Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Correct Word, December 14, 1998
By A Customer
I've got good news and bad news, sort of. Sometimes, bad is good, right? Sometimes finding the correct word is impossible. Let me explain before I run out of space. First the good news: I've been dog bit and liked it. Now, the bad news, sort of: After my first listen to ONE DOG TOWN, the debut CD from Elena Skye and The Demolition String Band, I would have reported that the first cut, BIGGEST PIECE OF NOTHIN', was the song that best encapsulates the thing that Skye and her band do. Together since 1993, the band features Skye's mandolin and sultry, wide ranging vocals, a dusty snare drum courtesy of Phil Cimino, John Abbey on bass fiddle and Boo Reiners giving lessons on banjo and a full quiver of guitars. All of this is supported through the recording by an entourage of gifted musicians who compliment the efforts of Skye and her songwriting partner, Caren Belle. But again, even after listening to the dreamy bass and haunting lyrics of WALK AWAY, the problem stays with me. I don't know what to call the thing they do. The third cut, HEAVEN, evokes something of a Mingus-Holiday reunion. With the clean bass and honey voice prodding, one might expect to hear Miss Skye singing scat and drinking dixie-cup martinis on some magical verandah in a brownstone facing south toward The Cotton Club. She doesn't scat, but neither does she disappoint. Something about the contours of her voice, matched with that bass tempo, proves timeless and escapes the constraints of mere 'genre' music. Thus, my little problem surfaces again. Is it blues, bluegrass, alt-country honk-a-rock-a-billy-roll? Offering a generous 11 tracks, including the live cut, GET WHATCHA GOT AND GO, this CD manages to capture a broad stroke of American music that rolls smoothly between Harlem and the farming valleys of San Joaquin. In whispers and dreams and earthy wailing, it hugs the coasts and rolls through Nashville, Cleveland and Austin for good measure. As if grown in The Carolinas, the interludes SHUCKIN' THE CORN and RIP OFF stand alone as fine examples of traditional banjo and guitar work, respectively. The instrumental, ARE YOU ARMED? seems to pull and push with a fever that might find Sergio Leone smiling as he wiped the desert dust out of his rainbow serape. From start to finish as Reiners and Skye showcase their talents, it seems clear that this music has a mission. Between the traditional corrido, I'LL TRY NOT TO CRY TONIGHT, which could be sung from a wire-spool table in La Zona Rosa and IT STILL HURTS, a thread seems to wind through traditional themes of hope and disappointment, love lost and love mocked, while daring listeners to classify the form. Produced by Greg Garing of The Alphabet City Opry with Reiners and John Siket (Soul Asylum, Lemonheads, Dave Matthews Band), ONE DOG TOWN digs in with both bark and bite, and does a pretty snappy job of it all along the way. By the time this record gets radio play, and even if it doesn't, there will be no fuss about what the music is called because Elena Skye & The Demolition String Band will be running with the hunted and the terms of the enigma will be self-evident.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is an undiscovered American Treasure, December 31, 1998
By A Customer
I don't pretend to be unbiased. I really like this record. Elena Skye is a great undiscovered singer/songwriter. Boo Reiners is as hot a guitar player as you will find. The Demolition String Band grew out of the Lower East Side New York Alt Country scene. It is a convergence of several strong currents of American Music -- rockabilly, honky tonk, bluegrass, country, blues and mariachi music -- that join together on this recording with a sense of inevitability. "One Dog Town" is a joyful explosion of electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, fiddle, steel guitar, a snappy snare drum and even a horn section on one track, the Spanish-flavored "I'll Try Not to Cry." The instrumentation of the band is reminiscent of Hank Williams, or Elvis Presley's first rockabilly recordings at Sun Records. This is a high energy record, but with a nicely varied pace, sometimes blazing, sometimes in a slow burn. What holds it all together are the songs, mostly written by Elena Skye with Caren Belle and occasional other collaborators, like the Ghost Rocket's Buddy Woodward on the traditional country style song "It Still Hurts." There are a couple of covers thrown in: "Get What You Got and Go," by Loretta Lynn and "Rip Off" by Jethro Burns. The songs are roughly in the honky tonk country idiom, but with other influences generously mixed in, from Merle Haggard to T.S. Eliot. They are finely crafted crystals and they inspire the band to really shine. Skye sings them from the heart. Some who know how she belts in live performance have said her vocals are too laid back on this record, but it's just the mood of these sessions. For me it works. The cultural influences of this American music stew are first-hand. Skye is an American amalgam, a second generation Puerto Rican, Cuban, French and Greek. She started playing Mandolin when she was a teenager, and was playing bluegrass in clubs in Chicago when she was a teenager. She studied with the legendary Jethro Burns of Homer and Jethro during her high school years in Chicago. Boo Reiners is a guitar virtuoso with a special love for bluegrass and country music. This album on North Hollow Records captures that evolution. There is a great textural variety on the record, from Scotty Moore on speed to Patsy Cline on acid with stretches of the acoustic peace of a banjo and guitar duet. Check this out. It's one of those rare albums you can listen to all the way through and even put it on repeat.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fresh sound, unpretentious like clean,tough, early country, January 10, 1999
By A Customer
A year from now a lot of other artists will have caught on to this sound and it will be one of the next big things. It's a steamy sort of country sound, but not like the syrupy over-produced stuff we're used to out of Nashville. It's more like what Hank Williams' band might have sounded like in a bar somewhere in the early 50s with Loretta Lynn sitting in and no mikes or cameras. Check it out.
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