which haunts the rest of the record.

Mulcahy doesn’t hesitate – at least for much more than a very slight moment - when asked if there was any one artist, or any one sound that influenced his approach on SmileSunset: "Brian Wilson". It is a surprising answer that seems to readily connect itself to the album title, whether intentionally or not. "I saw Brian Wilson on his last tour," Mulcahy explains. "And it was just like, wow, there’s Brian Wilson. I mean he really couldn’t do much and all, he’s so fragile and out of it, but it just kind of hit me, you know." In what becomes the true pinnacle of flattery (imitation being a worn-out lie), Mulcahy succeeds wildly at presenting himself through SmileSunset’s wonderful songs - not even for a moment hinting at sounding like Brian Wilson, but rather taking his own weary works to the perceived place that fostered Wilson’s beautiful melancholia. It is the only justifiable form of influence; anything else would wind down into maudlin mimicry.

 "Everyone should work with Adam," Mulcahy says, off the cuff, of producer Adam Lasus. I tell him that according to the credits on quite a few discs I see these days that it would seem that everyone does. "He’s just so good at this sort of thing," Mulcahy says, referring to the organic sound on SmileSunset. I figure it helps a guy like Lasus to work with someone who understands himself as well as Mulcahy seems to. But Mulcahy is right; Lasus’ easy touch keeps the record at a very even pace and probably is a central figure in the overall warmth of SmileSunset. "It just really helps when you’re working on something that, when you have your doubts, there’s someone who you like, trust, and respect to say ‘Yeah, that’s good’."

Yeah, it is good. I turn the key over and the car starts up. The car! Jesus Christ, even this damn car says "old" all over it…a fucking Chevy Lumina for christ’s sake! And a four-door at that! I slip the disc out of the case and into the stereo. Staring back into the record store I see the kid laughing with someone – probably over me. My hands start to ache when I realize that I’ve been lost, in a daze, sitting there white-knuckling the steering wheel at two and ten (see I learned something in drivers ed – two and ten, how the fuck did I ever remember that?). I hear SmileSunset creep out of the speakers. "Alamo in Alabama", the third song in and its refrain erases everything that’d just happened. I roll down my window, open the sunroof, and turn up the stereo. Backing out of my parking slot I notice the kid coming out of the shop. I turn up the stereo a little bit more and make sure I catch the kid before he crosses into the parking lot. I slow the car and signal him to go ahead and cross. I nudge the volume up a bit more, as if him hearing what I was listening to would mean a damn thing to either of us. He passes, waves a quick ‘thanks man’, and never looks back. I turn the stereo down and drive away, looking back the entire time. Always looking back. I swear the only thing that keeps me wanting to look forward is this music. Old dude music.

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