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11/12/14
HIGHWAY 20
LUCINDA WILLIAMS/Where the Spirit Meets the Bone: Fittingly enough, now that Williams is on her own again, she comes in with a double album that is her most sincere and personal album since she first met up with the machine. A deep and dense album, even in it's spare simplicity, this is not the place for people to make their first encounter with Williams, but long time acolytes will revel in how this is the next step in the trail. Lyrically and attitudinally miles away from the white album that first put her on everyone's radar, it's loaded with the same visceral sensibilities that reach out and touch you. This set needs to gestate for two years or so before it gets hailed as a down to the bone, full on classic.
MIEL
MIGUEL ZENON/Identities are Changeable: In which we find the super sax man using his genius grants to explore his roots. As opposed to black people who were thrown in a ship and brought here forcibly, Puerto Ricans have been American citizens since 1917 giving them leave to come and go as they please between here and the ‘homeland". Zenon takes on the question of just what is the ‘homeland' and where does the identity of his people lie. Interesting documentary stuff with music that expands the gringo concept of just who and what is an immigrant. Certainly something well out of the ordinary and worth a hearing.
STAND UP
TONY SAM/Scaredy Cat: Sam does a fine job of being that normal guy that lives next door that suddenly, unexpectedly goes nuts. With loads of properly channeled anger that turns into edgy humor at his disposal and gets unleashed at the drop of a hat, Sam probably does plenty for the mental health of loads of similarly situated people that probably don't even realize how close to the edge they are because it just becomes a way of life. With an inverted, jaundiced eye turned toward everything, Sam might certainly not be ready for prime time but late night cable---oh boy! Here's a new wild man from Chicago that didn't forget to pack his Chicago attitude when he took off for Minneapolis to record this set. Check it out.
RYAN DALTON/I'm Married, Let Me Tell You About It: You know you might be in for something here when you look at the cover and get reminded of those Verve comedy album covers form the early 60s. Somewhat in the bag of those lightly, absurdist sides, Dalton is that low key kind of humorist that takes a situation and builds on it until you think it's going to fall over, but it doesn't. Not a joke machine kind of guy or a story arc kind of cat, there's seeds of him being a modern day, pomo Henny Youngman if you need an easy descriptor. Loads of laughs are on tap here for people that want to sit back and let a funny man do his job---especially when he skewers trendy stuff like vegetarians.
GLENN WOOL/No Land's Man: An itinerant Canadian comic that has spent the last 20 years on the road, if you're a cutting edge media maven, he hasn't escaped your attention from his regular appearances on John Oliver. Subversive and witty, he's attacking incipient middle age from the perspective of a man child with over the border sensibilities that has an innate ability to hit the bulls eye consistently. Hiding behind his deceptively hard rock looks, Wool has certainly honed his act on the road to a razor sharp edge that cuts to the bone. This cat is a full on laugh riot.
KEITH LOWELL JENSEN/Atheist Christmas: You know Jensen if you went to a tough high school. He was the kid in the back row that learned how to be humorous to save his life. He learned early that being Don Rickles wasn't going to work for those four years and fashioned his comic gaze to work in other way. Disguised as a normal person, Jensen finds the dark side of Christmas, Scientology, gross out teen age pals and more. Funny stuff that hits it out of the park every time. Well done.
Volume 37/Number 12
November 12, 2014
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
Copyright 2014 Midwest Record
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