A FAN’S NOTES

Down and Dirty with a Local Hero

Dirty & Down is the new record by Three O’Clock Train. Mack MacKenzie is its founder, leader and sole original member. And sometimes he’s just Mack MacKenzie. When I last saw Mack play Edmonton, he split a solo acoustic barroom bill with Mike McDonald of Jr. Gone Wild. A few months later I caught him on his home turf fronting a band in Old Montreal’s Centaur Theatre. You just don’t know; you never can tell. Both of these nights unfolded from soundcheck to encore months before my morning Globe and Mail began tracking an international story about a mysterious viral outbreak in an obscure Chinese city.

Port cities are magnets, confluences of cultures, always vibrant. When Three O’Clock Train hit Montreal’s music scene, I was waving my hands to get through the haze of an undergraduate degree at Concordia University. Its sound was like some sort of manic party line, CBGB or London calling patched through Bakersfield and Nashville. The local newspapers were on it because back then papers actually covered their city and worked to create compelling content; circulation was a competitive sport. How could this strange noise happen here? What was the source of this dynamo hum? Music critics’ enthusiasm spilled over into the page three city columns. What Three O’Clock Train was doing then, well, it’s everywhere now.

Mack MacKenzie is an accomplished songwriter. He has shared the stage with John Prine and Guy Clark, both of whom were admirers. He’s up there with a few other Canadians who have been pretty successful at their craft too. Forty years of work honing a gift.

Canada is a big, regionalized country. And relatively empty. It’s a market about the size of California. A blanket, generic Canadian music scene is an impossibility. Three O’Clock Train will always be a Montreal band, just as Jr. Gone Wild will always be qualified as Edmontonians. If there’s such a thing as a national music conversation, it’s necessarily mainstream, dominated by the universal appeal of a few familiar faces. Three O’Clock Train is an outlier, always has been. So: I’m a fan; I’m an advocate.

Here comes the full disclosure part. Mack and I are acquainted. We met for the first time maybe ten years ago. A house concert in Edmonton. I was in my mid-fifties. We were the same age. We chatted about her, Montreal. We’d endured the same Ticketron lines for Forum concerts; we’d haunted the same record stores. We’ve since kept in intermittent touch. These past few days I’ve been an email nag. Essay questions, because I excel at overthinking pretty much anything. Mack’s a patient man.

meGeoff: My favourite Joe Walsh lyric is Pow! Right between the eyes/Oh! How nature loves her little surprises. My sense is your previous record Cuatro de Los Angeles was stymied by covid-19. No time for buzz, gigs, gate or merch sales. I believe there was even a production lag for the vinyl. How did the lockdown affect you, a working musician?

Mack MacKenzie: Cuatro de Los Angeles was cursed. We lost Tony Kinman (Tony and his brother Chip were the lynchpins of a few seminal alternative bands including The Dils and Rank and File) right when we had just finished the first song with him producing (“Lucky Day”). Bob Rock (Bryan Adams, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi…) stepped in to help and we moved production from Los Angeles to Vancouver. We gathered everyone who was still kicking from the first Dils recording (“It’s Not Worth It”), which Bob produced back in the day, and carried onward. Moving production to Montreal, all songs written in Los Angeles, hence the title of the EP. Covid-19 hit the planet and left me having to cancel an eighty-date tour in support of the release. ARGH! Or, as my people say, UGH! Also, we lost Zippy Pinhead (Dils drummer) right before the big launch in Vancouver at the Rickshaw Theatre.

meG: You staged a virtual concert and dropped the single “Send Down Your Love”. I don’t imagine streaming pays the bills.

MM: Universal Audio, a well-known audio equipment and recording company, chose twelve artists from across Canada to record during the imposed isolation. The challenge for each was to compose and record a new song with equipment they would provide for one month. I recorded “Send Down Your Love” as well as producing a video for the tune. Producer Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Leonard Cohen) approached me and asked if I was interested in recording with him at Hotel2Tango and we began work on an EP – which turned into an EP and a full album!

meG: Dirty & Down is the new EP.

