This story ends in a hug.

— — — — —

We disembarked from our midnight flight into Memphis with a few thinly-packed bags and my camera, ears ringing from the pressure of a storm-torn trip. A woman met us outside the airport Comfort Inn, her tooth crooked, hips bent, hunched over a walker and waiting for an ambulance. My ankle hurts inside, she told us, and the doctor said to go to the emergency room. She added something about a surgery, but we didn’t hear, wishing her well and walking away.

White stains littered the hallway carpets, stale cigarettes and mildew the only available scents. The air conditioner wailed like a distant siren, high-pitched and painful enough that we begged for a new room. Sleep came slow; when we woke, we shuffled to our car rental, rolled into Memphis, explored it anew, and then drove down into Oxford to rest and prepare for Water Liars to play all of their albums in sequential order.

— — — — —

Faulkner once quipped that the South could never succeed in “music and the plastic arts”, but Water Liars has long since added their names to the list of Southerners writing truthtelling songs. Across their oeuvre, they’ve explored revelation, what it means to love and lose, how to wrestle with being of a place, and the pursuit of longing without resolution, all in the lineage of O’Connor, Hannah, Agee, and more.

Water Liars has lain dormant for a half-decade or so, its composites broken into solo acts. Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster (Pete) and Andrew Bryant have released multiple solo albums (all fantastic and swimming in similar streams) since Water Liars all but ended, the band disintegrating in the wake of failed attempts to publish what would have been (and eventually became) their 4th album, Roll On. It took 5 years to release the album – which they ultimately did on their own (and only on Bandcamp) during 2020’s quarantine window – and it has proved to be every bit as resonant with their fanbase as the last three. It traffics in similar themes of longing, loss, redemption, and revelation.

These songs are more honest prayers than any psalms could ever be.

Oxford is half a college town and half-not. The University of Mississippi dominates the literal landscapes, but its literary heroes and their influences are inescapable. The air is thick with the pursuit of understanding. Square Books is an institution all its own (I added to my Barry Hannah collection while in town), and a top-floor record shop (The End of All Music) offers a place to explore albums it’s otherwise difficult to find. Faulkner’s house (Rowan Oak, a national historic site) sits a mile outside the town center and is worth the $5 visit. But it is, in so many ways, governed by the tangled threads of fresh spending (its many shimmering restaurants and bars, its boutique shops), recovered spaces (forgotten gas stations turned into restaurants), and the old institutions, which must include Proud Larry’s.

Proud Larry’s boasts a room stuffed with history – once played by the likes of Elvis Costello and Warren Zevon – and is undoubtedly among the pantheon of important American music venues. There is truth soaked into its walls.

But also pizza. We ate here one night, getting a heretofore unknown rendition of a margherita pizza that satisfied us both in the moment and the next morning as we drove dark roads back to the airport. I can recommend it, but it’s the music that matters most.

Night 1

There are times and places that remind me who I might be or might’ve been, a distant and ghostly self. Oxford and its distant deltas shook under a promised apocalypse that first morning, thunderstorms shaking the motel and tornado warnings buzzing us awake in the sunrise’s long shadows. It cleared slowly first while we ate biscuits and eggs for breakfast, and then suddenly the wind shook open a bright blue sky.

A few hours later, we found ourselves readying for the songs of Phantom Limb and Wyoming. Proud Larry’s woodgrained floors creaked as the growing audience progressively shuffled away from the bar and closer and closer to the stage, drinks in hand, eyes starry with expectation.

They took the stage a few moments after 9:00, Pete toting tea in a coffee cup (fighting a cold-cracked voice) and Andrew with a whole-ass teddy-bear jar of honey. The trio of Pete, Andrew, and GR expanded to include Kel Kellum on guitar and Len Clark on drums, freeing up Andrew to add a third guitar. It deepened the songs’ textures and allowed them to breathe a little differently.

With Phantom Limb, Pete and Andrew lightened listeners by unmasking some of the demons that plague our modern world. It is a fuzzy thing, comfortable with lyrical and sonic noise, replete with dark humor and deep earnestness. There are no happy endings, but the songs always let in a little half-hazy and cracked light. The band captured it perfectly, buzzing through fiery versions of “$100” and “Dog Eaten”, though “Whoa Back” carried the first loud singalong of the night. For me, the highlight was “Fresh Hell / It Is Well”, a song that augurs the half-broken promises that came to define their music.

Water Liars is as aptly named a band that has ever existed, named from the first story in Barry Hannah’s Airships. Each of Hannah’s story collections begins with a fishing story, with people on the pier, all desperate for clarity and some sense of peace. Water Liars’ songs explore the lives of people on the edge, searching – always – for something, throwing out lures and hoping they don’t pull up mudshoveled boots.

