Search - Gary Lucas, Gods and Monsters :: Coming Clean

COMING CLEAN: THE REAL THING

J. Vengua | California | 12/10/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Anyone who has followed the music of Gary Lucas & Gods and Monsters over the past few years knows that they live up to their reputation of what the New Yorker called "The underground rock fan's dream team." In its latest incarnation, the band includes Ernie Brooks (Modern Lovers) on bass, Billy Ficca (Television) and Jonathan Kane (Swans) on drums, Jason Candler (Hungry March Band) on alto sax and Joe Hendel on trombone, and Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads) on keyboards. Now, with guests David Johansen (New York Dolls), Elli Medeiros (Stinky Toys), Richard Barone and Michael Schoen, their latest album, Coming Clean, from Mighty Quinn Records,* has cut a powerful collection of tracks.



The lynch-pin and musical shaman of Gods and Monsters is the peripatetic guitarist, song-writer and vocalist, Gary Lucas. His dizzyingly dexterous guitar playing may be difficult to define, although music critic David Fricke, in Rolling Stone recently called him simply "one of the best and most original guitarists in America" (Nov. 2006). After listening to many of Lucas' CDs, both solo and collaborative works, I've come to think of his style as a form of magic realism, the kind of music I wouldn't mind listening to while camping out in some lush dream forest for one hundred years of (psychedelic) solitude, although the music is fine even when you're shoulder to shoulder with the crowd in a steamy nightclub. And like good magic realist literature, Lucas' music is capable of scorching social commentary, while simultaneously puncturing the thin skin of reality and flying us to realms we can otherwise only dream of.



Some of those realms are erotic, for example, in the orgasmic "Skin-Diving." The track features Lucas' gorgeously looping and soaring guitar playing accompanied by the sexy-voiced vocals of Elli Medeiros, who takes it to the limit, indeed; some realms are mythic: "Fata Morgana" is a modern turn on an ancient western legend, tweaked by blazing finger picking that morphs into operatic chords with an Asian influence (for more of that, listen to Lucas' wonderful album of mid-20th century Chinese popular music, The Edge of Heaven).



Fans of the band's art-rock roots will love the satisfyingly abrasive version of "Psycho" and David Johansen's streetwise contribution in "One Man's Meat," backed up with killer alto sax and trombone by Jason Candler and Joe Hendel, respectively. Fans of Jeff Buckley will find the familiar "Mojo Pin" haunting (Lucas wrote the original music), featuring Michael Schoen's beautiful vocals. The last track, "Dream of the Wild Horses," is Lucas' instrumental tribute to Buckley, as full of lyrical yearning and promise as was Jeff himself; the song ends on a droning chord that is a devastating reference to his early passing.



More so than on previous Gods & Monsters albums, the thread running through and tying together Coming Clean is clearly the Blues -- the "realism" part of the magic. The newly introduced electric wail and slide on the title track (previously all acoustic with effects box in an earlier CD, Improve the Shining Hour) is a startling change, yet perfectly appropriate; it puts a whole different spin on Dylan Thomas's lines, "do not go gentle into that good night." Lucas also gets down and dirty in the rock-bluesy rendition of Bruce Springstein's "Ain't Got You," with its driving Bo Diddley-esque (on acid) rhythms and especially the moody "Under My Wing." Yet, there are blues/metal elements also in "Skin Diving" and in gentler form, even in the romantic tone poem, "Evangeline" and in "Land's End," with its soaring vocals by Richard Barone.



Gary Lucas and Gods & Monsters have made New York City their stomping ground for years; but lately they have been touring through Europe (most recently in St. Petersburg, Russia) and receiving rave reviews. This band should have a wider audience in the U.S., and with the release of this powerhouse CD, I have every reason to believe that it will. This is an intense and magical compilation of music---the real thing. Do yourself a favor, and buy it now!



*Coming Clean is available in the U.S., Canada and Japan on Mighty Quinn; on Side Salad/Universal in the UK; in France through Productions Speciales, and will be released in January 2007 in the Benelux through DAWA Music.



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Coming clean up with a breath of new air

Jennifer L. Metcalf | USA | 01/01/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Gary Lucas, guitarist extraordinaire, unfurls his dynamic strings and lassos them around our ears as we become the blessed victims of the latest unleashing of his brilliance. Together with his Gods and Monsters gang, Gary assaults and redefines our aesthetics boundaries.



Right off the bat, he once again digs his digits into an axe and whacks out a fabulous phantasmagoria of slide guitar, blues-y licks, and lascivious vocal warnings, all woven around his fable of the delicious but dangerous Fata Morgana.



"Her icy stare, her mournful air can hypnotize all sailors

Who now full fathom five doth lie beneath her coral jailer

As cruel Morgana seals your fate just when you've come to nail her"



Fata Morgana sails into the melodic harbor of "Junker and the Jewess," and "Vampire Circus" with its enticing Pied Pipes of orgasmic little kisses blown from the strings with which only Gary has privilege at his sorcerous fingers. Shipwrecked evermore. Shipwrecked evermore.



"Under My Wing" flies to a secluded little jazz pub somewhere in the solar system where time retards the heart while the ears absorb this tale of woe. And whoa, how the brushstrokes glide over a thousand canvases all morphed into Gary's deep, mosaic voice. From the outset, this song makes me wonder where the stripper poles are concealed. And around where I wrap my fingers for the best grip. I dare not let go. I wish to fill the void under that wing.



One of the crowning songs (well, aren't they all) from Gary's very first solo album "Skeleton at the Feast" is Bernard Herrmann's "Psycho." Here, we once again visit Norman and `mother' but with drums and bass. It's as if Gary's band, Gods and Monsters, are personally feeding me plump little drops of adrenaline while embracing my body playfully on the edge of a cliff.



"Mojo Pin" is `the' one and only "Mojo Pin" from the irrefutable genius of Gary Lucas and Jeff Buckley. Before knowing anything about the version on this album, the haunting voice staring out from the grooves stopped me dead in my tracks. For a moment, I thought the serenader was a very nascent Jeff Buckley, as though he may have sounded in the 1980s, but of course, the luminous collaboration with Gary had not yet been born. Upon further investigation, the owner of the sweet vocal chords turned out to that of Michael Schoen, a name perhaps not known at the moment by many but one whose talent refuses to lie dormant. But "Mojo Pin" isn't merely an imitation of the original. Michael sings his own version and Gary's guitar purrs as if the tune were gloriously composed only yesterday; both Michael and Gary approach the song with a fresh, courageous soul.



The rest of the gems are there for the taking. That is, if you dare to progress beyond the mundane borders of the little dividers in your local record store chain. I'm crawling back under the wing of Gary's axe, which always provides an avant-garde path to the fantastic.

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