SOUNDCHECK

CD reviews galore!


Roky Erickson (5 stars)


I Have Always Been Here Before: A Roky Erickson Anthology


Though less famous, Roky Erickson is widely shorthanded as the American Syd Barrett, both for his influence on psychedelic music and for his drug abuse and heartrending mental problems. But that is unfair.


While Erickson burned out again and again, he never faded away (unlike Barrett). Erickson first emerged as the singer of the 13th Floor Elevators, a vanguard psychedelic band, unfortunately based in Texas, which meant constant police hassles, that came to a head when Erickson, after being arrested with a joint, spent three years in a hospital for the criminally insane. He emerged a better, though scarier songwriter, steeped in rock and rough blues but capable of beautiful ballads, freaky camp and dreamy pop. Yet Erickson was also unquestionably emotionally and psychically damaged beyond repair—to imagine what it must be like in that mind, just listen to "Don't Shake Me Lucifer" and believe for a moment that Erickson means it all literally.


But Erickson's legend has always eclipsed his music because of the legal and licensing quagmires involved in trying to release it. After all, we are talking about contracts involving a man who once tried to have the courts certify that a Martian controlled his body.


So, I Have Always Been Here Before is a long overdue, first career-spanning anthology featuring the wondrous music Erickson made and wrote between the hospitalizations and meltdowns that continued throughout his life. (The most recent music here is a decade old, and beyond some optimistic hints, the liner notes say little about Erickson's current condition.)


The results are stunning. "You're Going to Miss Me" comes in the 13th Floor Elevators original version, and fortunately, despite his fragile mental state, Erickson has always attracted first-rate musicians to back him. Among the regular players here are: Stu Cook (CCR), Doug Sahm, Paul Leary (Butthole Surfers), Jack Casady (Jefferson Airplane), Bill Miller and Charlie Sexton. Too often dismissed as a sideshow, I Have Always Been Here Before proves over 42 amazing songs what Erickson's cult has claimed all along—that this deeply damaged man has created a revelation in music awaiting the world's discovery.




Richard Abowitz




Monty Alexander (4 stars)


Live At The Iridium


Swinging quartet jazz—low-fat, heart-smart and healthy for the soul.


That's what's served up by veteran jazz chef Monty Alexander and his coterie of improvisational cooks—bassist Hassan Shakur, drummer Mark Taylor and "hand" drummer Robert Thomas Jr.—on this lively live album.


Nothing with startlingly new ingredients, mind you, but a fresh and tasty musical meal.


From Monty's peekaboo piano cruising around the jagged rhythms of "Runnin' Away" before turning onto a jazz straightaway, to the meditative loveliness of "The River," to a bright beach ball of sound on the calypso merry-go-round of "Happylypso"—happy enough to quote Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" (who could ask for anything more?)—Iridium plays like the sound track to an intimate evening with especially good friends.


(For evenings with casual acquaintances, there's always those melodic but naggingly impersonal jazz compendium albums; for evenings with enemies, there's Kenny G.)


But this is expert, heartfelt jazz that never gets carried away with virtuosity but does indulge in playfulness, such as Monty's burst of staccato chord clusters on Nat Adderley's bluesy "Work Song," a 10-minute riff that never flags. "Mother's Eyes" is a gorgeous mood-shifter, wistful piano over gentle brush work and hi-hat that picks up to mid-tempo, then throttles back to a ripe melancholia.


Only "Mount Zanda" falters, never quite breaking free of Monty's technique-driven, finger-exercise quality. But groove on as they blow a sweet kiss to "Little Darlin', " the Neal Hefti-penned Basie classic, rolling chords propelling it into a spinning musical top.


When the especially good friends arrive and the especially good booze begins to pour, make sure this model of rock-solid jazz sensibilities wedded to impeccable taste isn't mistaken for a coaster.




Steve Bornfeld




3 Doors Down (2 stars)


Seventeen Days


Even after listening to Seventeen Days, the third album from Mississippi rockers 3 Doors Down, three times, I find it hard to remember anything about it. It's impressive that the band has become so successful—Seventeen Days just debuted at the top of the Billboard charts—while at the same time being so completely unremarkable and unmemorable. Like Creed, Nickelback and Puddle of Mudd (whose former drummer they've recently appropriated), 3 Doors Down are meat-and-potatoes rockers with nary an original bone in their bodies. Not only do all their songs sound the same, but they also all sound vaguely like they could have been other, better songs, songs you already heard a few years ago.


