By Drew Olson Special to OnMilwaukee.com Published Apr 06, 2010 at 1:05 PM

Though songs from the nearly 25-year-old debut album "Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams" still bring fans out of their seats at concerts, it would be inaccurate (and a bit rude) to consider the BoDeans an "oldies" band.

It's not offensive, after all these years, to suggest that they are maturing.

Bands generally don't stick around for a third decade in the music industry if they don't broaden their horizons, and that's what Waukesha natives Kurt Neumann and Sam Llanas have done on their latest CD, "Mr. Sad Clown," which hits stores today.

Before longtime loyalists get scared, this is not a prog-rock project or the hip-hop experiment hinted at in a recent April Fool's story here at OnMilwaukee.com.

The 15 new tracks do not sound radically different from the previous eight studio albums. The Llanas-penned rocker "Feel ‘Lil Love" would have nestled nicely among the drive-with-the-top-down songs on the group's 1989 album record "Home." The liner notes aptly describe "Don't Fall Down" as an updated version of "Misery" from the ‘86 debut -- "a fun kiss-off song."

The simple rhymes, subdued-to-sweeping soundscapes and unmistakable vocal interplay that have defined the BoDeans' music are still evident in abundance. It's just that these songs aren't coming from a guys in their mid-20s who are itching to get on a bus, see the world and conquer it.

The opening track, "Stay," augmented with Michael Ramos' trumpet, sounds like a straightforward love song:

"Why must you / say goodbye
Why don't you / stay awhile
all of the time / will fly
You only make me smile"

Then, you get to third verse and you realize that the narrator (Neumann) is not lamenting the departure of a girlfriend but rather reflecting as a father on the growth of a daughter moving from toddler to teenager in a blink.

You used to be, two years old / little girl
Stumbling / through the world
And every day / was ours to give away

Like many of the artists that inspired them, the BoDeans have gone from writing about cars and girls to kids, mortality and other things in the "real" world.

"A lot of this record, if you listen to the lyrics, it's from a little more of a grown-up perspective," Neumann said during an interview earlier this year. "Sam and I actually came in to this without working together. We both brought ideas and a lot of them were similar.

"A lot of the songs are sung to that -- I don't know if it's actual depression or anything like that -- but it's about going through rough times and trying to find your way through it; even if it is more of a middle-age thing, where you are looking back at the paths you took.

"It seemed like Mr. Sad Clown was going to make sense with all that. At least as far as my definition of what Mr. Sad Clown was -- a guy that turned to music to deal with issues of depression or longing and stuff like that, which Sam and I pretty much did all our lives."

The title of the album, which is reflected in a lyric in the song "Today," first came to Neumann during a party the two attended in high school.

"Sam was off talking to everybody and I was kind of sitting in the corner by myself, looking at a bunch of records," he said. "This real drunk girl came down and looked at me and said "Whatsa matter, Mr. Sad Clown?" That story kind of stuck with me because it really kind of pegged me for who I was. I wasn't that real social person. I wasn't somebody people would notice. I was real good at being invisible. When she titled it "Mr. Sad Clown," I thought it was really perfect.

"When we were throwing titles out to the record company, we were throwing all the regular song titles up and nobody was caught by anything, because nothing had a story about it really, except "Mr. Sad Clown." It's the one idea that everybody liked. It's something you can talk about and I think a lot of people can relate to that."

The fact that the title was inspired by a line from a high school party is fitting, in a way, because Neumman and Llanas produced, recorded and mixed the CD in a manner similar to the way they made their earliest demos.

"When we started out, Sam and I would find somewhere to record and I would play everything -- because I played drums and guitars and basses and stuff --- and we would sing together on top of it," Neumann said. "This (record) was kind of a throwback to that.

"It was really both of us, alone, without anyone. Some people would say it's interesting and some people would say it's a recipe for disaster. But, it's what we decided to do. We didn't know what the outcome was going to be. We just thought, ‘Let's just do this and send it out.' About two-thirds of the way through the process, I sent it to some people and they acted like it was really phenomenal. They were really knocked out by it."

The album was released by 429 Records, a label that also features Cracker, Little Feat, The Subdudes, Marshall Crenshaw and others.

After performing an acoustic set before the Chicago White Sox home opener on Monday, the BoDeans are doing promotional appearances -- including a stop this afternoon on Chicago radio station WXRT and an in-store appearance/signing at Best Buy Wednesday night in Greenfield.

The group also is gearing up for a batch of shows that features a homecoming performance May 28 at Marcus Center for the Performing Arts that will include accordionist/keyboardist Bukka Allen, percussionist Mike Meadows and bassist Ryan Bowman.

Tickets for the show, presented by OnMilwaukee.com, cost $40, $45 and $50 and are available at the Marcus Center box office and Ticketmaster outlets.

 

Drew Olson Special to OnMilwaukee.com

Host of “The Drew Olson Show,” which airs 1-3 p.m. weekdays on The Big 902. Sidekick on “The Mike Heller Show,” airing weekdays on The Big 920 and a statewide network including stations in Madison, Appleton and Wausau. Co-author of Bill Schroeder’s “If These Walls Could Talk: Milwaukee Brewers” on Triumph Books. Co-host of “Big 12 Sports Saturday,” which airs Saturdays during football season on WISN-12. Former senior editor at OnMilwaukee.com. Former reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.