Reality is a ragged thing, and so much of experience of it is driven by the pursuit of meaning, of dreams, of both corporeal and divine heavens. Always, we act in pursuit of a life idealized, imagined, yet real; we are trying to get somewhere, whatever that might mean. To our own Wyoming, to a promised land.
With Wyoming, Pete and Andrew present a thesis: We don’t arrive, and that’s okay. The songs lament the searching – and acknowledge that is easy to be lost in the search – while quietly presenting the idea that a search for meaning isn’t the purpose of our collective and individual narratives. Pete’s voice soars plaintively, telling stories rimmed with sadness, but every narrator comes a little unstuck, like old jars in an unused kitchen. It is, unequivocally, one of the most important records in my life.

I can’t express what it meant to hear these songs live. I cried a little during “Linens” because I couldn’t not, yelled along to “Cut A Line”, whispersang in thrall to “Wyoming”, and when Pete sang “There’s no such thing as distance / only miles left on the road” during “Fine Arts” and then the band gradually lit incandescently into feedback, I barely breathed.

Water Liars exploded through Wyoming, smiling at each other, laughing, joy writ large on their faces. More than once, Pete stepped away from the mic to let the audience sing along, aloud, and for the band.

It barely felt real.

It felt a little like my Wyoming.

Night 2

More often than not, music (and poetry) moves me to meaning. What I mean is that the world becomes knowable and even almost-sensible when I soak in songs. What I mean is that music reveals truths that exist outside music but cannot be discovered without it. What I mean is that music saves lives. What I mean is that many of us would not exist outside memory without the power of song. What I mean is that music has saved my life before. What I mean is that music could save yours.

What I mean is that you should listen to these songs.

— — — — —

The next morning, I woke early to drink motel coffee and write in my notebook. I wrote the entirely-too-stuffy, “Woke to a low-slung sun hanging bright and cloudless, a spring wind naming the still-coming equinox a liar. A cleansing fire has opened my chest, letting me breathe deeply,” but I think there’s some truth to it. Something about live music makes me feel more alive.

I don’t believe in godliness, but I do believe in a shared torch that lights all our candles.

— — — — —

For the second night, everyone made friends with everyone. Folks from around the country (and even Canada!) had converged on Oxford to see Water Liars’ reunion. I talked at length with Greg from Appleton, Wisconsin, a powerfully kind, open, and warmhearted man who drove down with his son and friends to celebrate his birthday; we discussed Molina, the state of being, what it means to be spiritual with and without godliness, and of course, the enduring beauty of Water Liars (as well as Pete and Andrew’s solo work). In its way, this expanded sense of community allowed us all to connect even more tightly to the music, and I think the band felt it, too.

I remember when I first listened to Water Liars, its edges hymnlike and its verses biblical in the american sense – violent and filled with ideas of Godness in the distance – and I lost myself in the juxtaposing memories of midnight masses, bathtime baptisms, and the shadowy promise of demons ready to take my soul. There is Reconciliation throughout, a kind of confession, a getting-lost -behind-the-curtains-to-become-clean-but-stay-filthy-anyway honesty. It’s all shit, but it’s all roses. Both/and more than either/or.
My wife would call this her favorite set of the two nights, from the opening crash of “Cannibals” to the soft sway of “Let It Breathe” and then the almost-mournful set-closing “Turn Me On”. Many of these songs became something else altogether, “I Want Blood” featuring the most incendiary moments of the weekend as we all shouted together “a long, long way from nowhere.” “Tolling Bells” felt as cavernous as ever, its homage to Jason Molina a little act of auguring.

During “Vespers”, Andrew flitted through a long and sweet guitar solo while Pete smiled softly, a little lost and found in the moment. GR nodded along with a little grin of his own, and Kel watched from across the stage. They played like a band of friends who truly love each other. I hope they keep playing together until their voices turn to dust.

The band stayed onstage after the album ended, mentioning The Magnolia Electric Co. by Songs: Ohia, a record turning 20 years old that very night. Molina’s music is etched into their own songwriting, and they had previously contributed “Just Be Simple” to a Molina retrospective called “Farewell Transmission.” They invited Erin Rae (*Lighten Up is one of 2022’s best albums; please buy it) to the stage to sing harmonies, her voice lending even more weight.

It felt light, never weighed down by memory or loss. It rendered me speechless.

I’ve written at length before about *Roll On*, but it’s important to repeat some things.

*Roll On* is a rock record, and it’s best played loudly and sung along to with a wild abandon.

“Another Way to Live” soars more than any other Water Liars song, a shared prayer for the pews of right-now-wherever you are.

“Ain’t It Hard” will break your heart.

“Roll On” and “More Than Once” will put it back together.

“Sing, Barbarian” is the greatest song about a troubled gospel singer in conversation with his confessor (thanks for sharing the story, Pete).

And then there’s “Darkest Road”, a song about silence, darkness, searching, and the constancy of motion.

There is a sadness in endings, but in this one, resurrection is no distant thing.

And at the end, Pete stepped back from the microphone, put down his guitar, raised his hand to his face, overcome with emotion. GR, Andrew, Len, and Kel circled him with smiles, wrapped their arms around each other.

And they hugged.