November_Dylanesquire

Hicks Record Released Amidst Tempest of Acrimony

Alive With Pleasure, the third full-length offering from Minneapolis
tunesmith Dylan Hicks, is set for release in early December, an event
to be marked with a release party at the 7th St. Entry on Saturday,
December, 8th. However, in Hicks’ pretentiously French-peppered
words, the event “may prove to be more of a cause célèbre than a fête
champêtre.” Hicks has been enmeshed in a protracted struggle with
his record label, No Alternative Records, to block Alive With Pleasure’
s release. Last January, shortly after the album was completed, Hicks
denounced the album, telling a Canadian interviewer that it “no longer
(represented his) artistic vision.” Although initially No Alternative let
Hicks retract the album, the label rejected two subsequent submissions,
and has opted to release the original effort against the artist’s wishes. In a recent statement, No Alternative president Kim Randall said, “Alive With Pleasure is an excellent album which we are proud to release. It’s unfortunate that Mr. Hicks doesn’t share our enthusiasm, but we feel he is presently unable to properly appraise his own work.”

Hicks signed with No Alternative in 1995, when he was but a small club attraction in the Twin Cities. Since then he has released two albums on the No Alternative imprint and is now a small club attraction in the Twin Cities. The contract, which the songwriter says he signed when he was “young and less than savvy about the music industry,” requires Hicks to record 27 albums for the label over a 35-year span, and give daily neck massages to No Alternative staffers. In return, Hicks receives a 30% discount on No Alternative bumper stickers, which No Alternative marketing director Sammy Pumblechook says “is only slightly above cost,” adding “it’s not like we’re trying to rip the punk off.”

Alive With Pleasure was recorded in 2000 with members of Hicks’ band, The Indentured Servants, and various session players, and features recent concert faves like “I Wanna Be Black Sometimes,” “City Lights,” and “All The Rock Star Jobs Are Taken.” Immediately upon completion, the album was delivered to No Alternative, but within a week, Hicks asked that production on the record be stopped, and promised to deliver a different album in less than three months. Hicks told Canadian music magazine Four Beats to the Bar that his about-face regarding Alive With Pleasure was prompted by a “conversion to intellectualism.” The affable songster, beloved by fans for his homespun wit, told Four Beats to the Bar he had decided to “become, like, really smart and stuff,” and that he felt Alive With Pleasure was “too middlebrow,” and wanted “to make a more challenging statement.” Randall, who says she “trusted Dylan’s instincts,” agreed to Hicks’ request, despite being pleased with the album.

Buoyed up by No Alternative’s good faith, Hicks hastily produced Hey Gal!, a romantic musical comedy based on the happy marriage of German idealist philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Marie von Tucher. The stage show, featuring songs such as “Kant Get Enough,” “A Dialectical Doozy,” and “Pass the Deutschie,” had a short run at Anoka’s Ho Chi Minh Park Community Recreation Center. The show was met with critical scorn and public apathy, but an undaunted Hicks turned in a boom box recording of the show’s opening night to No Alternative as a replacement for Alive With Pleasure. Under the terms of Hicks’ contract, No Alternative is free to reject any Hicks offering, a power it exercised in the case of Hey Gal! Frustrated but under pressure from the label, Hicks delivered a third album, Hicksy Don’t Mind, which was greeted warmly by the label until they discovered it to be a CD-R of The Dwight Twilley Band’s 1977 Arista release, Twilley Don’t Mind.

Randall, an early champion of Hicks, has battled with the artist over a variety of issues. In 1999, Randall sued Hicks for “not dressing hip enough,” complaining that Hicks’ “increasingly middle-class wardrobe” was having a detrimental impact on Hicks’ shaky hipster credentials. The lawsuit was dropped, but a climate of acrimony between Hicks and Randall has endured. Last year, Hicks suffered a nervous breakdown, seemingly set off by what a family member called “crippling jealousy of Mark Mallman.” Mallman, a gifted songwriter who, like Hicks, plays a Wurlitzer electric piano, has earned rave reviews and a loyal fan base in recent years. At a Mallman show this past summer, Hicks stormed the stage of the 400 Bar and challenged the colorful bandleader to a duel, and ultimately had to be coaxed off the stage by a psychology grad student.

No Alternative decided to sally forth with the release of Alive With Pleasure, despite Hicks’ vocal complaints and repeated threats that he would “egg the No Alternative office building.” The label was prepared to hire a “ghost band” to promote the album, but Hicks has agreed to perform in support of the record. When asked if he’ll be able to give heartfelt performances of songs he has said he longer believes in, a puzzled-sounding Hicks began talking about how much he likes whales. Some local music scene observers seem to be skeptical about Hicks’ apparent insanity. “Hicks is trying to be some kind of Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson, nutso rocker guy, but I don’t buy it for a minute,” says one Minneapolis club rat, “that guy is crazy like a fox, and a damn good songwriter. I encourage every one who has ever really loved rock and roll to go out and buy two or three copies of Hicks’ new album, and give them as gifts during this holiday season.”