Tim Kinsellas - He Sang His Didn't He Danced His Did
(Troubleman Unlimited)
Joan of Arc's primary songwriter, singer, and guitarist Tim Kinsella (not to
mention his old band, Cap'n Jazz) is the
latest to contribute to the Troubleman Records Singer/Songwriter Series.
Tim's skewed pop sense and guitar heavy style
seem like a great candidate for this series. He offers up three new songs
and reworks four Joan of Arc songs, two from
Live in Chicago, 1999 and two from How Memory Works.
The new songs are, well, unbearable. The guitar parts aren't that great,
and the vocals make me shudder every time he misses
a note (when he has a full band backing him it covers it up a little and
makes it sort of charming). The bare recording of
a single acoustic guitar and single vocal track reveals an annoying vibrato
in his voice, which rears its ugly head way
too often.
The solo versions of the old songs are much easier to handle. "Pioneering
New Emotions" (originally titled "(In Fact I'm)
Pioneering New Emotions") is great, and almost makes up for some of the lost
ground on the new songs. "A Party Able Mode"
(originally "A Party Able Model Of") from How Memory Works is converted
from a piano to a guitar and translates very
well.
The reworked songs' strength lies mostly in the fact that they follow the
worst songs Tim has done, and on their own are
nothing more than simplified versions of songs that didn't need to be
simplified. So while a couple of them are actually
pretty nice to listen to, there is no reason to choose them over the
original versions.
Tim has written some great songs but doesn't really capture any of that on
this EP. With Joan of Arc breaking up (for real
this time?), I hope Tim teams up with some old band mates and pursues
something a little less upfront and straight-ahead
than this sort of writing.
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