Works In Progress

Bill Mallonee has long been one of my most favorite song-writers. I was first exposed to him through his band Vigilantes of Love. I remember reading about them in an issue of No Depression magazine, which at the time was my preferred music reading rag because I was deep into the alt-country scene. Me and my buddy Clay would go to Tower Records every month or so and I would pick up the latest copy. The record they were writing about in this case was Audible Sigh and it said all the things I wanted to hear in a record.

When looking at the metadata associated with Bill and with VoL you'll probably see things like Contemporary Christian and Christian and Religious. To me that is a stretch. Those genres are the compilation discs you see advertised late at night on Fox News where you see people in the crowd swaying their arms and singing along to incredibly bland and lyrics. I have no problem with an artist exploring his faith, to each his own, right? Bill Mallonee does explore his faith deeply but not in an insulting or overt or pushy way. He's a man who has faith and is struggling with it, struggling with the day to day challenges of life, and using his faith to get through it. The songs are often questioning, looking at the hardships of life and how we get through them in our own ways. It's exhilarating song-writing.

I had a chance to meet Bill very briefly at a show he did with VoL at Iota in Arlington VA. It's a small club, very intimate. I remember the crowd was not that big, but he and his band put on a great show. He was a great presence on stage; he looked a bit nerdy but he commanded the stage with tics and hand waves and tilts of his head. After the show he and the band were selling their merchandise in the lobby. Usually I am very shy in these scenarios but I bucked up and bought a VoL tee-shirt, which I still proudly wear.  What I remember most is the genuineness with which Bill thanked me for coming out and taking a tee shirt home. I always try to buy something at a show, especially for bands that are out there working hard doing their thing maybe struggling from show to show.

Bill records under his own name now. He's been doing a long-running series of download-only recordings he calls Works Progress Administration. I urge you to check them out and if you can download one or two. They feature his and his wife on all instruments. I have downloaded several of them. Right now I have "Heaven In Your Heart"/WPA 18 playing. That's the last one I got and two more have come out since then. Right now "(I'm Always) The Last To Know" is playing. It's typically great. Here's a taste of the lyrics:

There's a place out here
where the sky gets clear
and tired world holds it's breath
the light finds a curve
undisturbed
and that whisper...it's either God or death

His music is a challenge against the difficulties of life. And there is always grains of hope in the trials. Sometimes that's all we need. And sometimes's that all the music needs.

Here's Bill doing the title track form the record that first caught my ear: