New Waterbug Release - Review
Gary Martin
Impressionist Songwriters_ on cassette and CD. It features 18 songs by 11
singer/songwriters, running about 75 minutes. The arrangements are sparse -
just acoustic guitar and voice with only three exceptions: one song adds
a harmonica, another adds a viola, and a third adds harmonica, cello, banjo,
and bass.
The unifying theme of the compilation is a style of writing that the
editor, president, chief cook and bottle washer of Waterbug, Andrew
Calhoun, calls Impressionism. As with the painting style of the same name,
the basic principle is to portray things as they appear, rather than as the
artist understands them to be. There is no attempt to interpret anything
for the audience - the writer presents the listeners with an impression and
leaves them on their own to react, interpret, analyze, moralize, etc. The
song never tells the listener what to think or feel, and often doesn't
indicate what the author thinks or feels.
I wasn't at all sure I understood this well enough to explain it to people,
but tried anyway on a relative recently. Her immediate response was that
it sounded like a Raymond Carver short story at the beginning of a
collection she had just begun reading. That evening, I read the story (I
think it was called "Chef" - about a woman who leaves her lover for the
summer to live with her ex-husband who is a recovering alcoholic), and
recognized it instantly as being exactly the same style of writing.
The contents (not in order) are:
James McCandless: Old Guy
Kat Eggleston: Paper Boats & The Stranger
Doyle Carver: The Deerhunter & Brickyard
Michael McNevin: Secondhand Story & Castaway
Jano Brindisi: Angels in the Snow & Weak With You
Chuck Brodsky: Lefty & Red Skies and Red Water
Andrew Calhoun: Peach Song & Portrait of a Girl and her Parents
Diane Zeigler: Jack's Belted Galloways & Rock of Ages (Barre, Vermont)
Steve Fisher: A Boy's Life in Texas
Tom Payne: Rocko's Smile
Al Day: Saving Grace
All of these songs demand attention and thought, though there are some
lighter moments (like the first chorus of "Jack's Belted Galloways": These
cows look like Oreo cookies, but you know they're much bigger than that,
they stand full black with a stripe round their backs, the pride of a
keeper named Jack). The quality of the lyrics is more consistent than that
of the music: most of the melodies are fairly memorable, but perhaps three
or four are not.
I doubt I could give a better indication of what these songs are like than
Andrew does in his essay in the CD booklet. I'll just reproduce it here
and then comment on some of the songs he doesn't mention. I'll divide some
paragraphs for readability. Bracketed comments are mine.
[begin quote]
"A work which aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry
its justification in every line." -- Joseph Conrad
"Everyone in this country wants to 'make it'. Why isn't it enough to be
making?" -- Elizabeth Wenscott
"Old Guy" is full of circles -- the ring, the lariat, the loop --
and other things that don't end. James McCandless' unusual phrasing keeps
giving one more rhyme than the ear expects, seeming to leapfrog out of
memory, suspending time. It's comfortable as a worn shoe, yet full of
surprises.
"Paper Boats" presents an exquisite balance of serenity, grief and
wisdom, as Kat Eggleston's guitar part dances unpredictably over the
rhythmic pulse. Her "The Stranger" is a brave song. Many writers take a
position on the issue [abortion], but few have described the experience --
a far more exacting task.
The heightened awareness created by the fine detail, odd pacing and
haunting tune of Doyle Carver's "The Deerhunter" draws us into a boy's
world as he embarks on a gripping rite of passage. I believe Carver to be
our finest chronicler-in-song of working-class life. It's an honor to be
able to include his uncompromising portraits here.
Diane Zeigler's weird grammar in the chorus of "Rock of Ages"
evokes the eerie mystery of death. [It's about a town whose granite
quarries provide gravestones and about her late brother. The chorus is:
This quarry is the grave of New England
These rocks watch over their heads
This town cuts memory for the living
These stones will remember the dead.]
The song wanders as one's thoughts do in a graveyard. (There is actually a
"Rock of Ages" tourist center near the granite quarries in Barre, Vermont.)
"Jack's Belted Galloways" also has a strong sense of place, and while
outwardly a light piece, proves to have to do with connections and
separations, as well as cluster flies.
Chuck Brodsky's "Red Skies and Red Waters" acknowledges not only a
loss [breaking up with a lover], but the recognition that one has been
caught in an illusion. The author, identified with everything but himself,
surrenders the ground he has gained in order to reclaim his integrity.
[Chuck's other song in the collection, "Lefty", is about Steve Carleton's
last years in baseball.]
Jano Brindisi's "Angels in the Snow" represents a similar act of
heroism: in calling forth parts of a shattered self, her song's cathedral
stateliness makes room for the possibility of love.
In Michael McNevin's "Castaway", a stirring tale of friendship,
music transforms the deftly sketched lyric into a picture full in color and
mood. Note how the meaning of the term "cast" shifts through the story.
