The Big To-Do is the Truckers’ eighth studio album (and their first for ATO Records) and was released on March 16, 2010. The songs for the album were recorded over three blocks of sessions in 2009 (ten days in January, five days in March, and ten days in May) resulting in 25 songs. The band decided to split these tracks between The Big To-Do and its follow-up Go-Go Boots but as with many siblings they couldn’t be more different.
Apparently Shonna came up with the name while the band were recording BTCD and while it wasn’t appropriate for that album Patterson liked the idea and filled it away for future use. The name refers to the circus; Patterson has stated that the rock show is the modern day equivalent of the circus. The packaging for the album features various vignettes from the circus created by Wes Freed.
The line-up that recorded the album
With David Barbe on production duties.
As the record is the only Truckers album I currently own on Vinyl (and was the last thing I bought from Craig) I’m going to take you through it side by side. So here’s my random musings on The Big To Do.
(NOTE)If you click on the song titles they should take you to the Track of the Week discussion thread.
Side 1 – WE WANTED TO DO A ROCK ALBUM SINCE THE LAST ONE WAS SO SWAMPY
1 Daddy learned to Fly
2 Fourth night of my drinking
3 Birthday Boy
From the first discordant chords of Daddy Learned to Fly to the final notes of Birthday Boy side one ROCKS, as Patterson said in an interview The Big To-Do is very much a rock album. Very melodic and more rocking than anything since disc 2 of Southern Rock Opera.
The album starts with Daddy learned to Fly a song about the loss of a father. I love the harmony vocals that mimic the nagging guitar hook and the way Jay’s keys emerge in the third verse. This is the one song from this album that I would love to see live and would I imagine be a great show opener.
Next up is Fourth Night. Whenever I hear this song I speculate what happened to the guy in the song before the binge begins, has he just broken up with the woman whose house he’s waving the stick at or has something else happened to him. Musically as Revmatt pointed out in the track of the week thread the way the song is structured is really clever with the breaks between the verses becoming longer and more demented, Neff’s slide guitar playing combined with Jays horror movie organ part really suggest someone sinking like a stone. As I was finishing this article off it also occurred to me that this song might also be a political allegory about the US economy binging on debt and the financial collapse that occurred just before the album was recorded.
The last song on the side is Birthday Boy. Brought late to the party by Cooley it was the last track cut for the record and was included after the band had mastered the record. The lyrics seem to tie into the story of the character in Fourth Night, was Miss Trixie the source of the lipstick streaks, is the character in Fourth Night the guy who had it all and now it’s broke?
Intermission #1
They say you never forget your first time. I actually can’t remember the first time I came across the Truckers but I can sure remember the second time and here it is (the first time was the clip of Birthday Boy above)
There’s also this clip too from the same show, which always puts a smile on my face.
I’ve never been quite sure what hooked me but as I found more out about the band and their back catalogue the more I got dragged in. Some of the key things were:
• The band had a large back catalogue to explore and I remembered that SRO had great reviews when it came out but I had never taken the plunge.
• Patterson’s dad played in the Swampers.
• Two of my favourite compilations albums were
Side 2 – UNLEASH THE FUNK
1 Drag the lake Charlie
2 The Wig he made her Wear
3 You got another
The side starts where side one left of with Drag the Lake, which is one of Patterson’s southern gothic tales. I love the fact that the details and back story of the events that have happened aren’t sketched out in too much detail leaving the listener to fill in the blanks. It’s got a guitar sound that like a kazoo and it’s got handclaps. HANDCLAPS.
The Wig He Made Her Wear starts with a laugh and the nagging guitar riff starts and then EZB unleashes on of his loosest, funkiest grooves. The best part though is the interplay between Cooley and Neff’s guitar parts which weave around the central guitar riff. Apparently the version on the album was the first take they recorded.
