I can’t remember if it was real or a dream, but I have this incredibly vibrant memory of being at a Slim Cessna show in the mid-nineties. In a trance, I pushed my way to the front of the stage. The upright bass, guitars and banjos were blistering forward with the energy of a frantic haunting. The stage lights were flying all over the room in a fashion that could induce an epileptic seizure. My mind was filled with Southern Gothic imagery, Jesus, and Satan all being fed from the lyrics as Cessna’s ritualistically beat and plucked their Americana instruments. Hypnotized and delirious from the energy in the room, I slowly dropped my head back, as if to faint, when a hand caught it and another pushed a healing light into my forehead. I snapped back to life. Hallelujah, I was saved.
It has been twenty-five years since Slim Cessna’s Auto Club was formed in 1992 and they parted ways with The Denver Gentlemen (that grand progenitor of the peculiar strain of Gothic Americana unique to the Mile High City) to form Slim Cessna’s Auto Club with a group of talented peers. Many bands with a long and successful run like that would stick close to its roots. But rather than rest on well-earned laurels, the Auto Club challenged itself to break with well-worn modes of operating for the new record.
Wallace Stenger may have captured the spirit of the west in his 1971 novel Angle of Repose. Jim Thompson surely exposed the lurid underbelly of the Western experience. Cormac McCarthy definitely evoked the conflicted, tortured spirit of small town life on the frontier. William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor informed all of them with a humor and soulfulness. It is that literary tradition that imbues the harrowing and celebratory sound and riveting stories of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. And for a full twenty years it was largely in that realm of art that the Auto Club reveled and garnered a loyal cult following well beyond the boundaries of The Queen City of the Plains.
But no band can be satisfied with treading the same territory that it helped to define forever. The Commandments According to SCAC, will be the first full length album of original material released on the Auto Club’s own imprint, SCACUNINCORPORATED. The title evokes the themes of cosmic punishment and redemption that have served the band’s songwriting engine so well in the past. But this set of songs sounds more hopeful and expansive, a quality that was always there but this time out, the brighter sides of the songwriting are emphasized. Hints of this saw early full-blown expression on 2008’s Cipher and Unentitled from 2011. With The Commandments, however, the Auto Club seems to step forward into the promise of its own possibilities. It remains capable of the heady darkness and celebratory intensity with which it made its name. Now that charmingly dusky and spare sound breathes with a color and delicacy of feeling that perhaps sat in the background in times past. Maybe it’s partly due to the greater creative contributions from longtime collaborator Rebecca Vera and The Peeler or the inclusion of upright bass player Ian O’Dougherty. But the core of the band’s songwriting and sound is anchored firmly in the vision of Slim, Munly Munly and Lord Dwight Pentacost.
Whatever the true source of this transformation, The Commandments According to SCAC sounds like a band marshalling its creative inspiration to mark out a new chapter of its existence. The next time you get to see the Auto Club you’ll get to see an already mighty band reinvigorated by this new spirit as well as by the fire that has long burned in its collective belly.
What better way to pay tribute to, and witness the revitalized Slim Cessna’s Auto Club than to watch them open Wash Park’s new neighbor and Denver’s Newest Amphitheater, Levitt Pavilion.
Levitt Pavilion is in the heart of Ruby Hill Park which has been redeveloped. A signature pavilion provides respite from sun and rain. Comprised of angled roofs that fan out in a circle, the pavilion’s stained-wood undersides look organic and refined. The new pavilion area encompasses 28 picnic tables, modern water and energy efficient restrooms, and a large plaza featuring an oculus, also known as a sun dial. Made of an orange-tinged circular eye suspended between two sculptural arms, the oculus’ shadow records the passage of the day.
Levitt Pavilion Denver is locally-funded and operated by Friends of Levitt Pavilion Denver, a non-profit committed to building community through music. They hope to increase access to music for all Denver residents and visitors and provide a launching pad for Denver’s richly talented and diverse music community. They will be offering an outdoor living room where everyone can enjoy FREE music, a picnic, and each other — 50 days a year.
A gift to the community, Levitt Pavilion Denver operates an open, inclusive, and free-for-all concert series every summer. Bring your friends, dancing shoes, lawn chairs, picnic and a blanket. Pick your spot on our spacious lawn, kick-back and get to know your neighbors. Levitt Pavilion Denver is located in Ruby Hill Park at 1380 West Florida Ave Denver, CO 80223, which is near I-25 and Santa Fe, just a few miles south of Downtown Denver.
So be sure to check out Slim Cessna’s Auto Club at the opening of Levitt Pavilion on July 20th. Also, playing with Cessna is Halden Wofford & the Hi*Beams and Andy Thomas’ Dust Heart. Halden Wofford is rootsy and real, neither revivalist nor retro, the Hi-Beams’ brand of country music is as boundless and electrifying as America itself. Equal parts Hank Williams and Johnny Depp, front man Halden Wofford pours forth a potent mix of rocked-up honky tonk, western swing, Dylanesque originals and spaghetti western epics. Each outrageous tale he spins is met by the whine and wail of the steel guitar, the furious double-neck electric guitar and mandolin, and the relentless thump of the upright bass and drums. Andy Thomas’ Dust Heart is considered to be “Intense literary Americana murder balladry from the former Tin Horn Prayer front man turned wisened storytelling troubadour. The “Reckless Abandonment” EP is a broody meditation that has taken Andy across the seas including joining the Flogging Molly Salty Dog Cruise.” See ya all at the show!
Slim Cessna Photos
ARNYZONA PHOTOGRAPHY