Boomtown

Welcome to David & David's impossibly perfect debut album.

Irony had not yet come to define Gen X in 1986. So the two guys who make up the duo David & David both being named David didn’t garner a smirk, but more of a nod as if to say: “OK, I get it. Let’s hear what you got.”

David Ricketts & David Baerwald (may be subject to copyright)

David & David are David Baerwald and David Ricketts and they released one helluva microphone dropping album in 1986 titled Boomtown. Both are songwriters and multi-instrulmentalists who handled the majority of heavy lifting on the album, with drums handled by Ed Greene.

For much of its history, Los Angeles functioned as the quintessential American boomtown. Be it regional or intercontinental, like so many “boomtowns,” and America as a whole, its success was built from transplants. The two Davids were no different. Baerwald was from Ohio and Ricketts hailed from Pennsylvania. 

By 1986, Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America,” was proving to be far cloudier than promised and the boom was just beginning to go bust. It was becoming apparent that the promise of Reagonomics - the rising tide that would lift all boats - wasn’t working out. The David’s tapped into their roots and surroundings to craft songs about some of these characters.  

The tracks on Boomtown are less songs and more vignettes about the growing class of struggling, and soon to be forgotten, Americans.

Set in the sunshine of Los Angeles, there is a cinematic quality to the lyrics that help paint a vivid picture of the downward spiral these people are experiencing. The Los Angeles in David & David songs contain the types of characters you’re likely to find in an Edward Bunker or Michael Connolly novel.  

The album’s first single, and “hit,” “Welcome to the Boomtown,” reads as though it could be a treatment to a Paul Thomas Anderson film:

Welcome to the Boomtown

Miss Cristina drives a nine four four
Satisfaction oozes from her pores
She keeps rings on her fingers
Marble on her floor
Cocaine on her dresser
Bars on her doors
She keeps her back against the wall
She keeps her back against the wall

CHORUS
So I say
I say welcome, welcome to the boomtown
Pick a habit
We got plenty to go around
Welcome, welcome to the boomtown
All that money makes such a succulent sound
Welcome to the boomtown

Handsome Kevin got a little off track
Took a year off of college
And he never went back
Now he smokes too much
He’s got a permanent hack
Deals dope out of Denny’s
Keeps a table in the back
He always listens to the ground
Always listens to the ground

CHORUS x 1

Well the ambulance arrived too late
I guess she didn’t want to wait

With the aid of FM radio and three singles, “Welcome to the Boomtown,” “Swallowed by the Cracks,” and “Ain’t So Easy,” Boomtown was a modest success, peaking at #39 on the Billboard album chart. 

The record would eventually creep its way to platinum status - I swear, there really was a time when that meant something.

Subject to copyright

CRITICS ON BOOMTOWN:

• Robert Christgau — “Not only do these two studio rats know the follies of their chosen profession, they don’t romanticize them much — or else they romanticize them effectively, which is even rarer. Put it all together and maybe you end up with another piece of beautiful-loser mythology. But somehow this fallacy is acceptable in two guys you’ve actually never heard of, especially two guys with the guts (and interest) to apply their craft to at least one revolutionary fantasy. Sometimes winners are beautiful, too.”

• Michael Ofjord at AllMusic wrote — “Although there are often hints of hope and seemingly a sense of compassion toward the subjects in the songs, it is not apparent that most will eventually pull themselves out of their predicaments. One may not want to listen to this record to lift the spirit, but it is a strong reminder of difficult situations faced during what can be perceived by many as the best of times.”

Let me be clear; the songs on Boomtown are not the ones you’ll want to listen to rev you up before going out on a Saturday night.

The record as a whole may be a bit too literary and moody for a lot of folks. But if you’re open to it, it would be tough to find an album that captures the early decay of the impact of Reagonomics as brilliantly as Boomtown; and yet still sounds both timely and fresh forty years later.

After Boomtown, for reasons unknown, and perhaps not even formally, David & David split. 

DAVID BAERWALD

Baerwald released two solo albums: Bedtime Stories, “a romantic album based on tales of suburban ennui and decay and Triage, an ambitious narrative song-suite about the fringe-dwellers of America's paranoid and disaffected subcultures.”

So, pretty much on brand. 

Both albums were released to critical acclaim but did not see the commercial success that Boomtown did. 

Settling into songwriting and writing for others, often under pseudonyms, Baerwald’s songs were covered by a diverse group of artists including: 

• Luciano Pavarotti

• Waylon Jennings

• Japanese classical artists the Yoshida Brothers

• Susanna Hoffs

• LeAnn Rimes

Baerwald also picked up a Golden Globe nod for his song “Come What May” from Baz Luhrmann’s film Moulin Rouge!.

As recently as 2022, Baerwald was getting ready to release his debut novel, The Fire Agent, a love story and saga of global espionage, world wars and the emergence of fascism.

So, pretty much on-brand. 

DAVID RICKETTS

Ricketts began dating singer Toni Childs and became the producer and co-writer of Childs critically acclaimed debut album, Union. The album would be nominated for two Grammy Awards.

The Band founder, legendary guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson tapped Ricketts to help him work on Storyville, Robertson’s second solo album. He also produced and performed on Meredith Brooks’ 1997 album, Blurring The Edges.

Ricketts would go on to win an Emmy Award for the song “Because You’re Beautiful,” co-written with Eddie Free and Toni Childs, for playwright Eve Ensler’s documentary V-Day: Until the Violence Stops.

David & David’s Boomtown is an album that oozes creativity. The songwriters paint the picture of what happens to people in the boomtown (or any town) who don’t always get what they want. In fact, they don’t even get what they need. This is an album that is both grim and great, but with enough pop sensibility to make the characters real and relatable. 

In 2016, the internet reported that David & David had begun recording a second album. But the internet says a lot of things.

As we find our culture and society spiraling down again, it would be interesting to hear what David & David have to say about it. They did a fine job capturing it in 1986 with Boomtown. 

Subject to copyright.

[FUN FACT: In the fall of 1992, with friend and producer Bill Bottrell (Shelby Lynne), David Baerwald co-founded the “Tuesday Music Club;” a hootenanny of sorts with artists and friends. That name may ring a bell because it was the impetus of Sheryl Crow’s debut album Tuesday Night Music Club.

In fact, many of its participants helped shape and make her record with David & David partnering again to contribute as songwriters - but that’s a more complicated story.]

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**If by chance this lands with someone who knows either of them, I would love to have them on the Abandoned Albums Podcast to talk about Boomtown and their career.

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