I was interviewing Julie Burchill, wow, maybe 30 years ago, and she noted to me that the biggest payola for rock critics wasn’t money but friendship. This has stuck with me and I’ve seen it in practise several times personally, friendly with popular musicians till I write the slightest negative thing and then forget about it: apparently, the price of friendship was subservience. The real sorrow is you are always better off writing what you truly believe. I used to love Pitbull but since around the Men In Black 3’s “Back In Time” (2012 to be precise), I have found his work a little too ingratiating. Three years of doubt, even “Timber” didn’t quite do it for me. So now, with the release of Dale, I can applaud it as a huge return for the man, a great album, with a track record of reviews that stands up to the opinion -how can you write about a return for an artist who has never been away?.
But there is another part to the story. I was discussing this with rock journalist Bill Holdship, who was friendly with Paul Westerberg, and he noted how proximity leads to insight and also exclusivity: when somebody is your friends you can understand the music better. Certainly who gets better access to U2 and Bruce than good buddy Jann Wenner?
Anyway, the point is mostly moot with me, I’m not so close with any musicians except for one of my best friends, True Groove Records CEO, Tomas Doncker. I’ve known him for years (since I reviewed “The Power Of The Trinity”) and who has recently been sending me songs off his new EP The Mess We’re In as he records them. Tomas’ first solo album since 2010’s Small World, three of his last five albums were released as the Tomas Doncker Band, the other two as part of the True Groove Allstars, I was excited the moment he told me he was gonna be making a solo, and was half hoping for a straight up acoustic album, though what I’ve gotten is hard hitting funk and blues.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been fortunate enough to hear a record in progress, Tomas sent me bits and pieces of Big Apple Blues before it was released, and Don Giovanni recording artist Modern Hut sent me all of Generic Treasure as it was recorded (over years). Two things occur when you hear an album this closely, as it is actually being written and recorded:
1 – An observed object changes direction, for the listener the songs change on you despite your doing nothing to them: just looking causes them to be different, so your review might be neither more or less positive, but it will absolutely be other than it would have been.
2 – You understand the album better, it is no coincidence that Generic Treasure and Big Apple Blues were my favorite albums of their respective years: not only was I fortunate in that they were truly great albums, I was also fortunate in that I had listened so closely over so much time that I totally understood them.
And also: there was a terrific 10 minute song that never made Generic Treasure. I’ve never heard it elsewhere and I don’t know what happened; it is gone and I am pissed off because I feel the album would’ve have been better with it -that’s one of the prices we pay. This is occurring on The Mess We Made, a five song maybe six song EP that I personally think Doncker is bonkers for not extending into an album. While agreed, it might be hard to sustain the level of excellence I’ve heard so far, the artistic currency for popular music remains the album, and The Mess We Made’s “calling bullshit on the revolution”, sounds like Curtis Mayfield with a cold singing Sly’s There’s A Riot Goin On, a modern act of political protest and insurrection, and deserves to do it over the length of an album, even if it is commercially less viable.
So I am listening to these songs, ” The Revolution”, “Some Ol’ Dolls”, and “Church Burning Down” – the latter makes the point that seven black churches have been burnt down since June 19th, 2015. Yeah, I didn’t know that either. If Big Apple Blues was black history (listen to “The New Day”), The Mess We’re In is as present day as the cover of the New York Times, or, more pointedly, Sometime In New York City. Doncker is producing a 20 minute video to go along with it -a sort of black Taxi Driver. Sure hits me that the music speaks for itself but that’s another problem with letting me hear stuff early.
I suggested a strong love song -no.
I suggested another verse on the title track -no.
I suggested a song dealing with homelessness -I guess we will see.
I suggested his superb cover of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” -maybe on the album.
I suggested one more line on “Church Burning Down” -What? Am I crazy?
Here is a suggestion I haven’t offered yet, dump “I’m So Tired” if it is going to be an EP and keep with the scorching hot, take no prisoners, political rhetoric.
I know Tomas won’t do any of them, and given our respective track records, I tend to think he is probably making the right decision. In the meanwhile, The Mess We Made, with its Beatles and Hendrix references, its rubabdub dubs, its Mayfield falsetto and simmering when not exploding anger, should be with us soon.
