David Childers and the Modern Don Juans—Burning in Hell (Little King Records, 2007)
I saw David Childers once. I was a sophomore in college and somehow our quaint English department convinced him to come perform at our quaint cultural center. I don’t remember the reason for having him come. I heard a rumor that he was a lawyer somewhere up in Charlotte who had an English degree. Beyond that I don’t remember much else, but I remember Childers seemed a bit uncomfortable at our college—like he preferred some dive bar where no one was paying attention to his songs rather than an audience of thirty who were silent as the dead. I didn’t pay much attention to the show; I was young and foolish then.
Then I began to notice that his name popped up here and there; at record stores, in newspapers, on WNCW. He’s not a household name, but I always filed him away in my brain just in case he ever became really famous. Then I could say “I saw him when.”

As fate would have it, I reconnected with Childers via a brand new copy of David Childers and the Modern Don Juans, Burning in Hell. And they walk that beautiful line between drunken barroom swagger and rough-around-the-edges balladry. The album begins ominously enough on the song “Mama” with a spoken line from a man going to meet his maker in Hell. Then Childers croons, “Weeeeeelllll, mama used to beat my ass/ and if I cried she’d beat it twice/ she didn’t like me too well/ my mama was a devil out of hell!” Then I’m hooked; maybe because Childers managed to rhyme “ass” with “twice” or maybe because we’ve all felt that way about our mamas at some point.
From there its only one more track to “In the Early Morning,” a tune that demonstrates Childers ability to sketch an unforgettable image in your brain with lines like “fat boy riding on a little moped” and “found a skeleton sitting in an office space/ of a building I was selling.”

Childers would merely be a great songwriter though, if not for the profundity of his backing band. They seem ready and able to turn any song into a stomp-and-holler or a full fledged assault at a moments notice. It’s another fine line that many bands don’t grasp—the difference a decibel can make. But the Modern Don Juans (Mark Lynch, Randy Saxon, and Robert Childers) make it sound easy and they sound like one of the tightest bands since BR5-49.

It’s a win-win situation with Burning in Hell. There’s nothing more you could want from this album and nothing less for these guys to give. Songs like “Ranlo” and “Soldier Town” have lasted for years in my memory always evoking new sentiments with their melodies. It’s a sad state of affairs that Childers’ and his band have retired from performing live. Their albums are still monuments to Americana and shouldn’t be lost to the waves of imitators who only wish of being as good as Childers and his band were on a bad day.

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