Geoff Farina - Steely Dan 7"
(Southern)
If MP3s are going to ruin sales of full length CDs, then you'd think 7"s have
even a less of a chance. Of course, they started dying long before MP3s showed
up. A few bands, though, seem dedicated to keeping the format alive, using it
for high quality songs not just leftovers and half-baked experiments.
Geoff Farina is, of course, the guitar player and lead singer of the group
Karate, and he and his band are one of those artists that seem to enjoy putting
out a good 7", and this is one of them. That's kind of weird though, since
Geoff seems to be one of the biggest
webnerd artists around.
This fall, Farina will be releasing both his second solo full length and
Karate's fourth full length. To tide you over, this 7" was released late
last year. Both songs on this 7", via overdub, use interaction between
acoustic and electric guitar parts to back Geoff's vocals. The guitar parts
on both songs have a really nice almost Spanish sound.
The first song, "Steely Dan," is fairly short, and frankly, the guitar sounded
better when I accidently played this song at 33 1/3 the first time through.
The main guitar is a little fast for a Karate/Farina song, but it is still
not horrible. The "Steely Dan" part comes in on the last verse:
"Steely Dan is all you ever wanted in a band / Give up all your accomplishments
just for a chance at her hand." Wait, isn't that second part the American
dream? Maybe I am missing something.
The second song, "Fire," is really great, one of the best songs Farina has
written since the second Karate album. The "Fire" metaphor for the spark
in a relationship is overdone, but Farina still makes the song work by not
dwelling too much in that metaphor. The song starts out slow and sparse but
builds and builds into the chorus of "Fire ... Burns out" with the interaction
between Geoff's great vocals and the electric guitar part creating a wonderful
sustained melody.
If you are a fan of Karate and don't mind the lack of drums and bass in music,
you should definitely buy this release.
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