![]() "Both of them went horribly, horribly wrong, because I wasn't He had been encouraged by his parents to study flute and piano,īut did not take to either of them. After an initialĮ-mail to the publisher, Chris and I exchanged e-mails and arranged for an interview.Īfter a few minutes talking about our respective experiences with Pete Seeger, Chris discussed To write a feature on such an accomplished writer, I decided to go for it. I had seen playing at The Fast Folk Cafe, and had his songs covered on a number ofįast Folk recordings had become a captivating prose writer. I was listening that nightĪnd found myself totally drawn into a fascinating personal history. ![]() Next step: he brought Chris on the program for a fascinating two-hour interview thatĬovered much of the former singer/songwriter and novelist's life. Orange cover, started reading and began recognizing the characters and places inside the story. He grabbed Chris's latest offering off the bookstore shelf, with its bright This all came to my attention because Vin Scelsa, long-time revered freeform radio DJ,Īnd host of Idiot's Delight Saturday nights on WFUV-FM, is such a voracious readerĪnd book hound. People and events that will be familiar to many patrons of the local singer/songwriter Moreover, while fictionalized, it concerns This author has ever read about any music scene. In Hoboken is the most vivid and engaging novel It is the third novel that brings Chris Bauman to the forefront of Two novels, The Ice Beneath You and Voodoo Lounge and part of a third, the most ![]() The experiences surrounding the essence of the song would also go on to evolve into Not long after enlisting, four years earlier. What did that mean? Was it, "kiss my ass," in some slang manner? It would becomeĬlear later, that it was a soldier's recollection of a place in Somalia, where he'd served I wouldn't know anything about until more than a year later. They were singing a song by Christian Bauman, someone I didn't know anyone onstage,Īny of the regulars who hung with Jack Hardy, the founder of the Fast Folk It was my first Fast Folk Revue ever at the Bottom Line. "You can see Kismaayo, You can see Kismaayo from here…" It seems as though the Local Boys In The Photograph might be about to fade into the background.Sometimes the Pen is Mightier Than the Song Released in the month they received a Q Award for penning a Classic Song, Pull The Pin ridicules this very bestowment whilst acting as a reminder of the sheerness of the slope they've been sliding down ever since. Bewilderedly stumbling from one persona to the other (rarely convincing as either) interrupts the structure of the album whilst suggesting Jones doesn't know which hat he should be donning at any given time. It's a trait that again highlights the sometimes bipolar nature of his song-smithery, especially when juxtaposed with Daisy Lane, a slower track about a fatal happy-slapping attack, and one of the only successes on the album. Perhaps it's due to his diminutive physical stature, or maybe his advancing years (is 33 too young for a midlife crisis?), but on Pull The Pin, Jones too often feels the need to challenge the manhood of others ("be a man – if you can" on Pass The Buck) or revel in his own (check Bank Holiday Monday for a lesson in downright awful male bravado: "Gobbin' speed like a monkey in a fuckin' zoo / get ya girl in the toilet after flirting all day"). Instead of punctuating the rolling guitar of Soldiers…, it attempts to roll alongside them in painful fashion. In keeping with Pull The Pin, it sounds dated and antiquated, in the worst possible way. One thing is certain though: it sounds old, its gravelly texture grown gradually less appealing over the years. It's difficult to comment on whether Jones' voice has worsened, or even changed. The bland and underwhelming opening track Soldiers Make Good Targets acts as a decent gauge for things to come, the above adjectives resonating throughout this record even more so than any earlier models. So it should come as no surprise that instead of using new album Pull The Pin to announce a return to form or even (God forbid) a new direction in his songwriting, Jones is still chasing the ghost of Billy Davey's daughter, and this time, even he sounds confused. ![]() Bar the odd exception, it has so far eluded him. But a decade on from their excellent debut LP, Word Gets Around, the question is still looming large: what exactly are The Stereophonics? Perceptive commentators on the mundane trivialities of everyday life, or lager louts hell-bent on drunken debauchery? Their stellar first album struck a balance between the two good enough to have Kelly Jones dedicate the next ten years of his life attempting to replicate it. Their commercial success has gone some way to postponing the interrogation.
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