Lipstick, Lies & Gasoline

Between Mustafa and myself, we have about 2400 CDs in the (hat tip to Voltaire Stax for the name) Swankienda. Well, okay, I have 2350 CDs. Mustafa has the rest. But it all sort of works out anyway. Out tastes are extremely eclectic. That's not bragging. It's scientific fact culled from years of studying other's tastes in music which mostly sucks. We figured out something pretty quick: It doesn't matter what genre it is, when it was made, who made it, where it was made, how it was made or why it was made. If it's good music, then it's good music. Even so, there are some types of music I keep coming back to more often than others. For the past ten years, it's been j-pop and alternative country. Two great tastes that don't get along.

Twelve years ago, I was working late one night, driving a yellow Ford Ranger across the 520 Bridge, a floating bridge that crosses Lake Washington. I was listening to KBCS, the radio station of Bellevue Community College, enjoying the moon reflecting on the water. The person on the radio was singing "It's time to get a gun. That's what I've been thinkin'. I could afford one, if I did a little less drinkin'" while a mandolin plinked away and the drummer drummed on anything that wasn't an actual drum. Welcome to the world of Fred Eaglesmith, a Canadian with some obviously heavy issues on his mind. As soon as I was back in Seattle, I drove to Tower Records (let us all observe a moment of silence for the passing of the greatest late-night record store ever) and bought the CD.

Eaglesmith has a rough, weary voice that expresses his anger, confusion and desperation with alarming power. The characters in his songs all live on the edges, just trying to get by in a world stacked against them. "Time To Get A Gun" is about a farmer who's just been told a highway is going through his property. In "Pontiac", a man sings about his '63 Stratochief ("Any objects in the mirror are precisely their own size") while he lets slip around the edges a harrowing story of a failed robbery attempt. "Alcohol & Pills" is his ode to the downfall of Elvis Presley, Hank Williams (don't ask which one because I will smack you), Jim Morrison and others. "You're Spookin' The Horses" is a desperate plea to the singer's woman who is going big city on him.

His music is an economical blend of country, folk and rock. Even though most of the arrangements are simple country music, they're played with power and an air of menace behind each one. One reviewer called it "album noir", a very fitting description. If Raymond Chandler had been a farmer turned country singer, this is probably what he would have come up with.