From Left: Joe Freeman, Brien Seyle, Sherman S. Sherman, and J.J. Hamon of Peck of Dirt played a record release show at the Schlafly Tap Room on Thursday, May 22. Drummer Duane Perry is obscured by the other players. (Photo by Misty Rose Bulawsky)
Peck of Dirt just played a record release show of a unique kind. The band previously had released a record of the same material—also titled “Peck of Dirt”—eighteen years ago, so a baby born on that release date was graduating from high school when the second version of new recordings was released last week. I am one of very few people who saw both record release shows.
In 2007 at Off Broadway, Peck of Dirt performed as a kind of theater in the round, a large group positioned in a circle with audience access at all points. The live music was served with free hot apple pie; apple pie plays a role in the eponymous song suite. The other record release show was just this past Thursday, May 22, at the Schlafly Tap Room. A more focused version of Peck of Dirt—five musicians, down from a whopping 17—took the small corner stage. Only one musician other than bandleader and songwriter Sherman S. Sherman appeared in both versions of the band.
“Peck of Dirt” the song cycle plumbs the depths of shadowy people accused of doing bad and even despicable things. The tale unfolds in noir anthems that are disturbingly catchy. There are refrains, once heard, you may never get out of your head, such as “she will never be heard from again.” These wry insights into dark minds are delivered in Sherman’s droll baritone. It sounds like he has heard it all and is telling you about it very slowly as a trigger warning, so you can get away without permanent injury if you start hearing things you cannot stomach.
The murder ballad and the little girl who ends up dead are founding elements of the American roots music that underlies Sherman’s sense of songwriting and instrumentation. American folk song grew up on the strings of things like fiddles and mandolins, the instruments played by Brien Seyle in the Tap Room performance. Brien is the only player other than Sherm who played in both Pecks of Dirt, though the mandolin is a new addition to his fiddle.
The earliest recorded American musicians played primitive stringed instruments that were homemade and might be made to lie on your lap, hence the name that survives for what J.J. Hamon was playing at the Tap Room, the lap steel guitar. J.J. has a searching quality as a color instrumentalist. He sits there with his Eraserhead hair and peers into his lap steel with apparent surprise at the sounds he is able to make.
As a freakout secret weapon, Joe Freeman—formerly of the unforgettably titled Pat Sajak Assassins—played an improvised cluster of keyboards that were mostly hidden from view, so it was not possible to see exactly what he was doing to create these evolving cascades of sound. He laid down bass lines with his left hand, à la Ray Manzarek of the Doors, while with his right hand he crashed keyboard chords treated to sound like nasty electric guitars (and other, less describable things). Sometimes Freeman would lift his right hand up from the keyboard, the one time you could see what he was doing, to finesse various knobs that manipulated the sounds. Freeman also delivered effective and exciting harmony vocals.
Sherman himself, though a sought-after bass player in the local scene, led the band on electric guitar and lead vocal. He provided the basic armature of the songs and let Brien, J.J. and Freeman have all the licks, riffs, and accent pieces. For drums Sherm tagged one of St. Louis’s most beloved punk rock drummers, Duane Perry. Duane was invisible behind the other players on the small corner stage, playing the best kind of rock drums, the ones where you do not even notice that they are there.
Freeman took an annoying amount of time before the band started playing trying to adjust all the sounds just the way he wanted them. I found this instantly forgivable when they finally started performing and I could make out every syllable that Sherman sang in the kind of guttural baritone that usually disappears under a live rock band—that is why so many rock singers have big noses and high voices—yet his lead vocals did not blot out a complex and dynamic set of musical textures.
I find it irresistible not to cite the name of Freeman’s former band the Pat Sajak Assassins, but the other players also have interesting musical pedigrees.
