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Not too long after Peter Tork's first solo album, "Stranger Things Have Happened", here he is again alongside his friend James Lee Stanley for this duet album. It seems this album was recorded live--aside from the occasional drum machine, it's 2 guitars + vocals all the way, so in theory, it seems like this should be at least a pleasant, tasteful effort. Unfortunately, "Two Man Band" is a bland and occasionally embarassing affair that does not hold up as well as Tork's aforementioned solo album.
Tork holds up a lot better than Stanley. Concerning lead vocals, it's Stanley on all the odd-numbered tracks & Tork on all the evens. Of the even-numbered songs, 4 are from Tork's solo album, along with the (inevitable) Monkees' staple "Pleasant Valley Sunday" (perhaps because he didn't want ALL of his songs to be from his lone solo effort). Still, Stanley basically ruins the disc. This album was my first exposure to James Lee Stanley, and based on this, I got the impression he was a really lousy artist not worth exploring. I decided to give Tork & Stanley's follow up disc "Once Again" a try, & I was stunned at how much better it is than this disc. From there I decided to give more of Stanley's work a try, something I would have previously scoffed at. That said, Stanley is simply captured in extremely weak form here, making for an awful introduction to his music. It's nice to hear "Pirates" in an acoustic version opposed to the "Stranger Things..." version which is loaded with synth horns, but Stanley sings along, or in other words, gets in the way of Tork on nearly the whole song.
Worse still are the handful of songs written or co-written by Stanley--they're loaded with exhaustingly lame, frequently cliched lyrics. Plus, his singing is corny, & he sounds full of himself, lacking in good taste & genuine emotion making the songs pretty much unbearable--the self-referential "Touch Like Magic" is grating; the love song "Two Wrongs" is given an extremely dull performance (they slip in the "Day Tripper" riff briefly at the end); & the 'cautionary' "Everybody Knows" has obnoxious, knuckleheaded lyrics that are simply appalling.
Since the versions of the Tork songs on "Stranger Things Have Happened" are superior & more alive to the versions here in every instance, this release is inessential unless you're a diehard/ completist of Tork and/ or Stanley.
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sami17
アコギ２本で奏でる癒される音楽
Reviewed in Japan on December 13, 2003Verified Purchase
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