Customer Reviews

Here Come The Miracles

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Just under 20 years ago, a group of us (you know who we are) were crossing the threshold into adulthood listening to the likes of the Replacements, Husker Du, REM, Camper Van Beethoven, Meat Puppets, Let's Active, Feelies, Robyn Hitchcock, Green on Red, Rain Parade, and Game Theory (etc. etc. etc.). The sound we all loved passed away in the late '80's as REM became average (at best) and some of us got wives, jobs, car payments. I haven't spent too much time lamenting the passing of this era or getting nostalgic over a "sound" that could never return. But then I purchased this new Steve Wynn album a couple weeks ago, and have found myself simultaneously rejoicing over sounds I haven't heard in over 15 years, and feeling sad that such graceful grime is the exception rather than the rule here in the 21st century.

I am not suggesting that this album is an insipid retread by any means. In fact, Steve Wynn has clearly assimilated sounds that have been created in the intervening years (such as Pavement, the Dead C), but the spirit surely harkens back to a period before the age of "made bands" (you know what I'm talkin' here). I have always felt that the music of my glory days was an artistic (and decidedly liberal) response to the conservativism of the Reagan era. Perhaps Steve Wynn's passionate new recording is an indication that with another conservative administration in office the underground is once again percolating with tention, regret, and a yearning for mystery.

I am not going to indulge in any song-by-song "faux music critic" analysis of the disc. However, the disc has a delicious and decidedly un-state-of-the-art sound, one dominated by guitar. The musicianship is of the highest order, but is not dominated by solos or boring "vituosity". Overall, the music is about the songs and the passions behind them.

This thang is a thrill and has given me a scratch I will be itching for some time.

I have not followed Steve Wynn's solo career since the break-up of Dream Syndicate and boy am I sorry. This music has that loose all-American feel that can not be duplicated by anywhere else in the world. The blurb on the cover calls this Wynn's "Exile On Main Street" and I guess that's right, but there is a sincerity in the lyrics that I don't associate with the Glimmer Twins. When Wynn is having some derelict fun ("Topango Canyon Freaks", "Strange New World") you feeling like joining him. When he looks back on the road that he's gone over, you share his regret and weariness. The variety of musical styles on this record is breathtaking. On the opening (title) track Wynn plays an electric sitar solo. Chris Cavacas is there on some classic soul organ and even wurlitzer on several cuts. Good old Howe Gelb is here too (it was recorded in Tucson and I think he is king of Tucson). The rhythm section (Dan DeCastro on bass and Linda Pitmon on drums) is terrific. I just saw Wynn and this band a couple of nights ago and urge all who read this in the near future to get off your butt and go see them. Linda Pitmon is as good as Georgia Hubley and Georgia Hubley is about the best (and I'm not talking female drummers; I'm talking drummers period). Dave DeCastro knows how to put the melody into the rhythm. And I cannot leave out the guitars: this is a great guitar album (as the above allusion to Crazy Horse suggests), but there is no excess, no on-and-on solos. Instead there are all different tones and some interlocking playing that makes you smile because it is so mean and pretty.

There is sadness and regret here. There is joy and redemption. There is that feeling that you are just going to have to deal with the way things are. There is that wonderful idea that you are going to do exactly what you want to do because you want to, not because someone else doesn't want you to. This is grown-up music about what is really important in life.

This recording has it all. Quality production. Lyrics that mean something. Compelling music with great arrangements that are well played. Even the cover is nice.

Steve Wynn comes back with both barrels blazing with this epic 2 CD set -- a nineteen song set with a widescreen cinematic vision. Wynn infuses the work with his literary aspirations as if he's fronting Raymond Chandler's supercharged garage band. With help from old pals Howe Gelb (Giant Sand), members of Calexico, and Chris Cacavas(Green on Red), Steve creates what ROLLING STONE says sounds like "Townes Van Zandt hitchhiking with Crazy Horse."

Not only is it some of the best music Wynn has made in his long career, the 2CD set comes packaged in an AMAZING full-color eight panel digipak with a booklet that is truly awesome! [...]P>As a fan of guitar-based rock, I can't recommend this more highly!!

