Sundown (1982)

You may not know it yet, but we've just about come full circle on Rank and File, the so-called cowpunk project of Kinman brothers Chip and Tony (straight outta Carlsbad in San Diego County by way of San Francisco). Before the Kinmans put together Rank and File in Austin, Texas, they were a proto-hardcore act in the '70s called the Dils ("I Hate the Rich," "Class War") and last year the Dils reformed for a couple of performances in Southern California. Rank and File are listed on Wikipedia as active from 1981 to 1987. Sundown is their best, the only album by them I ever connected with. We know now that the secret ingredient may have been Alejandro Escovedo, who cowrote a song ("Rank and File," one of the best on the album), played guitar, and sang, and has never really looked back. But the Kinman brothers make a pretty good show themselves, with their barbed wire rolling tumbleweed western style mixing up instincts for the Everly Brothers, James Burton, and maybe a little Dick Dale. I loved Sundown in 1982 when I pulled it out of an office slush pile. The thing jumped out at me right away. Really the whole first side is terrific. "Amanda Ruth" sets the tone with its buggy-ride tempos and soaring harmonies. "(Glad I'm) Not in Love" delivers some tasty guitar flourishes. "Rank and File" mounts a heroic attack in service to labor (I think) and in any case presents an earworm somehow always welcome when it comes ringing through my head in the shower once again. And "The Conductor Wore Black" deals classic western mythos themes like it's a card game. The flip's not bad either. How the Kinmans get from the Dils to this is not easy to see, but I feel Sundown is more naturally where their hearts are. Nearly 40 years later, well, OK, the album is short and has become a hodge-podge of versions, maybe overall a bit contrived, maybe too sweetened in the production, arguably derivative and maybe even missing its targets entirely, the way people take the movie Nashville as missing the point of country music. Wikipedia files Sundown with the aforementioned "cowpunk" and also "new wave," which is probably accurate. It may have lost some of its allure but I still sit up and pay attention to the high points.