Dear Jeff -I'll have to admit that it took me some while to get into your record. I will be honest with you: I think the design is god awful, but maybe that's the design nerd in me talking. The cover art is really good, the drawing of the empty bottle is something I would frame and put on my wall, but the typesetting of the lyrics... ouch. So well, that was something that put me off initially - that, and my own thoughts about another punk with another acoustic guitar. You know what I'm talking about.
Personally, I would have picked another opener instead of "Passenger". Don't get me wrong, it's a good song, a great song even, but it just doesn't set the mood. "Chasing Ghosts" or "An Island's Point Of View", however, are songs that do. So yes, you had me after the fifth song, and I went from "Shit, I'm sure this dude has some ugly tattoos and a beard" to "Oh, this is a man I would love to drink with". I kept this CD in my player. I listened to it when I got up in the morning and had my first coffee. I listened to it when I was working. I listened to it to fall asleep to - which might sound lame, I know, but it isn't. Now let me explain...
I think a common misconception about records you can fall asleep to is that they are boring. That's bullshit. I can fall asleep to Cannibal Corpse or Pig Destroyer, because blast beat after blast beat is like a mantra, a brainless one, but a mantra that helps me switch off my thoughts. But this only one side of the coin. The other side are records like yours, and I will gladly put Vic Bondi's Ghost Dances on the list as well, or Bob Mould's Workbook, you name it. They're all intense records, they're all punk records essentially, but they speak a different language: they don't scream at you. They comfort you. They are, for lack of a better analogy, the arms that hug you when you're alone in your bed. Barstool Conversations is one of these records.
It's the kind of record you have to have to learn to appreciate, you have to literally get to know it, like you get to know a stranger in a bar sitting next to you, in these small hours when you're drunk and when the borders between good luck and bad luck, between happiness and sadness start to blur, when you fucking feel like telling your most intimate secrets to complete strangers. And in turn, these strangers sometimes speak words of wisdom, of pure poetry, and you want to write them down on a beer soaked napkin, but you don't. In the morning, it's all forgotten, and all that's left is a feeling. Your songs, however, are still there in the morning.
So well, Jeff, I would like to thank you for this record. I would like to thank you that it made me take a trip to the middle of fucking nowhere, just to see you play. Thanks for that. Thank you for drinking with me, thank you for talking about books and music and life and love and struggles and hardship, thank you for that Descendents cover, thank you for singing that Propagandhi song with me, thank you for the t-shirt, but above all... thank you for that record. And now I know that is supposed to be a review, something that should tell people about how it sounds like, how good or how bad it is, why they should or should not buy it, but I say fuck it. I just can't do that.
And you know what? You were right. It's fucking lame to compare it to let's say Tim Barry or Chuck Ragan. Just because they're punks, and just because they play a similar kind of music doesn't mean shit. They might be your peers, true, your music is at home at The Fest and the Revival Tour, but it also makes sense in the backroom of a bar in the middle of nowhere, it makes sense that you are playing and touring with the fucking Landmines, because at the end of the day, it's about two things that you have put to words a lot better than I ever could:
"I've got a love that makes me weak. I've got friends that are more than are more than blood."
Jeff, thank you for making a difference in at least one person's life. And that's the glory of punk, regardless of style or genre or scene, even in 2010...
Your friend,
Thomas
www.jeffrowemusic.com
www.gunnerrecords.com
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