And then we get to You Got Another. This song is unique in the whole DBT canon, being a piano led piece and is also I think the finest recording they’ve ever done. I would love to know who arranged the song but the way it builds from simple piano to the full on wall of sound at the end is astonishing. Patterson says in his commentary on this song that it reminds him of ‘Kangaroo’ by Big Star and I can think of no higher praise.
Side 3 – HARD TIMES AND WONKY TEETH
1 This Fucking Job
2 Get Downtown
3 Girls who smoke
4 After the scene dies
Side three is where the songs get more political, with a small p. Two songs about the struggles of the working man plus a song about businesses shutting down. And a song about watching English girls at a festival.
This Fucking Job is just a big dumb pop song with a catchy chorus.
The genius of Get Downtown is the two voices that Cooley employs to tell the tale. For me it’s just another one of Cooley’s fast rockers (especially when they play it live) but with a great rockabilly guitar solo.
Girls Who Smoke is the only song in the DBT canon that has a co-writing credit for Patterson and Cooley. It’s a song written while the band were sitting on their bus trying to get away from the V Festival in Staffordshire in the UK. Opening lines always remind me of the Simpsons
[image] http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9 ... vSCne2A7dA[/image]
After the Scene Dies is Patterson’s lament for all the small clubs across the US that shutting down. Again I think this is also about the hard time small businesses were being hit by the financial crisis at the time this was written.
Intermission #2
As I’ve already stated above the band went into the studio with the intention of creating a rock album rather. Plus the band had learnt a lot from working on Potato Hole with Booker T. As Patterson stated I think working with Booker really influenced The Big To-Do. Booker’s album being all instrumental taught us a lot of how to nuance things musically in ways that really paid off when we started writing our new one. it made us all better players also.
The other thing that contributed to the sound of the album was that Cooley came to the party with less songs than he wanted. Because of this he decided that he would be player on everybody else's songs while still trying to come up with my own thing
And then we get to the recruitment of ‘Secret Weapon’ Jay Gonzalez. Whilst the band had worked with Spooner Oldham on Brighter Than Creations Dark the recruitment of Jay gave the band access to a further pallet of sounds that they would use to great effect, plus I think his pop sensibilities can be heard throughout the album. The other change he brought about was the addition of keyboards meant that the guitarists had to leave space for him to play in, which resulted in a much more layered sound.
Side 4 – THE BIG FIZZLE OUT
1 It’s gonna be I told you so
2 Santa Fe
3 The Flying Wallendas
4 Eyes Like Glue
Shonna’s second song on the album is (It’s Gonna Be) I Told You So. I love the way this one starts with a ‘skysaw’ guitar sound – guess that would be Neff - and then the slide guitar comes in to take the solo and add additional colour. There’s also some great backing vocals (by Cooley?) on this one.
Santa Fe is probably the main reason why I will miss Neff. As well as being one of my favourite Patteron songs the pedal steel playing on this elevates the song to a whole new level.
And then for me the album just peters out.
The Flying Wallendas does nothing for me at all – this is just one of Patterson’s songs that doesn’t work for me. Plus some of the rhymes feel a bit clunky.
Eyes Like Glue whilst a fine song shouldn’t be placed at the end of the album, although I can’t work out where it should have been placed – maybe it would be more at
home on GGB with Pulaski and Cartoon Gold. It feels like they placed the song here to act as a bookend with Daddy Learned to Fly as both songs are about fathers but it just feels so out of place after everything that’s gone before. Plus I think they needed to at least have the same number of Cooley songs as Shonna’s songs (at least before Cooley delivered Birthday Boy).
So there you have it. Overall I think this is the best recording the band have ever done, Barbe did a fantastic job of integrating all the ideas the band had into a coherent whole. For me the thing that stops it being a great album is the last two songs – they let the energy of the album dissipate rather than holding the energy right to the end.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised in light of his many musical talents but I always notice that Jay perfectly reproduces those handclaps live while folks like me spaz out trying to get it right. 
