Customer Reviews

Lost Somewhere Between The Earth and My Home

5 star:		(9)
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As someone who over the last 18 years has owned at one time or another well over 3,000 CDs, tapes, and albums, I have to say that this record is in the top 10 of all I have ever heard. To quote Frank Sinatra (via Staurday Night Live) Carla Bozulich, the lead singer, has chunks of Courtney Love in her stool! This is the fiercest, most fully-conceived female-led punk rock record of all time. Hands down... How to describe the sound without putting people off-- it's punck-rock country-blues, played at blazing volumes. The musicianship is outstanding-- this is a band captured at its absolute PEAK. This record captures that rare magic of hearing a group of dedicated musicians playing together with a sense of purpose. It is inconceivable that this record did not lead to the break-out of this band. One suspects that the ....... (and relatively undeserved) success of Hole and Courtney Love led to this record getting overlooked. Does the world only have room for one strong female rock singer at a time? Even if that were true, one listen to this record will confirm that Carla was robbed! Everything you hate about Courney Love, Carla does NOT have! We were robbed of the experience of watching music this good succeed.

The subsequent Fibbers album, Butch, has its moments for sure, but this one sets the standard.

Lately, Carla has done an album with guitarist Nels Cline (a later member of the Fibbers) under the name Scarnella, that is very raw, rough and unrehearsed. It's a distant echo of this album, though.

If you love music, it is your DUTY to buy this album. It is in a class all by itself.

the fibbers' first full length album was universally hailed by critics as one of the year's best, but failed to sell many records. that few people have heard them is a tragedy. this is an amazing album, one that stabs at your heart just in the violin intro, and keeps you in its grip through to the end. Singer Carla Bozulich is the focal point of the music, with her deep and unconventional vocals, which are the most beautiful and emotionally expressive vocals i have ever heard in rock. Lyrically strong as well as vocally, this album mainly deal's with Bozulich's past struggles with heroin. Not that the rest of the band is overshadowed on this record. Lead guitarist Daniel Keenan plays several wonderful riffs on this album, and violinist Jessy Greene and bassist Bill Tutton do wonders with their bows. No cd collection can be complete without the Geraldine Fibbers intense, haunting, yet beautiful songs.

the emotional pitch of this album swings back and forth so frequently and fluently that there have been times i've literally had to stop listening because the ride was too intense. it's in the way the bass and viola of the opening "lillybelle" lull you up and up and up before the guitar pulls you over the top, hurtling you down faster and rougher and scarier than you thought things would get. lillybelle sets the tone lyrically as well: she's one of a cast of empty, wasted, battered, dreamy, graceful, stoic, resilient characters. "get off of that trip" indeed...except there are 11 more songs liable to lock you right where you sit.

by the time you hit the too-good-for-pop-radio "dragon lady" you're prepared for anything, and get it, straight through to the ultimate album closer "get thee gone," a moody waltz at once punk and country, resigned and defiant, inviting and discordant. as a whole, the album is not really punk and not really art-rock and not really country and not really indie. like the lifestyle it portrays, it ain't all pretty, but in the end you find yourself cycling back through it over and over again.

side note: this is the only live band i've ever seen avoid the encore facade, simply stating "ok now we'll play a few more songs for our encore" and playing the remainder of the set instead of walking off and having to be artificially coaxed back by an audience desperate for more. and this is their best album. need i say more?

When Carla sings she sends chills up my spine. You music lovers know the chill I am talking about. The only way I know how to describe this woman is shes sings with the experience and pain of Billy Holiday and the passion of Wendy O Willams(maybe more apparant on the album Butch). The music all together is fantastic! You can hear her influences of punk,country,blues and whatever else they wanted to throw in the mix. This band should have made it big. Some of the lame bands out there that made it big can't even hold a candle to the Geraldine Fibbers!

I bought this album after seeing the Dragon Lady video (I'm probably the only person who saw it. LOL!). Dragon Lady is great but every song on "Lost Somewhere..." is as powerful as DL. In fact, this album is so powerful, I can't listen to it too often because it's so gut-wrenching. And yet because it's so rewarding, I want to listen to it as often as I can. The music is so alive and vibrant and spontaneous, it's what music should sound like. And the lyrics are amazing. It's a CD I'll be treasuring for a long time. Long live the Geraldine Fibbers.

That more people know about Shania Twain than Carla Bouzlich is a big shame. Buy this album if you're convinced that country has been sold out to hat-wearing yuppies or that punk has gone stale. Her vocals and lyrics will make you think of a drug-addled Patsy Cline. Much like the legendary Cline, Bouzlich fully understands the value of writing songs that are deceptively simple yet hold an sinister undercurrent to them. Just as the music starts to lull you, you feel the hand of the devil just barely on your shoulder...

Quite simply, one of the best rock albums of the last two decades and criminally underheard... what seemed unclassifiable at the time now seems current. Carla Bozulich could cut glass with a pointed lyric and everyone involved--Daniel Keenan on guitar, (Nels Cline didn't join until Butch), Bill Tutton on standup bass, Jessy Greene on violin (now in Foo Fighters, I believe), and Kevin Fitzgerald on drums--just melded together. "Lillybelle" remains one of my favorite songs of all times and it needs to be revisited. Plus, this album has "The French Song" and "Richard"! Honestly, here's a hidden gem that can be picked up for a few dollars using these Amazon sellers. Especially for those who may be getting into Carla via her Evangelista project, it's really worth looking into. And hopefully, someone will rerelease it in a deluxe edition someday soon.

Where do I start? I used to see these guys in SF whenever they came to town. Their energy was amazing. I grew up/older moved away and had a grown-up life, kids, a mortgage, husband... Anyway one day I decided to plug my daughters name "Lily Belle" into Google and guess what came up? I guess it was burried in my subconscious!!!! I love the Fibbers!

This album is great. The Geraldine Fibbers are an awsome band. The songs are much faster than on Get thee gone. William is a great bass player, this album also bennifits from Nels Cline's amazing guitar playing.