New Music Reviews
by Kent Manthie
John Amen All I’ll Never Need (Cool Midget Records)
Somebody gimme an Amen!!! The fresh musical stylings of one who calls himself John Amen are apt, terse and ultimately have some sort of spooky sensuality to it. An example is “Waiting for Mary”; a haunting reverie of unrequited love (?) that revolves around the refrain, simply, “Please come ‘round…”; it’s a bare-bones, plaintive wail to an object that evokes emotions that run the gamut and sometimes at the most “inconvenient” of times.
There is more to All I’ll Never Need than that slice, though. But it does run in a kind of blue-mood, introspective effort of acoustic guitar-fueled reflection and this album is the practical result of all that self-contemplation. Some examples of the personal infiltrating the musical on this record include the aforementioned “Waiting for Mary,” “Fortress” as well as the lyrically bold, “Daddy” as well as its musical verve and élan – complements to each other, for sure.
So, what you’re getting when you go out and get a copy of All I’ll Never Need is the bared-to-the-soul stirrings – musically as well as lyrically – that can be equally cathartic to the listener who finds a copy of it and actually identifies with the lyrics and music on it and discovers within a release from his externally stressed-out life – as it must’ve been to John when he wrote and recorded the CD.
To find out more about Amen, the people with whom he collaborated on this CD (G. Scott on bass, Pat Rives on drums, Bill Walpole on pedal steel as well as other talented individuals) plus more info, check out the website: http://www.johnamen.com – KM.
Robert Steven Williams I Am Not My Job (Against the Grain Productions)
This mellow, introverted CD by newcomer singer/songwriter Robert Steven Williams, I Am Not My Job is a dreamy, softly sung album that is the epitome of “easy listening” but not in a bad sense of the idiom.
The song, “He Was in Love” is a good example whereof I speak. It’s an upbeat ditty, but a slow-moving, acoustic-based paean to someone who had a spark of hope in his life for one brief moment before reality punched him in the face and spun him out of his reverie. The cut after that, “The Money” is a melancholy-baby of a song; Williams’s quietly plaintive wail makes one feel relaxed. Robert S. Williams gave me the impression of a basically not-too-depressed-entertainer who, simultaneously, while entertaining his loyal fans, is also exorcising some of his demons and nursing his troubles away.
But what’s really cool is the tune (#10) “Peace on Earth (That’s What the T-shirt Says)” – at first it starts off like a benignly meaningless tune about some kid and his dad going to the mall… but then one gets to the part where the man and his progeny pick up matching t-shirts that read “PEACE on EARTH” and they put them on together and walk around the mall and/or the rest of the city or wherever and next thing you know, they’re getting harassed by some cop, who tells them that they can’t wear those t-shirts because they’re not supportive enough of the terrible bloodshed that’s been perpetrated on almost a million Iraqis all as the result of some sick joke that Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol and Richard Perle cooked up. By the end of the tune more and more people pick up on the heroics of the father and son and everyone starts wearing the same t-shirts: they all read “PEACE on EARTH” (which of course includes getting the hell out of Iraq and stop being overmoralizing, hypocritical hegemons).
But whoa – I’m getting off the subject. As for the rest of the record, expect other hip little subtleties and brittle nuances that you’ll miss if you don’t pay attention (but that’s OK, because you’ll probably pick up on it through the next listening). The whole album stays in the velvety mellowness that begins with the opener, “Fallen Far” and ends, with eleven tracks between them, a reprise of “Fallen Far”.
You really can’t judge a book – or in this case, a CD – by its cover: looking at the cover of I Am Not My Job I see, on the back, this balding, middle-aged stereotypical image of an investment-banker or other financial services professional standing on a street corner downtown New York, in the financial district, aka Wall Street, in a suit and tie, as if he just went downstairs for a smoke break or lunch or something, but instead he’s doing the urban street musician thing and is photographed playing an acoustic guitar, the case on the sidewalk, open so as to invite tips from passersby. On the front cover it’s a similar scene, only he looks like he’s being given advice – or consoled – by two possibly fellow Wall Streeters.
Musically it is a relaxing set of tunes; they’ll tone down all the buzzing stress that’s wound you up after a long, rough day at work. Quiet, acoustic songs that have upbeatness about them, a certain je ne sais quois about them and a not-altogether-hopeless attitude, which is admirable when it is so easy to be more cynical than the next guy.
