Customer Reviews

Skitter on Take Off

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He's been working up to it for a while. This is it. Vic Chesnutt has delivered the perfect realization of his barebones Southern Gothic art. No band, no fluff, no BS. This is it.

You must buy this music.

When, a week after Chesnutt's death by intentional overdose, I wanted to do a little homage to the musician, this is the CD I played in the background. I poured a choice of drinks around the circle, explained a little of why I think his death is a significant loss--not all deaths are a tragedy, but some are, and the desperate death of a poet surely is--and we toasted Vic. For remembering Chesnutt, what made him unique and special, this CD is invaluable because it among all his recordings captures the most of his rawness, his quirky poetry and wounded voice. It comes the closest to bottling the elixirs that Chesnutt mixed live in the strange dive bars where I saw him in concert. The lyrics are not for the squeamish (apparently Vic has a friend who rubbed his penis on the "actual Wheel of Fortune"), the instrumentals are not for those who insist on complexity and technical accomplishment, and the vocals are not for those who can't appreciate the beauty in something cracked and scarred, but for anyone willing to take an emotional and evocative journey..."Skitter on Take-Off" is essential.

Chesnutt was a treasure and I feel fortunate to have seen him the few times I did. This particular CD is the closest I can come to a souvenir of those concerts, and its greatest value probably lies in that fact.