Frank Black and the Catholics
Dog in the Sand
2001, What Are Records?
As I crumble and stumble through old age, I’ve learned that the musicians who mean the most to me have two things in common.
1) They never go away. They’re always there. Even after their band breaks up, their album bombs, their label drops them, or they fall out of fashion, they keep going. They have a new record out next year. They don’t hide away for a decade. Bad reviews bounce off of them. I find this life-affirming.
2) They’re ambitious. However, I’m NOT talking about the sort of ambition that drives a person to do anything for success. Stab their collaborators in the back. Bow to the big entertainment shit machine. Con their way to the top of mountain. No, I’m talking about an ambition that means challenging yourself and putting out work that reflects a vision and a variety of interests. People change. They go through phases. I like when musicians do the same. If a band or solo act has ten albums out, I’m most impressed when album #10 is on a different trip from album #1.
Now, there are great bands who don’t fit into one or either of the above descriptions.
The reckless types who burned bright and flamed out early, like Robert Johnson or Syd Barrett, are perpetually fascinating.
There’s also something to be said for bands like Motorhead or the Ramones, who found their one sound and then worked it until they dropped.
That’s all fine, but I’m not hooked on them like I am on guys like Frank Black, who dare to evolve, even if they lose some people along the way.
And I really get sold on them when they quietly put out masterpieces such as Dog in the Sand.
So much comes together here. Its sound is a step up in sophistication from what came before. Its twelve songs touch on where Black had been and where he was interested in going at the time. Its subjects are outer space, California, sadness, death, and the beautiful thing that occurs when pedal steel guitar and piano collide with rock ‘n’ roll.