When guitarist, songwriter and frontman Chris McKay first envisioned the sophomore release for his band The Critical Darlings back circa 2006, it was meant to be an EP. But with a little prodding from producer David Barbe to add Drive-By Truckers drummer Brad Morgan on one track, the collaboration seemed to open the project up to much larger possibilities.
The group’s plan was to have the album, Satisfactionista, all wrapped up by early 2007. However, during this time of best laid plans McKay suffered a cerebellar stroke, and then spent months recovering from a terrible, to put it mildly, bout with mycoplasma pneumonia. The album—a big step above and beyond the band’s 2005 debut album, C’mon, Accept Your Joy—was finally completed and released in 2009. This week McKay released a newly repackaged and remastered version of the album, including its first arrival on vinyl.
McKay’s songwriting slot is right in the section of the record shelf that holds classic power pop, slightly hard rock and irrepressible ebullience. Once it was decided that Satisfactionista would be a full-length album, McKay began to think of the record as having “sides” like a traditional vinyl album. That it never landed on vinyl led to the lingering feeling it was never actually completed. “Well, to me, it was never finished,” McKay says. Addressing his ongoing fragile health, he said, “… because I can’t get out and perform like I’d love to do and used to do because of health, and after someone asked me if it had ever been out on vinyl, I figured I needed to make it so while I could.”
The anchor of the album is the final track, “Something Unseen,” which features pianist Mike Garson, who is perhaps best known for his decades-long gig as David Bowie’s pianist and collaborator. McKay had written the tender and moving track, but needed an intro for it, as well as an ideal piano player. After identifying Garson as the player on Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, he reached out, and Garson jumped on board. In fact, the relationship proved so fruitful that McKay and Garson have another song in the can to be released in the future. Garson’s participation “still feels like some kind of simulated reality thing to me,” McKay says.
The album was remastered by Jason NeSmith. Working from Barbe’s original mixes, NeSmith brought the album up to the level it needed for a proper vinyl release. McKay says, “I will admit, I hear lots of things on the vinyl that I’d forgotten were layered in there. It’s been pretty eye opening to remember how detailed we were in the original recording process.”
Anyone who has regularly kept up with McKay and his email list, as well as his social media, over the past decade or so knows full well that McKay can produce a fountain of words when it comes to writing about his songs and documenting their progress, backstories and meaning. McKay is already in the process of assembling and completing The Satisfactionista Diaries. The book is planned to be approximately 500 pages long, but is slated to be more than a simple compilation of old writings or, at least, more compelling. “The book of the album is more than just the diary listings and song notes,” he says. “When I looked back, it was crazy because I didn’t remember so much of it, or I had remembered it differently. It’s the story of the band of that time and how much went into it. Really, how much life and draining energy every band puts into their work.” He feels it’s an important part of the entire Satisfactionista legacy especially because, as he puts it, the album was released “Only to, really, never be heard.” Digging more into the band’s personal lives during this time, he expresses that, “There [were] multiple deaths [and] we drained ourselves emotionally and financially to make Satisfactionista, and we couldn’t survive enough to promote it because we had to make enough money to live.”
In addition to the issues mentioned above, he also endured a vertebral artery dissection from a car wreck in 2017. And, indeed, as he began planning this deluxe reissue he was hospitalized again with pneumonia after several years of no issues. “It seemed like a weird echo,” he remarked while comparing this bout to what he experienced at the very start of the Satisfactionista story 17 years ago. That said, his enthusiasm for working and writing has never abated, and he reports he’s already got an album fully complete for release in 2024 as well as the one he has planned for 2025. He even says that multiple tracks are ready for a record he has planned for 2026.
What’s his secret? “Staying alive is the trick, man,” he says.
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