Thanks to single "When I'm Gone" from their last album, 3 Doors Down have become the poster band for military families, and the shameless sentimentalism that got them there is all over Seventeen Days, with a number of "missing you" ballads that are sure to make Army wives tear up. The rockers are all just three chords strung together in a sludgy mess, although "Never Will I Break" manages to break the torpor with a semi-interesting riff. Safe and completely bland, 3 Doors Down are the ultimate middlebrow band; if any of the music was interesting enough that you remembered it, they wouldn't be doing their jobs.




Josh Bell




Kings of Leon (3 stars)


Aha Shake Heartbreak



The Meat Puppets really did a great job on those old SST Records releases, mixing rock, country, punk and psychedelic flourishes, all packed with awkward, jerky transitions and slurring vocals that could verge on incoherence. You would think, at the very least, the results of such a merger would be inimitable. Oddly, for large stretches, Aha Shake Heartbreak sounds exactly like outtakes from an early Meat Puppets release.


This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the brothers Followill—Caleb, Nathan and Jared—on tracks like "Pistol of Fire" (can anyone say "Lake of Fire"), "Razz," "Day Old Blues" and "The Bucket" are far better and craftier songwriters than the Kirkwood brothers were when they started out. Also, the Meat Puppets' music from the early '80s isn't exactly the most influential sound in rock history (even the Meat Puppets quickly abandoned it), which allows the Kings of Leon's resurrection on Aha Shake Heartbreak to appear mighty fresh and fun in 2005.


So, while the group hailed as the Next Big Thing since 2003 has clearly not suffered a sophomore slump, for all its pleasures, the bottom line here is: As with its debut, Kings of Leon once again offer a demonstration of remarkable potential, yet Aha Shake Heartbreak is still not the disc that fulfills on this band's obvious promise.




Richard Abowitz




Duke Robillard, Ronnie Earl (5 stars)


The Duke Meets The Earl


Blues guitar icons Duke Robillard and Ronnie Earl share a history. Robillard was the founder of Roomful of Blues in 1967, and Earl used to sit in with the group when it played around Boston. When Robillard left Roomful in 1979, Earl replaced him, and for years, their relationship was problematic, like two guys who had each fallen in love with the same woman. Aside from a few guest appearances on each other's solo albums, Robillard and Earl have never replicated those jams on disc.


That changes on The Duke Meets The Earl, an album that is a must-have for any fan of blues guitar. Both men are dazzling players whose styles contrast much in the way that John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley brought two perspectives to the saxophone in the groundbreaking groups of Miles Davis. Robillard is elegant, succinct and restrained; Earl is emotional, jagged and loose. Of particular note is the reworked version of Earl's slow blues "A Soul That's Been Abused," featuring vocalist "Mighty" Sam McClain, which clocks in at more than 13 minutes—and not a second seems wasted.




Scott Freeman




Mark Huff (2.5 stars)


Gravity


No pop. No electronica. Nothing requiring the descriptive suffix "-hop." Mark Huff, onetime Las Vegan, now Nashvillean, specializes in straightforward, singer-songwriter rock, and Gravity unwaveringly works that narrow vein.


Which means it has the strengths and flaws implied by eschewing so much. "Easy to Love You" is an example of how thin the line is between genuine and generic when you limit your palette; this sounds like filler. "In the Dark" needs more musical conviction to pull off lyrics like "Now the dogs of pressure / Are barking at your gate." But then, rearranging the same basic elements, the title song is catchy in a way others aren't. And there's an authentic bounce to "Wrong or Right" that makes you wonder why, elsewhere on the album, he settled for the more inert "Digging a Hole." There are several numbers on Gravity I'll be playing a lot; too bad I'll have to skip some songs to get to them.




Scott Dickensheets


  • Get More Stories from Thu, Mar 3, 2005
Top of Story