For two more gems on this CD, check out “Will You Come Out Tonight?” and ‘Going For a Ride” two more cuts worth mentioning. Want to learn more about Robert? Well, by all means, then, check out this website: http://www.againstthegrain.com – KM.
Dana Varon Back to My Roots (self-released)
Well, what do we have here? A young, beautiful songstress with a mind of her own. Initially, upon hearing her debut, released all by herself, “Back to my Roots” one was reminded, a la the vocal stylings, of Hope Sandoval, the dreamy, doe-eyed vocalist for Opal and Mazzy Star.
With Dana Varon, though, one gets a more personal record, one which ends up speaking with one voice, one person’s expressions and that consistency helps create both continuity and celerity. Two songs, “Jelly” and “Don’t Shut Me Out” both stand out to me – speaking of “Jelly,” there is also a person with the moniker ‘Jelly’ who helps out vocally on this album – there was just something catchy about both tunes in different ways, respectively, but they weren’t catchy in a pop sort of way, not “hook”-driven, etc. Just something about those two songs that was hard to articulate; you’ll just have to listen for yourself to find out what I’m talking about.
Another great tune that stood out for me was an uncredited song (figures, huh?) As far as the back of the CD goes, there are only 8 songs listed and “Goodbye to Yesterday” was the last one to be listed and so I assume that “Goodbye to Yesterday” was the slow, acoustic and wistful goodbye of a tune. Then, to my surprise there came another song – track nine and isn’t it funny that this surprise, untitled track was one of the best ones on the CD!
In spite of the fact Dana has a clear, tuneful, well-enunciated and just plain beauteous vocal range, she’s not just your average, everyday chanteuse; Dana’s got talent, she is a musician for real; on Back to My Roots Varon, besides singing, plays “guitars, bass lines, percussion & other ear candy…” she also, besides writing all the songs herself, produced the CD too. It just shows that the only reason you see so little of this independence in a talented woman – even in today’s “Hillary 4 Prez” society must be due to some hierarchical machinations or some just hard-headed resistance to change or just plain hatred from the “establishment”, run, of course, by old men (you know, that “vast, right-wing conspiracy” ha-ha). Talent, motivation and originality make all the difference; prettiness helps, but beauty, whether authentic or surgically enhanced – fake – beauty is ephemeral and fleeting.
Dana Varon, man or woman is a talented musician and hopefully will continue to grow, musically and lyrically and that this won’t be the last we hear of her. I would be happy if her next musical effort was just better than this one which is always – or always should be – the goal of any musician/singer/band. For more information on this dynamo, check out: http://www.danavaron.com – KM.
Jami Ross (3- single sampler) (Demo)
So, there’s this guy, Matthew James Murphy and he’s got this hot babe of a girlfriend who calls herself Jami Ross; so he writes up some pop songs and even – aww isn’t that sweet – he even gives her co-credit for writing the lyrics.
So, to start her career off, Murphy packaged up either the only three songs he’s thus far written or else the three best tunes that he’s come up with. Whatever; so, he got two session men together – Michael Seifert, on acoustic & electric guitar and piano – plus a separate credit listing him on “programming”, in other words, he has some software on his I-Mac or whatever and that, I guess enhances the music somehow; also in on the fun was Jimmy Weaver who played bass, no Paul Chambers, but a cat that kept things anchored.
For the most part, expect effete, soulless dance music that is as ephemeral as a gum wrapper. Of course, it’s not always easy to judge a performer based on a demo CD with only three songs it, but in Jami Ross’s case, I would expect a full-length to sound pretty much the same as the three cuts on this CD, but mixed up, sliced-and-diced to fill up enough space to make it a full-length-er; for information go to this website: http://www.michaelseifert.com – KM.
