This Week: Zevon sings other people's songs, Luna looks for love and Neil channels Nick.
Warren Zevon
My Ride's Here (Artemis Records)
Warren Zevon's 55 now, and he's been around the entertainment biz for a long, long time. Yet, despite penning such hits as "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" for Linda Rondstandt, gaining popularity with the novelty song "Werewolves of London," having a song used as the title of a major motion picture ("Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead"), and consistently getting positive critical press, Zevon seems to remain on the periphery of broader public awareness. My Ride's Here appears unlikely to change that. That's too bad, because he continues to deliver clever, literate lyrics with an engaging, growly voice that's two-fifths whiskey and three-fifths rusty razor blades.
This time around, it's advertised that Zevon has left the writing chores to others, like novelist and Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen, nationally syndicated sports writer Mitch Albom and gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, among others. The result is a set of songs that read remarkably like Zevon's other works, and sound just like them, too.
The first single from the album, "Basket Case," co-written with Carl Hiaasen, could easily fit with "Werewolves of London": "Dracula's daughter, Calamity Jane/ Smoke on the water, water on the brain/ She's pretty as a picture—and completely crazed/ My baby is a basket case."
The song that seems to be getting the most attention has the potential to be another novelty hit for Zevon. "Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)," though written by Mitch Albom, bears more than passing resemblance to previous Zevon originals like "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and "Boom-Boom Mancini." Having Paul Shaffer guest on organ and David Letterman on backing vocals (repeating the title phrase over and over again) may increase its chance for air time.
If you're not familiar with Zevon, this wouldn't be a bad album to get introduced to him. If you're a fan, this album should fit right in with the rest of your collection. And for what it's worth, "Lord Byron's Luggage," the one song on the album written solely by Zevon, is my favorite. The refrain contains the lyric, "Still out here in the wind and rain/ A whole lot older but feeling no pain." Pure Zevon. Ahhh.
—Scott McNutt
Luna
Romantica (Jetset)
I'm not particularly prone to associate music with certain periods in my life, but there's one record that always pulls me back. It's the early '90s, my college days, and I'm sitting in the back seat of a beat-up Saab smoking a cigarette as I ride through the backroads of central Pennsylvania.
In the front seat are my best friends, Annie and Joe. I'm the third wheel, perfectly content, because they accept me for what I am, and don't mind dragging me around when I need to be dragged around. On the stereo is Galaxie 500's This Is Our Music. Its dreaminess and ethereal sound—especially on Yoko Ono's "Listen the Snow Is Falling"—made me feel like I could go anywhere but also not care at all where I wound up. I have no doubt that part of that feeling came from the romanticism of the music.
The band broke up after that album, but frontman Dean Wareham took his signature dreamy guitar sound and absurdist lyrics to start Luna. His latest offering, Romantica, is not something you'd put on while fixing a new honey a candlelight dinner. Rather, it takes a look at where all that romance of youth went wrong and failed. "Do I, oh do I/ Remain in your mind/ Only to poison/ the love that we find," he asks an old lover on "Mermaid Eyes," wondering whether an old flame that won't die is preventing new ones from igniting. Elsewhere he laments, "once we had dreams/ now we have schemes." Fifteen years down the line, he doesn't have any better grasp on desire, except that he knows it's better to have desire than not.
At times Wareham's corny wordplay gets the better of him—"I'm in a jam, you're in a pickle, we're in a stew, it's cold in the oven, it's warm in the freezer," he sings on the title track. But that lyricism is so drippy and goofy it's also endearing. And it's a nice reminder that while love is wonderful it can also be pretty damn corny.
—Joe Tarr
Neil Halstead
Sleeping On Roads (4AD)
There are pretty songs on this album that are likely to bring up memories of your past, since so much of it sounds like something you've already heard. Everyone says it sounds like Nick Drake, and they're right. But the difference in Halstead's music and that of Drake's is that Neil might as well be singing about sunshine and lollipops, since his lyrics have never been particularly touching or sincere.
Comparisons aside, Sleeping On Roads features 9 well-crafted, beautiful songs about who-cares-what that calm and soothe the soul. Folk-pop melodies and hushed vocals will make you vacantly hum along. It's kind of like flavored Pablum and I bet my little nephew and my mom would like it the same.
I never noticed the lack of originality in Neil's previous bands (Mojave 3 or Slowdive), and he has always been one of my favorites, but this somehow screams of reincarnation. It's a tragedy Nick died, but there are people like Neil to keep him alive.
—Travis Gray
July 4, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 27
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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