Cass McCombs recently premiered the video for the song “Big Wheel”, the almost eponymous title track from his latest album Big Wheel and Others. Shot by long-time collaborator Albert Hertner, the video is a collage of unsettling footage that collide against each other at random. The song lurches onwards built around an unapologetically repetitive blues vamp over which Cass deconstructs the concept of masculinity and the constructs of gender.
Set against the backdrop of charged but totally decontextualized imagery, Cass skewers gender stereotypes by juxtaposing the hypermasculine with the homoerotic: the protagonist professes love for “big rigs, rubber, metal, oil, and stone” in the same breath in which he professes his predilection for “scoring at truck stops”. He sounds like a red-blooded patriot who loves guns, but wonders “A man with a man – how more manly can you get?”
What Hertner’s frenetic cut-up style sensory assault does is overturn order, presumptions, and grand narratives, thus creating a space where new conceptions of gender can flourish.
Cass McCombs’ Tour Dates:
Jan. 8 – Bristol, UK @ Colston Hall
Jan. 9 – Glasgow, UK @ CCA
Jan. 10 – Manchester, UK @ Deaf Institute
Jan. 11 – Dublin, IE @ Workmans Club
Jan. 13 – London, UK @ Queen Elizabeth Hall
Jan. 16 – Lisbon, PT @ Teatro Maria Matos
Jan. 17 – Aveiro City, PT @ Teatro Aveirense
Jan. 18 – VN Famalicao, PT @ Casa de Artes
Jan. 19 – Santiago, ES @ Salon Teatro de Santiago
Jan. 20 – Madrid, ES @ El Sol
Jan. 21 – Cadiz, ES @ Edificio
Jan. 23 – Barcelona, ES @ La Sala (2) Apolo
Jan. 24 – Bordeaux, FR @ Bordeaux Rocks
Jan. 25 – Rouen, FR @ Le 106
Jan. 26 – Paris, FR @ MoFo Festival @ Mains D’Ouevres
Jan. 30 – Melbourne, AU @ Northcote Social Club
Jan. 31 – Brisbane RNA, AU @ Laneway
Feb. 1 – Melbourne, AU @ Laneway
Feb. 2 – Sydney, AU @ Laneway
Feb. 6 – Sydney, AU @ Oxford Art Factory
Feb. 7 – Adelaide, AU @ Laneway
Feb. 8 – Fremantle, AU @ Laneway
Feb. 17-20 – Southwold, Suffolk, UK @ Latitude Festival