Saturday, April 02, 2005

Boston Globe Review of John Doe's Latest

In case you're coming to tonight's show (Saturday night) featuring John Doe, we thought you might want to check out the Boston Globe's review of his latest CD. This blog's review of the same CD was published a few days back. Hope to see you at tonight's show!

Okay, here's the review from the April 1, 2005, Boston Globe:


Rock-bruised and alt-country-sparkled, Doe's electric love letter to Muddy Waters is modern blues without the modern affectations, going places you wish White Stripes went more often. Cooked up in a small room over two weeks last April, the recording is brash, close, and clanging, with the songs slapping off the walls. It's as if Dave Alvin and Grant Lee Phillips plugged their nicely tortured guitars into the same overloaded amp in the corner along with the organ. Doe channels Jim Morrison's poetic alto for the psychedelic ''The Losing Kind" and sings us out of loneliness on the stark, reverberant ''Worried Brow." But even in solitary blues mode, Doe is still singing duets, reviving the trademark boy-girl harmonies of his old LA punk band X with Neko Case, daughter Veronica Jane, Cindy Lee Berryhill, and Kristin Hersh, who helps salute lost friends (including Elliot Smith) on the raucous and ragged ''Ready." Doe's sixth solo CD stumbles briefly in a few over-honeyed moments. Otherwise it's a dynamic example of how X might have sounded as a roots group from the Dust Bowl flatlands. Doe performs at T.T. the Bear's tonight.TRISTRAM LOZAW


Submitted by Steve the Emcee, who will be hauling a lot of equipment late tonight, no doubt.

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