Waiting for Hollingsworth

Alabama Rocker Taylor Hollingsworth Prepares A New Left-of-the-Dial Album

originally published December 19, 2007

Taylor Hollingsworth, as my grandfather used to say, is the kind of guy who would be late to his own funeral. The time is now 8:45 p.m., and I've officially been waiting for the man for an hour and 15 minutes. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised: word on the street is that Hollingsworth has literally just returned home to Birmingham, AL, from a two-month sojourn out West, a trip during which he mostly slept in his van on the side of desert highways, or - where lucky - the dusty floors of complete strangers.

Even in Athens, GA, I've heard snippets of stories - probably apocryphal in nature - regarding Hollingsworth and his somewhat deviant lifestyle. Some would call him the redneck Syd Barrett (a theory coincidentally supported by the fact that he recently recorded a version of Barrett's "Love Me" for an upcoming tribute album). Hollingsworth himself, however, is far too mercurial to be fixed in such a formulated phrase. He's a musical changeling, by turns channeling Jimmy Rodgers, Chuck Berry and J. Mascis.

Just as I'm beginning to feel like Estragon waiting for my own private Godot, in walks Hollingsworth, anything but daisy fresh after three months spent bumming around the Southwest. "Sorry I'm late," he says. "I got a late start out of New Mexico yesterday."

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I ask him if he stumbled across his spirit force while trouncing about the desert, or if he at least met any portentous, naked Indians, a la Jim Morrison. "Nah, they had clothes on," Hollingsworth replies. "And I don't think they were portentous, but they definitely were pissed at this one bar outside of Madrid, NM."

As Hollingsworth tells it, two nights previous, he pulled off the highway and walked into a bar advertising an open-mic night. After consuming a lion's share of cheap beer, Hollingsworth proceeded to the stage where he began detuning the guitar he was given to play.

"I like to tune my guitars pretty low," says Hollingsworth, "but I was a little drunk, so it was taking me awhile. After a couple of minutes, the emcees came onstage and started ushering me off. I got pretty mad and threw their guitar on the stage. They didn't like that too much. Next thing I knew, a bunch of angry New Mexicans and Navajos were throwing me out of the bar."

As our friend Estragon might say, "We are all born mad. Some remain so."

Escapades notwithstanding, Hollingsworth says the trip out West cleared his mind. He perhaps was filled with artistic wanderlust thanks to his recent departure from Brash Records. Hollingsworth released just one full-length album on that label, 2005's Tragic City. Though showing flashes of greatness, that record was an over-produced affair, a far departure from Hollingsworth's earlier releases, and far from the release to which Hollingsworth is currently putting the final touches (the curiously titled Bad Little Kitty).

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In fact, Hollingsworth's first album, 2003's You Know That Summer's Comin' (Skybucket Records) was recorded entirely on a Tascam four-track with a drum machine and cheap microphones. Those songs were packed with personality, with Hollingsworth's fuzz-drenched and deafeningly loud guitars clipping out and creating a pleasant analog hiss that somehow only added to the record's charm. On Tragic City, Hollingsworth perhaps had too many toys at his disposal - including back-up singers and a flesh-and-blood horn section - causing something essential about his music to get lost in the upgrade.

About his departure from Brash, Hollingsworth says, "There were artistic differences between me and Brash about the direction I was heading in. It was a mutual agreement to not do the next record together. I wanted to take the next album [to] another level, production-wise. They felt like it was gonna be too lo-fi and weird. So basically, the new album is too lo-fi and weird for Brash."

Shades of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot debacle this is not; however, the dissolution of the union between Brash and Hollingsworth is somewhat instructive in that it illustrates an important tenet of Hollingsworth's personality. Like the kids in the Apple Jacks commercial, Hollingsworth eats - and does - what he likes.

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Take Bad Little Kitty, for example. The tracks were cut either on Hollingsworth's Tascam four-track or at Another Recording Company in Omaha, NE, a new recording studio built by Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst. Regardless of their origin, the songs are entirely analog.

"I think I'm happy with the album," Hollingsworth says. "I just wanted it to be fun to listen to. I don't want people to look too deeply into it. It's definitely like a teenager stoner record. And a lot of my favorite albums fit that description."

Perhaps like the man who made it, the album is full of piss and vinegar. It opens with a bizarre salvo consisting of Hollingsworth speaking through an effect-drenched microphone while bizarre electronic noises and pitch-modulated voices crackle and crinkle behind him like verbal aluminum foil. What follows is a roller-coaster collection of songs, alternating between three-minute rock-and-roll numbers, surprisingly sensitive and mature acoustic songs, and truly bizarre filler that good-naturedly begs the question posed in the chorus of the album's first song: "Damn, boy, what's wrong with you?"

Though the record is completed, Hollingsworth does not yet know who will put it out; he's hoping to have it available by March. Until then, he is touring with backing band The Spider Eaters, whose lively shows are well worth the price of admission. The group has a reputation for incendiary performances, and Hollingsworth truly is one of the better guitar players in the Southeast, and imminently fun to watch.

Just hope he shows up on time.

John Seay

WHO: Lona, Taylor Hollingsworth & the Spider Eaters, Honey WHERE: 40 Watt Club WHEN: Friday, December 21 HOW MUCH: $5