A Fix Back East

Tarbox Ramblers | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 27, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rounder / Umgd
• ASIN: B0000WN0XW
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #77,802 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

No Description Available.
Genre: Popular Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 27-JAN-2004

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great band takes a step forward, February 16, 2004

By 

Joseph Gioia (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Fix Back East (Audio CD)

Fans of the Tarbox Ramblers' first cd, the eponymous 2000 release on Rounder Records, will have reason to pause over the band's long-awaited second release, "A Fix Back East". Where that nearly flawless first record gives the feeling of walking into a cheerful roadhouse with the band swinging for a roomful of tipsy dancers, "Fix" sounds like it was recorded in an empty inner city ballroom at 4 in the morning; the crowd long gone as the singer tries to make sense of wasted lives for a scattering of customers too drunk or doped up to move or care.

Where the first record showcased Daniel Kellar's virtuoso fiddle playing in playful counterpoint to Michael Tarbox's sharp guitar lines, "Fix" features Kellar's fiddle in a serene coupling, by turns mournful and menacing, with a guitar that growls and wails. Dark? You damn bet. Difficult? Well, I guess. But it is music that rewards repeated hearings; tales of killings and betrayals resolve briefly and scatter, a couple spirituals offer a glimmer of hope - lighted storefront missions in a criminal nightscape - before fading in the rearview mirror. "A Fix Back East" is rooted firmly in the bedrock of American outsider music. It is part of no particular era and it is never going away.

A brave departure for what is essentially a cover band, "A Fix Back East" offers several original songs, crafted very much in traditional modes. "It's hard to know/harder to accept/the pain that we cause" sings the narrator of the brooding title track, a ballad of infidelity. "I learned to live within the beast/My heart's exploding and I'm expecting less/There's a fix on me in the east." This is a little more complicated than anything sung by Dock Boggs or A.P. Carter, but they would instantly understand the singer's decayed spirit. Tarbox's experience-aged vocals, mixed closer to the front than in the first record, carry as much weight as any of the instruments.

The Tarbox Ramblers have a devoted young following in that most collegiate of towns, Cambridge, Mass. Their live shows are an engaging, often hypnotic mix of old country blues, Carter Family ballads, religious songs, jug band standards and electrified folk music, all adapted to a distinct alt-rock sensibility. The Ramblers play for dancing and drinking customers up and down the East Coast and have been favorably reviewed by the New Yorker magazine and Washington Post. Tarbox could have stuck to the formula for the new cd and played festivals for as long as he wanted. One can only hope that the broader vision on display in "Fix" will be rewarded by a wider appreciation of his art.

Recent personnel changes have modified the band's live sound. Gone is Kellar and his fiddle and the fine bass playing and high harmonies of John Sciascia. But Tarbox might be the best slide guitarist we got going, working with a couple pawnshop-special electric guitars that owe their sound more to duct tape and old pickups than any great skill in their manufacture. And the band's mission is the same, connecting live audiences with a living musical tradition that springs from the pain of loss and death. And, anyway, what's music for?

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Explosive Masterpiece, March 30, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: A Fix Back East (Audio CD)

By turns brooding, dreamy and explosive, "A Fix Back East" clearly draws on traditional music as a source of inspiration. But there's something else going on here that makes this album completely unique. Drenched in blues, these tracks have a noirish sensibility, akin in some ways Wm. Burroughs's novel "Naked Lunch," Dassin's "Night in the City," and landmark recordings like "White Light/White Heat" and "Tonight's the Night."

The comparison to books and movies, as well as to other CDs, is intentional: each of these cuts unfolds slowly, with a sprawling cinematic quality that's found throughout the album. And bandleader Michael Tarbox is a killer songwriter, with verse after shimmering verse conveying an otherworldly sense of strangeness with compelling, at times anguished, immediacy. A few examples:

"Through the yawning railyard hear the lonesome brakeman cuss
And Jesus redeemer calling back through the dust;"
(Already Gone)

"Night falls, memory returns, I trace each hour that's passed
Forsaken loves call my name and claim me as their own at last...
Outside the air is sweet, the water so still, Honeysuckle's on the vine
People say there's a heaven somewhere, I know I'll make it mine."
(A Fix Back East)

Other favorites on "A Fix Back East" are the haunted, yearning "Were You There?" and the jarring "Ashes to Ashes," which combines lyrical precision with a loose, seemingly improvised performance featuring some of the album's most powerful - and ominous - guitar playing. Tarbox also pays homage to his influences with his take of Dock Boggs's "Country Blues." It's a raucous guitar/drum assault featuring some of the meanest slide playing you'll hear anywhere.

I first learned about Tarbox Ramblers, and their new album, when I came across a description of its "grimy, thrilling noise" - an opinion I second. This raw, urgent CD will strike a chord with listeners who favor intensity and who are looking for something new.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece, May 8, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: A Fix Back East (Audio CD)

By turns brooding, dreamy and explosive, "A Fix Back East" clearly draws on traditional music as a source of inspiration. But there's something else going on here that makes this album completely unique. Drenched in blues, these tracks have a noirish sensibility, akin in some ways to Wm. Burroughs's novel "Naked Lunch," Dassin's glorious "Night in the City," and landmark recordings like "White Light/White Heat" and "Tonight's the Night."

The comparison to books and movies, as well as to other CDs, is intentional: each of these cuts unfolds slowly, with the sprawling cinematic quality that's found throughout the album. And bandleader Michael Tarbox is a gifted songwriter, with verse after shimmering verse conveying an otherworldly sense of strangeness with compelling, at times anguished, immediacy. A few examples:

"Through the yawning railyard hear the lonesome brakeman cuss
And Jesus redeemer calling back through the dust;"
(Already Gone)

"Night falls, memory returns, I trace each hour that's passed
Forsaken loves call my name and claim me as their own at last...
Outside the air is sweet, the water so still, Honeysuckle's on the vine
People say there's a heaven somewhere, I know I'll make it mine."
(A Fix Back East)

Other favorites on "A Fix Back East" are the haunted, yearning "Were You There?" and the jarring "Ashes to Ashes," which combines lyrical precision with a loose, seemingly improvised performance featuring some of the album's most powerful - and ominous - guitar playing. Tarbox also pays homage to his influences with his take of Dock Boggs's "Country Blues." It's a raucous guitar/drum assault featuring some of the darkest, and best, slide playing you'll hear anywhere.

I first learned about Tarbox Ramblers, and their new album, when I came across a description of its "grimy, thrilling noise" - an opinion I second. This raw, urgent CD will strike a chord with listeners who favor intensity and who are looking for something new.