“In the future, live recordings will make attending a concert a matter of personal scholarship.”
—Marshall McLuhan

 

Law of the Fish, the Radiators’ 1986 debut on Epic Records, remains the band’s defining moment, although several live recordings including the 25th anniversary celebration Earth vs. the Radiators edge a little closer to nailing down the band’s numinous appeal. But, live performances are of the moment, participatory exchanges between audience and performer. It is left to the albums to encode the secret messages that define the group on some plane other than live performance. The live recordings, no matter how technically adept, can’t convey the heat of being part of the experience as it’s happening. It falls to the studio recording to create a simulacrum of this experience. The Radiators put together the right combination of elements on Dreaming Out Loud, a recording that doesn’t attempt anything fancier than to do historic justice to a cross section of songs, most of which have been in the band’s repertoire long enough to be fully developed. By concentrating on the fundamentals, the Radiators have provided a (sur)real self-portrait that is as accurate as it is non-programmatic; this is what the band sounds and feels like after 28 years of self-actualization and the record has no aspirations beyond that.

 

The 13 songs are tightly scripted and no solo outstays its welcome. Recorded at Piety Street Studios with producer Mark Bingham, Dreaming Out Loud is about the band’s collective sound, not any of the individual instruments. It is all about the little gestures that make up the whole. The crisp, precise balance of all parts on this recording is different from what the band sounds like live, but the sense of joy that the song instills in the crowd when the band plays is perfectly evoked here. “Desdamona,” for example, is delivered as a honky-tonk vehicle with Dave Malone on banjo and Ed Volker’s voice opened up over the subdued backing to great effect.

 

Malone, another of the countless New Orleans musicians who was wiped out by the disaster of 8-29 and has been one of the city’s musical itinerants ever since, turns in the performance of his life here, caressing the slow burn cadence of the Hendrix-inspired “Rub It In,” putting a definitive stamp on the fan favorite “The Death of the Blues.” “Don’t Pray for Me” is an old song written by Dave with his brother Tommy (of the subdudes) with new post-Katrina lyrics from Dave. This beautiful song, with its church bell guitar bridge and sing-along chorus, allows Malone to indulge in the more McCartney-esque side of his songwriting.

 

The album closes with a new song that is one of the most hopeful statements anyone’s written post-Katrina, “Shine Tonight.” Volker and Malone repeat the money line, “The star that never shines,” then all the singers join together for the affirmation “It’s gonna shine tonight.” It will no doubt sound great live at some point in the future, but it will never sound more positive or powerful than it does here.