Customer Reviews

Runaway

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If you like Jim Carroll, you should pick this up. The live tracks are strong and showcase Jim's vocals well. Jim's cover of "Runaway" is just a bonus! If you are just the casual listener, researching the movie "Basketball Diaries", pick up "Pools of Mercury" and "The Best of the Jim Carroll Band" first. If you like either of those cd's, then pick up "Runaway EP", and work your way back into his catalog. Well worth the price of admission! Jim's a great poet and musician.

Sometime late in the seventies Patti Smith, high priestess of the punk scene at the time, tells Jim Carroll he should front a band. Carroll was a published and respected poet in the New York art scene, acquainted with the likes of Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, Lou Reed and John Cale. This was the time when musicianship was less important than attitude, and Jim Carroll had plenty to say. Jim basically added himself to a band called Amsterdam, a San Fransisco group composed of Steve Linsley on bass, Wayne Woods on drums, and guitarists Brian Linsley and Terrell Winn, reformed as the Jim Carroll Band and rode the punk wave with their now classic debut Catholic Boy (1980). Two more albums, Dry Dreams (1982) and I Write Your Name (1983) appeared under the band's name but by 1983 the crest had fallen.

Music was always a sideline for Jim Carroll in the large scheme of things. His prose and poetry publications continued after the Jim Carroll Band dissolved and he was active in poetry readings throughout his life. The remarkable Pools of Mercury appeared in 1998, and the EP Runaway ended up being his swansong music release (2000). The cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway" (recorded October 2, 1999) features the Seattle based band Truly's Rob Roth on lead guitar and organ, worth the price of the EP alone. Carroll's delivery is somewhat slower, his voice wavery and pale but the results are brilliant. "Hairshirt Fracture" is a demo from 1994 and "I Want The Angel", "It's Too Late" and "Falling Down Laughing" were recorded live at the Crocodile Cafe on November 17, 1998. Of the live tracks only the excellent "Falling Down Laughing" is new (co-written with Rob Roth), but all of it will delight fans from the Jim Carroll Band era. Sample lyrics: "Watching late-night film noir inside of stolen cars/His tongue stuck frozen to the monkey bars/His ladder lost it's rungs, billy speaks in tongues/Every time he's in the clear his past looks back and sneers."

While the 5 tracks here may not serve as the best introduction to the music of Jim Carroll it will definitely serve as a piquant appetizer. Essential for fans of the Jim Carroll Band. 4 **** 1/2 stars.