MM: I took the chance of being locked down as a time to rebuild. Having a tour knocked out from under a touring musician was rough,  but I was determined to see things through as far as music goes. Rod Shearer (guitars, co-producer), in the band since the early nineties, and I started working with Howard. We recruited bassist Andy McAdam (The Planet Smashers, Boids) and drummer Mike Gassellsdorfer (Boids) as our official rhythm section. My friend Marc De Mouy (YUL Records) was generous with his time and money, helping me get everyone on board. The sessions worked like this: one song per session; the song for the day would usually be chosen the morning of, on the way to the studio. Whatever I felt was going to be different from the session before. This left the band flat-footed every day and having to learn a new song, allowing for a fresh performance. The songs all sound different and they all have the same basic lineup behind them. I’m gaining in years and don’t have the time I once spent having a good time. Ha! 

meG: The vocal on the title track sounds to me like obscene phone call audio, threatening, enticing. You wear war paint in the video, a fearsome sight. I’ve not heard a song so dangerous – unsettling in a good way – for a long time. How did you come up with that one?

MM: When the lockdown started, Howard asked if I wanted to do a quick, down and dirty EP with him. It inspired the title and the song just wrote itself. “Dirty & Down” was the first song to be recorded. I showed it to the band and we learned and recorded it in an afternoon. Jonathan Cummings smoked the lead solo. I wanted the vocal to be creepy, to contrast the roaring chorus. Creepy like Frank Zappa’s vocal on “The Central Scrutinizer”. A simple hand-made megaphone did the trick. I wanted to make a video similar to the early MTV era, pre-interweb. “You Might Think” by The Cars, a crazy green screen type of thing. Playhouse lead singer Peter Cat often wears makeup for his performances and the black heart on his right cheek inspired me to play with face paint. The war paint is actually a precursor to the upcoming album Badly Bent Arrow Boy, which is another story for another time.

meG: What really hooked me on the Stones was the rest of any particular album. The songs that weren’t singles. I’ve heard you cover the Stones in concert. I’ve always figured should you ever decide to record a Stones song you’d go digging. Maybe something from side two of Exile. But you chose “Luxury”, Mick’s faux Jamaican accent and all. That’s not just out of left field, it’s from the parking lot behind the outfield wall. What prompted that? Coincidentally, It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll turned fifty this month.

MM: 1974: I was fourteen and It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll was awesome! This track stood out for me. It was the first reggae groove that the Stones recorded. Harder! Harder! It just pushes the one drop beat. The original recording sounds like it would easily fit on Exile.

meG: I can’t count the hours I spent staring at the album cover. During the lockdown I bought a jigsaw puzzle of the sleeve. Love that track. The version on El Mocambo ’77 really cooks.

MM: There’s also another bootleg from some Detroit show during that period. I may have the city wrong….

meG: Trains, locomotives are such evocative images and metaphors in music, blues, country, soul, gospel, you name it. The first song you wrote was “Train of Dreams”. There’s the name of your band of course. The other cover song on the EP is “Big Train” by Chip Kinman. You’ve worked extensively with Chip and his late brother Tony throughout your career. Why do you think you guys are so sympatico?

MM: David Hill, bass and co-founder of the Train introduced me to Rank and File. We were both bucking trends at the same time. I finally met Chip and Tony back in 2015 and we pretty much hit it off. I remember Chip invited me to a BBQ at his place in Burbank one Sunday afternoon. He cooked up a pile of burgers, sausages, chicken, and prepared a slew of salads and sides. No one showed up except for myself. I teased him about having so many friends. We had a bite and then broke out a bottle of fine whiskey and listened to some early Kanye; Chip said my songs were similar. Good times.

meG: Really? How so?

MM: Well, I vaguely remember him saying we had similar sentiments. That’s Chip. Myself, I don’t hear it.

meG: “Pyjama Girl” is country, catchy, cautionary – not that I was expecting Bryan Ferry, but the title is suggestive. When the words come, do they take you in a certain musical direction? Does the melody dictate the lyrics? Or is your creative process messier, mix ‘n match, more organic?

MM: “Pyjama Girl” was fun. The scenario was the lockdown and most people were stuck at home in their pyjamas, webcamming, usually in a small room. The chorus knocks those walls down. We threw every “extra” idea collected during our sessions and used most of them for this song. The three acoustic guitars were all done at once in two takes. Cecil Castellucci, who sang on “I’m Not Your Indian Boy” back in 1996 was the voice I heard in my head for this song. Sara Johnson (Bran Van 3000) and Chris Velan (Montreal-based artist and producer) also lend their voices. Finally found a song to play with my ebow too! Good times!

Dirty & Down and more Three O’Clock Train music is available from Apple Music and streams on Spotify. Badly Bent Arrow Boy coming soon. There’s a Three O’Clock Train YouTube channel, a Facebook page and of course Instagram. You can also dig a little deeper with a visit to www.threeoclocktrain.com.                                        

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. My companion site www.megeoff.com is a little dusty, but up to date. New fiction coming soon.