The Mendoza Line-We're All in this Alone

Tokyo Wa
Sasha Goes Too Far/It Could Be the Nights
Idiot Heart
Baby, I Know What You're Thinking
My Tattered Heart and Torn Parts
Williamsburg
A Bigger City
Everything We Used to Be
You Singled Me Out
I Hope that You Remember to Forget
Yoko's in the Band
Assisted Living
All Heart, No Eyes
Where You'll Land

William H. Macy on a recent episode of the Simpsons was appearing on a Springfield public access program. He described independent film as "Special people, not special effects. Big hearts not big budgets". It was meant to be glib but its true. In that sense independent music is not so different from independent film. It speaks to those of us who are entertained or enriched by that which is not so far from our own lives, that which we can recognize. The Mendoza Line embody this like few others. Their 2000 release We're All in this Alone is a particular testament to this. Against a backdrop of acoustic driven, jangly college rock, the kind they just don't make anymore, the nuts and bolts of the relationships between men and women in their 30's are deconstructed and laid bare. Based on a loose concept of songs alternating written by the men or women of the band the songs claim to be counterpoints to one another. The powerful beauty of this is that the honesty is raw that it's mysterious to us and the true meanings are perhaps lost on outsiders. Like good short fiction, it's all middle with the narrative placing the spotlight on the calm before the storm or the tension before it breaks.

To illustrate these points I site the records centerpieces, the Timothy Bracey written and sung (in his dusty gee-whiz here goes nothing sort-of southern twang) "Baby I Know What You're Thinking" which seamlessly becomes the female (written and gorgeously sung in Shannon McCardles breath-taking lilt) "My Tattered Heart and Torn Parts". In big budget films we have beautiful people in unbelievable situations that always have a pat resolution. In mainstream music we have beautiful people, usually at a nightclub, posturing and succeeding in what is inevitably the shallowness of their physical looks and pre-packaged sexuality. But in independent film and music we get the real life warts and all. You can almost sense the grease in the hair and the tension in the air of a man telling his woman "Whether you know it or not/I am not the one you want/because I've been resting on laurels way too long/and I love the way you look on my arm" (Baby, I Know What You're Thinking). This strikes the listener because we all know how as single people trying to be happy we are giant balls of mixed signals and spastic emotions. This is magnified when she replies that "The season's gonna change before we know it/and you say that your feelings might change too/and I don't want to hear to that nonsense ringing in my ears/and I'm not gonna cry because of you" going on to say "I'd rather be your lover than your friend/I'd rather wrap these arms around your cold heart than have nothing" (My Tattered Heart and Torn Parts),serving to only reply with a similar muddled confusion than what was offered her.

It's been written that the tension felt on this record was the direct result of the members of The Mendoza Line pulling up their roots and relocating from Athens, Ga to Brooklyn and circumstances forcing them to co-habitate (there were I believe five of them at the time). Since man first took pen to paper it has been the artists burden that the fruit of suffering is the satisfaction of the viewer/reader/listener. The beauty of this record is that for forty two minutes that mirror that we can barely look at also makes us feel not so alone.-Greg Trout

Released March 28, 2000

The Mendoza Line