Customer Reviews

Hang on Mike

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

on this confessional record, Mr. Viola opens up about his life and history in a way unheard on modern records...in fact this might be comparable to 'Blue' in it's honesty and unflinching POV...his best so far and a contender for best of 2004!

Candy Butchers is love and life in the 2000s for a regular guy named Mike Viola. This has the gentleness and musical base of Squeeze and 1970s Todd Runngeren.

There is not lot new sounding here, and that is the point. Except for a few more spikes in the irony--and 2000s verbiage-this sounds like a 70s singer-songwriter album, with all the requisite, well composed piano tunes. Nice chord changes here--familiar, but never stock.

Not as campy as early Ben Folds, this music sounds great because too few are doing it in a dancified, digitally compressed rock world.

If you like the Candy Butchers, check out a little known band called June and the Exit Wounds, A Little More Haven Hamilton, Please being one of the two albums by them I have heard. They sound like a slightly more produced Candy Butchers, and I think they are even better.

Front-man Viola is light years ahead of most other pop-60s influenced melodists. Not only are his vocals strong and appealing, his tunes are airy and unforced. This latest record has an unprententious down home feel. But Viola's introversion here, while warm and surely endearing to his family and friends, is specific without being universal. All the sweat that went into this latest album and yet you can tell why this album hasn't quite taken off. Most of the lyrics reach in without reaching out. He refers to himself in the third person several times (my name is also Mike and I'm not still not interested). Nevertheless, it's worth buying and you have to think they're just an album away from the big one. I'm rooting for them.

This is the very first Candy Butchers album I've ever listened to, and for the first few listens I thought it was slight, white, and plain.

Then the charm of the lyrics, about romantic wins and losses and masturbation and addiction and detox and mental and physical anguish and Kiss Alive 2 and Bennie & the Jets, poured sweetly through the infectious pop music, based in 70s pop piano style I in no way jones for.

But it works, here. This album actually changes my mood, my feelings, gives me hope about being a screw up, makes me love my friends more, makes me want to play it over and over again.

People constantly use the "Angry Young Man" school comparisons, a subgenre I adore but avoid of late due to the pretensions of its originators, but this album is in a class all by itself. It's not angry, it's reaching for grace and acceptance, but there had to be a whole lot of pain experienced to make music this lifting.

This album is terrific- it completely blows away Mike Viola's previous work. The songs are still instantly catchy, but there's a real introspective maturity and honesty to them. Sure, it's different than other Candy Butchers records- it's called growing.

Mike Viola, the head butcher, is toying with our affections. This is, as far as we own, his 3rd album. We bought the first one simply because we fell in love with the band's name at first sight (it was Mike Viola and the Candy Butchers then). Unfortunately, we were less than luke warm towards the album. The next album, we bought, we liked, soon we liked a lot. The songs were simply much better and a couple ranked among our favorites of that entire year. Now, just when we were expecting to, like, love this new cd even more, Mike has left us feeling more than a touch ambivalent. There are some very good songs, to be sure, on Hang On Mike, the best of which are McCartney-flavored, acoustic ballads or pretty, mid-tempo rockers. But a few too many cuts (the, assumedly, self-referential ones especially) are simply a bit too trite, too strained, too cutesy, and too bubblegummy for our tastes and we've resorted to the fast-forward more than we'd prefer. We'll keep listening to this artist, though. He's got a terrific, rock & roll voice and, when he's on, he remains one of the few purveyors of fine, Beatlesque pop today. We wouldn't be surprised if, by his next album, we were going steady.

I think this CD is amazing. I met Mike Viola probably back in kindergarten or first grade and all his teachers realized his artistic talent even way back then. From the songs he did with Snap back in the 80s to "That Thing You Do" and on to Candy Butchers, Mike is an amazing musician who has grown so much over the years. He reflects on his past, lives in the present, and looks to the future. You have to respect a musician who can do all three things in a single song like "Painkillers." I, along with the rest of our graduating high school class, look forward to more music that so obviously comes from deep down in his heart and soul.

This is the true test of an album - one that gets better each time you listen to it. Mike Viola is a genious.

Mike Viola has always been a favorite of mine. His Graham Parker-like voice is very warm. This warmth brings life into otherwise mundane material. The songs on Hang On Mike are all autobigraphical and dwell on his past, present and future as well as the relationships in his life. These themes are repeated over and over. He reminisces about his childhood (Kiss Alive II, Superkid), sulks about his stagnant music career (Hang On Mike, Unexpected Traffic) but still has hope (Let's Have A Baby, Not So Bad At All).

I think Mike should take a trip to some interesting places and then write some more interesting songs (a la Joe Jackson). Right now he seems stuck in a groove.

[DW]

as I love his stuff from the blue tumb days forward. this missed the mark on the sonmgs for me. still respect the guy a ton