Although i'm such a big fun of Steve i didn't expect such a brilliant album.Alternative rock at its best.You can find all Steve's heroes here from Bob Dylan to Neil Young influences from the psychedelic sixties era and a bit of nostalgia for the Dream Syndicate days(The Days Of Wine And Roses).Steve has a perfect way of bringing out the best from his fellow musicians and you have the impression that what you hear is a result from a group of people who absolutely enjoy thereselves and in rock n' roll that's the issue!Beautiful lyrics and some dreamy melodies show that Mr.Wynn is one of the best songwriters of his time.So i still can't understand why some so called important music magazines don't pay much attention to him and istead they are trying to persuade us that such groups as Oasis Radiohead or System Of A Down are the future of rock n'roll..please!!!However Steve doesn't care much about all this publicity all he cares about is his music and the result is great albums as HERE COME THE MIRACLES

Steve Wynn has always been the Raymond Chandler or James Ellroy of rock and with HERE COME THE MIRACLES, Wynn ascends to a level equal to his literary aspirations. In fact, there is even an actual real-life mutual admiration pact between modern noir writer George R. Pelicanos and Wynn with the paperback writer often having his fictional characters listening to music by Wynn or his band Dream Syndicate. This association between the rocker and the writer was further advanced when Pelicanos wrote Wynn's press biography with the release of HERE COME THE MIRACLES and the two men interviewed each other over drinks for MAGNET Magazine. HERE COMES THE MIRACLES is Steve Wynn's Guitar Noir tour-de-force. Two CDs of brilliant songwriting bashed out with reckless abandon by Wynn and his ace combo. At times it's a bit sprawling, like the city of Los Angeles that inspired it, at times infused with pathos, but ultimately redemption is sought and found in the closing song "There Will Come A Day." If you have yet to hear this epic masterwork from one of rock's latter day masters, you owe it to yourself to check it out!

don't spend twice as much for the exact same 2CD. The domestic version of this release is also imported from Blue Rose and sold through the domestic Innerstate label. It's the exact same thing as this version being sold as an "import." Don't cough up 2x as much money to get the same thing. Caveat emptor.

Steve Wynn's 7th studio album, "Here Come The Miracles" (2001), is his follow up to "My Midnight". This album would be his first of three albums recorded in Tucson, Arizona. Here he wrote 19 songs, with standouts like:
The title track, the hipnotic 60's feel of "Shades of Blue", "Sustain"- a hit in a fair world, with help from Howe Gelb.
"Blackout"- Chris Cacavas organ and Steve Wynn's guitar make this song shine.
"Southern California Line"- Dream Snyndicate type song, one of my personal favorites,great guitar workouts.
"Morningside Heights"- Excellent song, has that 60's AM pop feel to it.
"Let's Leave It Like that"- Just a simple song with good percussion by Linda Pitmon.
"Crawling Misanthropic Blues"- Brake neck fuzz blues, Steve Wynn at his best, great guitar by Chris Brokaw.
"Drought"- Piano-organ driven ballad with a mesmerizing guitar intermixed.
"Death Valley Rain"- Love this song, another song that could of been a big hit. Steve and Linda sing well together.
Side two starts off with
"Strange New World"-This Jaunty rocker, great slide guitar by Chris.
"Sunset To The Sea"- Another Dream Syndicate type number, a great mellow rocker.
"Good And Bad"- great lyrics, great vocals by Steve.
"Topanga Canyon Freaks"- Haunting, great story song, excellent musicianship by all involved.
"Watch Your Step"- Garage rocker, great organ fills by Chris, would sound great on the radio.
"Charity"- Chris' wurilitzer pushes this moody number.
"Smash Myself to Bits"- Great rock and roll, I like the way they intertwine the harmonica and guitar, Steve plays a tremendous guitar here.
"There Will Come A Day"- Kind of like a Bob Dylan song he would of done in the 60's, good stuff, great lyrics.

This is a great album that should of broke Steve Wynn in America, instead i'm ashamed that Steve is more popular in Europe than here in the U.S.of A.

The band consisted of: Steve Wynn-guitar,sitar,organ,harmonica and vocals
Linda Pitmon- Drums and background vocals
Dave DeCastro- Bass, Lap steel guitar and background vocals
Chris Brokaw- guitar
Chris Cacavas- Piano,organ and background vocals

don't spend twice as much for the exact same 2CD. The domestic version of this release is also imported from Blue Rose and sold through the domestic Innerstate label. It's the exact same thing as this version being sold as an "import." Don't cough up 2x as much money to get the same thing. Caveat emptor.

