Simmons, Isbell & Me

I've been a fan of Bill Simmons for 20+ years now, and just like everybody else one of the reasons is his forays into pop culture. Of course by "pop culture" what we mean is tv & movies, of which I've always been perfectly fine believing him to be someone to be listened to as much as the next guy. But other than being a Springsteen fan (and I'm not gonna bother digging to see how much of a Bruce fan but I have a *guess*), I've never seen him reveal himself as a person to be taken seriously when it comes to music. So as someone who at any given moment is probably the biggest music geek in the room and spent 15 years in Brooklyn surrounding by REAL music geeks, I have no problem saying I couldn't really care less about Simmons' thoughts on music (except on podcasts when he's talking with his daughter about what she's listening to, which is always fun.)

But like I said I'm a huge fan of his, so a year or two ago when he announced a new music doc series of course I was more than happy to give it a try. But one look at the subjects of each doc confirmed what I'd already guessed: Alanis Morrisstte, DMX...Kenny G!?!?!, etc etc. Not that any of these don't have stories with value, but besides not having an overall point of view, the whole thing seems made to be dismissed.

UNTIL.

I saw there was a Jason Isbell episode on the way. Now, unlike a lot of my friends, I'm not an Isbell fan. Also unlike a lot of my friends, I can only stomach so much Drive-by-Truckers at any given time, with their tried-but-untrue system of never using one word when 50 will do. DBT has always insisted on being the kings of ruining what would be a great melody by insisting on stuffing in as many words as possible GODDAMMIT XMASTIME STOP THIS ISN'T ABOUT THE GODDAM TRUCKERS!!!! But from the time I saw Isbell as a kid on his first tour with them for Southern Rock Opera, I put him in rarified air of guitar players; gunslingers who mosey over from one side of the stage to the other absolutely destroying everyone in his path. Fucking glorious.

But then he decided he wanted to be a singer/songwriter with 9,000-word songs full of "and then this happened and this happened and then this happened...", so here we are.

Now, again - I'm not a fan of his but I understand why so many are, and him having 4 Grammys gives me hope that good music doesn't always have to be stuck under a rockpile. I'd always known him to be a really nice guy, and he's really easy to root for. So I gave the episode a shot last night.

SOME OF WHAT I WOULD HOPE TO SEE IN A JASON ISBELL DOC

• Who he listened to as a kid that eventually led him to melding country & rock so effortlessly
• How he adjusted to the discipline of recording in the studio with the Truckers
• His process when developing lead parts, then & now along with how he prioritizes acoustic vs. electric guitar
• What he sees as any fundamental differences between the music he makes now and what he did with the Truckers.
• Did he ever form a musical relationship with Patterson Hood's father, who played bass for the whatever-word-is-above-legenday Muscle Shoals Swampers?
• His biggest guitar influences (incredibly, this isn't really addressed in the doc, which is always "Famous Rock Guy Talking About Rock" 101)

PERCENTAGE OF THE DOC THAT MADE UP THIS STUFF: 4 

SHIT I HAVE ZERO INTEREST IN SEEING IN A JASON ISBELL DOC

• Watching him argue with his wife about past participle tense while writing a song.
• The group of guys he's paying to play in the studio watching him introduce songs with some easy strumming and then acting like he just showed them the opening to My Girl. The director is Sam Jones, who did the fantastic Wilco doc. What made that one so great was that at the heart of it was a guy with more talent than Jeff Tweedy who was ballsy enough to buck against Tweedy and push things musically, which of course meant his days were numbered. Which, for me personally was the end of Tweedy. Meanwhile for Isbell here, it's all nods and "dude! DUDE!"
• An insanely intimate inside look at his marriage which, in spite of being cringe-inducingly intrusive, miraculously is simultaneously duller than fuck. So...I guess that's impressive?
• Watching someone CONSTANTLY refer to their own neuroses, what a "perfectionist!" they are and how hard they push themselves blah blah blah. I don't care about you constantly telling me how much you care. And to show I'm being fair, I said the same thing about Derek Jeter after his dull af doc too.
• The CONSTANT reminding us that for this album somehow the weight of the entire world is on Isbell's shoulders. Now to be fair this is a common music doc trope, which I've screamed at Springsteen about too. I'm just surprised that we're in 2023 and nobody's suggested you know what, nobody gives a shit about this kind of thing and it's tiresome so maybe let's just skip it?

PERCENTAGE OF THE DOC THAT MADE UP THIS STUFF: 96

Overall, Simmons et al seem to go out of their way to decide what things make music documentaries terrible and then highlight the hell out of them. Aaaaaaaaaaaand when you realize the reason he probably chose to do a doc on Isbell is that sportswriters for whatever seem to love Isbell for being a sports fan, I think we may be able to see what the problem is.

I don't like thinking or writing shit like this, both because as I said I'm not a fan of Isbell's music and the doc did nothing other than confirm that he does seem like a very genuinely nice guy who probably doesn't deserve some shithead like me blasting him for this doc. So I wanna be clear that all my beef is with the docmakers (tho I simply cannot believe that he signed off on the end product after watching it), who seem to have taken a template for music docs about how music is made that don't feel the need to include much about how music is actually made. Especially music that's meant for us to believe is part of a river of music that's flown freely for a century now and will for many more, from a guy who's willfully placed himself in that line of musicians who are to be taken seriously for their music and nothing else.

I hope he sells a billion albums and wins a hundred more Grammys, but I hafta give this one two big, fat Xmas trees DOWN.