Liner Notes: Two Cow Garage

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WHEN TWO COW GARAGE singer-guitarist Micah Schnabel picked up the phone, I expected him to sound like the three-packs-a-day, whiskey-drinking, gravel-voiced crooner who gives his band such earthy grit. Instead, the Columbus, Ohio, resident has the clear pipes of a straightedge vegan who lives in a modern home with a humidifier and an air cleaner, not a person who resides in busted-down rock clubs for 200 concerts a year.

"It comes out just when I'm singing, I guess," Schnabel laughed. "Not too sweet-throated. Anytime I sing, it pretty much comes out like that. I wish it didn't; I'm not a good, good singer, so it's just dealing with what you got."

Schnabel might not be a technically perfect vocalist, but his throaty singing has ton of character, recalling the blue-collar grime of The Replacements' Paul Westerberg and Ryan Adams during his wildman phase in Whiskeytown. Two Cow Garage's music has those influences as well, with some Son Volt, Steve Earle and Drive-By Truckers, too, though the eight-year-old band has come to find it own space on its thoroughly good fourth album, "Speaking in Cursive." The record's 13 tracks are filled with well-fertilized roots rock, brimming with singalong melodies and smart lyrics that address life on the road, girls and a former member of the Manson Family. You know, the basics.

Two Car Garage is in the midst of the Suburban Home Records package tour, featuring labelmates Austin Lucas and Mike Hale, and Express asked Schnabel and bassist-singer Shane Sweeney for a track-by-track tour of "Speaking in Cursive."

You can stream the entire album and read their commentary after the jump. (Click here for Austin Lucas' Liner Notes feature and album stream; click here for more on the Suburban Home tour, which hits DC9 on Aug. 12, and to stream Mike Hale's album.)

1. "You Humble Narrator"
MICAH: That's about an earlier time in my life. We're on the road so much, and then you get home and you never really shut that down. You're young enough that you pretty much keep living that lifestyle while at home; keeping the train rolling until the next time you leave. You're up till 6 every morning with your friends. ... After a few years, looking back on it, it's like, wow — that was a pretty wild time in my life. It's looking back at the maturing process; learning how to get it together a little bit. ... How do you just shut down? You can't live at home like you do out here [on the road] all the time. I think throughout the record, we're trying to deal with that and ask that question.

2. "Brass Ring"
MICAH: Early on when we started this band, someone told us there isn't a brass ring. That song's also, again, about getting older and realizing there is no brass ring but learning to be OK with your situation, feel good about who you are and what you're doing, and being happy living as an artist. It's hard and there's the financial uncertainty. But if you're able to look at what you have and you're truly happy with what you're doing, and you're able to make a living with what you're doing, it's about coming to grips with that.

3. "Folksinger's Heart"
MICAH: That's an actual line my Dad said to me when I was 18 years old. He told me, "Put the guitar down; it's not going to cause you anything but heartache." We were in a rough patch, as any 18-year-old boy and his father go through. We're good friends now. [The two even perform together.] He told me that and obviously it stuck with me, so I twisted it around [for the song, singing "It was arrogant to think from the start / that you were a backyard Dylan with a folksinger's heart."]. ... He was going through a divorce at the time, and he thought that him being out playing guitar all the time had pushed people away, and I don't think that's the truth at all. ... [The lyrics state, "I still got these songs ringing in my head / It keeps me awake and down every time I'm leaving town."] But even if you try to put it down, the songs are so much a part of you that you can't deny it. Even if I tried to settle down and deny doing this — not doing this would kill me. The songs would still be there, the ideas would still come, and it would drive me crazy to not pursue them any further.

4. "Bastards and Bridesmaids"
MICAH: That one is about good people and bad people, good situations and bad situations. The opening verse is true; it's about us going to a show in Oklahoma City with four other bands that we didn't fit with at all. There were, like, a hundred [patrons] outside and they gave us the big stare-down as we pulled up and treated us like shit. Then they put us right in the middle [of the show lineup] — and we ended up winning them over. ... [The show] was a cross between hardcore and some other stuff — I dunno. There was a lotta leather; it was pretty wild. [laughs]. ... We played, we were glad to not get the shit kicked out of us or have to fight our way out, and we just rolled. ... "Bastards and Bridesmaids" is a movie, and I saw the name of it in the listings; I think it was a pretty small movie. I just thought it sounded cool, so I put my own story behind that.

