The life of David Lowery, who took the skinheads bowling.
In 1963, the sea froze in Herne Bay, Kent. It was so cold during the big freeze that the sea was solid. That is where we start with David Lowery’s autobiographical album “Fathers, Sons and Brothers.” Rather than writing a traditional autobiography, Lowery has pulled together an incredible set of songs that chart his life and the lives of his family and close friends. From the frozen sea at Margate to getting locked up in Disneyland, writing hit records, leaving loved ones, and earning a University doctorate, this is a film in music.
If you go for the vinyl version, the set is a triple album, so there is much to take in. It starts with ‘Frozen Sea,’ where a strange man in uniform enters the house and puts a silk cap on his head that says ‘Vietnam’. Lowery’s father was in the US Air Force, and his mother was English. They moved all around the world, and that is captured within the songs.
The second composition, ‘Plaza De Toros,’ explains a young child’s wide-eyed fascination with seeing a bullfight for the first time, asking, “Papa, do they really kill the bull?” It’s a simple guitar and vocal song about a moment in his life in Seville.
Back in the United States, Lowery and his friends get involved in hallucinogenic mushrooms at Disneyland. This is a cautionary tale of how to act at America’s premier West Coast theme park. The lyric regarding how they got vodka into the park is a laugh-out-loud moment but please don’t try it, although it is ingenious.
‘How Does Your Sister Roller Skate’ is partly heartbreaking but again uplifting as Lowery’s sister overcomes challenges to live a whole and productive life. Lowery explains within the lyrics, “My sister roller-skates just fine / She’s got a job, a family, and she drives / She won an employment discrimination lawsuit / She wrote a book about her life.”
David Lowery? Never heard of him. Pick up a copy of the Camper Van Beethoven album “Telephone Free Landslide Victory” because he is the guy who wrote ‘Take The Skinheads Bowling’. The story is all in the song titled ‘I Wrote A Song Called Take The Skinheads Bowling’. Reservations about what happened within the band come to the fore. Co-founded with David McDaniel, fame arrived after McDaniel left when he found religion and went off to tour the world. The last verse sums up Lowery’s feelings on it all when he sings, “I wrote a song called take the skinheads bowling / Reverend McDaniel built an orphanage / Sadly, you’ve never heard of him, and you barely heard of me / Though I wrote a song called take the skinheads bowling.”
‘Mexican Chickens’ is a song about leaving behind someone you are still in love with, but your actions and demeanour mean you must move on. Haunting pedal steel plays throughout one of the standout songs in the collection. Lowery berates himself for being selfish and staying out drinking all night, firmly planting the blame for the relationship failure at his own door. In the final verse, he writes about seeing the children they never had in the curls of the woman’s hair, “The little girls were there / I saw their faces in her hair”. The words capture that last, long look perfectly before he closes the door on another chapter.
The Bellrays join Lowery for the title track, and the result is a glorious anthem that would have been a fitting final track. The tune has a deep soul feeling with all the musicians singing “Fathers, Sons and Brothers / Each of us / All of us / Everyone”.
There is much to be discovered throughout the collection—plenty of reflective gazing and regrets, but with doses of redemption and second chances. The track ‘It Don’t Last Long’ tells how out of nowhere Lowery had a further two hits with his new band Cracker—lamenting that he should have been thankful for something that doesn’t last long, but where’s the fun in that? The albums “Kerosene Hat” and “The Golden Age” sold well, charting in the US and making inroads in the UK.
The album is mainly guitar and vocals, allowing the words to weave an intricate story. There are beautiful moments interwoven with angry and jubilant sparks along the way. For example, when a host of musicians join in for ‘Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey’, including saxophone and strings.
Overall, Lowery’s life has been a good one. He is out touring with Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, still ‘Taking The Skinheads Bowling’, and feeling some ‘Teen Angst’ (check out the great video to that one from the MTV days). This is a pleasing trip that starts at a frozen Herne Bay and takes you around the Lowery world in 28 cuts. It is well worth joining the musical journey through this interesting life.
