By Donzig
Forty-year music veteran, founder of The Dream Syndicate -- and now author -- Steve Wynn has released Make It Right, his first solo album since 2010. Wynn brings his familiar Lou Reed-inspired vocals (an influence he readily admits) and a variety of sounds and styles to the 10 new songs presented here.
The album opener is "Santa Monica", a mid-tempo rocker with lyrics suggesting regret and escape from the past. The last sentence of this verse provides the title to Wynn's autobiography:
"The mission and the missive turn to other things
Caustic words in jest and sad eternal stings
Serving up a pot of bitter residue
I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true"
The title track comes next and features an acoustic, country-flavoured sound and is also a song of regret, though one tinged with bit of hope:
"Everything I did, I did with the best intent
Every straight line I walked I walked somehow got bent
Still I try to scale the heights
I'm trying to make it right"
Other standout tracks on Make It Right include: "What Were You Expecting?", a message to a defeated friend who should have known better, this song has a pulsing rhythm and a notable guitar solo; "Cherry Avenue", a short story of a missed connection with an intellectual soulmate, has a haunting, mystical vibe; "Madly", a pretty, acoustic track is perhaps the most melodic Steven Wynn has ever been; and "Roosevelt Avenue", the album closer, features a primitive, murky sound with a Dylanesque feel and street scene imagery right out of a Lou Reed song.
With a new Dream Syndicate album (reviewed here by me), a tour, and a major reissue project in 2022 (reviewed here by me), and an encyclopedic The Days Of Wine And Roses retrospective in 2023 (reviewed here by me), and now both a new solo album and autobiography in 2024, sixty-something Steve Wynn shows no sign of stopping. He once sang "Tell Me When It's Over", but he will tell us when it's over, and that time has not yet come...
Steve Wynn's autobiography I Wouldn't Say It If It Wasn't True covers his life and career from his immersion into the alternative scene of the late Seventies, through the formation, rise, and fall of The Dream Syndicate in 1988.
His transformation from amateur musician to leader of a influential college rock band began with a stint at music critic at his college newspaper, for which he attended and reviewed the Sex Pistols' last concert of their ill-fated US tour. Back home after school, Wynn worked at the Rhino Records record store, becoming the import and independent label singles buyer, a job which afforded him a firsthand look at the newest musical trends. The music scene in LA, as elsewhere, was seething and swelling as Wynn sought his musical voice: one chapter is aptly called "Navigating The Post Punk Wilderness". He also tells the story of seeking out his independent music hero Alex Chilton in Memphis, but finding little inspiration upon meeting him.
Putting together a demo tape of a couple of his own songs, Wynn paid to have a 7-inch single pressed with his own money (CD's did not exist yet). Thus was born his small label Down There, which would later release The Dream Syndicate's debut EP and the first album by musical friends Green on Red, among others.
Wynn recounts in detail the formation of The Dream Syndicate and the creation of their seminal debut, The Days of Wine and Roses in 1982. An LA-based scene deveoloped around Wynn and company dubbed the Paisley Underground by Michael Quercio of The Three O'Clock. Other groups in the scene included Green on Red, Rain Parade, The Long Ryders, and The Bangs (later renamed The Bangles).
The Dream Syndicate began a small nationwide tour to support the album, specifically mentioning a show at DC's "fabled 9:30 Club" which this reviewer attended. Not long after, they embarked on a larger US tour opening for U2, who were then beginning their ascent to rock stardom.
Signing to a major label and working on their sophomore album was a watershed moment for Steve Wynn and The Dream Syndicate. He writes:
"We were not only the first of our LA paisley underground compatriots but also one of the first bands of the American underground scene to record for a major label. Bands we considered our peers at the time managed to stay within the comfortable fold of independent labels for longer than we did. Our meteoric rise was also our curse. We never had the chance to develop at our own speed and in our own time. We were babies thrust into the belly of the beast, and we had no intestinal road map once we got there."
This revealing passage and later anecdotes offer an alternative view of bands which change their sound after signing to a major label. It is evident from Wynn's story that his and other bands haven't necessarily "sold out" to reach a wider audience; just as likely they are overwhelmed by having a larger production budget, better equipment, a more experienced producer. All these add up to seemingly unlimited possibilities never before imagined, so it is reasonable many groups in this situation come to rely on industry professionals with the group's best interests at heart -- or not, as the case may be. This phenomenon would become more common with the advent of the growing College Rock market of the late Eighties and the explosion of so-called Alternative Rock in the post-Nirvana era of the Nineties.
The band toured in support of 1984's Medicine Show, opening nationwide for R.E.M., a band Wynn compliments for evolving gradually despite growing popularity and major label status. Though he and the rest of the group were happy with their second album, he admits they changed style too quickly and alienated many fans (this reviewer included). Concert tickets sold better than the record, and the live shows got better reviews as well. The Dream Syndicate were dropped from their label after issuing a live EP.
The band continued with a different lineup for two more albums (1986's Out of the Grey and 1988's Ghost Stories) on different independent labels, and toured to support them before running out of steam. Wynn provides a denouement for both the book and the band as he relates experiences around the two albums and stories from the road on the last tours.
In a brief epilogue Steve Wynn describes his solo career and a Dream Syndicate revival ongoing since 2017, with intermittent live shows going back as far as 2012. The book ends on this optimistic note:
"At the end of the day, I can look back at the thousands of shows I've played, the several dozen records I've made, the friends I've met along the way, the meals I’ve eaten, the stories I've learned, experienced, and repeated, and I wouldn't change a thing or trade a single moment. All I know is that when I am filling out a form and see a blank space for ‘Occupation,’ I can honestly and proudly write ‘Musician.’ And that's good enough for me."
Make It Right by Steve Wynn is out now via Fire Records, and I Wouldn't Say It If It Wasn't True is out Jawbone Press, and with signed copies on Bandcamp. Details below.
[Photo: Guy Kokken]