birchoak
Hi-Fi Nut
These are the liner notes for a custom mix I made for my best friend. I haven't heard back from him yet, so I don't know if he liked the CD or not. He is a bit absent-minded, so I'm not too bothered. I'll post the first one; if people like it/are interested, I'll throw up more.
1. Hey Joe, cover by Willy DeVille, 1992.
[Billy Roberts claims to have written Hey Joe in 1962. Disputed. We will never know who wrote it.]
For a musician who fronted the house band at New York City’s CBGB* club, birthplace of the punk rock scene, Willy DeVille is an unlikely candidate for a salsa take of the hard boiled, shoot-my-old-lady rock wailer that has surged like molten iron out of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar for close to fifty years now. Opening with a cheerful salsa rhythm, the tune initially seems safe enough for both old people and babies, then dips into a sinister cautionary tale about a cheatin’ woman and the lethal nature of jilted love, then springs back to the benign salsa refrain. It is joyous, horrifying, then inexplicably festive again, DeVille mocking the wildly vacillating passions of people who are in lust but not necessarily in love. Joe’s ordinary day rapidly devolves into a search for a handgun, and you can almost see him strutting down the hot sidewalk, spray of roses cradled in his arms and cartoon robins circling his head, then Angry Joe, furrowed brows, clutching a cold steel forty-four as he stalks the alleys for his betrayer, black clouds over his head.
*Country, BlueGrass, and Blues, to further confuse things.
1. Hey Joe, cover by Willy DeVille, 1992.
[Billy Roberts claims to have written Hey Joe in 1962. Disputed. We will never know who wrote it.]
For a musician who fronted the house band at New York City’s CBGB* club, birthplace of the punk rock scene, Willy DeVille is an unlikely candidate for a salsa take of the hard boiled, shoot-my-old-lady rock wailer that has surged like molten iron out of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar for close to fifty years now. Opening with a cheerful salsa rhythm, the tune initially seems safe enough for both old people and babies, then dips into a sinister cautionary tale about a cheatin’ woman and the lethal nature of jilted love, then springs back to the benign salsa refrain. It is joyous, horrifying, then inexplicably festive again, DeVille mocking the wildly vacillating passions of people who are in lust but not necessarily in love. Joe’s ordinary day rapidly devolves into a search for a handgun, and you can almost see him strutting down the hot sidewalk, spray of roses cradled in his arms and cartoon robins circling his head, then Angry Joe, furrowed brows, clutching a cold steel forty-four as he stalks the alleys for his betrayer, black clouds over his head.
*Country, BlueGrass, and Blues, to further confuse things.