Bartees Strange

06/10/2020

I've wanted to write about Bartees Cox's music (aka Bartees Strange) ever since I innocently discovered him on Bandcamp two months ago while looking for artists based in Washington, DC (my hometown). Let me start by saying that some bands are easy to write about. Some are more straightforward, with a quick story and clear biography. That is to say...So and so moved to x. They've been through a,b, and c stuff. They like to make y kind of music and are inspired by z. Oh, and they're releasing an EP in January. Done. But with Bartees Strange, the story is more jam-packed, more nuanced, and I find myself staring at my seven pages of notes, unsure about where I should take my readers in order to fully understand this musician. So how about this. How about I take a break from the formality and use my creative mind (I am human, after all). Instead, let's do something different and get to know Bartees through the titles of the articles about him. Then, I'll circle back and explain what Bartees means to me.

Bartees Strange Wants to Make Indie Rock-and the World-A More Equitable Place (Adhoc)
On "Say Goodbye to Pretty Boy," Bartees Strange Flips the Narrative (Bandcamp)
Meet Bartees Strange, the D.C. Musician Who's Revitalizing Indie Rock (Billboard)
Introducing: Bartees Strange's "About Today". A re-envisioning of The National's song, plus a love letter to the band. (Talk House)
Bartees Strange Breaks Down His EP of The National Covers Track by Track. Say Goodbye to Pretty Boy drops this Friday-here's what he has to say about the songs he chose to cover. (Flood Magazine)
Bartees Strange presents his heartfelt homage to The National, In Studio (Newsounds)
An interview with Bartees Strange: The musician and environmental justice storyteller talks racial justice, accountability, and being Black in the climate movement - this week in EXXONKNEWS. (ExxonKNews)
Freedom to Breathe is a vehicle to capture stories of resilience and courage in the face of injustices that Americans face today. (FreedomToBreath)

Bartees on the Album Cover Art:

The EP's cover art features the Pan-African flag and a frayed black sticker, a nod to Black Dots. In a statement, Strange explains the concept:

They try to tear that black dot off the surface, but it's still there. Battling erasure has been a big part of my journey as an artist. This black dot represents attempts to undersell the contributions black people have made to genres like indie rock music. Despite the lack of credit, we're still here and we're adding to these scenes everyday.

"I think when we did Freedom to Breathe it wasn't long after Eric Garner had been killed - another Black person who was choked out by the police. The protests are about George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, but it's also about the fact that we have 45 million Americans that are on unemployment. People don't have access to healthcare, good jobs, education, safe homes. So when I look at the protests, and energy equity and the climate movement and all of these other things, and how they're connected - the connection is in this problem that people can't succeed in this country the way it is. A huge chunk of the country - the majority of the country - is being choked out from a system that won't let them breathe. What we saw on TV was a lynching of a man in front of the entire country. That knee on his neck was emblematic of the knee on the neck of poor people, and working people, and Black people in this country. They can't live freely, they can't breathe, and they're afraid. That's what this moment is all about." - interview with ExxonKNews

In my opinion, there are several, salient characteristics one can gather from these headlines: That Bartee is political. That he actively fights for climate and racial justice (his day job is a being a Director at the Environmental nonprofit Groundswell). And last, but not least, he's a huge fan of The Nationals, but has recently reimagined their songs through the lens of his own identity and personal experiences as a Black musician. In an interview for Adhoc, he commented, "In terms of how my songs compare [to The National's originals], I hope that they're hard to compare...I hope that they're very different because I'm not trying to one-up The National. This is our interpretation of this music we love". For another interview with Billboard, he's stated, "I want to reclaim the contributions of black people...I'm a black person from Mustang, Oklahoma who grew up in the woods and I love this music. My whole family is from the south. My mom grew up singing in the south. My whole family is jubilee singers. This is my legacy."

I've thoroughly enjoyed learning about Bartees Strange because I can relate to his story in many ways. His recent LP, Saying Goodbye to Pretty Boy, is an important step in black and other people of color reclaiming their presence in the overwhelming white space of Indie Rock. As a person of color, I've always felt out of place and uncomfortable at Indie concerts. It just feels plain wrong that there's almost no diversity in the alternative and rock genres.

To make the future of Indie rock more inclusive, we definitely need people like Bartees creating this kind of music, calling out the inequities, and spreading his message.

// Bartees first full-length album is supposed to come out later this year.

When asked about his inspiration for the LP, Bartee said, "So in commemorating some of these songs and creating this EP, I wanted to bring something new to them. I got this idea when I was at my last National show in DC, Courtney Barnett was opening. It hit me how few black folks were in the crowd, and how this genre (indie rock) seems to exclude the contributions black people have made to it. So I thought Hey, I think I could do something to recast some of these songs - focusing on the elements that made me fall in love with them. The kick patterns of "About Today," the coarse emotion of "Reasonable Man," the soul in "Geese of Beverly Road." (TalkHouse).

Use the above Spotify playlist to hear the Nationals and Bartees' versions side-by-side!

Selections of song-by-song analysis from Interview with Flood Magazine.

On "Going, going": This track is my most "this is who I am" tune. It's very much about my upbringing and the fear associated with where I grew up. I think most people would say I grew up in a quiet and safe small town, but I think most of the black and brown people there would say very different things. That fear is eventually what pushed me out of that town, and that's what this song is sort of picking at: how hard it was to leave home, how deeply connected I still am to that place, and how I still carry it with me everywhere I go.

On "Far": This is a song about wanting my own little house on my own little hill-away from everyone, so I can feel safe. I think a lot about how in this world there are so few places for black folks to just be themselves. Oklahoma was crazy, but America is also crazy. And in days like these, it looks like "crazy" is becoming more and more mainstream. Sometimes I think, "Damn, I gotta leave earth just to find a place I can be myself, because there's nowhere here I can go." "Far" also touches on how far I'm willing to go to feel like I have friends, family, and good relationships. Those aspects of my life have become my "safer" places.

On "Lemonworld": This is a song that my band loves, and it was honestly not on the top of my list to track, but it started to just hit me different once I started singing it. During the chorus, Matt Berninger sings "You and your sister live in a Lemonworld / And I want to stay in and die." I think he's commenting on being broke in Brooklyn while everyone around him was doing well. That resonated with me. My friends are buying houses, having kids, investing, traveling, and I don't feel like I'm a part of their world. It's made me feel like, "Well damn, if i'm this far behind I'd rather just stay in and die..." In making that connection with the song we had some ideas.