Stuff Happens is Stuffy Shmitt’s first record in eight years because, well, he went crazy. Or maybe he just manifested his longtime craziness. Proof: He was bounced from bars in New York’s West Village for years, so he left to live in Nashville. If anyone needs more convincing, please listen to the whole album—the songs, as evidence of severely crazy, would stand up in court.
This unconventional artist (no, that’s not redundant) comes by his off-center musicality honestly. Growing up in Milwaukee, his mother drank, played drums and wrote songs in her sleep; his father played guitar and had a thing for fast cars. Shmitt said, “We read a lot of books, listened to a lot of music and protested social injustices. Our home was loud and nasty and violent. We didn’t spend a lot of time hugging or talking about feelings.”
Stuff Happens is all about disasters, big and small. The songs run the full spectrum of manic depression to bizzaro blues rockers to naked, unapologetic American rock & roll and desolate Americana ballads.