....
Here come the Miracles rises up with wah wah and sunstroke, bringing on the epic nightmare evocation of the Place. In the first song you're cruisin lowslung and easy in the greasy backseat of a red convertible, tasting the lights of the Ventura freeway and soon enough, hitting Hollywood and points north. You have enough adrenaline to power ten square blocks while bathing in barroom brannigan and electric blue porno-rush.
Arrogant. Mean. Hungry. Ready to take the dive into some fathomless pit of neon and narcotic abandon. You're ready to have FUN.
Don't get too comfortable back there, Wynn seems to want to say to the listener, his secret knowledge flashing a bright knife tip glint of pure menace
Sure, you'll have your fun one way or another. A few songs later, though, the illusion may be wearing thin. In fact, these songs crash down so hard, taking you lower and lower and lower, that you won't remember crusing into town high as a kite. You'll never remember being up at all, ever. You will know one thing: that very car is headed for a deep dark plunge, flanked by a hail of LAPD gunfire. Or a demonic ghost of Charles Manson and his Topanga Canyon Freaks. Or your own paranoia. Here Come The Miracle packs in 19 perfect songs, and if you don't see your demon mentioned above, relax. Chances are, it's somewhere in that 19.
It all comes clear by the second half of this sprawling 2 disc California odyssey of a record. In fact , after the end of that title track, so interpreted by this writer as an L.A. bound joyride, you are well on your way (back) to Wynn's dizzying heart of abject darkness, all spruced up under a shield of majestic pop, with track 3, "Sustain". This lowdown rock requiem begins with a precussive plunking of a piano key into some morpha-delic aural strangeness, leading one to expect a feedback damaged time warp back to Wynn's full length Dream Syndicate debut, The Days Of Wine And Roses. Then it turns 360 with one of the most poetically realized stretches of instrumentation since the opening strains of Astral Weeks. A brutally poignant and mournful wail of god knows what musical device, on a high plane of martyred heartache, then turning dark and breakneck violent on the same falsetto wail. This is my favorite 16 and ½ seconds on the entire record. "Sustain"'s message is one of the bleakest optimism, in fact, undermining the notion, en masse, of forced hope in the Good To Come. "And only the pain remains, sustain, sustain, sustain. With only time to explain. Away....and on and on and on and on and on and on." The voice of Steve Wynn has never come into itself as solidly as in this track, and in all those which follow. He doesn't forget his mentors, however, bringing with him all the horrific urban psychosis of James Ellroy and Charles "Hank" Bukowski. (Ironically two men who went on record to say they hated rock'n'roll...yet I can't imagine either man, one alive, one dead, disliking the truth of this album.)
"Blackout" follows with a theme as profound as it is banal. Here, I appreciated Wynn's loyalty to the literal. Blackout is about just that, waking up to the prolonged introspection that follow the dark cloud of no memory. "Got a lot of things to learn this morning" and "any other day would be fine" are remarkably articulate renderings of any blackout, anywhere, and if you've had it even once, you know. Wynn certainly does. Tragically well, in fact.
"Southern California Line" may be the work's true Mascot. It boils down all this nihilsitic beauty into a tangible 3 minute cut. Running a cross section of lost souls wanting out but needing in, it grinds top speed through taco stands and strip malls and finally the moment of truth. Where and what that line is, he wisely leaves for you to imagine.
The sing song melody of "Let's Leave It Like That" begins with "Champagne Sally said I kinda like rough" and spins a vaguely coherent tale of those rare few who manage their own madness day to day. It's pesimistically optimistic mantra: "The easy way will set you free." Chanting with a barely disguised laughter, the tune lets you smile at your addictions, fixations, and weirdness with the greatest of ease.
"Death Valley Rain": Surging with neo-noir suicide gleee, another car-culture-on-the-skids comment twisted around to a Jim Thompson-esque context, with a hell of a woman in the seat next to you, rushing the tidal wave of an arid, dusty river of mud at 120 per.
"Strange New World" is undoubtedly Wynn's shining moment as lyricist/storyteller. And the song does shine, there's no other word for the impact of it. Simply put, a man released after 20 years for killing someone in cold blood. Likening his tale to a modern day Rip Van Winkle, the man (who could be that aformentioned 405 killer) rises with a bright future and not a single penny to his name. A New Orleans quasi-biblical parable using homicide as salvation, blackout as revelation, and a guitar intro as rousing as the Rocky theme, were Rocky the demon reincarnation of Richard Speck. A song that convinces you that you can eat whiskey bottles and chew crack vials for dessert. "Getting out, while the getting's good", this trigger happy Duke Of Earl spins the most inspirational tale of redemption since Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking.
For those who've spent occasional moments wondering what happened to Anthem Part Three, you get your wish, and you get it gooooood. What happened when the shell shocked lustmorde hit the highway? Well, okay, you don't find that out exactly. Wynn's staying power owes as much to his ambiguity as it does to his poetry. Besides, isn't it a bit obvious? What counts is the coda, and the song wraps up the creepy saga with the cops in pursuit, on the way straight into the pacific in a death rocket powered by a mighty V6 engine. "Goin mile by mile, tethered to the leather, gonna be the death of me." More evidence that Mr. Wynn should be acknowledged by the president of GMC as an outright authority on automobile abuse. "I see those red flashing lights, I'm not givin way."
But there's no stopping Wynn. This death trip ain't over yet, pard.
"Good and Bad" gets to the cirhossis stricken heart of Just That, with a questioning monologue by a character who's in the throes of something acutely unpleasant. This segues into "Topanga Canyon Freak