Various - A Place To Call Home

  by John Clarkson

published: 17 / 12 / 2001

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Review

The proceeds from this album go to MARE, the Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange. MARE is a private and non-profit organisation that aims to find ‘a place to call home’ for local Massachusetts children in temporary foster care, and it concentrates specifically on helping to find adoptive homes for special needs children, brothers and sisters who want to stay together, and other children who are similarly traditionally hard to place. Many of these children have been removed from their birth families because they have been abused or neglected, and have never known the stability of a permanent home. All the musicians involved have given up their profits from this album, but, as well as helping a good cause, ‘A Place to Call Home’, which is released on Reverse Curve Records, also acts as a excellent showcase to seventeen of the best bands and acts in the Massachusetts area. Each act has a track each, and to ensure especially good value for money, many of the pieces on this compilation are outtakes from albums or other previously unreleased studio recordings. The two internationally best known acts on ‘A Place to Call Home’ are ‘The Willard Grant Conspiracy’ and Doug Yule. The Willard Grant Conspiracy’s contribution ‘Angie Says’ was recorded at the same time as their ‘Flying Low’ album from last year, but did not make the final cut of the record. It is a typically brooding and excellent piece from the Boston band, with lead singer Robert Fisher’s gruff, rugged voice and dark intense lyrics backed by a swirling and layered mass of guitars, accordions , chiming mandolins and drums. The Doug Yule track, ‘Beginning to Get It’, is part of a larger song cycle which is still yet to come out, and is both the often forgotten member of The Velvet Underground’s debut solo release and first recording in over twenty years. Yule, who replaced the fired John Cale in the group, and who worked with Lou Reed on his last two albums with the band before he quit the band, has spent the last two decades working as a furniture maker, and his efficient contribution is a mellow and catchy country number. The song is supplemented by breezing bursts of harmonica from Charlie Chesterman that would not be out of place on a Bob Dylan album. It is good to hear Yule’s under-rated and often maligned talent back in the recording studio. There is a lot else, however, to enjoy on this record too. Multi-instrumentalist and producer Pete Weiss, who has put the whole album together, appears several times on the compilation, acting as a jobbing guitarist and bassist, and also has lent his own Zippah Recording Studios when necessary to the project. His own group ‘The Rock Band’ appear briefly with the snappy and feedbox-led ‘Albatross’, and its chopped vocals, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and klaxon like guitars give the album one of its most amusing and funny numbers. Charlie Chesterman reappears also with his group ’ The Legendary Motorbikes’. From a similar school of garage rock as ‘The Rock Band’ , they are as raw-edged as their name implies. ‘King Size Cigarette’, their contribution, an outtake from their recently released ‘Dynamite Music Machine, is a blistering and explosive rock ‘n’ roll piece over which Chesterman provides hiccupy and exuberant vocals. ‘Prickly’, a now disbanded Boston trio, add a dreamily melodic and ethereal cover of Alex Chilton’s ‘Night Time’ and ‘When She Let Herself Go’ by ‘The Magdalenes’ is a sneering and spiteful piece of punk bile chronicling a girl’s downfall. Self-described ‘fun-tellectualls’ ‘The John Huss Moderate Combo‘s’ innovative song ‘How Can You Say There’s No God When the World is So Bent’ is a blues style number backed with strings, and-a clever wordplay-it manages to be daft andfunny, but at the same time also to make a serious point. ‘The Purple Flower Gang’s’ contribution ‘The Shady Tree’features Zippah engineer Peter Linnane on vocals and is a fast Western-flavoured electric folk song. On day release from her regular job as a singer with local indie rock back ‘Boy Wonder’ and on her second outing as a solo artist, Paula Kelley’s tune , the atmospheric and haunting ‘Left and Right’, is meanwhile a sumptious and plaintive fifties style love song. Last, but certainly not least, there is the frenzied thrashing grunge rock of ‘Peer Group’ by ‘The Peers’, whose gutteral vocals , jerked, grinding guitars and final singalong chorus bring the album to a powerful and dynamic close. ‘A Place to Call Home’ is a fantastic album, one which strands together many different musical styles and which really has something for everyone on whatever their tastes. It is a brilliant introduction to what is obviously a flourishing and very exciting musical scene, and one in which, if you haven’t heard these acts before,will leave you wanting to hear more by them. Highly recommended !

Track Listing:-

1 Willard Grant Consipacy : Angie Says
2 Baby Ray : Shutterbug
3 Doug Yule : Beginning To Get It
4 Charlie Chesterman : King Size Cigarette
5 Mascott : Velveteen
6 Prickly : Night Time
7 Seks Bomba : She Had Her Suspicions
8 Magdalenes : When She Let Herself Go
9 Jhon Huss Moderate Combo : How Can You Say
10 Pete Weiss : Albatross
11 Aston Ami : Summertime Love
12 Jeff Mellin : Shocked At First
13 Purple Flower Gang : The Shady Tree
14 Mishima : Familiar Marks
15 Paula Kelly : Left And Right
16 Weeping In Fits And Starts : I Could Realy Do
17 Peer Group : Peers