Gerald Hawk - King of the River Canoe
(Abduction)
The Sun City Girls' have released this record by filmmaker Gerald Hawk, a bizarre Jandek-ian adventure into Hawk's id. Stories fly out in a downbeat, Tom Waits-esque style over a minimalist guitar strum. It's definitely on the goofy tip, but not backed with interesting enough music to be compelling. It's hard to tell whether to place this in the "novelty" genre (as lyrics like "Her vagina is a rotten escalator") or in the true outsider/folk genre.
The guitar playing is genuinely primitive, never grating like Jandek can be, but it's hard to feel that Hawk is genuinely a weirdo. I get the impression he's simply trying to write "outsider" music, being heavily influenced by it, and the album comes across as somewhat phony. Still, the 12 untitled tracks on this record are sort of fun, and the most goofy parts (when the vocals become sort of abstract, with lots of whispering) are even charming at times. It's going for some sort of gothic American scary thing, I think, but it's not particularly frightening.
Actually, listening to King of the River Canoe with headphones while walking through the woods at night would probably be very scary indeed. But I bet the same could be said about an Alice Cooper record. Still, for fans of goofy music (I myself have a tendency to enjoy the ridiculous), give it a try.
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