5. "The Heart and The Crown"
SHANE: I wrote that song in the studio when we were recording. We had been out on the road for five or six weeks, and then we were in the studio for a week and a half, and we were all beat up and tired and completely out of money. We recorded down in Texas, so we had a 20-hour drive ahead of us [to get home]. And then there was the stress of finishing up the record, so I was pretty tired, and I wrote a love song for the first ever maybe. It was for my girlfriend because I wanted to go home to her.

6. "Wooden Teeth"
MICAH: That one is about our old drummer [Dustin Harigle]. He quit the band, and he didn't do it in a very good way, and that's pretty much venting on him. I'm sure he has [heard the song], somehow, someway. We were leaving to play in Chicago that night, and he refused to get in the van. It put us in a pretty hard spot. We were best friends for a long time and it hurt me pretty good. So, a perfect situation to try and write a song about it. We did the tour, which was only a 10-day run, without a drummer, singer-songwriter style. I think our songs hold up that way. We are a loud rock 'n' roll band, but we can just sit down with acoustic guitars and the songs make sense. There's actual real songs behind the volume. [Does the song refer to his dental problems?] It does — I don't think I can elaborate. [laughs]

7. "Skinny-Legged Girl"
MICAH: That's a straight-forward about-a-girl song. It was written while we were dating, and then afterward, and the finger ends up being pointed back at myself as being the asshole. Yep, just a song about a girl — just what the world needs. [laughs].

8. "Glass City"
SHANE: The hometown that I grew up in is rural and there's a big meth problem. I had written the music and the melody and had scratched down a few words for it, but then my mom told me that a bunch of young kids got busted for cooking up meth in their basement. It's also about me being in my late 20s, nearly 30, and getting old and how that affects people. People age so quickly when they're doing meth — a 21-year-old kid looks like he's 40. It's about trying to escape from that culture and being pulled back in by people you love, or people you think you love, when you're in that situation.

9. "Not Your Friends"
MICAH: That's about going home to my hometown and playing a show. It's a little town 70 miles west of Columbus called Bucyrus, and I just have a hard time with that place. For a couple of years we'd go back and play a show on Thanksgiving weekend, and the song is about me having to do that and not being very stoked on it. Having to deal with those people, and that place. When you grow up in a small town, there's a preconceived notion about who you are, and when you go back, you feel like you have to explain yourself to people. We do it because it's a good payday, and it's near Christmas, so it's nice when you have to buy presents. Also, I'm the only one who has problems with it. ... When you meet up with somebody you haven't seen in a long time, it's almost like a stand-off. They ask what they're doing, because they're just trying to be polite — I dunno if people even care; some do — and feeling like you have to explain yourself when you shouldn't have to. Especially when you're not making any money but you're doing what you love to do, it's hard thing to explain without sounding like a fool.

10. "Swingset Assassin"
MICAH: That's a pretty straight-forward folk song, just going through the stages of life and how you end up getting where you are. Going through [your life's musical stages], explaining yourself and the soundtrack of where you've been and where you at. ... [The words "punk rock just left me empty and alone" refers to] when the ideology gets ripped away, or just changed in such a bad way. I probably didn't get quite as deep into [punk] as a lot of people, but I was definitely in the middle of it for a while. It does energize you when you're young, but when you try to hold onto it for too long — I don't know, for me it wasn't holding up; it wasn't offering as much.

11. "Funeral Drag (Bummer)"
MICAH: That's about a girl who killed herself, who was working very hard at doing so for a long time, and everybody knew it. When she finally succeeded, everybody acted surprised. It kinda pissed me off. ... It wasn't a friend of mine; it was a person I knew through a girlfriend. I guess being on the outside, I could see the whole story happening; it's a little easier to see that stuff from the outside.

12. "Sadie Mae"
MICAH: The name was taken from Sadie Mae Glutz from the Manson Family. What if Sadie Mae hadn't found Charlie? She was just this sad kid, and Sadie Mae is like the girl from "Funeral Drag." ... This song is about the actual girl and the story she's going through; "Funeral Drag" is more my interpretation on everybody's reaction.

13. "Swallowed by the Sea"
SHANE: We played a show in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and it was bogus. First of all there was hardly anybody there, and we had a $75 guarantee and we had to argue with the owner to get $35. Again, it was just at the end of a tour, and I was tired and pissed off about having to fight for $35. We should have just walked, but there was too much pride there. It's about a club called The Saint in Asbury Park.

» DC9, 1490 9th St. NW; Wed., Aug. 12, 8:30 p.m., $10; 202-483-5000. (U St.-Cardozo)

» RELATED: "Liner Notes: Austin Lucas" [Express, Aug. 2009]
» RELATED: "Suburban Home Records Tour" [Express, Aug. 2009]

Photos courtesy Suburban Home and Two Cow Garage