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August 2010
21 August 2010 Stan Ridgway – Neon Mirage (A440) by Michael Toland Stan Ridgway is a brilliant iconoclast with a catalog as strong as that any more famous songwriter you’d care to name. Yet he’s best known for a new wave perennial that borders on novelty. “Mexican Radio,” the big hit from Ridgway’s old band Wall of Voodoo, may be undeniably entertaining, but at this point it’s only vaguely indicative of the work Ridgway has done on diverse, terrific solo records like The Big Heat (which spawned a couple of British hit singles), Black Diamond, Partyball and Mosquitos. There are uglier albatrosses to carry around (cf. the Who and “Squeezebox”), but one could argue that the song has stamped Ridgway as a one-hit wonder, at least in his home country, and that’s mighty unfair. Especially when the man has a record as strong as Neon Mirage in the offing. A song cycle inspired as much by loss as by living, Neon Mirage strips his signature sound down to the bare essentials, while still remaining as eclectic as always. Almost completely devoid of the electronic flourishes which have been such a staple of his work, the songs instead lean heavily on the folk direction in which he’s taken his live shows in the past few years. There’s a reason for the sparse backdrops – while Ridgway revisits familiar themes in tunes like the audio noirs “Scavenger Hunt” and “Turn a Blind Eye,” the military critique “Flag Up On a Pole,” the scenic instrumental title track and the character tribute “Lenny Bruce” (with a lovely violin solo from the late Amy Farris) most of these tunes swim in more thoughtful, reflective waters. A series of deaths surrounding the making of the album contribute to the wistful, melancholy tone of “Behind the Mask” and “Big Green Tree” (a Black Diamond cut recast here as a spare, gorgeous ballad produced by Dave Alvin). “Like a Wanderin’ Star” sounds like Nashville country kitsch, but its Owen Bradley-influenced production suits the contemplative reminiscence of lost loved ones. Ridgway ponders his own mortality in “Halfway There,” inspired by his recent losses but not paralyzed by them. The cautious optimism of “Day Up in the Sun” ends the record on an appropriately sardonic note. Thoughtful and mature, Neon Mirage nevertheless avoids complete austerity with a rich palette of colors, provided by his keyboardist wife Pietra Wextun, longtime guitarist Rick King, woodwind maestro Ralph Carney, Farris or his own signature harmonica. Yet, as never before, every sound in the grooves serves the songs. The tunes in turn act as windows into Ridgway’s soul, a view he’s rarely offered before – even if the curtains aren’t all the way open and the panes could use a cleaning. With voyages into territories old and new, Neon Mirage is one of the best albums in Ridgway’s long, auspicious career.
Bledsoe: Ridgway's world a little lighter in 'Neon' By Wayne Bledsoe Friday, August 20, 2010 "Neon Mirage," Stan Ridgway (A440) Stan Ridgway's world has always been a slightly spooky place. His songs can be a mixture of Jim Thomp-son novel, Ennio Morricone sound-track and Walt Disney-like whimsy - well, the sort of whimsy that Disney might have had if he had awakened with a hangover in a cheap motel on the outskirts of some dingy little nowhere town and decided the experience could be the jumping-off point for a fine family film. Ridgway's music is lovable, dark, sweet and strange. Ridgway's latest disc, "Neon Mirage," tells fewer stories, but seems as heartfelt and honest as anything he's created. While the songs were being written, Ridgway lost both his father and a beloved uncle. And, Amy Farris, who played violin on the disc, committed suicide before the album was completed. Questions of mortality and immortality definitely figure into the new songs. "Halfway There" is a surprisingly straightforward musing on knowing you're closer to the end of life than the beginning. Ridgway's cover of Bob Dylan's ballad "Lenny Bruce" is simple, elegiac and glides along with some beautiful violin work from Farris. And the album is bookended by "Big Green Tree," a tune that wonders about finding a home either in this life or the hereafter, and "Day Up in the Sun," a satisfied look back on a good life. Ironically, the album feels more optimistic than earlier discs. While these songs are an easy entry for novices into Ridgway's quirky universe, the Ridgway hallmarks still abound , including a loungey electronic keyboard mixing with the steel guitar on "Like a Wanderin' Star" (a number that sounds a little like an existential cowboy song); and a twangy instrumental harkens back to Ridgway's former band Wall of Voodoo. "Neon Mirage" lacks the wild tales and dark humor that made his last studio album "Snakebite: Blacktop Ballads and Fugitive Songs" so entertaining, but it's good to hear a different, maybe more raw, side of Ridgway.
