CD Reviews

John Hammond: Wicked Grin
Pointblank/Virgin, 2001

When our friends become famous, Gore Vidal once said, we die a little. But what about when our musical artists become famous? The truism is that fame curdles the tortured creative spirit. Cautionary tales abound: Elton John and Rod Stewart top the list. That’s not to say that aging leads to rotting; angry souls like Graham Parker, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop and David Bowie have retained an edge to their work, even after receiving their AARP card. But when your musical stock and trade are based on living on the edge, and you don’t exceed fans’ expectations by self-destructing, where do you go from here? Think of the gap in credibility between Sid Vicious and John Lydon.

Tom Waits carved a career as a Skid Row troubadour—a musical companion to Charles Bukowski. His meditations on life were steeped in rotgut and keenly observed from the bottom of a glass, the floor of a barroom, or the sour mattress of a flophouse.

But Waits shifted personas in the mid-80s. He wrung out his liver. Hard-luck boozer-poet became Renaissance Man. Movie roles followed. The 1987 stage play and album Franks Wild Years signaled Waits’ aspirations to Brechtian heights. The results were both evocative and self-conscious. More film and theatre followed, and Waits’ down-at-the-heels character began to strain credibility. But only the most churlish of us would be critical of such self-actualization, even if it meant Waits was serving up the musical equivalent of single-malt whisky and no longer Four Roses.

The Waits catalog has been taken on by John Hammond, a respected bluesman who has been singing for his supper for 35 years. Wicked Grin gives Hammond a shot at signature compositions by Waits and his wife Kathleen Brennan, including “Heartattack and Vine,” “Clap Hands,” “Shore Leave,” and “Big Black Mariah.” You will follow Hammond willingly through this timetrip. His delivery is confident, seductive. He radiates a world-weariness that can’t be faked. The backing musicians are ideal company. The production is clean without being sterile. And liner notes by the peerless T Bone Burnett deifies Hammond as a virtuoso, a modernist, a conjurer.
But there’s a sense of reverence to Hammond’s renditions that suggests a polite tribute more than a brazen co-opting. Maybe this springs from the intimidating presence of the producer—Waits himself. Wicked Grin makes you pine for the delicious excesses that made Waits often seem a Robert Crumb character. It is only on the last number, the traditional “I Know I’ve Been Changed,” that Waits joins in, and his wicked death-rattle and handclaps enliven the number like nothing on the preceding 12 cuts.

This CD has won critical praise and many awards. But the pressing question for Wicked Grin is why? Hammond nails the songs effortlessly, but he brings nothing new to the compositions. You end up with a sense of nostalgia, interrupted. Is Waits anointing a successor? Hammond doesn’t look as if he’s danced with the demons Waits knew intimately. He appears slim and fit on the CD, in black
t-shirt and jeans. The most dangerous detail is the cigarette at his lips. Maybe, like Waits, he cleaned up his act. That leaves us still searching for a real successor: a strung-out, soused musician-poet. In Bush’s America, held prisoner by the War on Drugs, he may be a lost breed.

—Jay Blotcher

The Ally: Action
Lumberjack Slam Music, 2002

Do you like to groove? The Ally sure does. This band of Gen X Philly boys combine funkified roots-fusion with all the feel good allure of a jam band. Jazz-fusion and rock are combined with downtown street beat soul sounds, making them the perfect band for smoky village nightclubs or outdoor music festivals.

The Ally’s lineup includes Mike Greenfield on percussion, John Yohan Kim (Kimbo) on vocals, electric violin, and samples, Ira Wolf Tuton on bass and vocals, and Eric Zeiler on guitar.
Influenced by jam-bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish, classical composers Stravinsky, Brahms and Shostakovich, and the jazz giants Miles Davis and Wes Montgomery, The Ally creates a blend of music that could move even the most ardent of critics.

Fat bass sounds, dancing keyboards, rhythmic drumming, sawing violins and wah-wah guitars are all over “Wooden Boat,” “Church Bells,” and “Inner Pilot.” Vocal harmonizations on “Amop” flow along melodically while “Options” morphs from rock-steady reggae to strains of drum and bass within a short four-minute span.

By the time we reach the album’s seventh track, the band is temporarily transformed into a techno trance machine. Listening to “Dear Mr. Gold” cranked loud on headphones makes one’s eyes bug out of their sockets as the synapses of the brain throb to the song’s 130 beats per minute.
“Action” contains a bonus track that begins with over a minute of bizarre laughing, followed by a fine acoustic drinking song replete with syncopated guitar and bass.

Check out The Ally’s Web site and you’ll notice that they are no stranger when it comes to touring. Having played with Deep Banana Blackout, the Zen Tricksters, and the Jazz Mandolin Project, they possess the sense of humor and sheer determination required for any band to succeed on the road.

—Christian Polos

The Moonlighters: Hello Heartstring
Onliest Records, 2002

There’s nothing I can think of that’s quite as cheesy as a Hawaiian ballad. I mean, all you really have to do is mention the name Don Ho and you’re bound to get a laugh. Which is why I was kind of surprised to hear that a band from New York City called The Moonlighters, a band that played cheesy Hawaiian ballads, was packing important venues like Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. New Yorkers, after all, are a notoriously difficult bunch to please.

Only after hearing The Moonlighters recent release Hello Heartstring did I understand what the fuss was all about. Because, beyond the obvious cheese quotient inherent in the mixing of ukuleles and Hawaiian steel guitars, none of that matters when the music is good. And gosh, is this music good.

Maybe that has something to do with the backgrounds of the band members themselves, backgrounds that are close to lactose-intolerant in their un-cheesiness. Founding member Henry Bogden, for example, was the long-time bass player with indie icons Helmet. And co-founder Bliss Blood (a name as good as Jello Biafra, I must say) was the leader of Texas punkers The Pain Teens. How someone could go from a band called The Pain Teens to a band called one that plays Hawaiian ballads is beyond me. But Bliss, it works, and that’s good enough for me.

About the music, then. Imagine sitting among palm trees as they gently sway under a starry sky—that’s The Moonlighters in a nutshell. Lilting voices, strummed ukuleles, far-off steel guitars—it’s all terribly romantic, wistful, and evocative.

The most remarkable thing about this record really has nothing to do with its influences or its mood or the interesting backgrounds of its musicians. Simply put, the most remarkable thing about it are the songs. Most of the songs on this record were written by the band itself, and while I’m not going to go as far as compare the quality of the songwriting to a Cole Porter, let’s say, it’s not that far off. How many other records can you hear once or twice and find yourself humming the songs in the supermarket the following day?

Lot’s of modern musicians have found gold by mining older song forms. Few, however, have done it in quite so original, and valid, a way. Who needs Don Ho when you’ve got The Moonlighters?

—David McDonald