Search - Zen for Primates :: Blessed Are The Sheepherders

Transcending the Primate Realm

Randy Hencke | Contoocook, NH USA | 02/26/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Just heard this band live at Godfrey Daniels. Superlatives escape me but start with the best flat out sidemen available (couple violins, a cello, french horn, sax(soprano, alto, barry), guitar and add a vocalist who's David Bowie's older brother from Mars. The vocalist is a dynamite baritone with pipes that could front a Broadway musical, but add a sardonic, beat-heavily ironic twist and you get a song like "My Condition" where the imponderables of thought are the subject. Personal favorite is the haunting bittersweet lovelorn "I Guess" but DON'T go anywhere without listening to [Demon]Alcohol and Tahiti. OK, comparisons to existing acts are NOT the best way to describe this group, YOU GOTTA HEAR IT!! At the severe risk of injustice, compare the french horn to Barachois, compare the lead vocalist to Devonsquare, compare the violins to It's a Beautiful Day [White Bird] and compare the sax to any great R&B/Jazz sideman you like - he adds a mean harmonica from time to time. Compare the cello .... nah, quit comparing and start listening!! Visually, a stunning musical act, or maybe its street theater, or perhaps its...! Musically, you just gotta hear!"

A band like no other!

Rick Slansky | Wappingers Falls, NY | 09/24/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you've ever seen this band live, then you'll understand what I am about to write. If not, you have no idea what you're missing!

This is a band that evokes and channels several other bands and yet is not like anything you've ever heard before. T. Roth is absolutely the best rock and roll vocalist I've ever heard, and his earlier band, Another Pretty Face, points up exactly what is wrong with the music industry. Crappy bands like Poison make it big (even if it was for a short time) and a great band like APF is just never in the right club on the right night with the right person in the audience.

And so that experience aside, T writes some of the best, funniest, most sardonic lyrics you've ever listened to. He has a view of the world that is different from any you've ever come across, but when you pay attention to him, he's got it exactly right! Life is odd, people always envy others, not knowing how screwed up those lives are, and he captures all this irony in the catchiest pop music you'll hear in a long time, and all without drums, keyboards, or much percussion at all, (aside from the extremely rare bell ringing). The covers are dead on, yet they make them their very own, and the originals are funny and priceless.

Buy this record! Buy their others! Then find out where they are playing and go see them. I drove 3 hours to see them recently, and would do it again in a heartbeat!"