June 2010
April 2010
Stan Ridgway & Pietra Wexstun "Silly Songs For Kids" Vol. 1 Online Review
Listen to samples, read more and purchase from this direct link at: "Silly Songs" CD for purchase @ CDBABY.com "A Child’s Sense Of Wonder And Fantasy" "One of the world’s most original and creative musical couples recently introduced their newest album, and it is aimed at listeners who think Wall of Voodoo is something that Hecate’s Angels once used to decorate a Drywall Project. While one never knows what to expect from longtime musical partners Stan Ridgway and Pietra Wexstun, Silly Songs For Kids: Volume 1 may not have come from the proverbial “left field” as one might suppose; it was only last year that the vocalist/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire released a musically superb standards album: The Way I Feel Today (Crooning the Classics). Should children be deprived of what other generations are enjoying? Established artists who sing tunes aimed at the younger set tend to mellow down their music, losing the very elements that endeared them to fans in the first place. The results of such works are inevitably hollow and offer the impression that the performer(s) in question are being sung down to. This kind of music is invariably accompanied by what it known as the “Disney keyboard sound” — the mellow safe electronic piano backup that we children of the 1980s had become all too familiar with thanks to songs like “Somewhere Out There” from the movie An American Tail, the vast majority of “boy-band ballads” and loads of Celine Dion songs. That kind of sound is not found on Silly Songs For Kids, Volume 1. Ridgway and Wexstun take the approach that music directed to children can also be enjoyed and sung along to by adults while still charming the young ones. The duo lead off the CD with the impressively bluegrass/jug band reminiscent “Bring It On In the House.” Ridgway plucks away at the banjo as he sings the happy tune about taking a car ride to someone’s house. He and the rest of the band seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves even though they might have dropped their cake twice according to the lyrics. Ridgway, Wexstun and the rest of the band, which includes Drywall partner Rick King (slide guitar, bass), Ralph Carney (woodwinds) and the zany “Teak” Lazar (credited: sandpaper, complaints), treat youngsters to high quality but kid-friendly music that takes a cue from recent trends in family movies that purposely appeal to both adults and children alike. Ridgway and Wexstun switch vocal parts in the quirky “Sing Along Song,” which could also be titled: ‘Fun With the Voice Synth and Ducky Impersonations,” “Mountain Top” and the strange-but-whimsical “Jenny’s Pixie Garden.” The latter two might inadvertently be interesting endorsements for breathing helium, but truly are geared to appeal to a child’s sense of wonder and fantasy. For the third track, “Spider’s Web,” Ridgway employs an eerie tone over a prominent bass, piano and muted trumpet arrangement reminiscent to 1920s jazz. After five tracks of fun on the six-song EP, Ridgway closes with the calming lullaby “Mr. Moon Man,” an ode to the Earth’s natural satellite on a cloudy evening The songs may be silly, but not campy and patronizing as much of today’s music for kids womds up becoming. Silly Songs For Kids, Volume 1 is ripe with the classic Ridgway sound and storytelling that his fans have come to know as well as splendid musicianhip all around from him, Wextun and the band. One should not be put off from listening to this album by its title. Though the CD is really aimed at children, this well-performed EP should ideally be considered more a masterpiece built for the next generation of Stan Ridgway fans. While parents would do well to have Silly Songs in their library, those without small children around will also enjoy this enchantful offering from Ridgway and Wexstun." A Review from "Revenge of The 80's" website: http://www.revengeofthe80sradio.com/?p=302 Album Cover by Mark Ryden
March 2010
Ridgway’s Storm blows through 30 years of song By ANDREW DANSBY / Houston Chronicle Stan Ridgway opens up with a downpour of words while driving a van 90 mph past Barstow, the California desert town that partially inspired the smart, eerie pop music he’s been making for the past three decades. “In some way, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized what Barstow did to me,” he says on a cell phone that eventually blinks out a few minutes after he passes the town. “I think it scarred me. There was literally nothing out there in front our house of me to see. Your eye could wander for miles. So in a sense, I don’t know, maybe I filled in those gaps with my imagination.” Ridgway’s imagination was initially drawn to creatures like werewolves and Frankenstein’s monster, “who just wanders the earth trying to make friends until an angry populace tries to stop him … you can see why a kid would be drawn to that.” His family moved to Los Angeles, and his parents split. He had a grandmother who told tall tales that often turned out to be true, or at least partially true. He watched a lot of “great movies that academics called film noir.” Those influences are all evident in Ridgway’s writing. He’s a unique stylist and arguably the most under-appreciated songwriter of the past 25 years. His songs are deliciously musical, with big melodic parts and snappy instrumentation that suggests a love for pop, garage rock, country and Broadway in equal measure. They’re lyrically dense, too: