Born Blue

[December 10th, 2003] "Bands like us are a dime a dozen," says Dolorean's Al James. "There's a lot of folky bullshit out there."

James is wrestling with a question about how a glowing review of his band's debut release, Not Exotic (YepRoc), ended up in The New York Times last month. And, essentially, the singer-songwriter is right--bands that dabble in midtempo singer-songwriter melancholia put out so many albums that most of those discs are lucky to be used as coasters on the cluttered coffee tables of music journalists. But not James' band--a fact that perplexes the baby-faced Portlander.

"I don't know what sets us apart," he says. "I mean, I would hope that there's some element of a genuine voice in there that people would trust."

Trustworthiness has a lot to do with his music's appeal. While most of the tales told in his songs aren't true, James, who pens all of Dolorean's music, is a fantastic storyteller whose characters are born from a blue-collar mind, much like Raymond Carver or Bruce Springsteen. The stories swell with a darkness and doubt born from the commitment that comes from a life of callused hands.

Slouching in his seat, the Willamette University graduate doesn't appear the archetypal worker, but he does spend his days driving a truck for a wine distributor.

"I've been working since I was 6 or 7," he says of his childhood in tiny Silverton. "My parents use to drive us out to a berry patch and tell us to pick berries until we had however much and then bike home."

This underscores the second element of Dolorean's appeal. James knows the value of work done well, and spent three years saving the money for studio hours and perfecting the intricacies of Dolorean's debut. While most folks with an itch for songwriting will press a four-track into plastic as soon as possible, James wanted it just right.

"For me, production is really an indication of how seriously I'm going to take something," he says. "And not necessarily whether it's good or bad, but how appropriate it is for the type of music. I love a lot of lo-fi stuff, but Dolorean's music is, um...."

Here James pauses, reluctant to praise his lush pop-orchestral arrangements, and demonstrating the third part to Dolorean's equation: modesty.