Brien Seyle is one of the leaders of the Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra, another return to the roots of American popular music, in that they compose scores to silent movies and perform them live. J.J. Hamon has by now played with more local rock bands than not, but his high-water mark was Demon Lover. Duane Perry also has a lot of stickers on his luggage, but Red Squares may be his best-known band. Sherman is the quintessential musical journeyman on bass, with Fred’s Variety Group and the Good Griefs being his two essential former gigs.
The phrase resounding in my head as I watched these guys set up, hang around through two other bands, and perform was “so St. Louis.” This phrase, uttered by longtime denizens of the river city, means different things to different people who say it at different times. Said while watching Peck of Dirt, I was thinking about the inscrutable, somewhat self-defeating, but ultimately lovable and inspiring character of the St. Louis rock music scene.
There are more musicians of serious talent and eye-opening creativity than should be possible in a Midwestern industry backwater, given that no one is a full-time professional musician—a category that scarcely exists in St. Louis outside of the symphony orchestra. I am friends with Sherman (and the other guys, to varying extents), so I jawed with them at the show, and I was not surprised to learn that many hours of rehearsals went into these Peck of Dirt recordings and performances. What makes grown men spend so much time playing music for almost no money?
Certainly, there is a brotherhood factor, as everyone has been playing in the same local music scene for so long. They have played together in other bands. They have played in other bands that split many bills. Most were associated with the cooperative label Tower Groove Records, which catalyzed and coalesced this quirky community in 2012. Sherman’s intricate and unique story songs also compel participation.
The point of view in “Peck of Dirt” is pitiless, but not sadistic. The atmosphere is more cabaret or folktale than confession or autopsy. A character from a nursery rhyme embedded in all our minds—Peter Peter, pumpkin eater—pops up. History’s biggest villain, from the perspective of a particularly popular folk tale (Satan), makes a cameo, barring a door.
Sherman further distances his story from a creepy delight in people coming to a painful end by the absurdist interpolation of a fragment of a popular song. “Que sera, sera,” Doris Day sang, which we all should know mistranslates “whatever will be will be” into French. Sherman fragmented the refrain, singing only “Que sera” (whatever will be).
The band joins him on “sera,” collectively sounding a big, weird chord never heard before. By withholding the last word of the refrain, the second “sera,” Sherman draws us further down into his narrative depths, because we all helplessly sing along in our heads, but the song does not sing along. We are left with nothing but a bottomless minor chord that we have never heard before and that will never be heard from again.
In “Peck of Dirt,” we gain perspective on impulses toward thrill-seeking and predation rather than hear about the suffering of flesh-and-blood people. Sherman may be writing about characters who struggle to control their darkest impulses, but the narrator has consummate artistic control over his material. This is an analysis of sadism, perversion, and false witness rather than a perpetuation of those things.
The so St. Louis musical temperament of Peck of Dirt includes things like diffident self-promotion and abandonment of a maestro role toward the other bands on a bill. On a Thursday night, the sweet spot on a three-band bill is the middle. The opener misses the late arrivals and the closer misses the early departures, but the band in the middle has the best chance of being seen by everyone who shows up. By all rights, that spot should have gone to Peck of Dirt, who were launching an eighteen-year revival. Instead, a forgettable roots rock band from Chicago hogged up the best of everyone’s attention span.
The somewhat self-defeating diffidence that characterizes this scene extends to anyone’s ability to listen to the music released on Thursday—or, for that matter, the version released eighteen years before. Sherman showed up at the Tap Room with unmarked CDs imprinted with the new recordings and disassembled covers he had handprinted. While the other two bands performed, he hand-printed an S on the CDs and assembled the unique packages. Even at the release show, one had to stumble upon the existence of the record being released, as I do not recall a sales opportunity being announced from the stage.
The good news is that Sherman describes this as a Peck of Dirt revival, rather than a reunion. Eighteen years later, they are back, so if you keep your eyes open for a show, you may be able to hear them live and purchase this strange, precious record. It appears that Peck of Dirt will be heard from again.