Sometimes they’re intricate fictions about characters that seem to have wandered in from a Jim Thompson novel; other times they’re Ridgway’s take on historical figures like Wild Bill Donovan, the OSS head who became the “father” of the CIA. Admittedly Ridgway’s voice isn’t what you’d call traditionally pretty. It’s a deep, nasal thing, with an touch of robotic detachment that perfectly suits his chilly narratives. It’s bracing on first exposure, not cold, exactly, but perhaps a little like a voice you’d expect to hear in a David Lynch film. “Maybe I’m weird,” he says. “I don’t feel weird, though. I think the rest of the world is weird. I’m doing exactly what I should be doing and it makes perfect sense to me. “I think everybody else is out of their mind.” Like an able but doomed gumshoe in one of those films noir, Ridgway can’t entirely get away from the perception that he’s a one-off voice and author of a weird solitary hit. In a way, he’s spent two decades trying to get away from the ’80s. It was during that decade that he made two excellent albums and an EP with the band Wall of Voodoo only to be relegated unwillingly to novelty status for the single Mexican Radio, a song about alienation that has, over time, been inexplicably cast as an oddball party anthem. Its presence on compilations alongside work by the likes of Flock of Seagulls is akin to Nick Drake’s Pink Moon being forced to bunk up with Lynn Anderson’s Rose Garden. Escaping the ’80s is difficult for musicians whose first prominent impressions were made during that decade. Duran Duran endured more than a decade of ridicule (much of it justifiable) before being swept up into a new New Wave a few years ago. Aimee Mann of ’Til Tuesday got through because of an independent streak and a lucky film break. Colin Hay of Men at Work required a patron in Zach Braff to get a second chance. Ridgway, like Hay and Mann, parted ways with his band in the ’80s and has released consistently excellent recordings since. But several of his albums have fallen out of print, which is troubling because the songs deserve better. And for all the huzzahs cast upon DD, the modern skinny-tie set that includes bands like Interpol owe more stylistically to Ridgway and Wall of Voodoo than to Simon Le Bon and the Durans. “First impressions are hard to beat,” Ridgway admits. “If you come up at a time where most people discover you on MTV, that’s a lasting impression. It’s hard to change an actual picture if people haven’t kept up with you.” Ridgway calls en route to Utah. He’s on the Sandstorm of Song Tour, which passes through the Dosey Doe tonight. Joined by wife and long-time collaborator Pietra Wextun (keys, melodica, vocals) and Rick King (guitar, bass), Ridgway is running through nearly three decades of his music including songs from Desert of Dreams, a new album that isn’t due until July. “It’s a little like going to a theater and seeing clips from a movie coming next summer,” he says. The show will offer an opportunity to hear Wall of Voodoo songs, while still showcasing Ridgway’s work in the years since. For someone who so often looks back for inspiration, Ridgway has been prolific in moving forward, releasing something new every two to three years. He recalls an interview the late Ed Bradley did with Bob Dylan. Bradley asked the songwriter if he thought he could write songs like a few of his ’60s classics again. Ridgway says, “Bob looked up from his pants and said, ‘No, but I can do other things.’ “What happens is you move along. I wouldn’t mind repeating myself, but I don’t try to. I guess it’s all united because it comes from my attraction to the darker side of the road … a kind of Americana from a bygone era.” That duality creates an intriguing tension in Ridgway’s work: Stylistically, he’s fascinated by yesterday, thematically he’s worried about the day to come. He is, after all, the guy who wrote, “what’s wrong with tomorrow?,” knowing full well that tomorrow is a yard full of rakes. So he takes his cinematic visions of the future and crunches them into three-minute songs so full of music history as to seem almost era-less. “I like the idea of the condensed idea,” he says. “And I’ll let you in on a secret: The ideas come to me when I’m driving 90 miles per hour toward Utah.”
January 2010
November 2009
NPR Interview link click HERE
NPR Interview link click HERE
"The Mystery Train" Click here
pic: Mike Lynch
August 2009 The Wire (UK) Former Wall Of Voodoo singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway's eighth solo
album is a glorious hard-boiled Hollywood road movie for the ears
(complete with suitable sound effects) which takes the listener on a
tumbleweed journey in three acts through his dark imagination. Ridgway's
lyrical talent for detail, combined with a cactus spiked humor and sense
of melancholy, is what gives Snakebite its fang, and his songs ripple
with observation and atmosphere. The best of these are "King For A Day".
a wild ride in a stolen car that ends up crashing into the side of a
house. A chance meeting with Andy Warhol that develops into "Our
Manhattan Moment ", and "Talkin' Wall Of Voodoo Blues Pt. 1" where
Ridgway scathingly relates the rise and fall of his old band and the
various record company and managerial rip offs that eventually tore them
apart. If you are only familiar with Ridgway's work through, what he
refers to here as "that radio song", then Snakebite is an invitation to
get better acquainted. Long may he run.
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