McNevin's ability to render profound ideas into formal beauty is
remarkable. Like the paintings of Claude Monet, his songs capture light.
An example: the first part of "Castaway ends, "... our time was free."
Toward the end of the last part, in the middle of the climactic moment of
his friend reeling in the fish, the narrator says, "'Shit I'm freezin',' and
we both laughed. A cloudy day for castaways, but it wouldn't be the
last." Despite their differences and the pressures of adulthood, time is
still free for these friends: and by illustration, for us. It is "enough
to be making."
-- Andrew Calhoun
[end quote]
McNevin's other song, "Secondhand Story", is a story in a story; the outer
story involves finding a fragment of a letter between brothers in a used
travel bag in a Goodwill store; the inner story is the text of the letter.
The chorus is:
It wasn't much more than an unfinished book
Where the pages are torn, it's a black and white look
At a secondhand story, a secondhand life
A secondhand story, a secondhand life.
Steve Fisher is represented by "A Boy's Life in Texas", which is simply
that - a sequence of memories of childhood: breakfast, the tractor,
swimming, shooting snakes, being punished, going to church, playing little
league, growing melons, having a dog hit by a car, having a guitar stolen
in a burglary. Some of these are told in a single line, some in two, a few
in four. Very compact.
Tom Payne provides "Rocko's Smile", which is about getting a Christmas card
from a wino he spoke to at a bus stop the previous winter. The use of
melody, meter, and rhyme in this one make it grab my ear and stick in my
head.
Calhoun's two songs are among his most recent. "Peach Song" is a harvest
song, written from the point of view of a ripe peach, asking to be picked
and eaten. Of course it's a metaphor for the author maturing to the point
where he can offer himself to another. At two short verses and a chorus,
it's the shortest cut on the album, running just 1:57, yet it has plenty to
say. "Portrait of a Girl and her Parents" is written from the point of
view of Andrew's mother, Joy, reflecting on the effects of a less than
happy childhood. I just noticed the play on words in the first line of the
third verse, which begins,
There is little joy taken
When your enemy's dead
And the wounds you were given
Are all in your head.
There are three songs on the album neither Andrew nor I have commented on.
I think I'll leave it that way because I don't know them well enough yet to
say anything about them in public.
American Impressionist Songwriters (WBG0006) is available from
Waterbug Records, PO Box 6605, Evanston, IL 60204 (800-466-0234).
CD - $15.95 Cassette - $10.95
Shipping - $2 first item + $.25 per additional item
Illinois residents add 8% sales tax
Other releases available through Waterbug [* means I own and enjoy it]:
ARTIST & TITLE CATALOG # AVAILABILITY & PRICE
ANDREW CALHOUN CD Tape Vinyl
*Hope WBG0002 $13.95 $8.95 NA
*The Gates of Love FF341 NA $8.95 $9.95
*Walk Me to the War FF398 NA $8.95 $9.95
*Banks of Sweet Primroses <None> NA $8.95 NA
COSY SHERIDAN CD Tape Vinyl
*Quietly Led WBG0003 $13.95 $8.95 NA
*Late Bloomer FT526 $13.95 $8.95 NA
SHINOBU SATO CD Tape Vinyl
*Little Signs of Autumn WBG0004 $13.95 $8.95 NA
Red Dragonfly FF476 $13.95 $8.95 NA
STEVE FISHER
A Boy's Life in Texas WBG0005 Autumn '93 release?
KAT EGGLESTON CD Tape Vinyl
*First Warm Wind PB01 NA $8.95 NA
*Jack Spratt (w/Calhoun) WBG0001 NA $8.95 NA
Second Nature WBG0007 Autumn '93 release?
JANO BRINDISI CD Tape Vinyl
Jano Brindisi <None> NA $8.95 NA
CHUCK BRODSKY CD Tape Vinyl
*Live From Spam City SC1001 NA $8.95 NA
DOYLE CARVER CD Tape Vinyl
At the Circle K CR101 NA $8.95 NA
High Ground CR201 NA $8.95 NA
JAMES MCCANDLESS CD Tape Vinyl
Faultline ST01 NA NA $9.95
We Had a Big Backyard ST02 NA $8.95 $9.95
Out West Somewhere ST03 NA $8.95 NA
Sea of Freedom Autumn '93 release?
MICHAEL MCNEVIN CD Tape Vinyl
*Secondhand Story MM1001 $13.95 $8.95 NA
TOM PAYNE CD Tape Vinyl
*Rocko's Smile <None> NA $8.95 NA
DIANE ZEIGLER CD Tape Vinyl
*Diane Zeigler ZZ4593 NA $8.95 NA
--
Gary A. Martin, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, UMass Dartmouth
Mar...@cis.umassd.edu