My friend Richard Gehr reviews Twisted Love Songs in a blog column that begins with this disclaimer:
Unless you’re some sort of sociopath, if you write about music long enough professionally, you’ll eventually become friends with musicians, their management, or both. Unfortunately, a certain awkwardness sometimes ensues when they send you their own often quite wonderful releases for consideration, since most media outlets of any integrity would prefer, for obvious reasons, that one not review one’s friends’ work. But insofar as this blogger’s his own editor—and because these discs are simply too excellent to ignore, and most of them won’t get the coverage they deserve elsewhere—here’s my take, with appropriate disclosures.
And here’s what Richard had to say about my CD:
David Gans, Twisted Love Songs (Perfectible)
Most songwriters have but a single trick up their sleeve. This Bay Area performer, on the other hand, mixes his literate and well-crafted songs with heady instrumental loops that neatly blend the organic with the digital. David Gans‘s love songs are far cleverer than most: “Narcissistic cathexis is my ex’s pathology/ She hooks ’em and crooks ’em and cooks ’em with impunity,” he sings in “Desert of Love.” And his social criticism lies somewhere between hippie optimism, barricades-manning rage, and Firesign Theater absurdity. In “Ran Into God,” She bemoans, “Fundies with their undies in a permanent twist/ Don’t they know the heathen have a right to exist?” (We’ve been pals ever since the Grateful Dead’s publicist referred me to David for a story I wrote in 1987.)
He also has some kind words for one of my current favorite discs, Mr Smolin‘s The Crumbling Empire of White People:
Barry Smolin is a smart, hip Los Angeles high-school English teacher, and Crumbling Empire sounds very much like the sort of album Thomas Pynchon (or someone who’s read him very carefully) might create. One tune goes, “I lost my heart to Mata Hari/ It cost a lot of vo-dee-o-do/ Like a cross between a safari/ And a rodeo.” Produced (exquisitely) by Stew, Smolin (who, like David Gans, is a Grateful Dead-obsessed radio DJ) mixes cosmic conundrums with grassroots grievance. It’s not for everyone, nor would he want it to be. (I’ve been known to turn to Barry for advice on the care and feeding of teenagers.)