Mystery Train Third Rail Blues (self-released)
This new CD from those hep cats, Mystery Train is tailor made for relaxing and unwinding to: at home or at the bar of your choice – this jammin’ dark, sweaty semi-dive blues band, Mystery Train, has just put out, on their own, their debut CD, Third Rail Blues – from the get-go, it rocks – it starts off with a smoking version of “Shake Your Moneymaker”, complete with a raw, bitchin’ harp; but hey, don’t believe everything you read because the track listings on the back of the CD are all off – the first song listed reads “Stop Look & Listen”, but it is quite obviously “Shake Your Moneymaker”, which is listed as track 6, but when you get to #6 it’s “Lucille,” which is misspelled and misidentified as song number 7. So, you’re going to have to have some innate or already-there knowledge about these blues standards to know exactly to which one you’re listening. But don’t let that tiny faux pas ruin everything for you; Third Rail Blues fires up some high-voltage bluesy rock and roll, white boy style: put this in your pineal gland: some dark dive, the smell of leather, cheap whiskey, an admixture of sweat and stale beer, piercing your eyes with the sting of cigarette smoke and grease from the kitchen, where they fry all that overpriced food for you drunks that get the munchies.
This new CD, Third Rail Blues is a good disc to have on in the background at a party, as a backdrop for you and a few drinking buddies or to play in the car late at night on a long, lonely drive across a desolate highway, especially with the cool, smoldering “Summer Blues” (listed as no. 9, but actually it’s #10) Song #11 has this shuddering drum solo, a free-form, wig-out that is a great bridge between two towers of jam. To find out what they’re up to, where they’re playing next or when they are coming to your town, go to: http://mysterytrainlive.com – KM.
Amber Adair Take Note (self-released)
Tis a busy season in the independent state of music these days: no longer are the people who record their own stuff in their garage, basement or bedroom just anti-establishment freaks – communists even! Nowadays, with waves of technology, each one leaving more stuff in its wake, everyone and his grandmother can be a recording artist. It’s become harder lately to separate the wheat from the chaff because there are lots of wonderful, original and iconoclastic artists out there who, because they’re just getting started or due to the fact that they want complete control of the music they write and record and/or they just prefer the life of an “indie” artist; but man, there sure is a lot of “chaff” that one must pick through in order to get to the good stuff.
Take one case: Amber Adair. She isn’t some fabrication of Sony Entertainment, she’s an honest-to-goodness real person; a person with some talent. She wrote a bunch of songs and instead of being treated like so much meat by these corporate bastards, she decided to put out her music her way, the way she wanted it to sound and the continuity that she wanted to follow. The result is Take Note her DIY debut that is full of a rich voice, pleasant sounds like the simple-sounding piano noodlings, the quietly weeping guitars and the layered production. I just don’t know about too over-produced records, though, since the real proof is in the pudding, so to speak. So let’s hope that Amber can go out on stage, sit down at a piano and sing those songs in that same steady, breathy way that she seems to do so well on her debut. Songs like “Sanity” “Burnin’ Up” show a breadth of character and a real yearning to be taken seriously, along with an ease of adaptability.
In days of yore, that was the job of the record label: to go out and search clubs and the various scenes, where new things and ideas were being thought up by geniuses not heard from since. But anyway, their job was to see all the bands they could at all the places they could get to and from that wide list, whittle it down. Obviously there were ones that were just not ready for the “big time” and those for whom obscurity was a must-be – something that was either decreed from on high or other times when the self-imposed pre-exile was what they were in it for, after all (they didn’t want to give up their anonymity) they weren’t in it for the money.
Nowadays things are so different it’s like the 1960s were a hundred years ago – that is until you actually listen to some of the more talented and well-crafted pop songs as well as experimental stuff – music that sometimes was made by the same people on different sides of a record – when you sit back and listen to, say, “Pet Sounds” or “Vincebus Eruptum” you can actually hear a continuum to today’s music and realize that the more things change, the more they really do stay the same – it’s not just a cliché!
So, “Take Note” of Amber Adair, she is bound to show up again and again and with the talent shown she can do her own thing and whatever that happens to be, we’ll all be the luckier for it. (http://www.amberadair.com) – KM.
Celeste Lear The Echo Inside (Boutique Electronique Music)
Celeste Lear has quite an apt name – her music has an astral, celestial aura to it. It’s got a pop-dance feel to it, only more slowed down, spooky-introspective. Her musical aptitude, her gift for writing pithy lyrics and the sensual attitude of this, her debut CD, The Echo Inside make it hard not to say that Lear is the latest singer/songwriter of the female persuasion to deserve at least the forum, which does now exist, a strong, intelligent and witty woman and a talented musician for any sex, not unlike a couple who’ve come before her e.g., Tori Amos and Sinead O’Connor.
