What The Day Brings - a look at the career of Shawn Smith and a slight review of his new live album

I’ve been meaning to write some kind of thinkpiece on the tremendous talent that is Shawn Smith for a while now, and with his just having released a recording of a show recently recorded on a live date in Bristol, now seems like as good a time as any to discuss it, and the man himself.

There’s a good chance that you have heard a song by Shawn Smith, but you maybe don’t even realize it. That was the case with me, anyway. When I turned 16, I worked in a drug store in rural Illinois. Occasionally, coming from the in-store music selection, I would hear a song called “The Day Brings.” This was in 1999, long before smart phones and apps that can identify a song by analyzing its waveform or whatever. This was just a song I heard while re-stocking shelves that I liked, and I had no idea who it was by.

Cut to the beginning of 2001, and after reading a review of Twilight as Played by The Twilight Singers in some electronic music magazine, I bought a copy of the album—a collaborative effort between Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, Harold Chichester, the duo Fila Brazila, and Shawn Smith.

It wasn’t until I was in college, and had the advent of, what was, at the time, high speed internet, and the file sharing website Audio Galaxy at my disposal, that I thought to look up who exactly Shawn Smith was—he was a solo performer, as well as a member of the groups Pigeonhead, Brad, and Satchel.

So as I was listening to music from his solo album Let it All Begin and his live album, Live at The Point, I stumbled across a version of a song called “The Day Brings,” and a two year old mystery was solved in an instant.

Also, for what it’s worth, it’s he who is half singing, half rapping on the remix of a song called “Battleflag” but the Lo-Fidelity All-Stars. Do you remember that song? I bet you do.

He’s called “Seattle’s best kept secret,” by his one-time Twilight Singers bandmate Greg Dulli—a quote that’s splashed on the top of Smith’s website in some kind of effort to get people to think, “Well if Dulli says he’s good….” But you don’t need a co-sign from the guy from The Afghan Whigs to know how incredible Shawn Smith is. Just take one listen to his voice and you’ll be converted to a believer.

Prior to his discovering of the artist platform Bandcamp—which has become an outpouring for one-off singles, “lost” albums, new material, and old home-recorded artifacts—Smith released three albums under his own name, five with the group Brad (featuring Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam fame) and three with Satchel (which was kind of like Brad minus Stone Gossard.) This doesn’t include his “hard rock” side project All Hail The Crown, or the aforementioned Pigeonhead.

To say the man is prolific is a vast understatement.

But with a dude being this prolific, how is Shawn Smith not a fucking household name in America? He, himself, admits that he has a small cult following here in the states, but is much, much more appreciated abroad—where he recently went on a string of successful live dates to receptive audiences, and also recorded an excellent new single, "The Storm Inside."

Here, he and Harold Chichester can’t even book a run of living room shows that is deemed worthwhile financially for them to embark on.

Smith’s live set at the Folk House in Bristol captures his essence as a showman and as a songwriter. It’s the first date of his European tour, and the liner notes on the Bandcamp page indicate it was the only show of the tour where he had a grand piano—something that he really makes his way around throughout the set.

He also notes that he hadn’t had any sleep since leaving Seattle—his exhaustion doesn’t effect his ability to perform well, it just makes for an unpredictable, free-wheeling run through “crowd favorites” with a few of what some would call “deep cuts” tossed in—ripping through well known Brad and Satchel material like “Suffering,” “Buttercup,” Screen,” and of course “The Day Brings,” while pulling out some lesser known tunes like “Some Never Come Home” and “Trouble Come Down.”

As a musician, Smith has always effortlessly blended genres together—Brad and Satchel’s earliest work included elements of funk, psychedelic, and the new “alternative rock” sound of the time; later on, it was just straight forward rock music. But no matter what band he’s fronting, or what era you are listening to, everything has got soul. And even with just a guy and a piano in Bristol, this live recording is full of honest soul.

He’s been playing some of these songs for well over 20 years, but rather than just fire off some kind of pisstake, he still plays them with the urgency and innovation as if they were the very first time. Yes, throughout Bristol Folk House, there’s a little bit of showing off on the piano, and a little bit of bravado with his vocal range—but he’s earned it, and it works. It becomes an intimate recording of someone who is throwing all of themselves into an 11 song set—it’s humorous at times—especially Smith’s crowd interaction, but it’s also admirable just how heartfelt every note he plays is.

Bristol Folk House is, much like Live at The Point was before it over 15 years ago, an excellent starting point for someone who has just learned the name Shawn Smith—it will open doors to his vast canon of material as a solo artist, and as the frontman for Brad and Satchel. It’s music that grows with you—songs I first heard at the age of 18 or 20—like “Screen” and “Wrapped in My Memory,” have taken on new, and much more personal meanings for me as I am in my 30s. Smith’s music may not have the widespread attention stateside that he’d hope for, but if you look at it like a secret you are in on, it’s a secret worth telling.

Live at The Bristol Folk House is out now via Smith's Bandcamp page for $9.