Description
Good Dog Bad Dog, sub-titled The Home Recordings, is the fourth studio album by the American alternative pop band Over the Rhine, independently released on the band’s own label Imaginary Records in June 1996. The album was produced by Linford Detweiler and co-produced by Ric Hordinski. Good Dog Bad Dog was re-issued by Virgin Records in 2000 featuring a slightly different tracklist as well as new cover art.
Good Dog Bad Dog and the Christmas album The Darkest Night of the Year released later the same year were the final studio albums by Over the Rhine featuring the original line-up. Drummer Brian Kelley and guitarist Ric Hordinski left the band, the latter releasing his first solo album Quiver under the moniker Monk the following year. The band continued recording as a duo consisting of the two remaining members Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, though not releasing any new studio album in five years, not before Films For Radio in February 2001.
Here’s the little Cincinnati band that could. Over the Rhine was born at the end of the 80’s as four individuals “all concerned at some level with ideas of faith and truth and hope and mercy and justice and grace.” They began expressing these concerns corporately with 1991’s independently released ‘Till We Have Faces. The band’s blend of fluid melodies, simple arrangements and rich, poetic lyrics soon earned it a small, but loyal following among thinking Christians and heathens alike. In 1993, Over the Rhine began what would be remembered as a less-than-blissful relationship with now-defunct I.R.S. Records. The relationship afforded the group national release of its next two records, Patience (1993) and Eve (1994), as well as last year’s re-released ‘Til We Have Faces. The songs that comprise Good Dog Bad Dog: The Home Recordings where demos intended to be considered for the next I.R.S. project, but the relationship – and the record company itself – ended before a new album could be recorded. So, trooper that it is, Over the Rhine opted to release Good Dog Bad Dog independently in its original form rather than see it shelved indefinitely.
These 13 selections examine love, pain and grace, and the thin emotional line between them. Multi-instrumentalist/leader Linford Detweiler and vocalist/creative partner Karin Bergquist hang each song on some combination of sparse piano/guitar/drums arrangement, leaving the listener room to experience these emotions. «Latter Days» opens the record with the conclusion of a relationship. «All I Need is Everything» then acknowledges our need for God in the midst of our sometimes refusal to let Him in (“There’s nothing harder than learning to receive”). Also, «The Seahorse», «Everyman’s Daughter» and «Happy to be So» each display some aspect of our need for grace in the light of our human frailty.
Two songs present a more forthcoming statement of the band’s connection to things eternal. The first is «A Gospel Number», a bluesy shuffle in which Bergquist posits, “Will a man called Jesus ever look me in the eyes?/ Burn away my alibis/ Separate the truth from your vicious lies/ If a man called Jesus ever looked me in the eyes.” The second is «Poughkeepsie», the emotional climax of Good Dog Bad Dog. Accompanied by a lone guitar, Bergquist sings of a quiet transformation from utter despair to redemptive hope in the most hones, beautiful lyric recorded in many years.
Good Dog Bad Dog is only available directly from Over the Rhine (P.O. Box 2572, Cincinnati, OH 45201), but it is worth much more than the extra effort needed to acquire it. [Derek Wesley Selby, CCM, October 1995]
For the uninitiated, Over the Rhine is one of a few bands whose chief aim seems to be the communication of beauty. It is neither to rock the masses, nor to convert them, but merely to…move them. While at times this approach comes off a bit coy, particularly in some of their blurry treatments of “spiritual” matters, when it works (as it often does) the result is a delicious, heady blend of soaring vocals, pungent, readerly lyrical phrasings, and achingly pretty melodies. Karin Bergquist provides a sensual, classically-trained voice; she and multi-instrumentalist Linford Detweiler supply the bulk of the lyrics and music; and the remainder of the sound is set forth by guitarist Ric Hordinski (a top-drawer player and sometime jam buddy of Phil Keaggy) and drummer Brian Kelley.
While simply, even loosely, arranged around piano, strings and acoustic strumming, the songs this time out stand in sharp contrast to their previous I.R.S. Records release Eve, more for their lack of guile than their sparse instrumentation. Taken as a whole GDBD feels more honest, less artsy than earlier efforts.
Witness the opener, «Latter Days». Most likely written prior to OTR’s contract woes, it sounds for all the world like a response to the muck and struggle of recording for a label, and a realization that the music’s the thing: “If the music starts before I get there, dance without me…there’s so much more to life than words.” That last line might sound like a throwaway, but in OTR’s case, it is heavy with intent; in their body of work, the words have always been half of the equation. As Bergquist sings, “I really think I’ll be OK” over a warm, easy bed of piano, a mood of release, rather than resignation, wells up and holds steady throughout the project.
As for tartness, cue up «Faithfully Dangerous». Perhaps here can be found the most direct links to the poetry and half-perceived metaphor of earlier songs such as Patience‘s «Sister». It is hard to miss the double meaning of lines like this: “Your paint dries, the canvas smiles, with two eyes you lift yourself up. Stroke your skin, there are teeth-marks to be sure…I wonder which part of this will leave the scar.” Sensual, to be sure. Over the line? Probably not, this time. Faithfully dangerous? Yup. And good. Very, very good.
Spiritual directness is, per OTR usual, almost evident on this album, but not quite. «A Gospel Number» holds the most obvious references to Christ, naming the name, and everything, but the “if” and “still waiting”‘s leave things fairly open-ended. Which is valid; not every song need be tidy. It’s just that this tune shouldn’t be taken as a definitive statement – it doesn’t appear to have been written for that purpose. (And some of us wish…) I like the language of «All I Need is Everything» even better: “Inside, outside, feel new skin…Feel the slip and the grip of grace again.”
Only occasionally does a song suffer from snootiness («Jack’s Valentine»’s scattershot invocations of Van Gogh, Renoir, etc. recall the excesses of Eve’s «My Love is a Fever», or a less than full-band arrangement («The Seahorse» sounds great here but Cornerstone’s concert version was transcendent). Far more often, there is a gentleness, and light on darkness. “I know a love that will not let me go,” Bergquist breathes over a melancholy cello in «Happy to be So». “My heart is bound and gagged and on death row. It’s so happy to be so.” And, the lilt of her voice in her hymn-like «Poughkeepsie» is mirrored by Hordinski’s shimmering acoustic in his instrumental, «Willoughby».
Kelley’s sighing shuffle begins the last song; it is a tender pace, as are most of the CD’s, masterfully allowing the songs to happen, to breathe. This final cut is called «Go Down Easy», and it’s about letting go, finding the last “slow curve of a back road… remembering how it feels.” OTR appears to have done so, and they got it on tape before it got away. They’ll doubtless be back with a fully-done, label-backed opus soon enough. Let’s hope they remember this era when that time comes. Here’s to shaking the tree a little early. [Blaine Howard, True Tunes]
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CD tracklist:
01. Latter Days – 5:34
02. All I Need Is Everything – 4:54
03. Etcetera Whatever – 4:52
04. I Will Not Eat The Darkness – 1:59
05. Faithfully Dangerous – 4:51
06. The Seahorse – 4:55
07. Everyman’s Daughter – 4:10
08. A Gospel Number – 4:31
09. Poughkeepsie – 4:54
10. Willoughby – 3:32
11. Jack’s Valentine – 4:37
12. Happy To Be So – 4:45
13. Go Down Easy – 5:20
Note: Re-issued as a Limited Edition 12-inch vinyl double LP by Great Speckled Dog in 2018.
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