From the opener, “The Riddle” and “Letter From a Train” one gets a taste of some puffy-cloud, lounge stylings, which, at least get your mind in a state of grooviness. Things slow down and get just a touch more personal on “Want and Need.” When you get to track #8, “The Red Forest,” you get caught up in this musically sedate meditation, broken only by the start of the next song.
Track number 12, “Kamila” was almost a non sequitur vis a vis the rest of the music on “The Echo Inside”, the type of song, had it been a bit longer than just under four minutes, would’ve been the perfect sort of ambience to help one meditate on that title of the CD; it sounds simple enough, at first, almost trite, it doesn’t really catch one’s eye, while flipping through discs at a store, for instance. But when you sit and, almost entranced, think really hard about it, “The Echo Inside” is a perfect title for this CD; I say “perfect” because it is an onion-like title, one that is wrapped in meanings, interpretable in myriad ways too, which, I’m sure, to some that may sound crazy, but que serra serra
Celeste Lear has a good, solid voice, a sort of mezzo-soprano range of a voice; a cute, not overly diaphragm-ish, not too breathy, just Celeste being herself and letting her voice express what’s on her mind; I almost wanted to call it “childlike” in its simplicity and bareness – of pretense – but reconsidered. The CD goes on for quite some time, the average song being about 5:00 apiece. That’s not a bad thing per se, but it’s bad if one is only filling up all that time that is available on a CD today – almost 1 _ hours of space to fill up. (http://www.celestelear.com) – KM.
Everblue (s/t) (self-released)
These cats, calling themselves Everblue, are a not a freshly-out-of-Hollywood-high-bunch of kids with a bunch of expensive recording gear their parents bought them for just at least graduating high school.
Instead, these grown-ups have honed down their craft to where it sounds seamlessly easy, but don’t let the mellow chops fool you, the discerning listener, Everblue has been around the block, musically and have picked up all the little tricks everywhere from the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong to the magical suspension of the time-space continuum in the vacuum that was once Tangier and beyond.
Musically speaking, Everblue has a wicked sense of putting together tracks. I wouldn’t be surprised if Adam, Russell, Nigel or Mark had, separately or collectively, experience in the record producing angle of the biz. These guys sure know how to pull a few proverbial aces from up their sleeves at just the right times to inject some heterodoxy juxtaposed with the right continuity, the type that can’t be noticed – like untraceable poison – with clever lyrics to give the music some accompaniment.
So, tap the brass rail with the toe of your wingtip, when, while boozing it up after a long, hard day at the office, you hear one of their songs pop up on the bar’s musical works – whether it’d be one of the satellite music services, computer-stored massive libraries of everything, you may just – being at the right place at the right time – be gulping down a Boodle’s Martini (before it gets warm) and next thing you know they’re playing “No Pain” or “Hideaway” – you can say to yourself – yup, I knew those guys when they were just hustling for change playing in the subway!
Well, at least go check out their website: http://www.everbluemusic.com – KM.
The Seventh Season Liquid Water (Independent Records)
The new album from The Seventh Season is a hatful of stuff called Liquid Water. If you’re a big fan of all those ultra-hip, anti-scenesters like Flaming Lips or White Stripes or the legendary Yo La Tengo you’ll dig these urbane dudes.
On the whole, Liquid Water has its good parts and bad parts e.g., it’s not one of those rare and wonderful exceptions where the whole thing is pure bliss from the first note to the final fadeout, but this one has its moments. For example the first half of the album is all right; it has, even in a rock ‘n’ roll-jaded way, a true joie de vivre. But after you get to where they probably should’ve ended the thing, it keeps on going –this glut of tuneage starts to wear on the listener and by the middle of the last song – #12, “Wherever” you are starting to check your watch, make impatient sort of gestures and just about say “screw it” and turn it off.
Finally, and I can’t stress this enough – brevity can be a very good thing; conciseness can say a whole lot more than a cacophonous lot of stuff can. So, tone it down, be more original and lighten up a bit, will ya? (Thanks) http://www.theseventhseason.net – KM.