Schramms – 2000 Weiss Beers From Home
The Schramms have been together since 1987 with only a couple of personnel changes. Their longevity in the face of relative obscurity is a testament to the songwriting of their leader, guitarist and singer Dave Schramm, whose songs mix existential bleakness with human-scaled rays of light and hope. That’s not a new recipe, but his success in readdressing these common themes has resulted in such searingly resonant numbers as “Simple Arithmetic”. It’s hard to figure out how the song manages to work its magic, but that’s part of its mysterious allure.
2000 Weiss Beers From Home was recorded on one night in Regensburg during the band’s tour of Germany three years ago. The two-disc set draws from all five of the band’s previous releases and includes covers of songs by David Blue, the Saints and Lucinda Williams. What’s telling about the covers is how much they’re of a piece with the rest of the material; though he’s decidedly lesser-known than those artists, Schramm is the equal of them all.
The album was recorded by the simplest means possible — a cassette deck attached to the sound board — and the results lack the full sonic breadth of the Schramms’ proper studio work. But the aim here was to capture the interplay of a band, far from home and doing what they do best for an audience of 50 people.