Live albums are an ambiguous matter. For a huge category of listeners, concertgoers, along with singles, compilations and tributes, are sent to the category of optional bonuses: you can listen to all this, but only after the main course. And in no case should you start getting to know a famous artist based on his concert album. I’m going to break this rule with you today, because I’ve never listened to a White Bison before this album.
White Buffalo is the stage name of alt-country musician Jake Smith. He has a deep, hoarse voice and wild hair, is a native of Oregon, and has lived in California for most of his life. He is familiar to the general public from the soundtracks to peasant TV series and movies. “Sons of Anarchy,” “Californication,” and that sad Marvel movie where Wolverine was killed–you could hear it there.
White Buffalo’s musical career can be counted back to 2002, so we have twenty-first century alt-country music here. Is it really an alt? Because of the popularity in soundtracks, I had a preconceived impression from the beginning.: It’s like they’re trying to sell us a country music product for cowboys riding motorcycles on the Arizona steppes. Maybe that’s true, but after listening to the live album, it started to matter a lot less to me.
Recorded by A Freight Train Through the Night on September 20, 2024 in Colorado, and mixed by Mike Butler– a renowned sound engineer from San Diego who has worked with Rolling Stones. Besides Jake, I would like to mention the work of drummer Matt Lynott: amazing breaks and a very lively sound with a lot of air. Playing intense games without overloading them is aerobatic. Let’s take a closer look at the performance of Jake, Matt and Tommy Andrews (masters of thick strings), comparing them with the studio versions along the way.
The Oh Darlin’ What Have I Done concert opens. Confessions of an archetypal bad shooter compares favorably from the 2015 studio album with a frenzied shuffle of the rhythm section, which turns the song into a real blues-rock action movie. Set My Body Free wins for the same reason. This song is so evil that I literally dream of a cover of it in a cycobilly.
Well, it’s time for the real serial banger Come Join the Murder. Yes, the one from the “Sons of Anarchy”! And… it doesn’t affect me in any way, because I haven’t watched the series, and in general it’s not a very powerful song in itself. Well, live performance wins here too.
The fourth track is a kind of gift for me, because Highwayman is one of my favorite songs in the known universes. Jake’s performance of it smacks of gatherings with a guitar around a campfire, and that’s very good, because it’s pointless and hopeless to go up against four titans of country music. However, flirting with locality here seems doubtful to me. Nevertheless, it’s a great rendition of a great song.
For a brief run through Bison’s discography, Rocky became my favorite back in the 2015 version. Here, it’s a little more lively and somehow more voluminous, as if the song opens up better in the air.
A funny substitution happened with Bb Guns and Dirt Bikes. I like the live version better again, but because it’s more relaxed. The studio version is unnecessarily loud for such touching lyrics and at the same time too slow. She sounds like she should sound alive.
House of the Rising Sun is the hardest to judge. It’s too powerful a song, it’s too easy to mess it up. I really like the beat in which White Buffalo and his team played it, but I can’t call it an outstanding performance. If we compare the song exclusively with Bison’s work, then the concert version is much more original than the one in the series. And then there’s the original text without any alterations, and it’s much nicer.
The monstrously heartwarming Wish It Was True brings us back to the Bard’s campfire. Although no, her live performance automatically makes you hold up your smartphone’s flashlight or lighter if you’re an old-school smoker. In the case of this song, I like the studio performance better, because there is no way to replace the beautiful strings, even with the feeling of unity with a huge crowd, which is more than present at the concert.
In the case of The Bowery, it’s hard for me to give a clear preference to the live version. It has a great dynamic transition to the chorus, and Matt’s drums are just the plague, but otherwise they are unambiguous. Maybe I just really liked the 2012 album Once Upon a Time in the West.
A drunken train is speeding west! After all, that’s how he was conquered! How the West Was Won is a fierce unbridled dugout, not devoid of irony. The drums are amazing, and Jake’s hoarseness is at its absolute maximum. In the studio version, irony is like an overdose, with this cartoon banjo. I don’t have much to say about Love Song #1. She’s good and sincere, but she’s not fixed in my soul at all.
I Am the Light is once again playing to a draw with the 2012 studio. In the live version, there seems to be too much rage in the chorus. If there was a slow dance at the studio, then there is a risk of breaking the back of yourself and your slow dance partner. Although the audience is raging in applause, they know better. Into the Sun is a billion times more gentle than a studio album. There’s no guitar playing right in your ear, no drill-cutting vocals on certain notes, but there are charmingly gentle, unobvious drums. Delightfully.
Joe and Jolene are incredibly downbeat at the concert. The studio album is too slick, so we’ve decided on the favorites. And just for me, there are some awesome solo elements from Matt.
The Whistler has tremendous dynamic power. Compared to the home studio, which is very smooth, the live version literally knocks down some moments. I hope no one got hurt at the concert.
Problem Solution is a song in the spirit of answering everyone who hasn’t been asked. No wonder, because it was released as a studio in 2020. This time, I’ll put an equal sign between the studio and live versions, and I want to pay tribute to the fact that the guys are still holding on after so many killer tracks. It’s a live album, don’t forget! The liveliness will show itself especially well in the following composition. In the meantime, a very cute piano appears here, lulling vigilance before the final powerful stroke.
This almost final blow will be The Pilot, a fierce fighting semi–punk shuffle reminiscent of the old bastard Iggy. Although that comrade flew in a completely different way, not in the pilot’s seat. With the studio version at zero: both energetic and extremely combative.
Now is the time for gratitude for listeners and a lullaby for bedtime. Such a lullaby will be I Got You. Rocking with its rhythm, moderately and excessively sensual, this is a great song to end the concert on a soulful note. It turned out very well to ride it into the sunset. I don’t want to compare it with the studio version at all. Just because of the context. With a vocal duet and a rich arrangement, the studio version is a completely different song.
So, what do we have in the end. The White Bison is cool. Definitely cool. And cool White Buffalo and his team played a very cool concert and recorded it as a very cool album. But if I hadn’t met this concertgoer first, I would hardly have been able to get carried away with this artist.
Why is that? The commercial sound, the positioning of the loner as a loner, the soundtrack, and in general the great connections with California – all these look like big red flags of a commercial product. There’s nothing wrong with sounding good and expensive. The opposite is often worse, and my previous New Year’s Eve article about American saika fully confirms this. It’s about sincerity. One gets the feeling that although Jake himself is a powerful, hairy American, all this powerful, hairy America is for him a kind of image, a fantasy that is very well monetized. As in the case of the creators of the game Heading Out, for example. But there was disbelief because of the difference in cultures, and here I literally smell the green papers. However, all these are cognitive distortions of my inner punk anarchist, because commercially successful projects from California can make great music. You probably know them.
And this live album brings together more than 20 years of White Buffalo music, and it’s the live sound, which is more about “how you want” rather than “how you should”, that proves that Jake is most likely a sincere guy. That’s the main thing. And in his sincerity and creative search, he does two curious things. The first is the 2022 album Year Of The Dark Horse, which is extremely experimental and at the same time sometimes flirting with explicit music for coffee shops and barbershops. Second, there’s a whole galaxy of live singles from the tour coming out right now. And the concert album was self-published. It’s either brilliant production moves, or complete disobedience to them. Time will tell which is closer to the truth.
And now it’s Christmas, and since I’ve been rummaging through White Buffalo’s discography the other day, let him congratulate us all. Straight out of 2020 with the single Christmas Eve. Happy Christmas Eve to all of you!
The White Buffalo – Christmas Eve
