Poor Martin Devaney.
The guy’s been
compared to Bob Dylan more times than I can remember, and here I am about to heave another blessed curse his way.
Some people seem to think that comparing artists to other artists is a tell-tale sign of a Lay-Z-Boy critic, while others find it an essential way to relate to the music being described; until very recently, I subscribed to the former philosophy when it came to Devaney. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they both play acoustic guitar and sing folk songs and have those goofy harmonica holders that wrap around their necks like middle school geeks’ headgear getups, and sure, they both have mad scientist hair and are known to grin slyly, like they know more than they should about this world. But isn’t comparing anyone to Dylan a hefty judgment? I mean, isn’t Bob Dylan widely considered to be a musical icon and legend? And, most importantly, won’t that kind of catastrophic compliment weigh down on poor Martin’s soul?
There has to be more to this comparison. We music critics can’t all be idiots. If we’re going to lob these kinds of assertions at local musicians we had better have the goods to back it up.
I can feel a rant coming on but I’m going to cool down and start from the beginning. Let’s walk back in time for a moment.
I first met Martin Devaney when I was 18 years old. It was the summer after high school graduation, a time of total freedom and passion and vitality. My boyfriend, Mr. Long Lost Love, and I made a pact that we would go to as many shows as we could that summer and, having first started our wild summer flame at a Dan Israel show, we followed him around to every coffee shop in town. One night, back when I still got to shows before they started and stayed until long after the last chord, I had positioned myself in a prime location to see Dan Israel play a set at Coffee Grounds in St. Paul (not far, actually, from the school that I would attend that fall and eventually grow to hate – but that’s another story for another time). I had already tore through the music columns in both alt weeklies and jotted notes pensively on my napkin like the good little budding writer I was when Martin took the tiny stage. He was a pale, skinny, nervous kid, and he didn’t look much older than me; before he had even started to play I found him fascinating.
I knew right away that Martin wasn’t like other average Joe coffee shop crooners. His voice had a distinctive, delicate rasp and he sang with a sort of amiable drawl. His lyrics were clever, bordering on tongue-in-cheek at points, and it was clear that he was speaking from experience about his trials with love and learning. The music he played was painfully simple yet somehow profound. Even then I knew he was special.
I bought his album at the show and rambled on to him about seeing his name in the paper and how I liked his songs, and he smiled kindly and looked at me sideways as if trying to decide whether to shake my hand or run out the door. I took his album, Whatever That Is, home and played it in rotation with Dan Israel’s Dan Who? and Jeff Buckley’s Grace and Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, and they all seemed to work together pretty well in my stereo. That fall I fumbled through my very first interview by asking Martin a laundry list of incredibly boring questions, which I turned into an article for my school newspaper that I promptly hung up on my dorm room wall next to a torn poster of John Lennon and a couple of articles by Jim Walsh. I accepted Martin’s music readily and wanted him to be a successful artist, just as much as I wanted to become a real writer; I thought of him so fondly, I think, because I felt that we were at a similar stages creatively, though I never told him that.
It’s been five years and Martin continues to release album after album, including this fall’s Letters Never Sent, and he has managed to maintain his role as a prolific, relevant, and heartfelt songwriter despite juggling the duties of running his own label, Eclectone Records, and showing up at just about every damn local show in town to support other musicians in the scene. Letters just might be his best album yet, and it simultaneously reminds me of the songs on his first album and serves as a marker for how incredibly far he has come as a songwriter and singer in five short years.
There is an earthy quality on the record, more so than on his previous endeavors, and as I continued to absorb the songs I started to get a strange, creeping feeling at the nape of my neck. There was something about this record that set it apart from the others. And, wouldn’t you know, it reminded me of a strange, creeping feeling that I had recently gotten while listening to another new album: Bob Dylan’s Modern Times.
No, I thought to myself, this can’t be happening. I knew what I had to write before the thought had even finished forming in my mind. My mind raced as I fought against an overwhelming urge to grab the nearest flat object and scribble out my painful realization: God dammit, Martin Devaney and Bob Dylan are on the same fucking wavelength. (If I have to say it, it may as well be profane.) To think of all that time I spent rolling my eyes at other writers for calling him the “new Dylan.” Dammit. Sorry Martin. Dammit.
Just when it started to feel like our country was so apathetic and divided that no musician could appeal to more than 49% of the population, Bob Dylan and Martin Devaney both make the decision to return to their roots and produce albums that are so jarringly simple and full of musical truths that they are irresistible. I often wonder what the next musical era will look like, and if pop music has forever been lost to knob turners and programmable drumbeats; Dylan and Devaney have both found ways to bring the focus back to quality songwriting and, for the first time in what feels like forever, an album with significant lyrics and original melodies has charted at #1 on the pop charts. Hallelujah. I strongly believe that if Martin got the same level of exposure that people would find his record equally compelling.
Both Martin and Bob have created albums that extend far beyond what we try to define as blues, folk, rock, jazz. These are songs that take up residence inside our souls. These are songs that, after a couple of spins, start to sing on their own from our guts and from our bones. These are songs that matter.
Take Martin’s song “Blessing and the Blame,” for example. The song seems tailor made for a dramatic, life-altering scene, perhaps a triumphant rainy day walk down Madison Avenue or a post break-up bus ride out of town, blurry-eyed and optimistic. King of the bittersweet moment, Martin sings on “An Open Letter,” “And honey, will you be there to write my epitaph/Will you be there to punctuate my last days with a laugh,” and it’s enough to give me chills.
Other tracks on the album reinforce his obvious lyrical talents. He paints scenes of “Rainy days and flannel nights,” “refugee romances” and “dime store fables,” and at times the poetry of his words is so soothing and that it’s easy to get lost in the rhythm of his voice and forget about the music altogether.
Martin’s voice has developed over the past few years, too, and is now slightly lower and gruffer; which may help compensate for his other major characteristic, which he also happens to share with Mr. Zimmerman – his youthful, round face and mischievous grin.
So there it is; I did it. I compared him to Dylan. Does it mean that I think he’s going to become the same kind of legendary figure, that he is destined to be a musical and cultural icon? No, of course not. We don’t even necessarily need a “new Dylan,” as the old one seems to be serving his purpose just fine. But I do get a creepy feeling on the back of my neck that Martin is in the process of channeling the kind of raw creativity that keeps music, as we know it, fresh and relevant. And that’s enough pressure to put on one 26-year-old kid. Keep up the good work.
